Mike Green's Second Letter from the Dominican Republic

Here is Mike Green's second letter about his experiences in the Dominican Republic. His straight-shooting observations say it so much better than I can -- Ben Kuykendall

Republica Dominica,, day 11

Well today is a typical summer day in the DR, very hot at 90 degrees, about as hot as it gets here... and no breeze. I am sitting on the balcony of my hotel room and its not too bad, but step out into the sun and you really feel it. Every once in a while a slight breeze will bring a little chill to the air,, its very nice, here the Haitians are the labor force, and they just very slowly peck away at things....back in the real world it would drive me nuts, but here it just seems right, the heat mandates a slow pace. The sun here is so much more intense, from shade to sun is a very drastic change. The motoconcho guys position themselves in the shade of telephone poles, street signs, and whatever else they can to escape the sun. Taxis and motoconchos move from one side of the street to another as the sun moves across the sky so that they can stay in the shade of buildings. The pace is very different than the states, people move slowly, ponderously, no Dominican ever seems to be in a hurry unless someone is trying to escape without paying, which is a huge transgression here.. There is a constant chatter of voices in the street, constant traffic... constant movement, but in a much different way than an American city, it is not something I can explain. The heat is year round, no summer/winter cycle to speak of, so they are well adjusted to get the job done at a pace that wont wear them out, after all they have 12 months to do it. The maid, a very attractive girl maybe 30 years old, comes through every day and mops the room floors, and all the floors on the balconies and stairs. She uses a bucket and a mop, but wrings the mop with her hands, even though her nails are finished and polished with fancy designs that were popular in the states years ago. No fancy equipment here,, whatever the basic item is here that works, is what they use. Her movements are fluid and practiced.. I am glad to be able to settle in a while and just take notice.

Last night was too many Cuba Libres with Ben and then later at a little bar I really like here,, so today is recovery and regroup. I just had a meeting with a real estate agent here... and once again had a small culture shock. By her accent i figured she was German, so I asked this 20 something girl how long she had been on the island. She replied that she was born and raised here, her parents are both German and lived all their lives here and spoke German in the household as she grew up, so her first language is German and her second language is Spanish, so here I am talking to a cute blond caucasion Dominican with a German accent who has never even been to Germany... strange place this is. There is a section of town where you go to the restraunts and the menus are in German, bakeries with German pastries, etc,, you get the picture. This stems from the German Jews that originally settled this town either before or during world war two. You hear a lot of french Creole in the streets from the Haitian working class. And then the vast majority is Spanish, and very little English. Yesterday Ben was shopping for a gift for his girlfriend and we walked into this custom jewelry shop. The owner was an obviously Indian woman, (from India, not native indian) and she spoke fluent english without any accent. Her and her husband (who seemed to be a brit) have been here for 26 years now.. a great connection for me here. And some of the most beautiful custom jewelry I have ever seen, and great prices.

This is a culture where skin color is everything. The darker your skin the lower your class in society. The black Haitians and the Dominican/Haitian mixed people with very dark skin are at the bottom, when you get into the upper classes of Dominican society, from what I can see, they are mostly caucasion looking, with hardly any latin features. There is a huge political election coming up soon, and there are signs everywhere and all the faces are white, so its very race biased here but it is what it is and no one questions the pecking order. Once again it is all just cultural programming. Everywhere I go people jump to help me or sell me something, because I am a white gringo and they expect that I have money to spend... if they knew what a cheap bastard I was they wouldn't bother to get up. Last night at the bar, I had a few with a young black man named Carlos, who has Dominican parents but who grew up in the states, and is now back to see if he wants to live here. He is technically a gringo, but due to his skin color he is not well accepted, even though he speaks perfect English, he does not get the reaction I do around town. He is very upset by this but it is because he is a product of the culture of the USA.. where it is considered wrong to make these distinctions. I doubt he will stay. I spent last Sunday with a girl from Cabarete, a town about 10 miles from here, where the beaches are world class, surfing and kite boarding schools abound. After breakfast I wanted to walk back to her place on the beach, it was a nice day and not nearly as hot as today.. All the way she was whining about how her skin was going to turn dark, not having much patience for whiney chicas in general I didnt appreciate her attitude until i learned a little more about how things work here... you see she is proud of her caramel complexion, and doesnt want to be any darker than she has to be... you will NEVER find any dominican women sunbathing.

So my foray into business here begins today with another meeting with the real estate agent. You get very mixed messages here as to the economic climate, lots of jaded gringos who came with a dream and lost it somewhere along the line... but I will tell you that while you do see the occasional empty bar or restaurant at the fringes of town, there is nothing empty in the central business area. Check out the next mall you go into or city and take a look at all the failed businesses there in the states. I have an idea for a store for things I know gringos would like to be able to purchase here but are not available anywhere here.. (there is not one pretzel in the DR), and I did a walking tour yesterday to see if I could find an empty store in the central area to house such an enterprise.. nothing. But real estate is quite an adventure here...you have to watch your ass because anywhere there is big money changing hands there are opportunities to get a piece of it, which is something the Dominicans have down to a science, which just about everyone has told me, and which I have to believe.

Ben and I did a walking tour of several sections of town a few days ago, and there are a lot of abandoned buildings around town, dilapidated, empty, overgrown.. exactly the kind of thing in the states that gets my blood flowing. However, in the states when you see a property like that, there is always a reason it is sitting unloved, back taxes, leins, complications, mostly all of them are a bad deal, and I have checked into many of them. I figured the same here. So, much to my surprise during my meeting with Suskia, the real estate agent, when i mentioned that I did rehabs, she immediately told me that what Sosua needs is a good rehabber,,, she explained that dominican contractors do not have funds to take on a project like that, and European and American investors want to build new or buy new, are not interested in these types of rehabs.. and from what I have seen in my travels, there are a lot of them around town.. a lifetime of projects. You get away from all the permitting,, and here there are no property taxes..once you own a building you own it.. very strange concept. Haitian labor at 10 usd per day, and a bilingual dominican project manager at $300 usd per month.. still figuring it out, but it seems an opportunity. Today should be interesting. I am just trying to get an education.

Perro de calle..... "dogs of the street" as they are called here. Along the same lines as the chickens of Key West, but not nearly as annoying. Very streetwise, I have watched these dogs look both ways before crossing the street. I watched one cross a 4 lane in Puerto Plata,, it crossed the first two lanes, jumped on top of the jersey wall, looked the other way, and when it was clear it continued on.. in the states he would be road kill in a minute. They roam at large, bark in spanish, and generally dont beg or bother anyone....most are fairly clean, nice dogs,, goes against our idea of a homeless dog. Another thing is that you see a lot of farm animals in the middle of cities on empty lots.. goats, cows, etc,, they pop up everywhere and give you a bit of a shock as you are just not prepared for that.

The pictures,, the hotel I am staying in, $30 usd per night, pool, nice bar, A/C is another 5 usd per night... mui necessario ... A construction project, with haitian style scaffolding, this is very rough work and the house actually has very nice styling.. im curious to see how it will come out in the end. Plus a few typical and not so typical houses here.. the real estate goes from the very exclusive to the very low end dominican service areas.. all within 15 minutes walking distance. This is a town about the size of my town in Pennsylvania, but with probably at least 10 times the population.

Tomorrow I have a motorcycle scheduled to rent, so if you dont hear from me ever again, you will know why.

Hasta La Vista,

signed,

Miguel Verde