Day 4

I am sitting here with 2-3 bars on my airport signal blackened, but no internet connection. This has been the theme for today. When we arrived I knew there would be some work involved in finding an internet connection, but I was a typical (?) westerner – of COURSE there would be a connection. Isn’t the world wired? It turns out that that is one of the reasons people come here – to escape the wired world and have a beer on the beach. While in favor of both those notions, I’m having some existential problems. Being online is creeping up the life needs list, closing in on breathing. I will be needing to get online in order to work and, in my preparations, I thought it wouldn’t be so difficult here – while remote and in the far reaches of a sometimes third world country, we were to be living in a resort destination, filled with hotels and restaurants. Surely these industries, in order to attract the savvy and modern world traveler, would have to have state of the art communications systems. Hell, most of them even advertised it.

They lied. I have visited several hotel / restaurants that advertised internet connections on their (hah!) websites to discover that either they don’t have said connections, the connection consists of a rotary phone and a 20 year-old computer, or they only allow hotel guests to possess the several layers of passwords necessary to access the rotary phone, etc. Don’t these people know of the good ol’ wired USA, where the streets are paved with wi-fi?

So today’s search: I awoke determined to solve the connection problem – I was not going to return home until I had exhausted all the probabilities. There just HAD to be a wireless network here or, at least, a good broadband. We started at the all-inclusive resort down the beach, where we use the facilities without any interference from the staff. Today we were in the pool, surrounded by French people wearing yellow wrist bracelets, and no one asked us if we were staying there. This all-inclusive has a wireless signal, which I’ve picked up. My fan goes black, and I’m excited. No web pages. No mail. Today Amy tried – she speaks Spanish and can negotiate these things better than I. She asked someone there what the password was (you did need a password, even if the computer didn’t recognize it) and they asked her what her room number was. She ‘fessed up, and the resort employee was cool – he told her to come back tomorrow when their IT guy was around. Then I was off to my next destination – the person, Daniel, we are renting a house from told me of an Italian couple in town who “knew all that computer stuff.” When we returned from the all-inclusive, I headed right out in search of Cyril and Diane, two names on the proverbial scrap of paper. Since I just knew of the street they lived down, I was wandering through a group of relatively new bungalows, past an algaed-green swimming pool, and around a couple snarling dogs behind fences until I saw a woman walking towards me, who I asked if she knew Diane or Cyril. She said she was Diane, I exclaimed “bless you,” and she showed me to her house, where Cyril came out. He was very nice, a 30-something Italian man, who did have a network, and even told me I could use it occasionally, but that he needed the broadband and could I please not use it to send or receive files, which is what I happen to want it for. I asked him what he knew of networks in the area, and he said there wasn’t much. I told him a network kept popping up on my airport list, and he said “Oh yeah, Juan Burgos.” How did he know of the network that I assumed was within 150 feet of my house because it was the network that appears on my network list? “That’s a signal from a cellphone tower in town that a local gambling ring uses.” (Note to self: always check with criminals and pornographers first.) Cyril told me that he knew nothing else of these people. From there it was on to the local internet café. A note on the internet café – when I first entered it 2 days ago and asked the man behind the desk what their rates were, he just pointed at a sign on the wall without looking up or acknowledging me. When I explained to him that I would be a frequent user and did he have any bulk rates, he just pointed at the sign again, head down. Amy, under the guise of trying to help, explained to him that I was a cartoonist, and that I needed this for my work, and he started helping someone else. When I got his attention 30 seconds later, I asked him if I could connect my computer to his network. He said he had to install software in my computer to monitor the time I used. I asked him if his software was compatible with my Mac. He said no, and started helping someone else. Since then I have made several stops by the internet café and turned around when I saw him (I think his name is Merko) at the desk.

I went to the internet café after meeting with Cyril. I was thinking I had to bite my pride and spend some time in there, as it might be my only outlet. I was pleasantly surprised to see someone else behind the desk. I had been told by one of our several hundred new sources that this was Fabrizio, and he was much more friendly and knowledgeable. I said hello, and he explained to me that their satellite was down and that the internet couldn’t be accessed for awhile, a time he couldn’t guess. I asked him if it would be okay to connect my laptop when the satellite WAS working, and he said he didn’t see why not. I came home, and went back to ask him if it was okay that I had a Mac – he said he didn’t know Macs, we could find out. We chatted, and he apologized for his bad English, and I apologized for my bad Italian, and I left feeling I had found a compatriot, or at least someone who would help.

I went to the next name on my list - a name Amy had gotten from a local pattiserie, who’s proprietor said “Karin and Ronald know everything.” La Ranchetta, their B&B / restaurant, was longer than the typical walk around this town – at least 3 miles up a road outside of town. On the way I passed a large snake that had been run over, but looked to have a lot of teeth. When I finally found La Ranchetta, I had to maneuver my way around several horses tied up on the entry path. I froze next to one that seemed nervous every time I tried to walk by – it picked up its head from its feed bucket and snorted as I neared. There were people walking about up ahead and they seemed to see me, but not respond. Finally I asked if Karin and Ronald were there, and they both said yes. Karin finally told me to come in and pull a chair out of the outdoor bar / restaurant, and she continued to tend to her guests while a neighbor, Pauline, introduced herself and showed me around.

When Karin joined us, she added her experience to the internet search – she had gone to Santo Domingo, 4 hours away, to get a card in her cellphone that allows you to connect to the internet. She said it was expensive, that it required a year’s contract and expenditure, and that they couldn’t do it at the cellphone store in Samana, a half hour away. She then proceeded to name every internet possibility that I had so far explored, and how it had gone wrong for her – people misrepresenting their services, weak signals, power outages, etc. I left feeling that I had just quit my career.

(I discovered an unnamed Verizon computer store. Will investigate this further.)

I walked home along the beach, saw Amy and the kids playing, then tried the internet café one more time. Fabrizio was there again, the satellite was working. I asked if I could plug in. the friendly person who apologized for his English earlier had been replaced by another head down, point at the wall guy. He said they couldn’t allow me to plug in my machine – they needed their cables for their machines, and they were too busy to allow other machines to be used. I said okay, I’ll use one of your 200 year-old PCs. I went on, tried to log in to my web-based e-mail and, while trying to remember the right combination of user name and password, the computer went offline. Sorry, Fabrizio said, they had lost the connection. No charge.

Later tonight Amy went to investigate the gamblers’ tower / signal. I had tried to check them out earlier, but my lack of Spanish left the people there just staring at me in incomprehension. Amy talked to a couple people in this building, a bank, and found they knew of this network and that sure, their boss would probably let us use it (via password) but he was gone for the day and could we come back tomorrow?

On her visit to the gambling / bank folks, on of them thought Amy was asking about hamburgers, and took her by motorbike to a local hamburger shack, where she asked an 18 year-old kid with a gold chain around his neck about network connections. He feigned translation problems.

Amy’s cell phone was returned by the gua-gua driver.

Tonight as we were trying to go to sleep, we heard what sounded like gunshots. We thought “what do we do? If there is a crime committed around here do we have any ability to report or prevent it? We feel powerless.