Buenos Dias Santo Domingo

Well, I was indeed sweating upon arrival to Santo Domingo. The first couple of days here were in the 90’s and HUMID! Hauling my possessions for the next to months in my big Jansport backpack, 1 duffel bag, and a smaller backpack, I was greeted by several smiling faces and your classic “Welcome Travis” (or whoever sign) after shuffling through customs. After exchanging sweaty cheek kisses (as seems to be the custom in most of Latin America) with the ladies and friendly hugs with the guys, we took off to a nearby restaurant on the ocean.
The food here is pretty similar to that of Costa Rica from what I have seen so far. It is generally fairly plain. Lots of soups, veggies, chicken, and of course a TON of rice and beans (habichuelas here in the DR). The restaurant we went to seemed fairly upscale, but I still thought it was pretty odd when we received our bill that showed we each owed 520 pesos. Here, there are 33.6 pesos to the dollar. So our meal, which cost us 16 dollars each, should have been enough for the average Dominican to live on for a week. Hmmmm, I quietly thought to myself, I come to a country to walk among the poor and try with whatever skills I may have to move towards a world where poverty is abolished and the inequalities are lessened, and this is how I begin this work?
Like most developing countries the DR is subject to the huge inequalities that exist between the majority of the poor and the fraction of wealthy individuals that hold nearly all of the countries wealth. Most of this money is concentrated in the urban cities and dotted along the northern coastlines where small resort towns thrive upon tourism. It is said that 60% of the people in Dominicana live on less than $2.00 a day. A pretty staggering fact that was hard for me to digest at the time as I looked around me at the well-dressed families (who were actually celebrating mothers day) and nice cars that drove the streets of the city. But as I found out a couple of days later, you don’t have to drive too far to find yourself amongst those that live each day hand to mouth. I’ll go more into that later.
So my first several days were spent doing an orientation with Esperanza. Similar to our time in PA (although certainly on a much more Latin schedule (Slooooow)), we were walked through the inner-workings of the organization and met all of the people in the Santo Domingo office. My two other companions for the first couple days were Lindsay Garber and Julie Lutz, who are also down here for a few months before they transition into the big, bad, post college world. We arrived on a Sunday afternoon, so our first morning at the office began with their Monday morning ritual, which was pretty cool. To begin each week, everyone at the office gathers on top of the building where they sing worship songs in Spanish, have coffee, and someone shares a message for the week. It was so cool to sing all of the old Sunday school classics a capella and in Spanish! The entire group of people at the office in Santo Domingo is amazing. After spending only 3-4 days there I was sad to leave the people that had so quickly befriended me. From what I have seen in my first week here, Dominicans are some of the friendliest natured people I have ever met. When walking down the street, a prolonged stare will usually end in a friendly smile or a “buenas”, a nicety that is usually spared to most gringos visiting Latin American countries. Relationships between friends and coworkers are filled with plenty of jokes and a pretty light-hearted atmosphere. While undoubtedly still with their own share of problems, like everyone in the world, these people seem to genuinely care for one another and at least appear to respect and show kindness to foreigners. Well, this shouldn’t be half bad ☺.