Day 75

Did I mention that the ocean was too hot to swim in today? Not really, and it was because the tide was low and the shin-deep water was very hot from the sun, but I thought this might be the only time I my life I might be able to say that. Benjamin and I walked around in the low tide and looked for sea life stranded by the low tide. We had little luck until we came across two sea snails. We called Lane and Jeannie over, and we caught the snails in a yellow plastic bucket we had with us. We walked around in the water some more and found another snail, so we had three sea snails in a bucket. Jeannie poked at one of them, and it released its defensive ink, which filled the bucket in a maroon color. Jeannie squealed – we told her that it wasn’t hurt, that it did that as a defense mechanism, and dumped the bucket back into the water.

Day 74

Today the kids had school, and everyone acted as if nothing had happened. It’s been 10 days since they last had classes, but when we showed up at school everyone was in the routine as if they had been here yesterday. When returning to pick up the kids and sitting outside the school during recess, I watched the older kids / young adults playing volleyball on the cracked paved basketball court in back. Every day, or every day that I am there, there is a volleyball game at the end of the school day. It is co-ed, with the people playing looking to be between the ages of 15 and 21. The skill level is high – they play seriously and all the players know the strategies and skills of volleyball. When I’ve played basketball we’ve always had to play half court while waiting for the volleyball game to finish, and many of the basketball players try to get in the volleyball game. It impresses me as yet another throwback in this region – where in the states would you find the local youth community joining together in a sports activity every day? Don’t get me wrong – there is the usual adolescent energies, such as picking on each other and shows of hormones but, when the ball is served, they are serious. This scene stood out in my mind because I had had an earlier discussion today with the gri-gri regulars about the prostitution and sex world here. The DR was reknowned for years as a sex tourism stop, with the country only taking steps to curtail that reputation in the mid-90’s. Still, it seems that there are remnants, especially in the Samana Peninsula, where the government has never taken an active interest in regulation. I have been told that the local disco has a vibrant prostitution scene, with it being a regular activity for many local men. Recently someone told us they had heard that HIV was rampant here and, when I mentioned how - in the midst of garbage everywhere here - I’ve never seen a condom, they replied that the local attitude is that if you contract HIV you were meant to, and that there is no avoiding it.

Day 73

We went to look at the little house next to La Ranchetta, the home of our favorite Belgians, Ronald and Karyn. We aren’t actively looking to buy something here, but we’re interested in looking and informing ourselves of the market. This house had first been pointed out to me a couple months back. I asked Pauline, an Irish woman who lived near Ronald and Karyn and who we kept running into, about it, and she told me to be careful – many people would be interested in showing me this house, but they would all want a commission, which could add another 10,000 – 20,000 dollars to the price. She suggested I contact the owners, and Karyn and Ronald might have that information. Karyn and Ronald, it turns out, had had a falling out with the couple who own the house. Ronald had built it for them, but it seems they didn’t like La Galera as much as they thought, and were looking to sell. Karyn told me they liked drinking and guns, a great combination in any neighbors. Karyn had an old e-mail address for them, which turned out to be a dud. We asked around some more, and it seemed anyone who might know of the house was a potential commission-looking person, so we didn’t aggressively follow up. Then one day Pauline came to us with a name and phone number for the caretaker of the house, a Dominican man named Tony. We called Tony to set up a time to look at the house. This was the day last week when it poured and the road was flooded and we ended up at Gri-gri’s for the afternoon. When we contacted Tony again, we set up a meeting for this morning. We met there, with us arriving a little early and saying hi to Karyn at La Ranchetta. When Tony showed, he let us in the gate and yard. Then he told us he didn’t have a key for the house, and the person who did have a key for the house would be in town later today or tomorrow, and he would contact us when he could meet. This seems like such a stereotypically Dominican thing – we made plans two weeks ago, talked with him multiple times, and he didn’t once think to tell us that he didn’t have the house key. So we eagerly await the call from key guy #2, who probably has a key for the front door, but no key for the kitchen.

Some people have rented the house next door to us– it seems like a mix of French and Dominicans, with young children. They have been blasting the worst music possible – late ‘70’s – early ‘80’s American rock (I heard some Heart, some David Bowie, some Tina Turner) and a bunch of French music that sounds like France’s answer to John Cougar Mellencamp (what was the question?) AND, to make it worse, their CD player skips at the end of every song. The plus side is that it will make the people on the other side, who often play opera at night, appreciate us.

There was again no school today. I think the kids have had 4 days of school in the past month.

CURRENT READING: “Salt,” by Mark Kurlansky, the author of “Cod.” A history of salt as a food, a preservative, and an economic entity. He must’ve spent 10 years researching and reading every book ever written.

Day 72

We were hoping to have a relaxed getaway day, at one of the many beautiful local beaches. We aimed for Rincon – named one of the top 10 beaches in the world by Conde Nast, as any DR guide will tell you 20 times – when, while walking back from Casa Marina via playa Galeras, I noticed a bus of people exit onto the playa. This was after seeing a much larger than normal number of private cars at the all-inclusive, meaning a large amount of Dominican guests. I remembered, this was a three-day weekend, Dominican Labor Day, or May Day, as May 1 looms. Fearing a reprise of Semana Santa, when Dominicans flock to the beaches, we changed our plans to one of the beaches accessible only by boat (or difficult hikes) – Fronton or Madama. We chose Madama, as it was the cheaper boat ride. We had the entire beach to ourselves for the afternoon. It is one of the better snorkeling beaches, and Lane brought her friend Jeannie, a French girl who lives near us, so the kids had a lot of fun playing in and around the beach.

Exchange between Jeannie, a 10 year-old who speaks Spanish, French, and a little English, and me, a 47 year-old who speaks English and a little Spanish. I had seen an eel while snorkeling, and she was trying to tell me how dangerous it is. We were both speaking Spanish.

Jeannie: Eels are very dangerous!
Me: (in my Spanish) All eels?
Jeannie: No – just the mouth!

Day 71

– Mas mosquitoes. I was up for two hours last night, partly because Benjamin was up at 3 AM, and partly because after waking with Benjamin, the mosquitoes started taunting me. I fell back asleep for an hour or two before we all got up. It has rained, and continues today, for the third day. The kids have not had school for a couple weeks. We have been told that now the teachers are on strike. Since there has been 4 school days in the past month, I hope it’s not for fewer hours. Also, school is closed when it rains – since the classrooms are open air, and the school grounds are dirt, kids won’t attend when it’s raining hard. This afternoon Amy and I were supposed to meet with the caretaker of a house for sale, outside of town near Ronald and Karyn. We aren’t shopping, but wanted to check it out, just to get information. The owners are the few Belgians we think we wouldn’t like, as Karyn and Ronald speak poorly of them. We have not met them, because they are back in Europe, but Karyn and Ronald’s feelings are good enough for us, as I almost worship them.

I walked over to the house, with Amy and the kids planning on meeting me by motoconcho (a motorcycle taxi). As I walked, it started to rain again, having taken an hour respite. As I continued to walk, it started to rain harder, and the road showed signs of 3 days straight rain – flooded, washouts, etc. I got to the house after walking in ankle-deep water for a stretch, and waited, while it continued to pour. After waiting for about 20 minutes, I headed back, via the beach. It was beautiful watching the rain on the ocean, even though the puddles were deeper. I finally made it back to town to see my family waiting for me at Gri-gri’s. We all sat down to a couple of Sprites (for the kids) and a mamajuana for Amy and me. Mamajuana is a local drink, involving taking a bottle of local herbs and sticks and filling it with rum and honey, leaving it to soak for a time to be determined by the future drinker. I’ve met a couple persons here who tell me of keeping their mamajuana bottles going for years, re-filling them after emptying them. It’s a sweet drink, tasting not unlike rum and honey with a bunch of strange herbs thrown in. It was a rainy day, we were soaked, and we decided to sit at the local pub for a couple hours. Mel joined us, and various tourists and locals came and went, and we had a good afternoon.

Day 70

I am becoming obsessed with mosquitoes. Lately Lane and Benjamin have started sleeping without mosquito netting, and before bed we turn on the overhead fans and start searching the walls, ceilings and floors for mosquitoes in waiting. Okay, I search the walls, ceilings and floors, but it seems to be paying off – neither of the kids has woken up in the middle of the night itching in a while. For some reason our bed – the bed that still uses mosquito netting – is becoming inundated with nighttime mosquitoes. I think this is due to two factors – the existing holes in the netting are wearing, allowing more space for bugs, and more bugs can get in upstairs, where there are no doors or windows to close to prevent the bugs from getting in. So one or two mosquitoes always make it into our covered bed, despite my going over every inch of netting before laying down each night. And one or both of these mosquitoes makes its way to my ear in the middle of the night, usually after biting my ear / fingers / forehead, to sing a victory buzz. This not only wakes me, but sets me into a frenzy, renewing my search of every inch of netting to find the ones that hid from me the first time.

Day 69

Today I was at Fernes’ Internet café or, more accurately, the internet bunker. A security guard came in who watches the empty lot across from us. He is a no-nonsense character, never responding to our “holas” with anything more than an “hola” or a “bien.”
He said something to me in spanish, which I turned to Primi, my consultant in all things Spanish at the internet bunker, for interpretation. Primi had been giving me a Spanish lesson in religious (or as he put it, Christian) Spanish phrases. He had taught me Spanish for “when one door is shut, another one opens” and “when god extends his arm / hand, you are free” or something like that, all while he attended to his usual internet dating communications.

After I turned to Primi for my translation, Primi turned to me and said John Travolta? -only with a Spanish pronunciation. After I understood what he had said, I spelled John Travolta out for him so he could search for him on Youtube. He came up with a bunch of excerpts from the movie “Grease,” mostly of the songs. The monosyllabic guard said “Mi mucho gusto John Travolta” (I really like John Travolta) and sat back to watch “You’re the one that I want” video, with the “Grease” cast, featuring Olivia Newton John. Both he and Primi loved it. Before leaving, I wrote down “Saturday Night Fever” and “Pulp Fiction” for them to search. I left with them sitting back to “Summer Nights.”

CURRENT READING: “Naked Portraits of Famous People” by Jon Stewart, a collection of his essays. “Lenny Bruce’s Sitcom” is very funny.

Day 68

Amy’s sister Linda is visiting, with her children, Channy and Surya. The Gri gri gang - the collection of ex-pats usually found sitting at the corner – have planned an excursion. Usually Mark, a German who is Gri gri’s boyfriend, runs a tourist excursion out of the restaurant, with a large truck they own. Since no one is using the truck today, and we were supposed to have visitors - ours showed but Katie’s didn’t – they decided to have an ex-pats outing to El Valle, a beach off of a side road near Samana that is reportedly very beautiful. The plan was to drive in and drop off supplies and Paul at one of the two waterfalls that are on a river going to the beach, where he would start cooking our food while the rest of us went to the ocean. We took a turn off the road, driving up a shallow riverbed to the waterfall, when the truck got stuck. Mel was driving, and we thought he’d be able to get out right away but, after 10 minutes of spinning, we realized we had a problem. Since we were more than 12 miles from town, it could have been a big problem. After an hour of trying to put stones under tires, prying with long sticks and, finally, pushing and rocking, we got the truck up on more solid footing and Mel could drive again.

We headed to a second waterfall, one that involved a 15-minute hike in to an incredible waterfall with a swimming hole at its base. Everyone took in some supplies – food, chairs, table, coolers, and the propane tank which was 4 times as heavy as any of the other items – and Paul stayed to start cooking food and guard the rest of the supplies while the rest of us hiked back out to the truck and drove to the beach, El Valle.

Along the drive from the waterfalls and to the beach there were many children, either walking home from school or who lived in the area. Someone had brought some bags of candy and the kids with us – Lane, Benjamin, Channy, Surya, and Carmella, the daughter of Wolfgang and Janette, who live in Las Galeras – would throw candy to the kids along the road.

The beach was secluded, with cliffs on both ends. The bay was a little different from what we’ve seen in Las Galeras, mainly because there was a sailboat moored offshore, something we have not seen here so far. There were a couple of thatched huts at the entrance to the beach – one of them was a restaurant and the other seemed to be just a shelter. When we got out and walked to the beach, Katie told us the far end of the beach – it looked to be about ½ mile, was the beautiful part of the beach. A river came into the ocean here, at the base of a cliff. We went into the river, and then some of us went into the ocean. The waves here were higher than we normally see. Several of us – Mel, Amy, Rebecca, Lane and I – were bouncing in the waves and enjoying ourselves when we saw that we had suddenly been taken out about 300 yards on a current. Mel started swimming back, and it looked to be pretty easy. Amy started swimming, and Lane and I followed, but Lane was having a hard time with the current. She tired after a while and I had her hold my shoulders while I swam and pushed her in. It was the strongest current I have ever experienced in the ocean, and we made it back in about 25 minutes – it had only taken us 5 to get out.


We played in the river some more, and headed back to the truck. We drove back to the trail into the second waterfall, and hiked back to the swimming hole and Paul and food. This was a great swimming hole – a beautifull waterfall running into a deep hole, with plenty of ledges around the sides for climbing and jumping. We took turns climbing the rocks on one side and jumping into the deep pool at the base of the falls. At one point a local man came by, and climbed the steep cliff on the other side of the pool, at one point crossing over to a tree that looked at least 100 feet over the water. He continued up a bit, and stopped on a limb overhanging the pool, from where he did a full back flip into the water. He then collected tips from the varied tourists around the swimming hole, and Paul said he did 3 shows a day, having done a similar dive a couple hours earlier when Paul was first here.

On the way out Juanisita (sp?) a Dominican woman who joined us, started itching her arms and legs - she told us she must have touched a plant that she is very allergic to, and we needed to get to a pharmacy right away, so she could get some Benedril. She said this has happened before, and she wasn't even aware of the plant being around us today. The remainder of the ride was a little hairy, as she was obviously in discomfort, and it was a slow ride out to the paved road, but we made it to a pharmacy in Samana and she got medication.

CURRENT READING: “Quidditch Through the Ages,” by Kennilworthy Whisp, and “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” by Newt Scamander.

Day 67

Amy and Lane rented a car to go to Santiago and pick up her sister Linda. Benjamin and I hung out, played at the pier beach, and had dinner. Katie came by in the morning to ask me, since she had relatives coming in later that day and she needed something to do because this was requiring her to stay awake much later than she was used to, if I wanted to watch “The Comedians,” - the film version of the Graham Greene book starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor – while we waited for guests. During this Paul would be sitting watch at Gri-gri’s, since they would be driving into town and Gri-gri’s is the best vantage point for seeing and being seen. This constitutes a late night for both Katie and Paul, who like to be in by 8. Benjamin and I had been playing together all day, going to the pier beach and reading and having dinner. Katie came by with the movie, which we started watching, Benjamin falling asleep on my lap. Oh, and I had our Maine cell phone for emergencies, in case Amy needed to reach me.

That day a storm had hit the east coast of the U.S., with flooding in the south and mid-Atlantic states and a nor’easter in the New England states. Airports in Boston and New York, from which our guests were flying, were closed. While we were watching the movie, Mel came by, from his post accompanying Paul in the Gri-gri guest watch. He told me Amy had called Paul (something wasn’t working with our cellphone here) to tell him Linda’s flight that night had been cancelled, and she didn’t know when they’d be coming in – on the Jet Blue flight the same time the next night, or on another flight in the morning. If she came on the Jet Blue flight, that would mean Amy and Lane would stay another day in Santiago.

We continued with the movie, and were joined by Julie, a woman from San Francisco who Katie had met in town, who had actually been in the Peace Corps in Africa, in the same country they filmed “The Comedians” in (The Duvaliers – Papa Doc at the time, had been insulted by the book, and filming in Haiti was not a possibility – it was later rumored that anyone traveling to the country with the book on them was detained).

Another hour later Mel returned – Linda had found another flight in the morning, and they would arrive tomorrow afternoon. There was still no sign of Katie’s sister and husband, who were supposed to arrive around 9. We watched the rest of the movie and Katie and Julie left, Julie first telling me about San Francisco’s recent ban of plastic bags, a project she works on for the department of recycling.

The next morning I learned that Paul had stayed at Gri-gri’s until midnight, with no guests arriving. He went home and called them, to leave a message on their machine about how to contact him, only to wake them at home. They weren’t scheduled to arrive until Thursday, 4 days later.

I was in Fernes internet café – actually an internet bunker. They advertise “Flash” service – I have no idea what this means other than possibly being local terminology for hi-speed. Anyways, Adji was at the computer next to me. (I’m not really at a computer, but taking up a chair while working on my laptop.) Adji runs a tour service in town. My friends Bobbie and Kurt took a tour of the peninsula with him, and we took a boat tour of Los Parques Nationales Haitises with him. He seems decent enough although, like most entrepreneurs here, you have to keep track of what he tells you, as his prices raise from one sentence to the next. On tours, he’s bright and personable- he speaks almost every European language that we’ve encountered here.

Adji turned to me and said “Sir, can you help me?” This is a bone of contention with me, as I’ve told Adji my name numerous times and asked him not to call me ‘sir.’ He said he was having trouble with a web page – he couldn’t open some PDF files that he was trying to read. The secondhand computers at Fernes’ store don’t have a PDF reader on them, so he asked me what to do. They were forms from the Pakistani embassy page. Adji told me he had been ripped off the night before – I believe he lives in the same whorehouse / hotel as Thomas – and they took everything, including his paperwork. So Adji was looking for the replacement forms. Since he couldn’t get them on Fernes’ system, I told him I could download the forms onto my computer and put them on a disk for him, which would take me all of 5 minutes. I did this, and gave him the disk, which made him very happy.

Now here’s my question I don’t really know Adji that well. What happens if I get to customs in the U.S. on our return, and they ask me why I was downloading identification forms from the Pakistani Embassy web site? Do I just tell them Adji asked me?


There is a hand-painted sign on the road into town. It says “Real State,” with a listing of what services they offer.

Day 66

We just returned from a night at the hotel on the edge of the Parque Nationale los Haitieses (Park of the Mountains), whose name I haven’t got in front of me. OH – CANO HONDO - It may be one of the more unique places I have ever been. To get there we had to take a gua-gua to Samana, take a Dominican ferry (more on that in a moment) for an hour across the bay to Sebana del Mar, and get a taxi for the 45 minute ride to the hotel, whose name I haven’t got in front of me. The gua-gua was uneventful. The boat ride was interesting – the group of people riding the glorified lobster boat seemed to fill it. Then, as we were about to debark, someone came along wanting to put their motorcycle on the boat, which was no problem – 3 guys lifted the bike onto the rear of the boat and rolled it in among us. While waiting for the boat we had met another American couple who were crossing the bay – they said they just wanted to see the other side and walk around. They were from Salt Lake City, and he owned a diving and salvaging company that was attempting to sign a deal with the Dominican government to allow him to dive and salvage several old wrecks in Samana Bay. Among the many interesting stories they shared with us was that he was descended from German Jews, but his family converted to Mormonism when he was a child, living in northern Saskatchewan, Canada.

When we arrived on the other side of the bay, the boat was too big to go to the dock. We stopped about 50 yards from the dock, and a smaller boat, like the boats we take to the beaches around here, pulled up. Everyone on the boat started climbing through the windows to get on the boat. So many people got on the boat and moved to the other side to make room that the boat lurched away at one point, but everyone shifted to make it right again. Just as I thought we were ready to start to shore, the motorcycle had to be loaded again – I didn’t think there was enough room or that the boat would be able to maintain its balance, but it was finally loaded on the back. We made it to shore in Sebana del Mar, a town that looks third world compared to our third world community. It was another environment, a flat, dusty town with a minimum of paved roads.

We had lunch in a pizza parlor, of all places, While eating lunch we (Amy) found and negotiated with a taxi driver, who told her he would take us, and a French couple who were heading to the same hotel and had heard us talking with the taxi driver, for 350 pesos, about 10 dollars. After lunch, we prepared to get on the taxi, and the driver started saying (through an interpreter, for some reason- He spoke in Spanish to another person who spoke Spanish, who spoke to Amy in Spanish, who told us in English) that the price was 700 pesos. We think he said he didn’t realize that there were that many people, but it seemed he was trying to get more and knew exactly what he was doing. He even brought in a couple “consultants” – some guys who had been sitting in the park next to where he was parked – to tell us how bad the road to the hotel was. We countered with an offer of 400 pesos. He refused and started getting louder, so we took our bags out of the car and went back into the pizza place. It was a classic negotiation at this point – we were the only fares left in town and, from the looks of things, there might not be any more this week, and he might have been in a similar status with us. Through the various interpreters – the owner of the pizza place had joined in at this point, and seemed to be on our side, although I think it is a small enough town that no one would ever completely side with a gringo who was only going to be there once or twice this year – we got our discussion points clarified. We wanted to pay 400 pesos, and he wanted 600. The owner of the pizza place was savvy in the western, specifically US, money ways, and kept on telling us “it’s only 20 dollars,” but it felt like more of a principal than an actual amount – he kept raising his proposed rate, and when we had agreed to something, he had raised it again. While I was discussing this with Amy, I was sensitive to the French couple, who spoke a little English and almost no Spanish, being very quiet. I wondered if they were thinking “just pay whatever – we want to get there and we’re haggling over 3 dollars” but, in the way I’ve grown to experience the French behaving, they play thoughts close to their vest, and maintain a look that could be read as disinterest or disgust. Finally we agreed to 500 pesos, and the taxi driver, who had been argumentative a moment before, broke into a smile and everyone started laughing.

We got in the van and, true to the park consultants descriptions, the road got bad – unpaved, many potholes – as we made the 12-ish mile run to the hotel. It went through mostly farmland, finally rounding a turn and going down a slope that brought us over a bridge that led to the hotel. The hotel was a unique design – it looked like there was a river running around the base of a hill that the designer of the hotel had dammed to make a series of pools and small waterfalls, which snaked around the two buildings of the hotel. The rooms all had views (and sounds) of the pools, and they were all swimable – we swam in 5 of them, and may have missed a couple more, as there were many other holes with running water on the premises. Among the first things I noticed were that all of the pools had FRESH WATER!!!!!! The water in Las Galeras is all ground water, which is salty in the peninsula. This means we have been showering and washing and cooking in salty water since we’ve been here, with bottled water being our drinking water. When I went in the pool – the non-chlorinated pool – and felt fresh water, it was as if I had discovered a new level of cleanliness again. I swam with the kids for a couple hours, and then went and took a LONG hot shower. We enjoyed having a swimming facility – even though we spend a lot of time in the ocean and on the beach, this one was unique, with waterfalls we could walk under, no current to fight, and an inner tube that Lane and Ben became physically attached to. It was a very relaxed hotel, although we couldn’t tell if that was because that is the normal state of being or if it was because the French couple were the only other people in the hotel besides us. We were told the hotel becomes very popular on weekends, and many Dominicans use it, and as we left Friday afternoon people were coming in. We had dinner and collapsed in our beds. I had the best night’s sleep I’ve had in awhile, as the white noise of the waterfalls and the absolute calm of the place were noticeably different from the motorcycles and music of La Galera. Also, surprisingly, there were no bugs, even though there was water everywhere and we were near the heavily forested national park.

We woke, hiked up a nearby lookout, ate breakfast, and hiked through the hills in back of the hotel, against our pool-deprived children’s wishes. We made it up one hill that, at the top, looked like a prehistoric setting on the other side. Unfortunately, this was the point the children refused to pass, and we know it would’ve been a couple more hours if we continued. We came back, had lunch and swam some more, including a swimming tour of all the pools and their connections ( I didn’t bother my family with any Burt Lancaster references) and packed to go. After lunch, we swam some more, and dried off for the return. After an uneventful taxi negotiation and ride, we ended up at the dock waiting for our boat, when all of a sudden we heard “MY FRIENDS!!” It was Felipe, who owns a gift shop in Las Galeras and who had recently had dinner with his family at our house. Felipe is Haitian, and was returning from a ten-day trip to Cap Haitien, with a return via Santiago, Santo Domingo, and Higuey, which he proclaimed a very beautiful city, a point heavily disagreed with by all guidebooks. It turns out Felipe, who was nattily dressed in a white linen suit and Panama hat, had drank his way across the country and, even though he was very friendly to us, was drunk. We got on the little boat to make our way to our ferry, with the crowd and the motorcycle again. In Sebana del Mar the street urchins don’t shine shoes – they grab your bags right out of your hands and throw them on the boat, expecting a tip. I had to forcibly grab my bags from one kid to avoid him throwing it on the side of the boat away from my family and when we got to the ferry he grabbed it right back from me and took it on the larger boat. I was impressed by his determination and gave him 10 pesos, basically 30 cents.

On the boat Felipe sat with us, loudly proclaiming to the boat that we were his “FRIENDS.” A couple of Dominican people started telling him to leave us alone, but we told them we knew him and it was cool, but he was loud the whole way across, making several demonstrations and proclamations of his fondness for us (and Benjamin in particular) and Las Galeras. Lane and Benjamin were becoming uncomfortable – they had never been aware of someone being drunk before, and his in-your-faceness was scaring them, besides drawing attention to them that they didn’t want. Amy and I both tried to amuse him, talk with him, and calm him down, with varying successes. When the man came around to collect fares, Felipe proclaimed that he would pay for us, and refused our money. It turns out he was broke, and told the man he would pay when we arrived, showing the man his bank and credit cards. We got to shore after an eternity of a ride, compounded by Lane’s uneasiness with Felipe AND a girl right behind her who was visibly seasick and looked like she was going to throw up at any moment, which helped edge Lane towards feelings of seasickness herself. When we landed, Amy gave Felipe 500 pesos.

When we got back home, we encountered the gang at Gri-gri’s, who were all drinking. We ran into Pauline, who told us that Enzo, a local guy, was riding his horse in town today because he was too drunk to drive. Someone else made reference to being drunk in front of Lane, and she seemed visibly disturbed by the sudden onslaught of drinking and related behaviors. It’s been a complicated mix of experiences for her – she sometimes seems to be caught between wanting to be 7 and wanting to be 27, with a bunch of French male 12 year-olds, Italian male 30 year-olds, and Dominican males of all ages treating her as if she were 17. While we’ve watched her activities, she’s still witnessed much adult behavior that she’s never seen in our young family-oriented town in Maine. We’re trying to deconstruct as much of it as possible, but she’s absorbed a lot here.

Fernes, one of the Dominican males who runs the new wireless-enabled internet place, is a perfect example. He once told me how he was Christian, which meant no smoking, drinking, or dancing (what a great excuse! I can’t dance because of religious reasons.) but he spends every minute in his internet place looking at and responding to dating sites.



CURRENT READING: “The Island of the Colorblind,” by Oliver Sachs, an account of his visits to several South Pacific islands that have genetic diseases – one where the native population has a larger than average number of cases of colorblindness, another where they have a form of ALS, or Lou Gehrig disease, for example, and “The Da Vinci Code,” by Dan Brown. If you haven’t heard of this book, than I doubt you’d be reading a blog.

Day 65

It is in the 80’s today. The ATM at the all-inclusive resort near here was full of money, meaning some for us. There are men in our yard trimming the palm / coconut trees. This involves one of them climbing the tree barefoot while another takes a bamboo pole with a saw attached and snips branches from the top, while the man who climbed snips branches with a machete. They have given us 5 coconuts, prepared so all we have to do is cut the tips for coco water and meat. I feel like saying “nyeah nyeah nyeah.” to everyone back home. Sorry.

Day 64

THINGS I LIKE HERE

– when, at dusk, as I walk back from soccer, the flock of white egrets goes overhead.

- when I’m walking down our street at night, and there is no artificial light so the sky and stars look much brighter, and I see a shooting star.

- hiking anywhere here, with the flora making you feel as if you’re on an undiscovered island and this must be what the first people who walked here felt and this might be what someone’s image of Eden would be.

Today the man next door, who owns his house, had all the trees and hedge removed from between our houses. The workers said this was because the mosquitoes were too bad and he was going to build a cement block wall. It’s not the greatest aesthetic choice, and I don’t know if it really does solve the mosquito problem.

I wrote the people in Belgium whose house next to La Ranchetta is for sale. The e-mail was returned –it wasn’t valid. Now we have to search in town for someone who knows them and isn’t looking for a commission and adding $20,000 to the price.

We received messages from back home that we were hit by a winter storm, which downed phone lines and trees, including a large maple on our driveway. Ugh.

Day 63

We rented the ATV – Benjamin was the most excited I’ve seen him here. I worked in the morning while Amy Lane and Ben went to Arturo and Anna Marie’s house in Rincon – the town, not the beach. I took a gua-gua and walked down Calle Rincon – about 3 kilometers – to their home, a bright blue Dominican house on a hill. When I got there I was met by an older woman who spoke no English but made it clear that my family was in the back of the house. I went back there to find them with Arturo, who was making plantains on a Dominican outdoor stove – a clay stove with an open top. Even though it was only 10:30 in the morning, and we were adamant about not being hungry, and Arturo had other demands on his time – he was going to work in an hour or two, and Anna Marie had been sick for several days and was laying in bed inside – he insisted we eat. We visited with Anna Marie first. She complained of a headache, stomach pain, and had an infection of some sort in her armpit. It didn’t seem like much, but we had heard she had been sick for a couple weeks, and Arturo told us she had been to a Doctor in Nagua once, and was going to return. She didn’t look so good, but talked with us for 15 minutes, with her mother – the woman who had greeted me – keeping up a side commentary next to the bed, which Anna Marie would hush when the mother's voice seemed to rise emotionally.

Arturo served us the plantains, topped with cheese, and then another older woman appeared, bringing rice and beans and some sort of fish dish – a bowl of fish chunks in a sauce. We ate while chickens and a young cat walked around the table and excused ourselves to leave, but then Arturo said we didn’t have to rush, and he would like to talk with us. We talked while Arturo ate, then he showed us his garden – pineapple bushes, banana trees, and several exotic fruit trees and bushes that we didn’t know and wouldn’t remember. Then we went into the front yard, where Anna Marie and several older women who introduced themselves as grandmothers were seated under a tree. We sat, as a neighbor (Sonya, who we know from a store in town) and children joined us. Arturo showed me a family scrapbook which had a variety of family member and friends’ photos. Among the notable photos were two of Arturo’s father in his coffin, which Arturo showed me as if they were photos of everyday family gatherings.

We finally headed out for Playa Colorado, another of the beaches around here, and one we hadn’t experienced. It was a series of back roads, mostly dirt and hilly, ending in a failed development – there was a guardhouse and a guard, and only three houses built along a beautiful beach. The guard told us we had to leave our 4-wheeler at the gate, and could walk in. The beach was one of the cleaner beaches here- mostly sand and no coral or grass in the water – but the waves were intense, with a strong undertow, and Benjamin got flipped by a wave and lost his taste for this beach. The community had a ghost town feeling to it – the walkways all had electric lamps on them, despite no sign of life other than the three grand finished houses and a couple unfinished houses.
From there we headed back to town, using some back dirt roads we had been told about. It is interesting to see and learn of the many communities in this region that exist off the mapped roads – many dirt roads, shacks and communities that you wouldn’t even expect until you happen upon them or the back road that looks like a path at first glance.

That night we went to Playa Galeras for dinner, expecting to take part in some of the Semana Santa activities. The playa had emptied, however, and it seemed that many Dominicans leave the beach at sundown, since there isn’t any electricity on the beach. We found a shack run by one of the kiosk women, and had dinner there, while Lane played checkers with one of the kids there. Semana Santa has been much calmer than we had been led to believe – the noise hasn’t been overwhelming, the streets, while a bit crazier than usual, have not been overrun, and it has been a typical weekend, although the beaches are VERY crowded, for us. There also seems to have been some oversight by Dominicans, though we’re not sure if this is on the government’s behalf or local concerned citizenry. There have been groups of orange t-shirt clad people at the major turns to the beaches. There are people with red crosses on their shirts, and a red cross booth, at the playa. Arturo told us they are cracking down on loud music at Playa Rincon, ticketing people who are playing music. We have met several people attending who are Dominicans from the US – specifically Miami or New York – so there may be a case of trying to look good for the more sophisticated Dominicans in attendance.

The last few nights (and days) have become hot and sticky. I have not slept well as, even though we have mosquito netting on our bed, a lone mosquito makes it inside the protection and finds my ear, sounding like a B-54 and waking me up, after which I spend the next ½ hour walking on the bed, searching the netting looking for the obnoxious insect.

On Saturday of Semana Santa, Amy and Lane tried to sell smoothies (“batita’s,” fruit drinks) from Gri-gri’s restaurant. As Amy put it, it was reminiscent of the Sobo - a bookstore (coffee shop she opened in our small Maine town) days – a slow day with few customers, other than the regulars who knew Amy. Later in the day a handful of Americans came in who knew what smoothies were, and bought enough to let Amy (and Gri-gri, the Dominican owner) know that they would sell, given the proper education.

We went to La Ranchetta for dinner. We’ve been meaning to go there since we got here, but it is outside of town, and dinner is later than we usually eat, so it would be hard for us to attend with any regularity. Still, it is a special place – it is far enough outside of town to be very quiet, and the garden encloses the eating area to make you feel that you could be in any exotic local you wished. Also, I want to marry Ronald and Karyn. They are the Belgians that have given me a lifelong illogical respect of Belgians. We heard Ron’s story last night – he had managed a supermarket chain in Belgium for 16 years and grew tired of it. Karyn had sold luxury underwear before coming here and deciding to raise horses. Ronald takes care of the animal feeding, food preparation, and construction and maintenance, while Karyn takes groups for excursions and works with the whalewatches in Samana. Their respect for, knowledge, and care of their animals and the neighborhood have impressed me deeply.

Recently, Valcienne - a Haitian man who has a daughter, Francesca, who plays with and is the same age as Benjamin – asked Amy if she thinks we “valued” Benjamin as much as we do Lane. (This was in Spanish, so the translation might be off.)

Valcienne is watching a house near Playita Beach, the best looking walkable beach here, about 15 minutes if the gate is open, 1 hour if it’s locked. One day Valcienne was here with Francesca and told us how much he wanted to get a visa for the U.S. He has told us several times, in almost the same words, about wanting a visa for the U.S. Amy tried to tell him the U.S. wasn’t as great as he thought it was, that there would be many problems for a non-english speaking immigrant, and he had a good life here. He told her he barely made enough to eat, and that a friend of his went to Miami and picked fruit for 3 years, making $15,000 and enabling him to build a home in Haiti. He said all he wanted was to get to the U.S. for 3-4 years, alone, to make enough to build his own house back here or in Haiti. Amy didn’t get it – she continued to try to convince him how good the life was here.

Day 62

Thomas came for dinner last night. We really like Thomas – he is the son of parents who worked for an NGO – something to do with world hunger or something – and grew up in Scotland, India, the Phillipines and Nepal. He says he’s Scottish, although it seems that he has spent the littlest amount of time in his life there. Thomas has blonde dreadlocks, and I’ve always seen him in the same clothing – t-shirt, jeans with big holes in the knees, sandals – although last night he had gotten a new pair of grey pants. Thomas is a little down – he is living in a whorehouse, and the residents are constantly ripping him off, his one week old, broken down motorcycle has broken down for good, it seems. He is lonely. He regaled us with stories of Las Galeras at night, a time we don’t know because the kids are usually in bed by 9, shortly followed by us. Unfortunately, Thomas shed light on some people we have grown fond of in the daytime, telling us how many women they were with in the evenings at the disco and whorehouse. It will be tough to look at some of them in the future without thinking of these things.

We are renting a 4 wheeler – an ATV – today. We have been talking about it all week, and Benjamin is geared up for it, getting out of bed this morning as if it were Christmas.

Day 61

We are nearing the halfway point of our trip, and have been mentioning it this morning. I hope we (okay, I) don’t start counting down the days left, and enjoy what is still the same amount of time we have already experienced.

The music from Semana Santa is all around us. It seemed to go late into the night, and it was going when we awoke this morning. There seems to be a new strain coming from the playa, where we rarely hear music.

Day 60

We went to National Parque los Haities, on the southwest corner of the Samana Bay. We went with Adji. Took a boat tour through the mangrove swamps, saw Taino drawings in caves, stopped at the Coast Guard station, one of the most beautiful buildings we have seen here, and had a bumpy return boat ride and lunch at Cayo Levantado. On the bumpy boat ride Amy tells me she’d be disappointed if she can’t find a dance teacher here for Lane. This makes me crazy – will our lives really be empty if our children don’t get specialized instruction while living in a third world country? Crowded boat ride back to mainland. Discover mystery fruit, which makes great smoothies.

Semana Santa is starting to gain momentum. Besides our small remote town getting itself dressed up – installing new speed bumps, painting old ones, buildings and businesses that have always been closed suddenly opening, beaches being raked and roadsides being picked up – the beaches have suddenly swelled with new communities. We saw a small beach on the way to Samana which was packed with tents, wall-to-wall with no space between them and a large food tent erected. The beach / playa at Las Galeras has a half dozen new shacks – limbs or tree branches for framing with tin roof and sides. And, of course, the immature male population has yet another reason to drive like idiots. The streets are getting scary. Tonight Francesca, a young Haitian girl who is Benjamin’s age and who we see all over town with her father, Valcene (sp?), and her father stopped by to drop off a book. He said that Semana Santa is crazy here – too much drinking and unsafe driving. He said Semana Santa was much more reverent in Haiti. The Haitians we have met here seem like so much more serious people – intense, intelligent, and none of the verbal games westerners and Dominicans play – straight with their thoughts and words, with no misleading words, actions, or facial expressions.

Oh, and I officially declare an end to any animosity I hold towards the French. On our boat trip today, 4 French people were with the rest of us. I / we spoke with them – a couple and two women traveling together – and they were very friendly and told us of their adventures and asked us about our adventures, something you should always do.

Day 59

Day 59 – I hiked to Madama again, this time with Amy and the kids. We have heard a house next door to La Ranchetta is for sale. Our fantasy is it would be affordable, and we could lease it to Ronald and Karyn to use for additional rental space with their B&B. We are trying to find a way to contact the owners, who are European - not sure which country. Many people here are "agents" who get a cut of any real estate transaction, so we have to be careful who we ask about the house - we hope to be able to contact the owners without having to pay extra money to a local ex-pat.

Fernes is a Dominican friend of ours. I first met him when, while walking through town, he came out and tried to sell me trips around the peninsula. He used a very badly produced three-ring binder, with pictures and pages that looked like junior high collages. Still, I admired his effort, and his barely working English was a good match for my barely working Spanish. Since that first meeting, we used to run into him frequently – we were using the verizon store for our internet and phone services, and Fernes worked right next door, often coming into the Verizon store to look at YouTube. Oh, and he told us his name was Richard – we didn’t learn it was Fernes for several weeks. Fernes is 18, and still in the high school. One day, about one month into our trip, Fernes told us he was going to open an internet store, and we were very happy – the more competition here the better for us. At the time, we didn’t know how old he was – age is hard to gauge here, and he was working so much we assumed he was older. He worked on the new space in Plaza Lusitania in town– building carrols for the computers, wiring the space putting up the new used computers – and was all set to open about 3 weeks ago. He and his friends spent a Saturday trying to erect a satellite dish on the roof next to their store, only to be told at the last second by the manager of Plaza Lusitania that they didn’t have permission to put up the satellite dish there and, if they did, they would have to pay an additional $1000 / month to stay there. Town rumors supposed that the internet café across the street – the terrible one run by Merko and his family, the evil Italians – had stepped in and, when they found out what was going on, “influenced” the management at Lusitania, who all happen to be Italian, on the status of Fernes’ store. Fernes immediately found a space on our street, in a building owned by Wolfgang, a German (duh!) who owns a vehicle rental and whose building also holds Omall’s deli, a small French store run by Omall (sp?), a wonderful French woman who always gives me good recommendations on cheese.

I had wondered where an 18 year-old Dominican kid had gotten the money for such a venture – it turns out his sister, a mall manager in Santo Domingo, is backing the place. I have no idea where she got the money.

Fernes spent another 2 weeks moving the equipment and setting up the new space. Then he put up the satellite dish for real. Then the signal sucked. If more than one person was on one of the new used computers, the bandwidth was ruined, and everything froze. Since it appears Fernes and his local hires have little to no computer skills, this didn’t look good. Then Fernes had someone come in from Santiago to wire the machines. Then they improved. Then they were so-so – sometimes the signal would work, sometimes not. Then they brought in someone from the capital, Santo Domingo, who did further wiring and hooked up a wireless network, upon which my laptop works wonderfully.

One day Fernes asked me if I danced. I told him not well. He told me he is a Christian, and does not smoke drink or dance. I guess his religion says nothing about online dating services, because every time I look at his computer monitor, he is looking at pictures of girls or filling out personality profiles.

Fernes’ English is on a par with my Spanish. He always says “It is good!” and “How are you my friend!” in almost the type of accent you would expect, even though he doesn’t give that impression of being Desi Arnez.

Day 58

I hiked into Playa Madama with Terry, an American who is staying here for two weeks with his wife and children. They live in Camden, Maine, where he runs the mailboat in the non-winter months and they live in a tent on an island all summer. He told me of his time in the Peace Corps on a remote South Pacific island, where he learned the way of the coconut. He - like me, in his 40's - can still climb a palm tree and open a coconut with his teeth.

We had a pleasant hike in, swam and snorkeled for awhile, and walked out. On the way back we cut through Casa Marina, where we ran into Felix, a deaf / mute Dominican who sells coconuts on the beach at the all-inclusive. We have spent a couple days communicating with him - hand signals and pointing and sometimes drawing - and we enjoy seeing eahc other. It feels like we know more about him than we do of some of our speaking Dominican friends. He always tells us he has money and new clothes, and that he sold a lot of coconuts that day.

He gave Terry and I a couple of coconuts, free. We drank the juice, and Terry showed me how to open the shell to get to the meat.

That night Amy, the kids and I went to our favorite local pizza place - L'aventura, a French pizza restaurant. While we were sitting there Felix came by and invited himself to join us. He ordered a beer and pizza for himself. When our food came, we offered it to him, and he tried a slice of Amy and my roquefort pizza. He hated it, and made a wide variety of faces and hand gestures and noises to tell us not to eat it, even though we made it clear we liked it.

Day 57

It occurred to me today, the next level of third world-ness – you can’t count on anything here. This thought happened while I was sitting at the Verizon store, discovering that their systems were down because of all the rain. I ended up going to Fernes’ store where an IT guy from Santo Domingo had been spending the past 3 days re-wiring his systems, and now the wireless network worked there. But, to expand upon my thought, my experience has been that you can’t count on anything – people, businesses, food, weather – to be the same two times in a row here. It is part of the timeless beauty, sure, but it is also wearing and stressful. I am left with the choice of just letting go – letting things happen when they will – or to just keep on trying, and waiting for every item and situation to open itself. This has been good for me, because it has helped me realize to take advantage of each situation, as I won’t know when it will re-occur. But it has been wearing just the same.


we used our new machete to open our first coconut. Amy took the milk and the white fatty lining and blended them to make coconut milk. After cutting the coconut, Benjamin asked me if we could go cut down a tree.

Day 56

RAIN. And then more rain. Kids had a rain day from school.

Day 55

Today we bought a machete. Actually, Kent bought us a machete as a thank you gift. Kent and I have made plans to wear our machetes in public back home this summer, just to see what reactions we get – maybe in a Hannafords. Benjamin is very excited, and has asked me a couple times today why I don’t take my machete outside to hang out with the Dominican guys who wear their machetes. He also asked me why I don ‘t go cut something down with my machete.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: will future obituaries feature your iPod library contents?

Day 54

I had coffee for the 4th time in my life. I may never again, as I doubt it could top this one.

Every Belgian I have met here is a very pleasant - and talented - person. I don’t know if this is true of all Belgians, or just the 3 who’ve escaped. Today we rode - with Kent and Agnes - on horses owned and maintained by Karyn and Ronald, the Belgian couple I had met in my earlier internet searches. They own La Ranchetta, a B&B outside of town. It consists of 3 houses built by Ronald, and a restaurant / bar that he also built, very rustic and beautiful. We rode out to the hill called La Loma (“The Hill”) where many wealthy ex-pats and Santo Domingans are building large houses for the great view of Las Galeras bay. We rode a couple miles up the hill, on a one-horse-wide lane that came to the hilltop above Playa Madama. We got off the horses, climbed down the coral hill to the beach – a little horseshoe cove with a protective reef and a cliff wall rising along the left hand side. We swam for a while, and got out to dry and have some sandwiches that we brought. Karyn asked us if we wanted some of hers, and we told her we didn’t think we got sandwiches on the ½ day trip. She said she thought we were on the full day trip. After a quick conference, which basically involved deciding whether it was okay to pull the kids from school for the third straight day (we were a little apprehensive, but not too) we decided to go for it, and had some of her (well, Ron made them) great bread with eggs and vegetable sandwiches. After this the two Dominican horse guides climbed some palm trees for coconuts, of which they shared 3 styles – the big green shell kind that exist in the trees, which you have to pare down to the brown center, which gives coconut water and the white lining, which is soft and fatty at this stage. They opened some older brown hairy centers, where the white lining had dried and become crisper – Karyn had told us the white lining was all fat – and then found some brown centers that had become seeds, with small trees growing out of them. The white lining of these was even drier and crispier. Then we climbed up the hill on the left side of the cove. We saw some colorful lizards, Karyn told us even more about the local flora, including information on the tree that everyone here claims has cancer-fighting qualities, and we had a wonderful view of Playa Madama. Karyn told me that above Playa Fronton, a beach down the coast, there used to be a lighthouse on the high point, and there are a lot of iguanas there. I’d like to check it out. We came back to the beach, and then Karyn gave us a tour of some caves that are in the hill in back of the beach. We got pretty far inside, where we needed flashlights, and got up close with some rock formations – stalactites, stalagmites and the such.

Karyn was a fount of information. She has obviously lived here awhile, is very interested in the land and the natural conditions, and has explored considerably, although she said Ron tells her about many of the local areas after he explores them. She knew most of the plants, knew where to find and identify many of the animals, and knew most of the local residents. Her respect for the region and its inhabitants was obvious, and at a marked contrast to many of the ex-pats here.

We got back to the beach, and hiked up to the horses. We rode for a couple miles through a small lane, ending up in what looked to be the middle of nowhere but ended up being a remote Dominican farm. Karyn told us we would have coffee or tea here, in a small thatched roof –covered opening with a small kitchen on the end. It rained while we had our drinks, and it was yet another surreal, timeless setting – sitting under a thatched hut in the middle of mountains on a farm that showed no clues of what era it was, through the complete lack of technology. As I said, the coffee was great, and the tea - which was made from grass and herbs the farmer had picked from his own land - was good, also.

GREAT KARYN QUOTE: When describing her neighbor, a farmer who shot an 8 foot Caribbean boa one night – “You can’t wake Dominicans for anything, but if they hear one of their chickens in trouble, they’re up immediately.”

Day 53

I had a cold today – a sore throat, headache, and low energy – which was compounded by a bad night’s sleep the night before. We slept downstairs, as Kent and Agnes are visiting, and put up a new mosquito net in our bedroom. It is a cylindrical shape but, since it hangs from the ceiling fan in the middle of the room, the main opening is at the foot of the bed, leaving us with netting on our heads and faces. After a few hours of feeling like we were being smothered by the cheesecloth killer, we decided to try and put our pillows at the foot of the bed. This was a good idea. After taking some time (it was middle of the night sensibilities – it could have been 3 minutes, but felt like 3 days) to figure out how to close the netting again and rid ourselves of the thousands (middle of the night sensibilities again) of mosquitoes that had made their way in, we got back to sleep.

I had played basketball again the night before. While waiting outside the school, I saw one of the guys I had played with the first night. He had the best English of all the players I met – not great, but not bad, either – much better than my Spanish. He said his name was Manuel, but to call him Audi, as his friends all did. He said this name came from his grandfather having owned an Audi car, which must have been a noticeable event here. We talked awhile, and I told him I had to get some new sneakers, and had been looking in Samana. He said his sister had a store right near the school, and would I like to look at it? I was worried – it felt like yet another instance of someone here trying to get your business - the other day musicians had shown up on our porch / outdoor living room and started playing, then demanded money, then wouldn’t leave even when we asked them and had given them money. We have encountered many people here who, when given any opening at all, stay and become very aggressive in requesting / demanding your business and money. I’m getting used to and getting better at being straight right off the bat – I think it is the American trait to try to be falsely kind, counting on the other person to recognize your subtle yet mannered clues as to when you are no longer interested. When someone doesn’t recognize those clues, we get mad at them, when it is our (okay, MY) lack of honesty and communication skills that create the situation. Anyway, Manuel / Audi asked me to visit his sister’s shop, and I told him I had no money and didn’t want to miss any of the basketball by being at this store. He said it would be 5 minutes at most. I went with him, and his sister had one of those interesting, double-closet-sized shops that I’m becoming more aware of all along the roads. My mall-trained eyes don’t recognize than at first, but now I see more and more of them- among the houses, on side streets – as I walk around the area. She actually had a nice selection of sneakers at very good prices – nothing more than 900 pesos ($30 US), while most of the sneakers I had looked at in Samana had been over 1500 ($45). I asked his aunt who was running the store if she had any in size 12, and she said no, but they could order some the next time their supplier was in town. I made it clear (I hope) to her and Audi that I would like one of two pairs (not both, I hope) in size 12, and said I would look in later this week. On the walk back to the school (it had been no more than 5 minutes, as Audi promised – I like him) Audi told me he worked on motorcycles, he was 21, and he bought English books for himself to teach himself the language. He said it was very important to learn English, because he wanted to meet English-speaking girls, because Dominican girls weren’t nice. I played basketball – no fights tonight – and, on my walk home, Kent and Agnes stopped, as they were driving in from Santiago and I was one of the few white people walking along a street, making me easier to recognize.

As I said, I have a cold. Being sick here makes me feel like I’m on the other side of the plus / minus experience – everything that is good about this place is bad when sick. It doesn’t feel good to be outside. It doesn’t feel good to be inside. Nothing tastes good. The bugs seemed magnified. The sun is too hot. The shade is too cold. It only feels good to take long walks, with the sweating making me feel a bit better.

Day 52

Rainy day. Sore throat. Paranoid in bank line. Stepped in dog shit.

Day 51

I think I’m starting to understand the term third world. When we first got here I wasn’t quite sure. I thought it just meant poverty, or not having access to the newest and best technologies. Having grown up in upstate NY, I didn’t think this was such a big deal – hell, we rode in the open backs of pickup trucks when I was a kid, and made do with used items and without malls – while the poverty is deeper here, I didn’t see that much difference from worlds I’d lived in before, in the US. While I don’t pretend to know all of the intricacies, it’s starting to seep in – third world is more than poverty, it’s all the expectations and experiences that go with poverty, from having lower expectations in equipment and service to taking the most blatant corruptions for granted. We have the stress of overscheduled and poorly prioritized lives at home, but the stress here is of a primal level – you have to worry about physical safety, you have to worry about trusting others around you, you have to worry about the food, shelter and clothing you and your loved ones have or don’t have. You have to worry about doing things by hand over a period of days when the proper machinery would allow you to do it in an hour. You have to worry about all the connecting levels – not only the initial money, but the schedules and honesty and equipment of those you’re dealing with, and the same set of stresses THEY are dealing with, and all the interconnecting layers. The realization, though still on the surface, of this is overwhelming.

My friend Bobbie, who just visited with her husband Kurt, wrote to tell me that they got mugged in Santo Domingo. They escaped physically unharmed, but very scared / scarred by the memory of having a non-English speaking kid hold a knife to them.

Maya, the Swiss masseuse across the street stopped by to talk with Amy yesterday. She goes swimming at Las Galeras every morning – a long swim far out into the ocean. She only wears enough to avoid being indecent walking through town, – a wrap to cover her bathing suit, and sandals, which she hides on the beach. The other day, after going through this routine for the several months she’s lived here, her clothing was stolen. These two stories, combined with the German tourist who got his head bashed in and my current realizations concerning the third world, have me feeling a bit unsafe and unguarded here. Even though we’ve never experienced any crime worse than a taxi driver or vendor trying to get away with gringo prices, it still tints the world here.


CURRENT READING: “McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales,” a collection of short stories, edited by Michael Chabon. Yesterday I read “The Bees,” by Dan Chaon. Who is this person and how does he know my nightmares?

Day 50

We are worried that, by slapping and squishing only the slow-moving mosquitoes that we can catch, we are allowing the fast mosquito gene to be passed on, creating a population of faster mosquitoes. We have resolved to try to slap fast mosquitoes only.

Day 49

I worked on an illustration all day, and went to Lane and Benjamin’s school to play basketball tonight, with some of the locals I have seen and asked about basketball. It was like a game at the Cambridge, MA, USA YMCA, with a bunch of young, athletic guys who don’t know how to play basketball so well. I had fun, I was rusty and, unlike the soccer game which ended in a fight with Italians and Haitians threatening each other with rocks and bottles, this game ended in a fight with two Dominicans wrestling in the grass, after which one ran and got a rock and the other ran home and returned with a knife.

I made my second consecutive visit to a Haitian comedore / bar-restaurant in town that I’ve noticed has quite a crowd in the early afternoon. Yesterday I stopped by the shack-like structure to see what the crowd was for – it turns out they were all there to watch a soap opera-like show. Yesterday the show was something set in Haiti, which seemed to feature two lovers who were having trouble getting together because the woman’s father was a Redd Foxx-like character (how do you say “the Lucille Ball of Haiti?”) who kept on having these physical comedy fits trying to find them and break them up. The midday comedore crowd was eating this up, and I found the production values - a lot of handheld shots, low-budget sets and what seemed to be live traffic and outdoor scenes - pretty impressive. Today I went there hoping to see another episode, but they were playing a bad Spanish horror movie instead. I watched for a while, then took more notice of the very large pig that had been tied to the building across the street and started squealing loudly.