New Crib

After two and a half months in the very mediocre Marriot Hotel, we finally moved into our new place about 2 weeks ago. It's pretty nice: 3 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, balcony, decent-sized kitchen, distant view of the ocean, fully furnished, centrally located. The American people sure are a generous lot! We moved in on a Tuesday and all of our stuff from DC and NY was delivered over the next 2 days. Some of our things had been in storage for the last year. It had been separated from us for so long that we had completely forgotten about some of it.

The hardest part of living in the hotel for so long was not having a kitchen. It gets really tiresome eating in restaurants or hotel room service for every single meal. I still have my Dominican Plate of the Day everyday for lunch, but we've been cooking otherwise. We discovered this really tricked out farmer's market about a 15min drive from our place. For about 15 bucks US, you can get 3 full bags worth of incredibly fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables. We've even stumbled upon a few odd-looking fruits we've never seen before and aren't even available in the US (some of which for good reason). Taking advanatage of how cheap and fresh everything is, we've been making fresh fruit and veggie juice nearly every morning.

Overall, we have a pretty good set up here... and plenty of room for visitors.

Below are a few scenes from our new pad.

El Corazón es Rojo y Fuerte (The Heart is Red and Strong)

It started in Elementary school with a talking parrot. Ok, a parrot puppet on the hand of my language teacher Mrs. Bilbo. Together we learned the days of the week and colors in Spanish. From there, a year or two in Middle School, three years in High School, and a year in college--that sounds like enough lessons to survive in a Spanish speaking country, right? Wrong.

Realizing that I might need a boost in learning, I decided to take a two-week Spanish intensive course with the added bonus/terror of a home-stay component. So, I reluctantly packed my bags and began a journey that would change my impression about the Dominican people and myself.

My first day at the training center was a little scary. My teacher spoke no English, but I soon realized that I understood more than I thought. With my very basic Spanish, I could communicate and have concepts explained to me. What fun!

I felt good, by the end of the first day of lessons, then my teacher told me that we would take a carro publico (public car) to go to my Dominican family’s house. I thought she was joking. (For those of you from Brooklyn, think of a dollar cab on Glenwood Ave., but instead of a Lincoln town car, imagine the most beat-up car you can find and then jam six people into it.) The women at the training center couldn’t believe that I used cabs instead. (A cab traveling anywhere in Santo Domingo is $150 pesos, about $4US. It's like traveling anywhere in Manhattan for only $4...how could anyone pass that up?) Although the carros publicos cost a mere $15 pesos ($0.45), they are hot and crowded, and definitely not ideal for someone carrying a suitcase. But the purpose was to experience Dominican life, so I went; and I survived.

Once out of the car, we walk four New York City blocks to my new house. There, Doña Frosina was waiting to greet me. She was a short woman with a very sweet face of mix ethnicity (Arabic and Dominican). Doña’s disposition reminded me of my mother’s—she immediately assured me that her house, a single-floor two-bedroom apartment, was my house. The house was breezy—a welcomed change to my hotel room filled with recycled air.

That night, Doña Frosina, her daughter Adiana, their cat, Feo (Ugly), and I all sat down for dinner. I was starving and wanted to be excited, but, unfortunately, up until that point my opinion of Dominican food was pretty bad. Thankfully, Doña is a great cook. She made Bandera Dominican—a dish of rice and beans, and chicken in a sauce. We ate and her daughter, a 24-year-old very religious girl, explained to me the complexities of Charismatica, the type of Catholicism she practiced.

After dinner, I went to bed in my little room and marveled at my new adventure—the kind of thing I always wanted to do but never before had the nerve.

Sosúa

Four weeks in the Dominican Republic and we hadn’t yet stepped foot on the beach. So this past weekend we reserved our tickets and hopped on the bus to Sosua, near Puerto Plato on the north coast of the island. Roughly five hours later, we unwittingly found ourselves in the middle of the commercial sex capital of the Dominican Republic. Lonely Planet warned us that there was a large expat community in the town and that prostitution there was practiced openly, but that statement could have just as easily applied to Vegas or Bangkok, neither of which is especially off-putting. Sosua, however, proved to be in a class of its own. The town of 47,000 inhabitants is overrun with Americans, Brits, Canadians, Germans, and Scandinavians, practically all of whom are there for one purpose (well two, if you count the beach): procurement of sexual services at an affordable price. While certain bars and other establishments serve as the center of economic activity, scantily-clad women selling their wares can be found around every corner and in any place where the moneyed and unattached congregate.

The sex trade there is so commonplace that prostitution goes well beyond the customary pay-per service arrangements in local parks after dusk or at seedy motels on the edge of town. In Sosua, professionals were commissioned for services both behind closed doors and in the glaring light of day. In addition to traditional sex-worker duties, the women of Sosua also played the role of rented girlfriend. It was very common for visiting and resident men to be seen sharing a meal or a drink with their new temporary girlfriends alongside a group of friends on vacation or a young family grabbing a bite to eat after a day at the beach. It also wasn’t uncommon for a gentleman to have, for all intents a purposes, one seemingly committed relationship at breakfast and an entirely different one by dinnertime. Any visitor to Sosua quickly learns that something as trivial as a shared language or other means of communication is nothing to stand in the way of true love. What matters is that each man is wholly committed to the woman at his side, even if that commitment is only to last for a span of a few hours.

Overall, we had a really good time in Sosua: the beach was clean, the water was crystal clear, the food was good, and the drinks were beyond cheap. It was also very possible to spend an evening out in town and forget that rampant prostitution was on display all around you. However, witnessing innumerable instances the overt objectification of women wherever you go begins to wear on one’s sense of decency and acceptable behavior. So while it was definitely good to once again get out of the city, our next adventure will be somewhere that doesn’t make us feel that we need a shower upon exit.

Jarabacoa

In our first trip outside of the capital, we hung out with a few friends in Jarabacoa for some lounging, hiking and wholesome boardgame fun. Although Jarabacoa is only a couple hours away, it was a great break from the heat and traffic of Santo Domingo.

Puerto Rico

On the way to the Dominican Republic, we made a pit stop in San Juan. It was weird seeing the same street signs that we have in the US, except that they were in Spanish. The whole time, we kept forgetting that we were still in the US.