Day 31

Wow. A month here. I woke and went for a run, and after breakfast we packed up to go to Playa Rincon, our third time going to that beach. We got a ride from Kelbin (?), our new favorite boat driver. We got to the beach early, and prepared to walk to our favorite shady spot. We were met by a guy with a microphone on his shirt, and some people holding a rope across the beach. It turns out there was a German film crew there filming spots for ads to visit Samana. They told us we couldn’t use the beach until they were finished with this shot, and they needed a deserted beach for their image. We were pretty upset – couldn’t they have told the boat drivers in Galeras about this, so we wouldn’t have spent money getting to a beach that we couldn’t use? I asked if we could go around their production to a spot further down the 3 mile beach. They asked if we could just wait and they would have their shot in 10 minutes. My limited experience with the film world told me this was not exactly the truth – more an optimism tossed at us to get us out of the way. We were in frustration mode – we had brought our friends to this remote beach, probably the only time in their lives they would ever be here, and we couldn’t even use the beach? Amy found the site manager, or whatever that person is supposed to be called, and told him this was a problem – we hadn’t been given warning, we had no chance to return with our friends, and beaches are public property here. They gave us the 10 minute promise again, and we set up on the tiny bit of available beach. Then someone from one of the beach restaurants came out and complained to Amy that they were losing business today because the film crew had taken over the beach. This motivated her, and she went back to talk with the site manager guy. I pointed out to her that these productions usually had budgets, and to ask for our boat money back, at least. When I came over a couple minutes later, Amy, Brad and Lane were in a heated discussion with this manager guy. It was a little baffling – again I was surprised at either the lack of planning or the arrogance – they expected to have a popular tourist beach, which is somewhere around three miles long, to themselves, without dealing with any of the peripheral peoples or activities? The guy again told us it would only take 10 minutes, and we decided to give him that, after which we would walk on the PUBLIC beach, leaving footprints on its deserted beach shot.

After 10 minutes of planning our attack, one of the German filmmakers came over and said that we could use the beach, if we could avoid leaving footprints in the 100 yards used for their shot. We took them up on it, and went down the beach. After we started walking down, three boats with tourists pulled into the beach which, if we had waited, would have been enough numbers to give the filmmakers a bigger problem.

I joined Brad for a walk to the other end of the beach, one of my favorite things to do there. There is a river, the Rio Frio (cold river) that comes out at that end of the beach, below a house built on an outrageously-graded hill. We walked upstream a bit to look at some local boats, which one of the men there told us they rode upstream.

When we returned, we discovered that Amy, Hope and the kids had moved again – to a spot further down the beach, away from the restaurants. They told us the film crew had asked them to move again. Amy said she had gotten into a conflict with the site manager, and had threatened to walk across their shot. Somewhere in the middle of this, she had told him that he had cost us money, and was costing the restaurants at Rincon money. He told her to wait right there, and returned with 2,000 pesos, which she promised that she would use at the restaurant.

We swam awhile, and went to one of the restaurants for lunch. We tried a different place than usual, because we had tired of the usual place and Katie had highly recommended the other restaurant. The food was good. We had been told to ask for a coconut dessert, which was tasty, until Brad pointed out that it was composed of coconut, brown sugar, and pig fat. (We later learned that it isn't pig fat, but that coconut "meat" has a very high fat content.)

We all received a lot of sun, and I have a burn stripe where I hadn’t put enough (okay, any) sunscreen.

We snorkeled after lunch, and Brad found a sea skate.

When we returned, I checked e-mail quickly at the verizon store. After checking in, I peaked into the space where Richard is opening a new internet café. He was there, getting desks ready, and he was very happy to see me. We have very fun conversations – we both assume the other can understand more English / Spanish than we do, and we both pretend we can speak more of those languages than we do, so we end up shaking heads and laughing a lot, because we like each other right now and want to connect. We also both resort to many one or two word expressions – desk here? many computers? beautiful space – to find an area that we meet in. Based on these lingual forays, I take it that the café will open soon, there are many computers, he will allow me to plug in my own machine, and Alain will work there, all exciting news bits. I won’t get too excited about it yet, as things take time here.

We also shared the joy of possibly putting Merko out of business. (Hate is a universal language)

The conversation went so well that Richard pulled out the fishing net he uses on Las Galeras beach, and through another lingual volley I took it that he catches many fish, big and small, he made the net himself, and that he keeps all the fish for himself to eat. Did I mention that Richard isn’t his real name, but the name he told us? Later other people, with him there, told us his name is really Fermier, or something like that.

BOOK CURRENTLY READING: “Why the Cocks Fight,” by Michelle Wucker, a history of the relations / tensions between the Dominican Republic and Haiti.


MOSQUITOES? The mosquitoes haven’t been bad, except when they get bad. With company here, Amy and I have taken the bedroom without mosquito netting. When we first got here, this was the room the kids used. We noticed, like we do every year, that they were waking up covered with bites, and not getting bit during the day, so we moved them into the downstairs bedroom that has a mosquito net, and we moved upstairs, where there is a net on the bed. When we moved downstairs this week, we weren’t getting bit – we were just getting annoyed by one or two mosquitoes every night that would whine into our hearing ranges – like a miniature propeller-driven airplane flying into our ears, waking us enough to make a failed swat, but waking us nevertheless.

During the day the mosquitoes aren’t bad except when they bite my ankles when I sit at a certain table. I’ve taken to spraying my ankles with repellant before sitting down.