There is a Postal Service in the Dominican Republic but it is either not used, not trusted, or not helpful to the citizens in this old colonial neighborhood.
In the United States, our Post Office is maligned with carriers driving expensive Post Office vehicles, wearing special uniforms, driving to each box instead of walking, possessing good government benefits and retirements, hard to get hired unless you know someone with pull on the inside or you are a woman or minority.
In the Dominican Republic mail goes missing, and, from personal inspection, houses and businesses here don’t even have mail boxes to deposit letters and bills even if someone was delivering it properly.
Therefore, utility bills are delivered, door to door, by a tall friendly man wearing a white shirt with an electric company logo over his left shirt pocket. He stops this morning to visit his customers as he delivers their bills personally, and, if no one is home, stuffs his electric company bill into their locked security doors, rolled up like a small handbill.
For those of us who like to mail ourselves a letter to tell ourselves how great we are, the Dominican Republic is not a good choice.
The best thing is you don’t read about Dominican Republic postal workers shooting up their former workplace with automatic weapons.
Working for the Post Office, in the United States, is a job that some still continue to ” die for. ”
The main water supply line from the street to the house is accessible from the sidewalk. You lift a little metal door in the sidewalk and quickly find a leaking coupling that joins the city part of the water line with the homeowners part of the water line.
This plumber has removed the old connection, a rigid piece of PVC, and is replacing it with a flexible, expandable, temporary PVC coupling.
This plumber has an audience with the lady of the house watching him through her wrought iron front door, and a neighbor and me making sure he knows what he is doing.
Water continues to bubble out of the break as he works.
When he closes the little door, the leak fixed, he might be the only one in this entire city to solve a problem today.
What I’m wondering is when is someone taking out the flexible coupling and installing the meter that measures the water usage of this household?
Water, last time I looked at my bills, wasn’t free.
I’m guessing, as I leave, that, before long, a long bill will be sent and paid.
In the end, we always have to pay, and, leaks that aren’t fixed ,cost us dearly.
Paying high prices for food, that no one but tourists can afford, is not our idea of travel. Our idea at Scotttreks is to find healthy, well prepared food,served in good surroundings, where locals eat, for local prices.
This neighborhood cafe is a six minute walk from the La Puerta Roja Guest House.
At the intersection of Calle Santome and Jose Gabriel Garcia, this neighborhood eatery has no flashing lights, not even a sign on the outside of the building to identify it. I didn’t know it was alive until I looked inside open doors and saw people eating, spotted the sign above the cash register, saw that Google maps said I had arrived by flashing me an arrow.
Next trip back I’ll try some of the potato dishes, cole slaw, beef, plantain, and other Dominican Republic specialties. This trip I’m sticking with rice, chicken and okra cooked like my Dad liked it.
To my south is George Washington Avenue that runs south of the Zona Colonia and is one of the toughest streets to cross in the world because there are no stop lights and I don’t trust people to stop for me in the walkways.
The Caribbean water sparkles in this afternoon sun and the palm trees remind me of Los Angeles, Padre Island and Belize.
I have my favorite places.
Most of them are warm, by an ocean, and in the Caribbean.
Games of choice on the neighborhood streets seem to be dominoes and chess but I have also seen checkers and card games with money on the table.
This street corner game, in progress,even has an official scorekeeper who shouts out the score at the end of each game and visits his cell phone often. Some of us pedestrians stop to watch. This is likely an ongoing game between friends who have money and/or bragging rights involved.
The men don’t talk much. They slap their dominoes on the board when they make a play. When they shuffle the dominoes to start each new game in the series, it sounds like feet hitting the floor in a salsa dance.
It is quitting time, with darkness starting to move in, and the most conspicuous thing missing is rum.
When this tournament is over, the players and onlookers will go into the nearby colmado and take care of drinking business.
It doesn’t cost much to sit on this corner. When one tournament is over, different players take seats at the table and start another. There is luck involved as well as skill. You can have good dominoes but it you don’t play them right they aren’t worth a damn
No one says anything about my picture taking, and, I wouldn’t expect them too.
These guys wives, and girlfriends, know where they are.
There is always a plaza in these old historical centers, full of people and things to see and do.
People who run the country work inside offices that surround the plaza, eat in restaurants on the corner, attend civic functions in the square, make business and romantic deals on these same benches we tourists use to take a breather.
This plaza is jumping today with a sound stage, live music, speeches, booths with information on stopping domestic violence and helping police help the public more effectively. There is a news crew moving about and men with big cameras are getting big pictures for the evening news. The female news anchor is properly curvy and young and we will like watching the news tonight even if we don’t like what is being said.
Pigeons in the square look for handouts and aren’t disappointed. They remind me of Sebastian Park in Cuenca and the street pigeons in San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua.
When the kids run at them, the birds take flight, but soon, they drop back to the ground and fight for whatever has been offered to them.
The plaza has been here since the 1500’s, when the first Cathedral in the New World was finished and Christianity was brought to pagans who were subdued by swords and better technology.
I imagine kids were chasing pigeons, even in the 1500’s, and these benches were still occupied by tourists come to listen to Sunday Mass from the courtyard as Cathedral hymns flowed out the heavy iron doors like melodic waves.
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