Dominican Republic

A country that is poor and impoverish, and somehow the people here are desprite to make a living by targeting at tourist. My spanish is not getting any better, but i'm trying my best. Most of the people are african origin, and it seems very hard to hide away. Every comment i get *actually all of the carribeans* has been Chino Chino Chino. I'm kind of use to it but a place with majority being black you tend to stand out! The city here has alot of straid dogs roaming the streets with the bums sitting on the side walk or sitting on plastic chairs. Its sad sometimes because you get desprite children targeting people that look either half decent and asking for money or shoe shinning. Half the time you don't know if they are playing or they are really in need. Some follow you all over the city after giving a few bucks and saying no thanks 20 million times. Thou having a lot of these problems, the streets contain old spanish architecture that dates back from years ago, and ruins that was from the Christopher Columbus days. Not knowing anything about america's histroy and all of the information in the museum is in spanish its hard to comprehend some of the knowledge of this country. Thou, with the help of John this ex pat of US and Canada and with a strong defining character he has helped me in informing me with a lot of the local knowledge about this country. He has also been nice enough to give me a real nice dominican lunch! The music here is different to alot of the other island of the carribeans but it has a form of music called Banchata which is strange form of music that is a mix of reggea and salsa. I saw a merengue band last night at the square, but i didn't really see the passion or euthasism like Puerto Rico towards their music. Thou the other night at one of the main plazas of the city i saw a display of young dominicans sitting outside drinking their bottles of rum and bear and a few of them with their dreadlocks and socialist t-shirts drumming away endlessly till morning. It was an such a frilling moment i stayed there watching them chanting away spanish and thumping their drums endlessly till dawn.

The city has interesting people with ladies carrying baskets on their heads to people riding a horse with a cart of fruit. Also people pushing their bikes with crap loads of stuff on them. Its like asia but the carribean style. Here things work slow and in an old fashion manner, like the road system that they work with a shovel to a simple guy that paints the lines of the road with a brush and a tin of paint. It was like going back a century!

The other day as i was going to Boca Chico a small fishing village outside Santo Domingo, now is a prime tourist spot. I encountered my first theif experience in Carribeans. I was in a small van packed with Dominicans and i was about to take a picture of some of the fruit markets on the over crowded streets of the city and this guy grabbed hold on to my camera, luckly that i had a good hold of it because otherwise he would of taken off from me. I would of been pretty upset if i did lose it because it contained all my photos from my trip...

Anyway later that night i ended up going out with these two canadians that was visiting the country, we notice the people here are very pushy and very demanding. But we were just siting out on this closed off road drinking our beers when 50 or so young prostitutes were offering their services. I was pressured by this young 18 year old for sex, it was the most unusual experience i encountered. Unfortunately, this country is well know for girls selling their bodies for sex, because of the poor education so you end up with alot around this country and you get dirty old fat guys from the US and europe buying these girls for a month or so.

Haiti is the french part of this island which is even more violent and poor than Dominican Republic but you get a lot of people from Haiti crossing the border. I'm not willing to go to Haiti but what i heard its not worth your life over there! I don't know if it is because of the Haiti presents but you see alot of the banks and shops guarded by a guy with a shotgun or some weapon.

I'm hoping to head up north of the island were you get more of the small villages and most of the islands colour. But i dont' know if i should do that or head to Cuba sooner and start my music program earlier. Thou what i heard from people here that Cuba is even worst than here with the level of poverty higher than any other island of the carribean.

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