Republica Dominicana 08'

As you read this, please remember that beauty is in the eye of he who perceives and that I have not completely worked out why this place impacted me the way it did. I hope that this writing will help clear some of that for me.

Although the terrain looks very intriguing and undeveloped as you fly into the Puerta Plata Airport, I found myself immediately uncomfortable and restless as we landed. I am not certain if it that I hadn't fully decided if I really wanted to be there or not or if being on this trip at all seemed important or relevant to me. I kept trying to resolve that and am not sure that I really did. I certainly came to an understanding that I was there and could deal with it and would look for the good in being here, but it was a real struggle.

Although it is an island and has a lot of the ambiance of an island it was quickly obscured by the rest of the details, feel and look of the place from the minute I got off the plane. We had to wait for a while to disembark from the small plane that flew us over form Puerto Rico to the Republic. This is a typical understanding of island life, it seems. No one is in a hurry to do anything at a specific time. (this may not be true but it was the way I experienced it from the get go). Once down the stairs and off the plane we were off on a guided 1/8 mile walk across the tarmac towards the terminal. Once in the terminal you are directed to a line. This part is not a typical when visiting a foreign country as you might expect. We have to go thru customs so there must be some order to the process. This line however was not for customs but it turned out to be the line for each person to buy a $10 US dollar visitor pass. After being directed by and asked to form two separate side by side lines by the armed line agent, waiting and meandering thru the line that takes about 15 minutes, you step up to one of two people collecting funds in what would appear to be a quickly constructed plywood cubical with a door, a framed open window like opening and no ceiling.

Although the set up was rather rinky dink by what we are accustomed to from the states, (perhaps we would at least get a colorful carpeted kiosk with electric and phones for the extraction of funds booth) the plywood box constructed specifically for collecting the money and handing over the small, printed card stock, pass was sort of what you would expect from a developing country and fits in quite well as I would come to find. Actually it may have been one of the finer stand alone structures we would run across for the rest of the trip, that wasn't included in some resort property on the island.

The housing is large enough for two people to sit on stools inside and collect the requisite monies from the tourist, put it into a metal cash box sitting right there on the plywood shelf between you and the receiver. Don't worry about anyone grabbing the money and running or trying to avoid paying the dues and getting your pass, we are still in the first staging area of your entrance into the country and there is no obvious way out without going thru the customs lines and then a single entrance to the baggage claim area and the rest of the airport or to run back out thru the entrance from the landing area from which you came (past the first armed guard). Besides everyone has a gun of some sort (here) in this area and as we would soon find out thru out the island.

After getting your travelers chit, you are somewhat confusingly moved on to the next person in the maze, who is actually standing about 100 feet away down near the customs lines on the exact opposite end of this enclosed area. Now this only makes sense if you think about staging many people at one time so there would be much room between the visitor pass area and the custom agent area, but only then would it not feel like I was just traversing the airport area like I had just joined the Army and you were doing this just because they said so. This person directs you to the appropriate customs agent based, I think on where you are from or was it how many of you there are in your party and trying to keep the lines moving. We actually did move fast then and surprisingly we were thru customs in a matter of a minute.

Buying the pass was much more time consuming, like 10 - 15 fold, then getting thru customs. And this is the beginning of and sets the stage for what is the most important or at least most prevalent part of being in this country, the releasing of, asking for or otherwise devising ways to get money from my pocket into the hands of the people that live here in and unending stream of ways. Some of them fall under the category of we have to (like eating and if you rent a car like we did, having fuel) and others are completely unwarranted or desired. I will address them later to, I'm sure, the degree of boredom and them I will quit for you will have certainly gotten the point by then.

I apologize in advance. I am a person who does look for what is great in any place or setting I find myself in. This will, for me, turn into an understanding and compassion for the happy and very friendly people of this country (especially the children). But it was not what I had expected for a winter time Caribbean Island vacation. It felt more like I was supposed to be doing charity work and it was not time for me to do that. This is all good and turns out fine but just another place for me to look at how I process thru these weird spots in my thoughts.

I don't think that I gave it enough thought before coming here regarding the aspect of this island being a Developing Country.