As I am sure everyone noticed, the title of this blog post is in Spanish rather than Creole. In honor of my trip to the Dominican Republic last weekend, this blog post features a Dominican proverb in place of the traditional Haitian proverb.
The trip itself was a blast. The Dominican Republic, while still a developing countries in many senses, is miles ahead of Haiti. It has paved roads everywhere, shopping malls, and (at least one) Krispy Kreme. Needless to say, I was totally blown away by all the American fast food chains (everything from Burger King to Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs to TGI Fridays) and wealth just on the other side of this small island. I took full advantage of their widespread use of air conditioning and delivery pizza.
The border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti was quite hectic. As you can see in the photo, there is a large wall with a gate that opens at precisely 8:00am upon which the crowd storms through in order to get to the large market that operates on the border. We waited until all the shoppers and merchants had entered before going through, getting our passports stamped, and hopping on a bus to Santo Domingo.
The purpose of the trip was to go see mutual friends graduate from University in the Dominican Republic. We actually ended up going to two different ceremonies, one in Santo Domingo and one in Santiago. This is a photo of the ceremony in Santiago. It was outside and absolutely packed.
This is a photo of us with the graduate from the ceremony in Santiago. He grew up in the small village where I live now and just graduated from medical school. It was a big deal and heartwarming to see the community come out to support him. There were probably 20 people from the village who traveled all the way across the island just to celebrate with him. Trying to 'make it' in Haiti is so difficult and occasions like this are so rare, it was a special thing to see.
While in the Dominican Republic, our Haitian friends used the shopping malls to purchase suits for the ceremonies. Above is a picture of me and one of my Haitian friends looking as fresh as possible. For whatever reason, Haitians don't smile or show their teeth in pictures.
After attending graduations all day on Saturday, we went to the public beach near Santo Domingo on Sunday. Surprisingly, it was a beautiful place and much cleaner than I expected. I also got to try octopus on the beach. It just tasted like calamari.
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