Life in Dominican Republic

At last a blog idea has come to me!

I started writing this on Saturday. Now it is Wednesday, but hey! No problem 😊

Today has been a day of activity, diverse & busy, but not too busy.

I went for my walk to the beach as I try to do every day about 8am. It takes maybe 15 minutes to walk to the beach. The main highway is quickest. Its ok when the road sides are dry as there is no footpath & the verge of the road is usually where all the motorbikes ride. So, if you are on the verge, motorbikes can get close. They move away from the verge with care, as cars & trucks may be passing or driving very quickly. The inner streets of Sosua are safer, but no cleaner with broken footpaths, rubbish, mud, and often water after it rains. So basically, my aim is to get to the beach as quickly as possible as the beach walk is so nice. It is funny to go from one extreme to the other, from dirty disorganised & unsafe roads to a majestic beach with clear water.

So, I got to the beach fairly quickly and then enjoyed walking along the beach to the Charamicos end. Usually at this point, I turn around & walk back, paddling through the water, trying to ignore any garbage that people (usually Dominican) will have left behind on the beach. But today I had decided to get my haircut, & the guy I usually go to is in Charamicos. Last time he was not there & I got another guy in Charamicos to do it. There are lots of barbers there. When I arrived, I met another barber who spoke a little English. He told me that Andrej, my barber, would be there soon, and then I teased him about whether he meant Dominican soon or Gringo soon. As I said to this guy soon might mean next Martes- Tuesday. I was just going to say manana, but as I began to say the word, I realised Martes would emphasise my point about Dominican culture, even better. Dominican culture is laid back.

At this point I said to the guy that I would go and get a coffee and wait for Andrej to arrive. I walked across the street & got a little 10-peso AU25c coffee & 10-peso little cake, walked past two shops, saw that the second shop was a barber shop too. I looked at the people inside and there was my barber Andrej! Cutting another barbers hair. So, I waited there while he finished. Ten minutes he said and 25 minutes later in reality, he was finished 😊

Andrej did a good haircut then I was out of there, walking back along the beach to Sosua, then back to my apartment. Had some breakfast, checked some messages & sent some. Decided to swim as it was cloudy. Usually I swim later in the day when the sun is not shining on the pool. Otherwise it is glary. Yesterday I did not swim as there was a storm. Today given that it was cloudy I decided I might be best to grab a swim rather than chancing later. And good that I did. As a little time after the swim today, the thunder had returned & when I got to comedor for lunch, there was a downpour. Electricity was cut twice yesterday.

As I was walking back to Caribe Campo where my studio apartment is, I stopped near SupaPola supermarket as crossing the main highway there can be dangerous. There is the main highway with people speeding in both directions, cars overtaking, motorbikes weaving in and out, people trying to cross roads, side roads going into and out of street with supermarket & road to where my place is and many other places too. Many accidents here & today while I did not see it, I was there to see the people who had been in the accident. I could see one of the drivers looked to be a Dominican dude and I could not see the other driver. There is a common conversation here in the Dominican Republic about how gringos – foreigners get treated in accidents. And so I decided to check the other driver & if they were foreign I would make sure they were ok.

The other driver was a gringa. She had been coming straight across from the side road, while the guy was coming from the other road opposite and doing a left turn. Neither was on the main road, but he had ventured out onto it, feeling that this gave him right of way. I questioned that, and he said I did not understand the laws of his country! Which would be no laws. The way I could see it, the woman was coming straight across while he was doing a turn into her path, so needed to give way. But he saw that somehow entering onto the highway by a smidgeon, gave him some kind of right of way. As I said, he was getting annoyed that I saw him at fault, so I knew that as another guy, it was time for me to make my exit. I quietly spoke to the gringa & said I believed she was in the right because she was driving straight through, not turning. She had someone with her & then the police arrived, so I realised, what would be would be. I had noticed a woman standing near who works at the comedor where I eat. She had recognised me too. When I saw her at the comedor a few days later, I said it was good that neither of us were in the accident & she told me that the Dominican guy in the accident was her boyfriend! Small world!

Next week I leave here on Tuesday & then travel down to Santo Domingo for the night. The next day across to Punta Cana for flight to Brussels and my latest trek back to Australia. I will travel for 6 weeks through Morocco & Asia before arriving in Sydney to do more teaching 😊