Initial Trip Report from La Republica Dominicana

We are staying at the beautiful Hotel Santo Domingo, which is situated right on the Caribbean coast near the university and not far from the colonial zone. Internet access in the hotel costs about $14 per day, so I have not taken an opportunity before today to go online. I also have access at the university as well, where I am presenting my workshop series in the evening this week.

I have posted a series of photos to my .Mac homepage (no password required) from our initial travels around Santo Domingo and to the east of the city this past weekend.

I will comment at greater length about the Dominican Republic and the situation here later, but for now here are a few short observations:

1. It is clear the Dominican People are both proud of their rich heritage, as the “first in the Americas” for many things, but equally and perhaps even more proud of their current condition as a country that has a rich mix of peoples, cultures, languages, and traditions. It is very interesting for me to contrast my experiences after having lived in Mexico City for a year, and experienced the culture of Mexico, with the things I am encountering here in the DR.

2. Rising gas prices are a problem for people everywhere, but especially on an island country like the DR where there is no domestic petroleum production. Increasing fuel prices affect everything. One tangible sign of this is the electricity rationing, which takes place at different times of the day in different parts of the city. Depending on where you are, the electricity will be cut off for several hours. The people are able to prepare for this and anticipate it, but at times the electricity will go off unexpectedly, although (so far while I have been here) for just a short time. It is an inconvenience but not a huge problem.

3. The history of the DR is really amazing. Obviously every country which had/has an indigenous population has a long history, and the history of which I write here is certainly not a long one to compare with the Mayas of Central America or the Incas of South America. But as far as the history of “el nuevo mundo” (the new world) is concerned, no country can boast a richer heritage than the DR. It was here, on the north coast of the Dominican Republic near the present city of Puerto Plata, that Christopher Columbus (Cristobal Colon, in Spanish) first set foot in the new world (spoken from the European perspective, of course). This past weekend, we walked on streets made of stone that are 500 years old, dating back to the first years of the 1500s when the Spanish viceroyalty was first established in the Americas, here in Santo Domingo.

Of course the history of Haiti, the country which occupies the western third of the island of Hispanola, is also fascinating, and tied directly to both the history and current state of affairs of the DR. In the tourist markets, the artistic influence of the Haitian people is strongly felt, as is the presence of Haitians– who are here in large numbers on both legal and illegal terms. More on this later, and other topics! 🙂