On the adventures of Bea and Aria

!Ojo!

About a month ago, my bestest friend Arlen came for a quick visit. On our way to the airport at the end of her whirlwind DR adventure, we started talking about all the things that have become so “normal” to me. I asked her if she would like to write a little something and she happily obliged. Sit back and take a ride from a new vantage point!

So I know that Bronwen has touched on a lot of these themes over her year+ in the Dominican Republic, but I want to talk about some of the unique and interesting things I observed on my very short trip.

On trust and community:

When I first arrived in Santiago, I learned that I needed $10 for a tourist card to get through customs. Of course, being the millennial that I am, I only had a credit card. And, given that I was in a tiny airport in Santiago, they only accepted cash. At first, the man at immigration said he would let me go outside, take out cash from the ATM, and return for the tourist card. Then he changed his mind and said, “Just go through, you’ll pay double when you come back.”  

This was my first confrontation with the high level of trust Dominicans have with strangers. The man just trusted that I would come back and pay it at some point. Never would that ever happen at immigration in the U.S. (then again, they would accept credit cards).

Upon reuniting with Bronwen, she immediately whisked me away into a group car (with two bodies squished in the front passenger seat and four smushed in the back) that picks people up and drops them off along the road wherever they want on a previously designated route. It was like a cross between Uber and hitchhiking: less high-tech than Uber and probably just about as accountable to accidents or issues as hitchhiking. But never once did the “worst-case scenario” play in my head like it would have had I done something similar in the U.S. This is just how people get around.

View of Santiago at sunset

I am woman hear me roar!

Santiago monument.

Throughout the weekend, I trusted my suitcase to strangers on buses - I didn’t see where it was being stored for the two hour ride, how many times it had been moved and removed by people entering and exiting, or know who had access to it. But not once did I ever think that my suitcase would be stolen or misplaced on these long rides. When I mentioned to Bronwen that I hate putting my suitcase under buses in the U.S. because I’m always worried it’ll be gone when I get off, she told me that there’s an unwritten rule in the DR: people just don’t touch your shit on buses. 

As we were walking about "compartir-ing" in Manzanillo, a man in a truck (who Bronwen did not know) pulled up and started talking to us as we walked down the street. In the U.S., I would have mumbled something inaudible and walked away. But in the DR, we obviously stopped to talk. Turns out he was the son of a Manzanillo legend, Lulu, and was visiting from Nashville. After a few minutes of chatting, Franco told us to stop by his house later. At home, we would smile, say “yea, that sounds great,” with no intention of ever actually going to this person’s home. In Manzanillo, we said “yea, that sounds great,” and then on our walk home later, walked into his house unannounced and chatted on the couch for two hours. 

Now, I don’t want to sound like that naïve traveler who thinks everything is hunky dory in the place she is visiting and that all the people in this foreign country have good intentions. Definitely not the case, and I made sure to keep my myself and my valuables safe. That said, the atmosphere seemed to lack the fear that I experience almost everyday living in the U.S. People just had more faith in one another. 

And I know that the reason for this is not that the DR is safer than the U.S. or that people in the DR are nicer. There just seemed to be an inherent trust in the air, which I think stems from a strong sense of community that seems to be lacking at home. Instead of people walking down the street, eyes glued to the sidewalk, there were conversations between strangers and shouts across the street just to say hi. In the U.S. people do background checks on their nannies. In the DR, people hand their babies to near-strangers while they head across the street to run an errand. At home, people have expensive hi-tech security systems on their homes. In the DR, people leave their doors open all day as people come and go. 

I tried to tie this difference to culture. I tried to tie it to poverty versus wealth. Big town versus small town. el Diablo. Who knows? I began to think: is all the fear we have in the U.S. simply due to fear mongering and ultra-sensitization in the news and on TV? Have we become totally detached from reality because we are convinced that we will be that one case in a million? Who knows? But what I do know is that it was a refreshing change of pace to be in the DR where people trust each other. 

On finding joy in the small things: 

The third day of my trip, Bronwen and I joined her women’s group in Manzanillo to go on a river trip in Dajabon. So, we woke up at 7am after a night of drinking and dancing, and got on a bus full of 30 shrieking women. Cue worsening of our hangovers. 

Delicious breakfast that we should have eaten to get us going for the river trip.

But the day just continued to get better (not because of the coffee I spilled all over myself that Bronwen made the bus stop to get on the side of the road; or because of the not-quite-a-river-but-more-mud-pit that we arrived at first and then had to turn around). All of that - as well as the spaghetti sandwiches (literally spaghetti stuffed into a hotdog bun) and getting stuck in the rapids - were wonderful and charming experiences. But the real fun began when we played an icebreaker in which each person was assigned an ingredient in a stew, be it potatoes, meat, carrots, onions, or salt. One person would yell to the group that an ingredient was missing from the stew. The person who was that ingredient (say, the carrot) would say, “Oh no no no, the carrot isn’t missing!” The group would ask, “Then what’s missing?!” and the carrot would have to choose someone/something else to be lacking from this imaginary stew. The first person to falter (or not be paying attention when their assigned ingredient was called out) would lose. They would then be shamed with splashes of water. Oh, let me add that this game was obviously in Spanish – a language in which my proficiency is elementary school level at best. So that added an extra level of hilarity, but surprisingly, I rarely lost. 

Icebreakers in the icy river!

What I loved the best about this game was the pure joy the women got out of it. I honestly haven’t seen that kind of excitement over something so seemingly inane since I was a junior counselor at summer camp. I don’t even think my 4th graders at Hebrew school would have been as excited as these women were about this game. 

We found the chocolate river!

Trip to the river

Nothing tastes better than a spaghetti sandwich.

But that was another thing I noticed throughout my trip: people got enjoyment and entertainment out of things that we would find boring in our world of complicated video games, 24-hour Netflix, and gallivants in big cities with endless things to do. It was refreshing that on a Sunday evening, families would sit together on their porches, listening to music and occasionally getting up to dance. It was energizing to play icebreaker games I haven’t enjoyed since I was a kid. It was enjoyment in the small stuff that I think makes Manzanillo the welcoming and vibrant community it is. Well, that and eating coconuts and fried everything with Mama Julia. 

Arlen with Mama Julia

My trip was primarily to play around with my best bud Bronwen. But I learned a lot from my short stint in the DR, and I have to say that I would definitely go back. If not for the reasons mentioned above, maybe solely because this loud-mouthed, share-every-intimidate-detail-of-your-life-with-anyone-who-will-listen New Yorker may have been a Dominican in a past life.

Sometimes it's really nice to get a new perspective on the place I'm no longer struggling to live in and where things like watching weird videos with my host mom, being hissed at on the street, going "out" and just sitting as a plastic table without saying a word, and not having reliable Internet or electricity aren't really that weird anymore. Arlen's visit helped me to re-see how great and friendly everyone is and why it is that I subject myself to living in the middle of nowhere DR. Her visit helped me re-motivate so thanks for your fresh perspective, Arlen! Come back soon!

¡Uepa!

Bea