JOURNEY we now back … back to a land … a land lost … lost in time.
The Dominican Republic has been on my want-to-travel list for a while. It has tasty food, a unique history, rum distilleries, friendly people and a surprisingly diverse geography, from beaches to mountains to jungles to deserts.
I think I found a country with less racism than the U.S. Much, much less in fact. As far as I can tell, racism in the Dominican Republic is not a thing. Dominicans range the spectrum from black (-looking) to white (-looking), with any measure of Taino thrown in for Hispanic (-looking) flavor. Based on what I say, and on what locals told me, one is no more likely to be rich or poor based on the color of skin; and no one is treated differently than the color of their skin.
This is not to say there is no prejudice, of course; there is, for example, discrimination against Haitians and their descendants. But it is not based on race; there are Dominicans that are just as dark as the Haitians.
I was crushing it down there with my Spanish. People often were not sure where I was from, and I figure that’s when you’re getting somewhere with a language – sure, they could tell I was a foreigner, but my U.S. accent wasn’t screaming my nationality for all to hear. I even heard sometimes that the reason I had an accent was that I learned Spanish in Mexico (and not because I just suck at Spanish). Go me! And this is not an easy country to talk to locals in, really. Dominicans speak very fast and drop a lot of letters when they speak (and this is reflected in their bad spelling.) I met a Colombian tourist who told me that she sometimes needed to ask people to slow down so she could understand them. Imagine poor me!
Dominicans loved lotteries. All over the place were many competing lottery booths.
Pharamacies were excellent. Though, unlike American pharmacies, they did not have garbage bags, Pringles, or other assorted non-medical items, they did sell medicines in single servings. Which is great! Because in America, you have diarrhea and then you buy immodium and you just have this whole box of immodium hanging around when you only get diarrheah that needs medicinal treatment like every two years.
Tap water is not for drinking in the Republic. It tore my heart asunder to always be buying bottles of water to drink. But there is little reasonable choice. The consequences are clear – plastic litters the ground most places that you go.
I found myself often frustrated at the locals’ complete inability to read maps. Most people navigate by landmarks only and if they’re going somewhere they haven’t been, have one hell of a time. They don’t get how to use Google Maps to go to a pin. This even applied to some professional drivers. Shake my head.