What about your saucepans?

Chicken, rice and beans the Anglo/Indian way

2012-03-09T12:24:00.000-04:00

There comes a time when a girl cannot face chicken rice and beans anymore! It is the staple Dominican diet, and in my house we have it at least 3 times a week if not more. Being English, and being that our national food has changed over the decades from roast beef and fish and chips to Indian curries, I have managed to morph Dominican chicken rice and beans into Indian chicken curry with lentil dahl and rice. Not only do I love it, but so do my Dominican family, so everyone is happy.

If I was in England I would just pop down to my local supermarket, buy a packet of chicken curry and stick it in the microwave. No packets here so we have to start from scratch and adapt as necessary to what is available here. So here is my recipe for Chicken Dopiaza which means Chicken double onion.

1. Slice up six (yes six) large onions and fry in some oil until soft.
2. Add six or more cloves of garlic crushed and around an inch of fresh ginger cut up finely and fry a little more.
3. Add two teaspoons each of turmeric, coriander and garam masala spices. If you can't get garam masala then add two teaspoons in total of a mix of cloves, black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon and cumin.
4. Add a whole chicken cut up into about 6 pieces with the skin taken off - feet and all if you like.
5. Cover with chicken stock, or water and a couple of Maggi stock cubes.
6. Simmer for around 2 hours with no lid on until the chicken falls off the bone and there is only a little thick sauce left.
7. Add salt if needed (you won't need it if you have used Maggi stock cubes) and I add 4 or 5 chillis.
8. If Dominican and can do mouth aerobics with chicken bones and pick them clean whilst inside mouth then leave on bone. I take the chicken off the bone!

Chicken Dopiaza

While the chicken is cooking make your Indian dahl.

1. Take a 1lb bag of lentils (red if you can get them, but I use brown ones as can't find red ones) and simmer in lots of water with 2 teaspoons turmeric, 2 teaspoons coriander, 1 teaspoon sugar, half teaspoon salt and 6-10 chillis cut up small. Use less chillis if you don't want it too hot.
2. Top up water as necessary until lentils are nice and soft and just a little water left, around 45 minutes.
3. In a frying pan melt around 4 oz butter, and fry a couple of onions and some garlic until brown.
4. Then add to the frying pan 3 or 4 tomatoes cut up small, plus a big handful of fresh coriander (cilantro in American I think), also finely chopped.
5. Add a teaspoon of chilli powder and a teaspoon of garam masala if you have it.
6. Mix in with the lentils.

Dahl

Serve with rice and also wraps which you can pretend are chapatis! Or you can try and make Naan bread.

It really is a lovely alternative to chicken, rice and beans, and I have found that Dominicans love it, and you can leave the chillis out or put less in for those who don't like spicy food.

Country living

2012-03-07T12:11:00.001-04:00

This is an excerpt from my column in Expat Focus this month. You can read the full article here.

Out of the population of 10 million in the Dominican Republic, around 30% live in the country, in small settlements known as campos. Life in the campo is very different from life in the towns and cities, due to the lack of infrastructure and lack of work. Poverty is rife, but somehow the inhabitants of the campos survive, and raise children who then often leave to find work in the towns and cities.

The houses in the campos are usually made of planks, sliced up palm trees, although the richer will build theirs out of concrete blocks. The poorest houses are made of twigs or sugar cane, woven together. The roofs are invariably zinc sheet. Inside the houses the floor will just be dirt, or concrete for those who can afford it. The number of rooms in the house, will again depend on how much money the occupants have. Those who can afford it have a bedroom separate from the living area, and some even have two bedrooms, one for the children. Otherwise the children sleep in with the parents.

The living area may also have a kitchen at one end, but the majority has an outside kitchen or no kitchen at all. Cooking is usually done on a fogon, either made of cement like a table with an indent in it for the fire, or simply three concrete blocks on the floor with a space in the middle where you put either the wood or the charcoal.

Outdoor kitchen in the campo

One of the main problems in the campo is the water. In some areas the public water system delivers water in pipes, and a few people have a tap in the kitchen. More have a tap in the garden or maybe one in one garden which several people use. If there is no piped water to the community, then the alternatives are to dig a well, or to go to the river and conserve rainwater too. In some areas water is delivered in a truck – although most campo folk could not afford this. In many campos, as the sun loses its heat in the late afternoon, you can see a steady stream of donkeys laden with plastic containers of all shapes and sizes, heading down to the river.

K is for Kite boarding

2012-03-05T12:16:00.000-04:00

Moving along with my A-Z of the Dominican Republic and K is for Kite boarding.

Cabarete is a small beach village in the North of the Dominican Republic and has been home to the kite boarding world championships since 2001.

Zephaniah Kingsley

It was founded under the name of Cabaret in 1835 by an Englishman called Zephaniah Kingsley who was a plantation owner and slave trader in Florida. Kingsley was a polygamist who had four wives, the first one being Anna who he purchased when she was 13.

Anna Kingsley

When a law was passed in Florida forbidding interracial marriages, he moved to the Dominican Republic, which was under Haitian rule at the time, and set up his 35,000 acre Mayorasgo de Koka estate on the north coast, along with his wives and 53 slaves. His descendants are still in the area today and you can read more about Zephaniah and his family here.

Cabarete 1984

Some 150 years later, in 1984, the secret of Cabarete was apparently discovered by a man called Jean Laporte who came to the Dominican Republic to do some windsurfing. He travelled from the south coast to the north in search of wind and arrived at what is now Cabarete. At that time there was no tourism there at all, just a long sandy curving bay, fishermen and of course wind.

Photograph by Jürgen Warschun

Sitting sipping a Presidente beer, he suddenly noticed that the wind was picking up, so he went out into the bay on his board and was amazed to find perfect conditions as the afternoon went on. He then contacted a French Canadian sail board magazine and within six months half of the world's windsurfing community were aware of Cabarete. You can read more about how he discovered Cabarete here.

Photograph by Jürgen Warschun

Nowadays, Cabarete is known as one of the finest places for kite boarding in the world. The reason is that there are trade winds together with thermals, which make for strong and consistent winds. The wind blows easterly and starts tostrengthen at around 11am in the morning. For an hour or so the conditions are perfect for beginners, and then at around 12.30 to 1.30 the thermals kick in and the wind really picks up. It is at its strongest at around 4pm and then by 6pm it has gone again.

These conditions make Cabarete the perfect place for a kite boarding holiday. But Cabarete has more to it than just kite boarding. The beach is lined with bars and restaurants with all different types of cuisine, and is a lovely place to go for a long leisurely lunch. You can eat fabulous seafood and spend the afternoon watching other people exercise as they glide across the water on their boards.

The Market

2012-03-02T13:48:00.000-04:00

I go to the market once a week or so. It is about a 20 minutes walk, and has around 8 stalls inside a small shed with a tin roof. Each of the stalls sells slightly different produce - one is mostly Dominican root vegetables such as yam, yucca, pumpkins, sweet potato and a vegetable called yautia, which is either white, yellow or one they call yautia coco. I have absolutely no idea what the English equivalent is, although I suppose they are a bit like parsnip or swede but unfortunately do not have the same taste as parsnip.

The stall I tend to go to most is next to the chicken seller. The chickens, turkeys and guinea fowl are weighed and then they will kill and pluck them for you for a small extra fee.

I made the mistake of buying a turkey once for Christmas. It weighed in at 14 lbs, but by the time it had been plucked and cleaned it can't have weighed more than 4 or 5lbs - like a chicken really, and was the toughest bird I have ever eaten in my life!

Inside you can buy all the vegetables which are really fresh. Here you can see tomatoes, peppers, aubergine, cucumber, cabbage, carrots and the bananas hanging up.

Here is on the other side, jars of cashew nuts on the top shelf, which are grown locally, and pumpkins, potatoes, yautia behind the potatoes. When I took this picture last week she had leeks which you can see in the foreground.

The customer service is excellent, you just have to wait for the owner of the stall to finish on her mobile phone, which often takes a while!

J is for Jarabacoa and Jalao

2012-02-26T13:15:00.000-04:00

Continuing the A-Z of the Dominican Republic, here is letter J. This time a place and a sweet.

Jarabacoa is a very special place in the middle of the Dominican Republic, in that it is not at all what you would expect to find on a Caribbean island. There is no beach, as it is in the centre of the country. Whilst the sun shines as it does all over the island, it is cold. Not like English weather cold, but significantly colder than the rest of the country, with temperatures typically between 16 and 22 degrees all year round, but known to drop as low as 7 degrees in the winter. The reason for this is it is located at 530 metres above sea level.

The name Jarabacoa is a Taino Indian word meaning 'the place where water flows', and does it flow! There are three rivers, the Baiguate, Jimenoa and the Yaque del Norte, which at 298 kilometres long, is the longest river in the Dominican Republic. It goes all the way through the Cibao valley and enters the sea just to the west of Monte Cristi in the very North West of the country. With all of this water, Jarabacoa is famous for its waterfalls and white water rafting.

Jarabacoa was inhabited by the Taino Indians ,and then the Spanish who came looking for silver and gold. It was then more or less abandoned as they moved on to explore other places, and was not inhabited again until around 1805 when the Haitian survivors of the massacres in Santiago and La Vega escaped there. They built a small settlement which grew during the Haitian occupation of the Dominican Republic from 1822 to 1844. In 1854 it was formerly declared a town.

Nowadays it is a place where Dominicans build their summer homes, to get away from the heat on the coast and especially in the cities. It is much loved by tourists, especially those who are into outdoor activities, as there is horse riding, canyoning, para gliding and a whole range more. It is also famous for its agriculture: coffee, peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, cabbages, aubergines, carrots, beetrooot and strawberries.

A beautiful oasis in the centre of the country, fresh clean mountain air and stunning vistas.

Dominican sweets are on the whole, very sweet. Many also contain coconut, and the sweet called Jalao is no exception. They are basically made of honey or molasses and shredded coconut and are on sale in all the colmados, usually for a few pesos each. All of the Dominican members of my family adore them, and I must admit I am pretty partial to them too. I had no idea they were so easy to make until I found this recipe here from Aunt Clara. Enjoy!

Barrio Stew

2012-02-22T12:59:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I decided to cook a stew for dinner. It is my version of Irish stew but using the ingredients I can get here. So it is made of beef, potatoes, carrots, aubergines, tayota, yuca, pumpkin, Dominican wine, a Maggi stock cube and tomato paste with fresh thyme and cilantro. Unfortunately no dumplings as I can't find suet here. Anyway, I put it in the oven at 5pm as you have to cook the beef for 3 hours to make it tender. All was going well until I went to check on it at 7pm and the gas had run out. We have gas in tanks which you take to a station to fill up. And the only time it runs out is when you are cooking - understandably I suppose, but mine always seems to run out in the evening when the gas station is shut. It never seems to last long anyway, and that is either because the gas station does not put in the amount you pay for, the meter showing how much is being put in the tank is dodgy, the motoconcho man who takes it does not put an amount equal to the money you have given him, or there is a leak somewhere. I can't find any leak.

Well it ran out and the stew was half cooked and stone cold. Luckily we have a little barbecue so number two stepson was speedily dispatched to buy charcoal, which he did. Then the second problem was trying to get the damn thing to light, as we had no firelighters. However, I was not worried as I know how inventive Dominicans can be.

We managed to get it going and we all blew on the tiny little flame to try and get the rest of the charcoal to catch. Then number one stepson said he had a better idea and brought the fan outside which he said would save us blowing. Good idea but it didn't work.

Next plan was to look for some plastic - apparently plastic cups are the best, but we had none. Tried a plastic bag but it just made a mess. Number two stepson went to neighbour and came back with plastic cup.

Success, it worked straight away and then we just had to wait for the charcoal to really glow then on went the stew.

Once the stew went on the fire the dogs became very interested. I was terrified that Silly Boy (blind rescued English Mastiff) would walk into it as he usually does when it isn't lit. Although he is totally blind he manages to know where the walls are but always walks into things in the middle of the garden. Hence his name as we are always saying, "You silly boy!" He got close but luckily the heat must have put him off.

Once the fire was really going you could hear the bubbling from far and wide - so much for slow cooking the beef, and the smell wafted through the streets of the barrio.

At last at nearly 10pm dinner was ready, and delicious it was too. What a performance though but it has happened before and no doubt will happen again next time the gas goes.

I is for Iglesia

2012-02-20T17:28:00.002-04:00

The next installment in the A-Z of the Dominican Republic - I for Iglesia which means church in Spanish. The Dominican Republic is a Catholic country in that Catholicism is the official religion, however, according to the Constitution of the country it is not a state religion. The Catholic church does however have special privileges in that they can use public funds to underwrite some church expenses and they have exoneration from all customs duties. Almost all of the guidebooks say that 95% of the population are Catholic which always seemed high to me, and according to research carried out by Gallup in 2006 the figure then was 40% practising Catholics, 30% non practising, 20% Protestant and 10% no religion. The growing segment appears to be Protestant with hundred of little churches of all types - Evangelical, Methodist, Adventist - plus those run by overseas missionary groups such as Jehovah's Witness and Mormons. There are also other religions such as Jewish and Muslim and the Haitian influence has also meant that in most areas there is a local voodoo branch, or the Dominican version known as brujeria, but it is usual to go to church and also go to the brujo at the same time - as a sort of back up really.

The first cathedral in the Americas

On Sundays here in the barrio I can hear singing and shouting and clapping from around eight churches, and that is just those I can hear from my house. God is invoked in most conversations. When you say goodbye to someone they say, "Go with God," when you ask the butcher if he will have pork chops tomorrow he says, "If God wishes it".

Everyone appears to believe in God and if I have ever tried to discuss Darwin's evolution theory I have been totally shot down in flames and retold the story of Adam and Eve.

The interior of the Catedral de Santa Maria

Looking then at churches, the two most impressive here are both Catholic. The first is the Catedral de Santa Maria la Menor, and was the first Cathedral to be built in the Americas. It is in the old Colonial Zone in the capital Santo Domingo and was started in 1512 and finished in 1540. The remains of Christopher Columbus were there until they were moved to a lighthouse built further along the coast.

Cathedral in Higuey

The second famous cathedral is called the Sanctuary of the Miraculous Virgen of Altagracia in the City of Higuey. Higuey is in the East of the country and the name actually means sunlight in the languages of the indigenous Taino Indians, probably as the sun would rise there first. This cathedral was opened in 1971on the original site of a sanctuary housing a painting of an image of the Virgin brought here by the Spanish in the 1500's. The cathedral is noted for its designs of oranges as apparently the Virgin appeared in a local orange grove and many susbsequent miracles have happened in the area. The Virgin of Altagracia is the Patron Saint of the country, and one out of twelve Dominican women are called Altagracia. Every year on 21st January - Altagracia Day - thousands of Dominicans flock to the cathedral to pray to the picture of the Virgin, which is in a frame made of Dominican gold and studded with precious stones.

When I was shot several Dominicans went there from all over the country to ask the Virgin to help me, and then insisted I returned to thank her for my return to health. Which I did.

The famous painting

Where is my internet?

2012-02-16T20:10:00.001-04:00

I have internet through a stick. Well my husband calls it an estick. It is a thingy that I plug into my computer and hey presto I have internet.You can tell I am technical. It is not fast but it works and is portable so even on the beach I can be online. It was very useful two days ago when we had no electricity,and the battery went in laptop, so I went and sat in the colmado on a beer crate, balanced my lap top on a box of oil and was on line courtesy of my estick.

Anyway I decided I needed a faster line and a wifi in the house so husband and stepkids could also have internet. At the moment they have to wait till I go to bed and then they nick my estick. Went to the internet office Claro, filled in the forms for a fixed line and they said no problems you will have internet in 5 working days. A month went past and they decided I had to pay a deposit. I paid. Then we called Claro and they said your line will be in by Monday. Monday arrived and nothing. Called again and they said the order had been cancelled as I hadn't paid. Back to the office. All was fine, and they promised order sorted and would have fixed line by Friday.

Today is Thursday. Man from Claro arrives and says the lines come from a post with a box on it. I can see the post from my house. But the box is full. It has plugs in it for the lines and all the plugs have lines? So there are no empty plugs. There is another box but it is too far away so sorry I have to just live with my estick!

I really am convinced I am living 50 years ago. We need one of these ladies here to sit outside the box and plug us all in when we need to be online. Must have been a great job listening to everyone's conversations. Anyway until I can persuade Claro otherwise will just have to live with my estick.

H is for Hambre and Habichuelas con Dulce

2012-02-15T15:18:00.000-04:00

Letter H in the A to Z of the Dominican Republic series and I couldn't decide between these two, so decided to write about both of them.

Hambre means hunger, and when I used to think of people being hungry, I thought of Africa and deserts, millions of people with no food or water anywhere, not a Caribbean island rich in agriculture, fruit and vegetables, coffee and cocoa, meat and fish. I could bore you with figures from the World Health Organisation, UNICEF, the UN and a whole host more, but suffice it to say that in the Dominican Republic 29% of people are below the poverty line and the same number again just above it. The problem starts at birth, as breast feeding is not the norm. Some say due to culture, some that the women think it will destroy their figures, some that they need to be seen to buy formula as it shows they are rich and only the poor breast feed. Formula is expensive and needs to be mixed with clean water. Many use well water to mix it, some use flour and water so it looks like formula, and other such concoctions. The children are not starving, but they are hungry and malnourished. From 1940 to 1989 UNICEF states that 265,000 Dominican children died of malnutrition. The problem continues through life. It is not that there is no food, it is that it is expensive compared to the income levels. More than 2 million Dominicans live on less than US$2 a day - that is for everything not just for food. And a significant percentage have only a little more than that. The main meal is eaten at noon, and is usually rice and beans and a small amount of meat. No green vegetables, occasionally a little salad. And very little real nourishment. This is the way of life for most of the population, and has an effect on the cultural differences when someone who has never suffered from hunger marries a Dominican who has.

I am used to shopping for at least a week at a time, which is what I did when I was first with my husband and his kids. Big mistake, as the kids would eat everything on the day I brought it home from the supermarket. Investigation revealed that they believe that if there is food there you eat it as you do not know when there will be food again. I would buy a pack of 6 oranges - gone in 10 minutes. Another slightly annoying habit is to eat all the peanut butter, or whatever and then leave the jar in the fridge so it looks like it has not been eaten. They would always leave a tiny amount behind though! Juice cartons with a centimetre of juice left in them, the same for the milk, and the chocolate wrapper beautifully arranged to hide the fact that there was only one square left. They found it impossible to eat one biscuit from a packet, one toffee from a box, they all had to be eaten straight away. And given that they had never eaten vegetables it was very hard to make them start and to educate them on the benefit of vitamins.

The food issues spread through all events. At weddings or dinners you eat at the very end of the event, as if you eat early then people will leave as soon as they have eaten, so you must always remember to eat before you go out or spend all evening very hungry or very drunk as the drink flows and on an empty stomach it is not wise. Speeches are before the food not afterwards and I have been to upmarket dinners where the event started at 7pm and we eventually ate at around 11pm

I have no idea what the solution is, and there are several discussions and meetings happening at high levels on a daily basis to try and solve the malnutrition and hunger issues here. But how can it be that in a country so rich in food from the land and the sea, so many people are hungry?

Moving on to a happier topic - habichuelas con dulce - sweet beans literally. This is a famous sort of thick, sweet bean soup or drink which everyone eats at Easter time. it seems that everywhere you look someone is slurping it. If you don't cook it yourself then you will not be short of it as every neighbour will bring you a plastic cup of theirs. Personally it is not really my cup of tea, but I have never found a Dominican who does not love it. It is made of beans, raisins, sugar, coconut milk, evaporated milk and sweet potatoes. Some add cinnamon, some cloves, some all spice, but every family has their own recipe. Many put little rich tea biscuits floating on the top here. For those who want to give it a try, there is a recipe here.

G is for Gallo, Gallero, Gallera

2012-02-12T15:12:00.000-04:00

The whole idea of cockfighting is pretty horrifying to me, but it is a major part of Dominican culture, some say the biggest sport after baseball. It dates back to before the Spanish arrived and is enjoyed by rich and poor alike. The word for cockerel is gallo in Spanish, the cockfighting ring is a gallera and the man who owns the bird is called a gallero. Plenty of letter G for this post in the A-Z of the Dominican Republic. I did consider calling the post "Dominican men and their cocks" but I thought people searching on Google may end up being disappointed.

The fighting cock apparently originated in India more than 4,500 years ago and is usually a very colourful bird, bred to be aggressive. It takes around 18 months for him to reach maturity, during which time he is completely spoiled by his owner, often living in the house, sleeping in his bed, eating the very best food and treated better than the wife or children. Just like boxers, weight is essential and the feathers on the chest and belly are often removed to give them less weight and more speed so they tend to look a tad odd.

Every town will have an arena or gallera, and on the day of the fight everyone goes to the arena where the cocks are weighed and resin spurs are fixed on. This is a time for fun and laughter, gossip and betting. There is a referee in charge of proceedings and the owners whisper instructions to their cockerel, who I assume understands them. Once the fight starts, all hell breaks loose with people screaming and shouting and betting. The fights are timed and will go on for the set amount of time or until one cock dies or gives up.

The cock will usually only fight once or twice a month, and once they have won at least 9 fights then they can be given a name, before that they are usually just named after an aspect of their appearance, like my cat with a white tail is called, oddly enough, white tail.

My husband with the unlucky bird from across the road

We have a man living opposite us who is a gallero. Every night he would sit on a plastic chair with his cock on his lap, stroking it and talking to it. He would have a constant stream of visitors coming to see him and the cock. Last week at around 11pm one of my cats brought in a cock’s head. It was the head of the cockerel from over the road. Panic ensued as my husband and I looked around in the dark for the body. He said we could stick the head on with taypee and put it by the side of the road and the owner would think it had been run over by a motorcycle. I knew better than to ask where the owner would think the taypee had come from. Anyway no sign of cock, and I was in panic mode thinking of the potential retribution for murdering his cock. However number two step son mentioned later that the cock had had its first fight and lost and had been killed. In true cockfighting tradition his owner had brought him home and eaten him, apart from the head, which he had thrown away. The cat was simply helping himself to the rubbish. Phew – thank goodness for that.

Where I live now, you cannot walk for more than 10 minutes without bumping into men with their cockerels under their arms, or sitting on a plastic chair with their cock on their lap and a bottle of beer in their hand. They take their cockerels everywhere, to the colmado, to the bank or just to visit friends.

A great Dominican tradition.

New buttons and sad news

2012-02-10T15:15:00.000-04:00

I am improving my computing skills and have put a few new buttons on this blog. You should now be able to see where people are logging on from. I am fascinated by this and spend all the time watching to see who is reading, yelling out to no one in particular things like, "And here is Kiev!", "Welcome California!", "Hola, Madrid!".

I have also put a button on which should link to an interview I had with Expat Focus - for those of you who want to know more about me, and how I ended up in the Dominican Republic. There is another Expat Focus button which will take you to my monthly column there, and other columnists which I thought you might enjoy reading too.

I am very impressed with myself!

The very sad news this week is that Tyson, our 7 year old Great Dane had to be put to sleep as he was paralysed from the waist down. He was a fabulous dog with an amazing personality and touched the hearts of all who knew him. He adored people and had so many friends, we are missing him terribly. RIP Tyson.

Tyson with Heather from Canada and Fred in the background

Tyson on the PC helping Shirley from the UK but now living in the DR

Tyson having a beer with Welsh Ian who now lives in the Canary Isles

Tyson dancing with me

Tyson having cake and a glass of wine on the occasion of Ian from Canada's birthday

Tyson looking especially handsome

Tyson with Chris from England

Tyson having a snooze with his favourite cat, Matilda

F is for una Fria and Fiao

2012-02-07T12:49:00.000-04:00

The next letter in the world blogging challenge to blog the letters in the alphabet. This was a hard one, but I thought I would write something which will resonate with all the Dominicans who read this blog.

F is for una Fria. Fria means cold in Spanish, so when you ask for a cold one, you mean cold beer. Not just a cold beer but an ice cold beer. Dominicans will not drink their beer warm, nor even cold. It has to be ice cold. They say it has to be covered in ashes (cenizas) or wearing a wedding dress (una vestida de novia) to describe the white frosting on the outside of the bottle.

There are three main brands of beer; Presidente, Bohemia and Brahma but by far the most popular is Presidente. You can buy it in all of the colmados and bars and everyone will always check it is cold enough before buying it. They come in three sizes, small, large and jumbo. The large one costs a pound or US$1.50.

There is a bit of a performance when you buy the beer. The top is flipped off, usually using the counter top, and then out come the serviettes. The first one is used to wrap around the top of the bottle. I was told that there was always a chance that rats might have peed on the bottles when they were in the warehouse or stacked up in the colmado, so it is used to wipe the top of the bottle. The second serviette is wrapped around the bottle to stop your hands getting too cold, and to absorb the water from the ice. Alternatively the bottle is put in a brown paper bag.

I am not a beer drinker, but there is nothing like an ice cold presidente on a hot day. I can feel all of you who know the Dominican Republic, but who are not here at the moment, smacking your lips and wishing for una Fria right now! Sorry!

My second F is for Fiao. It means credit and is a way of life here. The majority of Dominicans do not save money and so if they want to buy anything they buy on credit. This applies to cars, motorbikes, clothes. The interest rates are exorbitant and if you miss a payment they are even more terrible. If you do not pay for a few months the item is repossessed. There is a major network of loan sharks who will lend cash for whatever you need. They will often take your bank ATM card and when the wages are paid it, they take out your wages, collect their dues and then pay you what is left. On pay days, the first and the fifteenth of the month, you do not want to go to the ATM machine, as you always get stuck behind the 'prestamitas' with a massive stack of cards withdrawing money.

Not everyone charges interest. In the colmado the vast majority of people have credit. It is very well organised in that you are given a piece of cardboard torn off from a box of something. This picture is of mine which comes from a box of packet juice mixes. Every time you buy something it is written on your piece of cardboard. Then when you have money you pay some of it or all of it.

The system seems to work well, but the colmado owner has to know who is likely to pay and who not!

The big problem comes when people want to borrow money for something which cannot be repossessed. A few years ago an acquaintance of my husband had a son needing life saving brain surgery. He borrowed the money but needed to guarantee it with something. My overly generous husband put our car up as guarantee, being sure the man would pay it back over the 4 year
term. All went well until he lost his job. Every month he did not pay the interest went higher and higher. Eventually the loan sharks came to our house and said that the debt was RD$ 200,000 which was around US$8000 at that time. They took our car.
My husband went to look for the man who had been in hiding from the loan sharks. He said he was sorry but he had no money and nor did any of his family. They offered us the only thing they had - the family pig. A pig for a car. Still the little boy who had had the operation made a full recovery and we let them keep their pig.

Why is there so much analysis?

2012-02-03T13:51:00.001-04:00

Analysis in Spanish is analisis. This country is full of it. Every time you are sick or go to the doctors they always say the same thing: "Hay que hacer analisis," meaning "We have to do analysis."

I am used to having a conversation with a doctor, explaining symptoms, answering questions which usually leads to a diagnosis without the need for analysis. Here, you explain the problem and then go straight to the analysis stage.

Number one stepson had a nose bleed. Whole family decided that he needed analysis, as he obviously had too much blood. I pointed out that it might have something to do with the fact that his right index finger was permanently stuck up his right nostril on a never ending bogey hunt. I was ignored and off he went for analisis. Not just of blood either, but the standard blood, poo and pee. Whatever your complaint is - all three have to be analysed.

Same step son had headache. He had spent the day in the hot sun playing baseball. I asked how much water he had had to drink and he confirmed he had not drunk anything all day. I diagnosed dehydration. Ignoring me (again!) he was carted off to doctor who sent him for a brain scan and the standard analisis. For a headache. Which was not a brain tumour and disappeared once he had drunk some water.
These analyses don't come cheap and I can still not work out why they are so prevalent. Is it across all the segments of society here? Is it because doctors and patients do not discuss symptoms? Is it the doctors who recommend them, or the patient who insists on them?

There also appears to be a culture of self diagnosis, especially among the poor, and which has been passed down from generations when
access to a doctor was difficult. It is aided by the fact that most medicines, apart from narcotics and a few others, are available over the counter. Unfortunately few know exactly what they are taking, why they should take them, nor the dosage. It is standard practise to take one antibiotic for pain, and to take pills to cure a prostate problem because the TV advert says men over 40 should take them, without having any idea where the prostate is or what it does. The boys and men who go to the gym take all sorts of protein pills, muscle builders and vitamins without any idea of the side effects. When he played baseball, number two stepson was constantly being injected by the coach with various concoctions, and he had no idea what they were, just that they would make him play better.

Is this just the Dominican Republic, or are other countries like this?

E is for Enriquillo and Empanadas

2012-02-01T16:02:00.000-04:00

Letter 'E' in my A-Z of the Dominican Republic. I have added two button on the side bar. One will take you to my A to Z and the other to a site which has everyone else's A to Z from around the world.

Enriquillo was a Taino Indian who rebelled against the Spanish after they had colonised the Dominican Republic. When the Spanish originally arrived, everyone was friendly to each other but unfortunately it didn't last, and the Spanish soon enslaved the Tainos. Obviously the Tainos didn't like this very much and Enquillo's father, who was a chief, met with the other chiefs to have peace talks with the Spanish. The Spaniards murdered them all by burning down the meeting room, leaving Enriquillo to be raised in a monastery in Santo Domingo. At that time he was called Guarocuyo, but when he was baptised into the Catholic faith his name was changed to Enrique, to be known as Enriquillo because of his short stature. In 1522 he led a successful Indian revolt in Bahoruco in the south west of the country, which eventually led to a peace treaty being signed.

Unfortunately it was too late for the Indians, as apart from those who had been killed, the rest were dying out rapidly from disease brought by the Spanish such as typhus, smallpox, influenza and measles.

Statue of Enriquillo

Enriquillo himself died from tuberculosis in Azua on 27 September 1535, but is known throughout the country as the leader of theTaino revolt. He even has the biggest salt water lake in the whole Caribbean named after him.

Lake Enriquillo

Many Dominicans like to believe they are descended from the Tainos, and although this idea has been rejected by many historians, saying that the Tainos all died out, it is interesting to note that the 1514 census states that 40% of the Spanish male settlers had Taino wives, and scientists have confirmed that Taino DNA is present in many Dominicans, especially those from the South West. My husband swears he is a direct descendant of Enriquillo, and has a great aunt who lives in the village of Enriquillo in the South West who is known as 'the Indian'.

What is also interesting is that according to a book by Kirkpatrick Sale called "The Conquest of Paradise", Christopher Columbus wrote to the King of Spain about the indigenous Taino Indians saying:

Lake Enriquillo

"They traded with us and gave us everything they had with goodwill. They took great delight in pleasing us. They are very generous and without knowledge of what is evil, nor do they murder or steal. Your Highness may believe that in all the world there can be no better people. They love their neighbours as themselves and they have the sweetest talk in the world and are gentle and always laughing".

I have always wondered where the spirit of Dominicans came from, and I find it fascinating that Columbus could have been talking about many Dominicans today.

My second 'E' is for empanadas which I understand are available in many countries.The word comes from the Spanish word 'empanar' which means to wrap in bread. Here they are also known as 'pastelitos' or 'little pies' and are pastry filled with savoury fillings, such as shredded chicken or beef or cheese, and then deep fried. They are standard street food and are found everywhere. They are delicious as a snack, and there is nothing better than sitting in the park - every town has one - munching on a fresh warm empanada and drinking freshly squeezed passion fruit juice, watching the world go by.

If you would like to try making them, here is a great recipe from Aunt Clara.

D is for Dominoes

2012-01-28T15:22:00.000-04:00

Continuing my A-Z of the Domincan Republic, my D is the national sport, some would agree even bigger than baseball. Dominoes is played more in Latin America than anywhere in the world, and every few yards you will hear the clatter of the tiles being shuffled and the shouting and yelling that accompanies every game.

Dominoes apparently originated in China in the 12th Century and first appeared in Europe, specifically Italy, in the early 17th century. From there it spread throughout Europe and then the rest of the world. The name originally comes from the Latin, 'dominus' meaning 'master of the house', but was also the name given to a type of Christian priest, a Domini, whose hood was black on the outside and white on the inside. Domini is also the name of a Venetian mask which is black with white spots. To play dominoes all you need is a partner - known as a frente - and a board or table. The proper domino table costs around 20 pounds and has a little groove where you keep your dominoes, plus a hole for your plastic beaker which will usually be filled with beer or rum. The usual number of players is four, with several people watching, although people will play just with two as well. Day and night, the bars, colmados, and street corners are full of men playing, dominoes, although women and even children will also play as well..

If you do not have a proper table, the tiles are held in the hand. The best players, or maybe the ones with the biggest hands, can hold all 7 tiles or fichas in one hand. My Haitian gardener could always hold all his fichas in one hand, whereas I had to stand my dominoes up on the table until I learned how to have four in one hand and three in the other.

The game begins with all of the tiles being shuffled face down, as noisily as possible and then each person takes seven. The double six starts and then you carry on playing, matching the same number of spots until one person has used all of their dominoes. Dominicans are simply brilliant at it. Men who cannot read nor write, and who have never been to school will know exactly which dominoes you hold in your hand and can add up the number of points at the speed of lightning. To be a good player you need to work well with your partner or frente, and those who play together often know exactly what to play and which tiles their partner has, based not only on counting but on facial expressions or subtle movements. Dominicans will sometimes slam the dominoes on the table when they play, or shout a lot and I understand this is to cover up some signalling to their partner, or maybe it signals something in itself such as you have no more of that particular number. Sometimes people play for money, sometimes for eggs, and sometimes for clothes pegs. It is not that you win a clothes peg - not exactly the most desirable of rewards - but that if you lose you have to peg yourself.

There are all sorts of rules, and words such as tranqua when you block the game so that only you can play - that is worth 25 points to you and a peg to each of your opponents. And if you win by being able to go out at either end of the snake of dominoes, it is called capicure, which you have to shout out loudly, whilst banging the domino down on either end, several times.

Dominoes is noisy and fun but played very seriously. It is an intrinsic part of Dominican culture, albeit it can be a little painful if you are not a very good player, as this Haitian found out when playing after the earthquake.

Just tell me the truth!

2012-01-26T11:16:00.000-04:00

Dominicans never like to upset you and they will always tell you what they think you want to hear. You ask directions and they will give them to you even if they have no idea at all where you want to go or how to get there. They would simply never think of saying sorry they did not know the way. You ask what the weather will be like tomorrow and they tell you it will be sunny as they think you want it to be sunny. Unfortunately they have no idea whatever what it is I want to know - which is quite simply the truth. Pretty amazing concept really.

The first example is the vet. The dog was sick, so I called the vet at 10 am. He said he would be here at noon. I called him at at 2 pm, he said his wife was sick and would be there in 30 minutes. I called him at 5 pm, he said he had no car. I called him at 8 pm and he said he was operating. He arrived at 10 pm, in his car. He said he would be back at 10 am the next day. There were a raft of new excuses during the day and he arrived at 10 pm at night. Why not just tell me that he would be there at night? Would that have been so difficult?

People are coming for dinner, and are due at 7 pm. At 8 pm you ring and ask where they are. They say they are 'llegando' which means arriving. Arriving where? Certainly not at my house, as the chances are they are sitting in their house watching the TV but would no more think of telling you that than flying to the moon! They eventually arrive at 10 pm.

You ask the boss for a pay rise. He says of course, as he knows that is what you want to hear. Surprise surprise no pay rise. You ask the plumber if he can come that day to fix a broken pipe. He will say 'pienso que si" which means 'I think so'. I have worked out that that is code for 'you must be joking, no way will I be there today'. Why not just say 'no' and give an accurate idea of when he can come. I ask the man in the colmado if he will have pork chops tomorrow and he says 'claro' which means 'of course'. That is another code word which means 'I have no idea when I will have pork chops'. Once you know the code words then life becomes a little easier, but it takes a long time to realise that you will never be told the truth!

And all I want is to be told the truth. Not what people think I want to hear, as their mind reading skills are appalling!

C for Corruption

2012-01-24T11:22:00.000-04:00

The Dominican Republic is a beautiful country with fabulous people. In many ways it is one of the best places in the world to live. However the one major problem it has is the corruption. The definition of a corrupt person is one who is willing to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain, and various reports say that the DR is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Corruption in one form or another is endemic here, especially in business, government, the police and the judiciary. If you want to be awarded a contract then sometimes bribes have to be paid. If you set up in competition to someone who has money, then you may find yourself having visits from all sorts of people making your life difficult. I remember one night being in a bar which had a live band, when a truck load of police with machine guns walked in, and took away all of the music equipment saying they were playing too loudly. A rival bar had paid the police. The police are paid so poorly that they have an incentive to make easy money. If you are stopped by the police for doing something wrong, sometimes you can pay them to save paying a bigger fine. On the other hand the police will stop you and say you were doing something wrong when you weren't and make you pay. A foreigner hit and killed a Haitian woman crossing the road. He offered her family money to pay for the funeral. Seeing as he was a foreigner, they thought they could make more money from him and refused his offer, saying they wanted to involve the police. He did so and negotiated with the police, paying them the money he had offered to the family, which the police then kept and the family received nothing.

The whole legal system is especially corrupt. When I was shot, having admitted shooting me, the perpetrators were in jail awaiting their first court appearance. One had a Canadian girlfriend who paid US$1000 to the judiciary and they were released. A few months later they murdered a Canadian man, were sentenced to 30 years in jail, and were released a year later having paid 14,000 pesos.

An English man bought marijuana from a Dominican 'friend', who even showed him where best to hide it in the house, as it is illegal here. Possession brings long jail sentences. The next day the police turned up, went straight to where the stash was and the Englishman was arrested. As well as taking him away they took his car, computers, telephones, videos, DVD players etc. The following day he paid 250,000 pesos, around USS10,000 at that time, and he and all his possessions were released. Several foreigners are not as lucky and are languishing in jail for trying to take drugs out of the country, even though they have paid millions of pesos to corrupt lawyers with a promise of obtaining their release.

There appears to be little transparency at the local government level. Funds come in and no one seems to have any idea where the money has been spent. The mayor of Cabarete on the north coast is currently being investigated over a failure to produce financial reports.

Unfortunately the corruption is not only financial. People have been murdered for supposedly getting in the way of illegal activities, or being in possession of information which could cause legal or financial difficulties for someone. It appears that those with money can live above the law by simply disposing of any threats and paying their way out of any problems.

There are signs that some things are changing and it is not as though the corruption is not talked about or swept under the carpet. The vast majority of the citizens abhor it. The President, Leonel Fernandez said that 2011 would be the year of transparency and there are all sorts of departments to combat corruption, with cases of corruption reported daily in the national press. The Chief of Police has promised to investigate all cases of police corruption and only last week 20 officers were dismissed.

As Heinz Meder says in the forward to his book, 'Tales of a Caribbean Isle', The Dominican Republic is "... a world of corruption, human abuse, of poverty...no motivation... the rich getting richer and the poor going nowhere..." I really hope that one day corruption will be eradicated, which would go a long way to improving the lives of thousands, ensuring that the law really is upheld, improve confidence in law enforcement and make this country an even better place to live.

B is for Bachata, Brugal and Barahona

2012-01-21T13:35:00.000-04:00

My A-Z continues with B, and three of my favourite Dominican things. Bailando Bachata, Bibiendo Brugal and Barahona! (Dancing bachata, drinking Brugal and Barahona)

Bachata is a Dominican dance, which is danced everywhere; in the streets, shops, clubs, homes. It originated in the DR and is basically three steps with a hip motion and a hip tap on the 4th beat. You should not move your upper body much as the movement of the hips is the soul of the dance, which is probably why I am not very good at it. My bottom is not big enough or round enough, and however much I try, I can't move it the way that Dominican women can. You can see bachata being danced in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvxaxe2FFOU.

My second B is for Brugal - rum. The company was started in 1988 by Andrés Brugal Montaner who came from Spain to the DR via Cuba. He started the famous rum company in Puerto Plata in the north of the country. The actual process is a closely guarded secret, but basically the sugar cane is cut and then turned into molasses in the factory in San Pedro de Macoris. Yeast is then added, the sugar turns into alcohol and is then transported to Puerto Plata, where it is placed into barrels to age. The Carta Dorada rum ages for 1-2 years, Añejo for 2-5 years and Extra Viejo for 5-8 years. My personal favourite is Añejo. The rum can be drunk neat, or with ice, and several people drink it with coca cola (a cuba libre) or with sprite (a santa

libre). It is said that if you drink a lot of Brugal you will either want to make mad passionate love, or you will start an argument!

View of the Barahona coastline

My third B is Barahona, which is a town in the south west of the country. It is the last major town on the southern route to Haiti. What makes Barahona so special is not the town, but its geography. The mountains literally descend into the ocean and you can sit on the beach but bathe in cool fresh river water that pours down from the mountains. The drive along the coast from Barahona to the Haitian border is said to be the most spectacular drive in the whole of the Caribbean.

A piece of larimar

Barahona is famous for its agriculture: plantains, coffee, cocoa and sugar. It is also home to the only larimar mine in the world. Larimar is the beautiful blue volcanic stone found only in the DR. The province has the largest salt lake in the Caribbean, Enriquillo, which is 45 metres below sea level. Few tourists venture to Barahona but it really is a natural unspoiled paradise. It is my favourite 'B'.

I am turning into a Dominican

2012-01-18T14:01:00.000-04:00

I have been in this country for over 10 years now and living with, and then married to a Dominican man for most of that time. In recent months I have discovered that I am beginning to exhibit certain Dominican traits.

Concon - courtesy of elfogoncito.net

I can make concon (burn the rice) - a Dominican essential.
When I see someone I know in the street I tip my head back and purse my lips, instead of saying hello.
Having previously berated my cleaning lady for using so much Mistolin (disinfectant) and Chloro (bleach), I now do the same as it helps keep the flies away.
I put liquid bleach into the washing machine along with washing powder to try and get the whites whiter.
I love mangu (mashed plantains) and have withdrawal symptoms if I do not eat it 3 times a week.
I usually eat with a spoon instead of a knife and fork - it is so much easier.
I can wait patiently for hours in a queue at the bank or at the dentists.
I shout 'dame' (give me) in the colmado rather than waiting for my turn.
If I bake or cook something special I always take some round to my neighbours.
I drink my coffee black with lots of sugar rather than white without sugar as I did before.
I love batidas (fresh fruit, ice, sugar and evaporated milk whisked in the blender).
I laugh much more and am far less stressed.

But there are some things I still don't do.

Los patos river, Barahona

I don't go into the river with all of my clothes on.
I don't feel the need to spit when I smell something bad.
I don't take one antibiotic when I have a headache.
I don't eat my avocado with salt.
I don't use sazon liquido (liquid seasoning), sazon completo ( a powdered seasoning) and Maggi cubes (chicken stock cubes) in everything I cook.
I don't watch Dominican soap operas.
I don't cook the rice with a plastic bag on top of the pan.
I don't put a plastic bag on my head when it rains and I still go out in the rain.

Anyone else turning Dominican or are other expats slowly becoming like the indigenous people in the country you live in?

A is for Avocado

2012-01-15T12:05:00.000-04:00

A fellow blogger had the idea writing a series of posts, using the letter A-Z, relating to the country she lives in, which seems like a lovely way to describe all sorts of aspects about life in different places. She asked other bloggers around the world to do the same, and those who are participating are included in the blog roll on the bottom right of this page, so that if you want to, you can follow them around the world. So far there is Australia (2), Portugal (4), Poland and the UK. I will carry on blogging about daily life here, but at the same time, every so often, will work my way through the alphabet writing an A-Z about the Dominican Republic. We start with Avocado, as I absolutely adore them and eat at least 3 or 4 a week.

Avocados originally came from central Mexico and the word comes from Nahuáti, which was the language spoken by the Aztecs. The word they used was ahuácati which means testicle! Here they are known as aguacate, although in some parts of Spanish speaking Latin America they are known as palta. Also they are not called avocados all over the world, some places know them as alligator pears or butter pears. The word abogado here means lawyer, and when I first started speaking Spanish I kept saying "I really fancy a lawyer tonight, instead of I fancy an avocado".

I knew they were widely available in the Dominican Republic but I had no idea that the DR is actually the 3rd biggest producer of avocados in the world, only Mexico and Chile produce more. The DR has climbed up the rankings since 2008 when it was in 7th place.

Avocados grow easily from seed. You just take out the big pip in the middle, and using toothpicks, balance it over some water. Once the roots have grown and a shoot come out of the top, you can then plant it outside. Apparently it takes 4-6 years to produce fruit. Personally I think it might take a lot longer, as I bought an actual tree which I had for 4 years and no sign of any fruit.

The avocado should not be allowed to ripen on the tree but should be picked when it is still firm. Once picked, it can be left to ripen naturally, but will ripen faster if you put it in a brown paper bag, or next to other fruit when apparently some sort of ethylene gas exchange takes place. In some countries they will actually treat the avocado with ethylene to speed up the ripening process. They are picked with a special avocado picker, which looks a bit like a lacrosse stick. Thanks to my friend Grace, also married to a Dominican, for sharing this picture of her daughter, and mother in law showing the avocado picker.

Avocados are very good for you. It is true that they have a lot of calories, around 300, but apparently, although they are high in fat, it is good fat as opposed to bad fat. They have more potassium than bananas, more protein than cows milk or a cooked steak, have the highest fibre content of any fruit, and are also high in vitamins B,E and K. They have been proven to lower blood cholesterol and are even being researched as a possible cancer cure.

The most famous avocado recipe is probably guacamole, the famous Mexican dip made with avocados, coriander, tomatoes and onions. In the Dominican Republic they are usually served in wedges, with the main meal, sprinkled with salt and sometimes lime. They are also served as a salad. I love half an avocado with its hole in the middle filled with juicy prawns and prawn cocktails sauce, or simply filled with vinaigrette.

I buy my avocados from the lady in this picture, who comes around most days with them in the washing up bowl on her head. They are 10 pesos each, around 15 pence or 35 cents, or two for 25 pesos. If you buy the two for 25 they are bigger.

So that is letter A. Something I love, something truly Dominican, something I would really miss eating if I did not live here. I could do with a few more recipes for them though, so if you have any delicious ways of eating avocados please let me know.

I have a cold

2012-01-11T11:33:00.000-04:00

I have a very bad cold at the minute – a Dominican cold, which is known as gripe. I know they are not the same as British colds, as when my Dominican husband had a cold in England he said to me. “There is water in my nose. Why is there water in my nose when I have not been in the swimming pool?” I explained that that a runny nose was the norm for a cold, and suggested he blow his nose to get rid of the water. He did so and then ten minutes later: “The water has come back into my nose. Where does it come from?” I had no idea how to explain.

My Dominican cold is particularly nasty and everyone has been telling me how to get rid of it and how not to make it worse. I should not get out of bed and put my feet on the cold floor, nor should I clean the house using disinfectant or bleach. Both will make it significantly worse and the later may even put my life in danger.

To cure the cold I need a combination of limes, honey, garlic and mashed up onions. Someone suggested mixing with a little aloe vera which is grown everywhere here. My husband said that when he was a boy in the campo the cure was to drink one’s own urine, or if you were unable to produce any then to drink someone else’s. Luckily he assured me that it didn’t work so I will leave that off the list to try.

Another tried and tested cure is Veevapporroo. Now it took me a while to work this one out in English. It is of course Vicks Vapour Rub! And finally I have just met a man in the colmado who assures me that the only cure is shark oil. You take a bottle of egg nog and mix the shark oil with it. Keep in the fridge and then have a drink of it every day. I have no idea how they get hold of the sharks nor where the oil comes from, and having been a diver I do not approve of the idea of killing sharks for their oil. Nevertheless, as Dominicans are always helpful, the man said he knows someone who has some so the shark oil is on its way here. And I hate egg nog.

If anyone has any ideas for how to get rid of a cold I would be most grateful.

What would we do without taypee?

2012-01-08T11:22:00.000-04:00

Dominicans love sticky tape, or taypee as they pronounce it. It is usually black but in our house we were left a roll of silver tape by some American friends, so our whole house is full of things stuck together with silver taypee. The washing machine has been taypeed. Electric cables throughout the house are stuck together with taypee. Under the kitchen sink, all the pipes have taypee wound around them. This picture is of a fly and mosquito murdering device which delivers an electric shock to them. It stopped working but was mended in no time and as you can see, its handle is now totally covered with taypee.

My husband decided to play baseball in the garden, but the only problem was there was no bat. In true Dominican fashion the problem was fixed in a jiffy, and he just broke the handle off the sweeping brush and hey presto one baseball bat, albeit a little bit thin.

I then wanted to sweep the house, but the handle on the brush was only 2 inches tall and although the brush itself was still fine, it would have only been easy to use if you were 8 inches tall, and I am a little more than that. After a week of sweeping whilst sitting on my bottom, I asked him to fix the brush.

Easy, simply bring on the taypee. As you can see the brush has been fixed, although I was not too chuffed that there is now a big hole in the middle of it, making sweeping a tad more difficult. I pointed this out to him and he said. "Yo resolvi," meaning I fixed it.

"Yes my love, you did fix it," I replied sweetly. "BUT IF YOU HADN'T BLOODY SNAPPED IT OFF IN THE FIRST PLACE IT WOULDN'T HAVE NEEDED FIXING WOULD IT?"

Does anyone have more interesting things which are taypeed together?

What on earth is happening to me?

2012-01-05T11:40:00.002-04:00

England in the 1950’s. I was born in that decade, but only remember what family life was like from films

and soap operas. The woman would usually stay at home; always wearing a floral apron, hair lightly permed, and spent all day cleaning and cooking. Husband would come home from work at 5pm, usually wearing a hat and always a vest. Men all wore vests then. She would give him his felt slippers and he would sit on the brown draylon chair with a lacy thing hung over the back. The chair would be in front of the coal fire with a brass coloured fireguard in front of it and the mantelpiece covered with china souvenirs from seaside resorts such as Blackpool and Llandudno. He would sit and watch the flickering black and white television whilst the final touches were made to his dinner. They would call each other ‘father’ and ‘mother’ and never use their real names. Then one day the son would bring his girlfriend home for tea, to meet the parents and the whole house would be cleaned in anticipation. Great nervousness and great excitement.

I have often thought life here in the Dominican Republic had some similarities to Britain in the 1950’s but the reality hit hard last night. A couple of days ago, stepson announced he had a girlfriend. A serious girlfriend. She wanted to meet his parents but he was scared to bring her to meet us as he thought she wouldn’t understand my British sense of humour and I would embarrass him in front of her. As if! I assured him I would not point out any of his annoying habits and promised to behave myself.

Last night, around 10pm I was working on the computer and husband was watching TV in bed, in his underpants. Stepson walked in and announced that girlfriend had arrived to meet us. Then a truly dreadful thing happened. I changed from being me, to being that woman from the 1950’s.

I jumped up from my chair, took off my glasses, fluffed up my hair, and tried to smooth down my T-shirt. Walked nervously into the living room and saw her standing outside the front door.

“Come in out of the cold, you must be freezing.” (This is the Dominican Republic you dork, not Yorkshire in the winter!)

She came inside, holding his hand.

“So sorry about the mess, it is the puppy, she is wrecking the place,” I apologized, wringing my hands. (I have never wrung my hands in all my life). I looked around horrified at the chewed up empty toilet roll inserts, and bits of paper all over the place. And then, horror of horrors spotted a little puddle of lemon coloured puppy piddle. I managed to manoeuvre myself expertly in front of it

“What is your name?” I asked. (Things were going better now.)

“Anna,” she replied. (Ha, I had this cracked.)

“And, err, do you do anything?” (What an idiotic question! My nerves were getting the better of me.)

She replied, “I am at University, studying to be a teacher.”

“Ooooh a teacher! How amazing.” (For Pete’s sake it was a teacher not a brain surgeon. No need to overreact.)

Husband appeared, fully dressed to rescue me before I made a total fool of myself.

“Hello, nice to meet you. At least my son has good taste in women!”

And I thought he was going to save the day, and instead started like that. I decided that anything I could say would be better than that. I was sadly wrong.

“And such lovely teeth,” I gushed. (Do not even ask where that came from. I was completely mortified as the words left my mouth. And one thing I never do is gush.)

Luckily stepson could see things were not going to get any better and said that this was only the informal introduction and a formal one would follow shortly. He ushered her out rapidly. On asking husband later what exactly a formal introduction was, he said something to eat and a longer chat. I know that in 1950s Britain it would have been a nice pot of tea and cucumber sandwiches with the crusts off and fruit cake, but I have no idea here. Whatever it is I will have to do it well. This is the woman who will feed me mashed plantains when I lose my teeth and change my incontinence pads when I am old and decrepit. I just hope I can return to being me and not continue to morph into 1950’s woman, and I have a horrid feeling I am not changing into the nice one in the floral apron at the stove, but more like Hilda Ogden from the famous British soap opera, Coronation Street.

The creature from the deep

2011-12-30T12:59:00.000-04:00

I am very lucky in having a husband who cooks. Yesterday he cooked chicken soup for lunch. This is a thick hearty soup full of Dominican vegetables such as yuca, potatoes, guineo (normal bananas but unripe and green), yautia (root vegetable), yam and pumpkin. It is flavoured with fresh coriander, celery and the essential Maggi stock cube or two and liquid seasoning (orange stuff in a plastic pot full of salt and E numbers). The chicken is cut into pieces together with the bones, which aren't taken off before you eat it.

So there I am happily slurping my way through my chicken soup, when suddenly, from beneath the vegetables, a foot rises up from the broth, just like some sort of monster from the deep. A massive knobbly chicken's foot. I half expected it to jump out of the bowl and grab me round the neck. I know that chicken have feet, but I would rather see them where they belong, on the end of the chickens' legs strutting around the streets in the barrio, than lying in wait for me under a pile of vegetables.

Sensible place to put a tap - not.

2011-12-27T10:33:00.001-04:00

I have another neighbour, also called vecina (neighbour), which makes it easy as I don't have to remember names. She lives to the left of us, two houses down. She was away visiting her daughter for a while and someone stole the water pipes to her house. Understandably she was a tad miffed, so bought some new pipes and the vecino (male neighbour) from over the road dug up the road and put the pipes in for her. I wasn't convinced that he was a qualified plumber as he dug a channel in the road with his machete, and stuck the pipes together using the flame from a candle. Anyway, problem solved one would think. No. She didn't have the money for enough pipe so the pipe stops outside my gate. He fitted a tap and now when she wants water she just comes to the front of my gate, turns the tap and fills up her buckets - as do a whole range of people! She has promised that when she can afford it she will buy the rest of the pipe, so that we can drive the car out without breaking her pipe and tap. I think I may be marooned here for a while.

And the second slight technical hitch is that the vecino didn't do a very good job with his jointing of the pipes. He did the work when the street water was off, which it is often and when it came back on, almost immediately there was a leak. A big leak, in fact a fountain,and so we now have a river in front of the house. Obviously the method of sealing water pipes with a candle is somewhat suspect. The water board wont fix it as they didn't do it, the vecino has gone away to family for Christmas, and so to leave the house now we have to don wellington boots, as we can't get the car out without breaking her pipe! Happy days.

Christmas lunch - with apologies to fellow blogger Piglet in Portugal

2011-12-23T12:36:00.000-04:00

My neighbours are lovely people. Lala is 80 years old and has 16 children and her husband Michael is a 72 year old toyboy. They live just around the corner and their little wooden house backs on to our side wall. Every morning when I go to the local colmado (shop) they are sitting on their front porch, cleaning rice or shelling peas or just chatting. Lala always invites me onto the porch for a chat and never lets me leave without giving me some vegetables - plantains, a slice of pumpkin or a cupful of peas. She knows my name but always calls me Doña Vecina which means Lady Neighbour!

This morning, at around 9 am there was a dreadful screaming coming from her house, and my husband told me they were killing a pig. Dominicans celebrate Christmas on Christmas eve, with the most important components being family and food - usually pork.

I love pork, but I really do like to buy my meat in little trays, covered in plastic, in the cold section of the supermarket. Even after living here for 10 years, I do not like to think that pork was once a little pink piglet, even though of course I know it was.

No chance of getting away from the fact here, as I saw when I walked past her house a couple of hours ago. One pig is all ready for the fire pit and the other is hanging around waiting for his turn, just next to the wall which separates our houses.

As I walked through the barrio, every so often I could hear more pigs squealing, as they went to the big pig sty in the sky, and when they start to cook them, later tonight, the air will be full of the rich smell of roasted pork, all ready for the festivities tomorrow.

Happy Christmas from the Dominican Republic!

Help! There is a pterodactyl living in my bedroom.

2011-12-20T10:22:00.000-04:00

If you live here you have no choice but to get used to creepy crawlies. I actually think I do quite well with rats and snakes and mosquitoes in that I don’t dissolve into hysterics when I see them. And not all creepy crawlies are nasty. There are the nice ones like geckos which I try to encourage into the house to eat the mosquitoes, and I even give them names as they tend to hang around for a while. I must admit to disliking cockroaches, as I am sure everyone does, especially the flying ones. They are hard to kill, as I read somewhere that if you stamp on them then eggs come out of some part of them and instead of one you end up with hundreds. There must be some sort of spray that can penetrate their tank like shells, but the one the colmado sells is no use at all, in fact when you spray the cockroaches they lift up their wings and think you are giving them a spray of deodorant. I am also not partial to the tarantulas that appear in the summer. They are the size of side plates and exceedingly furry. I know they are supposed to be nice and also eat mosquitoes, but I read somewhere else that they pull the hairs out of their bottom and throw them at you. I haven’t actually seen it happen as when they wander into the house I don’t hang around to watch this particular party trick, but you can’t be too careful.

I particularly dislike flappy things. Like pterodactyls. And one has moved into the bedroom. It has been there a week now and though I have never actually seen it move, it is always in a different place in the morning so it must move during the night which is a somewhat scary thought. The bedroom ceiling is very high therefore I cannot get my husband to catch it and take it outside. So it is just living there on the wall above the macheted pine cabinet. And before you start thinking that it is just a little moth, it is enormous – about 7 or 8 inches from wingtip to wingtip and it has this thing poking out of its head, like a blood sucking proboscis. Are there such things as vampire moths?

Barrio Christmas Tree

2011-12-17T10:12:00.004-04:00

You wouldn't really know it was Christmas here. No houses have trees in the windows; no twinkling lights anywhere; no one is rushing around buying Christmas presents. There are not piles of Christmas cards on the door mat every morning. Mind you, I have my one and only card from my mother in England. She addressed it to the gringa with the big dogs and then the name of the town! The post man - who I had no idea we had - said it took him a week to find me! To be honest I was amazed it ever arrived.

But the barrio has made a little effort. We have a Christmas tree! It is in the middle of the road and is not like any Christmas tree I have ever seen. It is made of a plastic tube with chicken wire around it and concrete blocks to keep it in place. It has lights, and a wire comes out of the top and is attached to the overhead lines so it lights up at night - when there is electricity. The man sitting on the beer crate outside the colmado (convenience store) told me that it is beautiful when the lights come on at night! Definitely the strangest tree I have ever seen - has anyone seen one stranger than this?

Making Life Easy

2011-12-13T13:15:00.007-04:00

Dominicans on the whole like making life easy for themselves, which on the face of it is a good thing. Nobody wants a difficult life. But what this means in practice can be very frustrating for their first world partners. It means never checking in the fridge to see if there is an open can of tomato paste, just open a new one and put it half empty back in the fridge to join the other seven half empty ones there. It means never putting the lid back on anything properly, place it on the top but don't bother to screw it down. It means never emptying the bucket of the dirty mop water, never picking up beer bottle caps when flipped off whilst opening the bottle. Never drying the dishes and putting them away, just take them from the draining board when you need them. The teenagers are worst. My stepson washes the dishes at night, and it is hard work washing the pan which the rice was in as it has to be burned on the bottom - the concon - the

favourite part of the rice. He would no more dream of washing it up than flying to the moon, as it takes some effort to get it clean. The easy option is to leave it to soak in the hope that someone else will wash it up, or to hide it in the oven or a cupboard. Out of sight out of mind. At least he no longer throws the dirty pans in the bin as he did when he was much younger.

And it doesn't just apply to your nearest and dearest - the workmen are the same. I recently

had satellite TV transferred from the old house to this one. The man drilled the hole in the wall for the cable half way up the wall for some bizarre reason. He then had three choices; take the cable to the ceiling and make a nice neat line along the line where the ceiling joins the wall; option two to do the same on the floor and round the bathroom door frame. And option three was just to leave it where it was and go in a straight line along the wall, drape over the bathroom door and hence to the television.

Yes, he chose option three.

Our television was fried a while ago when too many people connected illegally to our electricity. A friend of mine offered me a 30 inch TV so I called my husband and asked him to measure the space in the unit we had for the television. He assured me it would fit. It didn't.

So he had three options too. Firstly to give to television back and get one that did fit. Secondly to put the television in a different place. Thirdly to take a machete and hack a massive hole in the purpose built, beautiful pine unit.

I wonder if you guessed which option he took.

I am all for not making life harder than it needs to be, but sometimes the easy route drives me mad!

The dustbin man cometh

2011-12-07T13:00:00.009-04:00

I suppose for my North American readers I should firstly explain that the dustbin man is the garbage man, well I think that might be what you call it!

He comes once a week and beeps his horn so that you know to take the rubbish outside. The rubbish is kept in a tanque - the blue one you can just see in the picture - and you have to keep it inside the gates or the street dogs will have a field day distributing its contents all over the street, and someone will steal the actual bin. Most people have empty rice sacks for their rubbish so we are quite posh.

The dustbin man expects a tip - 50 pesos which is just over a dollar. If you don't tip him he stops coming. The other day they came to the house and I was in the shower, so my husband told them I wasn't in and it is usually me who pays them. Today they saw me outside the corner shop and followed me down the street in order to get their tip. It wasn't even the right day,the bin was empty and I am not used to being chased by dustbin men!

In England a lot of people have bins on wheels called, intelligently enough, wheelie bins. As recycling is the norm, you have a different bin for different things - one for paper, one for bottles etc. Now although we do not have formal recycling here, the dustbin men are very good at sorting through your rubbish. They examine every bin carefully, putting the bottles in one area of their truck as they can sell them, plastic containers go in another, and they also look for food, going through all the plastic bags. When Tyson, my Great Dane, was castrated on our dining room table, I put his testicles in a plastic bag and threw them in the bin. Yes, you have guessed it, following the standard investigation of bin contents the dustbin men kept Tyson's bits. I have no idea what happened to them - but I hope whoever ate them enjoyed them.

The good news and the sad news

2011-12-04T14:32:00.005-04:00

The good news is that Zebedee One has arrived in the new house and has stayed here for 3 days so I assume he is home to stay. Now I have all the cats present and correct. Here in the picture he is asleep with his brother and cojo who is my three pawed black cat. He was born with only three paws but it doesn't seem to bother him and he hops around quite happily.

The sad news is the harsh reality of living in a third world country. Whilst most of the time I love living here, there are times when the lack of education and knowledge and facilities hits me

hard. There is only one vet here and he is very responsive, will come to the house if you call him, seems to really care for the animals, but I really am not sure how much he knows. In this picture are my four dogs. The little Malinois puppy died about a year ago. His diagnoses ranged from poisoning, to depression, to gastro enteritis and even diabetes. His treatment didn't work and she died. He said that the half pitbull next to her had a benign tumour. She lost weight rapidly and died. The one on the far left, Sophie, died last night. He said it was an infection and she had a raging temperature. Her temperature was 102 which is normal for dogs although he insisted it should be the same as humans. He gave her an injection to lower her temperature and then rechecked it, but wouldn't let me see the thermometer. He said it had tumbled to normal! It is always very sad when you lose a beloved pet, but when you have a feeling that had the vet known what he was doing, the animal maybe would not have died, it makes it ten times worse.

Most of the Dominicans have total faith in the vets and indeed the medical profession, but some of the things I hear doctors and vets say just make my toes curl. Tomorrow I will go and see the vet to pay the bill. I will present him with information that explains what a dogs temperature should be. I am not sure he will thank me for it, but it needs to be done.

Matilda has moved out

2011-11-30T09:25:00.010-04:00

The biggest trauma of moving house recently was moving the cats. I have always been a cat person and have had them ever since I moved here. Unlike in the UK, where once you had a cat it would be with you until the end of its natural life, it is a tad more dangerous here. I have lost several to the dogs who have an intense dislike of being spat at by cats, maybe as Dominicans say that cat spit in your eye turns you blind. When it happens they tend to have a game of tug of war with the offending cat and the cat invariably loses - permanently. I have lost another cat down the well, and only realised when the shower water had a most unpleasant smell and we had to haul the offending animal out of the well in a bucket. The final problem they have is that they get caught and barbecued. Apparently they taste a bit like chicken and it is best to eat them picante, like goat. There was actually a chap where I used to live called Comegato (cat eater) and after he had eaten a cat he would put its head around his neck on a piece of string. Charming. Anyway, I had 9 cats to move here.. In the end two were left behind as we couldn't find them - Zebedee One who was a big neutered ginger tom and Guerrero who is a grey tom with all his equipment intact. As the new house is close to the old one, every day I went back to look for them but no joy.

After a few days Zebedee Two - brother of Zebedee One, and identical - left the new house and went back to the old house to look for his brother. I was hopeful he would find him and bring him back here. After another week Guerrero turned up at the new house, which I thought was very intelligent as he had never been here before. Then Zebedee Two came back and for some reason the dogs murdered him. It was strange as he was normally fine with the dogs. I was really upset and stepson put him in a plastic bag and went off under strict instructions to bury him properly in a nice place. Two days later I went back to the old house, and there, sitting in the garden was Zebedee Two. The dead cat. Only he was very much alive. I had a chat with him and told him to come back to the new house and to bring his brother with him. On my way home my new neighbour stopped me and asked if I had seen her ginger cat. I am ashamed to say I could not tell her the truth, as had I told her, there was a good chance she would have poisoned the dogs. Eye for an eye rules here. When I got home I was so excited to tell husband and step son of the miraculous reincarnation of Zebedee Two. However I was not impressed when stepson said that he had no idea how he had managed to get out of the canal that he had thrown him in, tied up in his plastic bag. A few days later Zebedee Two arrived back here. So we are just missing Zebedee One. Every evening Zebedee Two would go out and look for him and at last, four days ago he brought him back. He was very thin and starving, but happy to be here. He ate for Britain, climbed on the bed and went to sleep. In the morning he was gone and I haven't seen him since, but he knows where we are now so hopefully he will return.

In the meantime Matilda, the first of my Dominican cats, and mother, grandmother, great grandmother etc of all of the cats I have now, has decided to move out of the house and she has taken up residence in my jeep. She comes out to eat and do her business, but apart from that she is very happy. Not sure whether she will come with me when I take her house out to do the shopping, or how happy any passengers will be when they are covered in cat hair. But she is happy and that is the important thing.

The tales of the dwendies

2011-11-27T12:17:00.015-04:00

Several years ago, living with my Dominican husband and stepsons, I noticed that when I went outside in the morning to drink my coffee, there were men sitting in various spots around the garden. Doing nothing. Just sitting. I mentioned to my husband that they were like garden gnomes and he told me the Spanish word for a garden gnome was dwendy. It is actually spelled duende and means an imp or a goblin but the name stuck. They were basically people who were unemployed, or self employed with no work. Dwendies are very useful as they do all sorts of jobs for you. Pop to the shops, help in the garden, clean the pool, and the only payment they require is the occasional meal. When we moved to barrio land, I thought that was the last we would see of the dwendies. Not so. We appear to have picked up a little group of them here too. They are the ones who helped us to move house, and once again pop up during the day, just sitting in the garden. I had no idea who they were, what their names were or why they were dwendies, so I thought I would ask. This is what I discovered.

Dwendy chiquito (little)

Little dwendy is actually called Efrin, and he is 18, although looks younger. He lives with his mum and three brothers and sisters. He has never met his father and has no idea who he is. Up until this year he was at school, in the first year of high school. The Dominican school system has years 1-8. with several people leaving after 8th grade, and then four years of high school, when they graduate and can then go on to university. If you fail a year you have to take it again. Efrin wants to finish school, go to university and become a surgeon. He has no wish to leave the country. Unfortunately he was knocked over by a car when he was 10, and his left arm was very badly set, and so it is deformed. Whilst not totally useless, it does not function properly. Apparently an American medical mission saw him in the summer and said they would come back in January and operate on his arm to solve the problem, so that he can become a surgeon. Therefore, he has not attended school this year, as he thought he would fail with taking time off for his arm operation. I really hope the medical mission comes back and helps him, as the cost of arranging it himself would be prohibitive.

Dwendy two

This is Wildelson who is 16. He lives with his father who is a carpenter. His mother is in New York and sends them US$ 150 every two weeks. He is in the first year of high school as well, and he wants to graduate and go to university to study languages, and then work in the tourism industry here. His dream is to go to America eventually. So far so good, but his 19 year old girlfriend is now four months pregnant and so he has 'married' her. Dominican married means basically living together. Although some people do get married legally, it tends to be the minority. So now as well as going to school, he is working with his father to earn money to support his 'wife' and future baby

.Dwendy perezoso (lazy)

This is Frailin who is 20. His mother died when he was 2, and his father didn't want anything to do with him, so he went to live with his grandmother. He went to school up until the 7th grade, aged 14, but had to leave as there wasn't enough money to send him there. Although the public schools are free, the children still have to buy uniforms, writing materials, and pay for transport to get to and from school. I first met Frailin when i discovered he was living in our house, sleeping in my stepson's room. His grandmother had gone to Rio San Juan and decided she couldn't afford to keep him any more, so left him here. He has no house and just sleeps wherever he can find a bed. I put up with him for a couple of weeks, as I felt sorry for him, but all he does all day is chat on line and didn't help around the house at all. I gave him US$15 to go to Rio San Juan, find work and live with his grandmother. He took the money and moved into a house over the road! He says he wants to work but there is none.

Dwendy pelo largo (long hair)

Aged 16, Yeudi is very very charming. He lives with his mother and his stepfather. His father and mother were together for 10 years and now his father cultivates coffee in the hills. He has 3 sisters and a brother, all of whom have different fathers. Yeudi left school in the 7th grade, due to lack of money. He has been 'married' three times, the first time when he was 14. On each occasion his 'wives' kicked him out as he had no money. He has no idea what he wants to do - although I have a feeling he would do well as a sanky panky. He is now leaving to go and join his father and pick coffee so that he can earn some money, and get married again.

Having heard these stories, I was left speechless really. Education, in the broadest sense of the word, is the key to ensuring that children who come from a working and lower middle class background can have some sort of decent future. Not only education of the children themselves, but also of the parents. I just cannot see how a mother can let her son go and 'marry' when he is 14 years old, and how a father can totally abdicate responsibility for his son. These are only four dwendies, but I am sure if I asked the same question of many of the teenagers here, the answers would be similar. There has to be an answer.

The inverter went to hospital

2011-11-22T09:24:00.013-04:00

Electricity here is the bane of my life. Not just mine but most people. It all depends in what electrical zone you live: A B C or D. Before, I was in an A zone, which meant that there was constant electricity and no need for any back up system. When I say constant, I mean unless there was a problem, or they shut the system off for maintenance.

There were a lot of problems.

The cables are like balls of wool after 20 cats have played with them. Once they reach houses they are stuck together with bits of tape (taypee in Dominican Spanish).

This causes all sorts of problems. People will steal electricity all of the time as they just connect to your line. Once you discover this you then follow the line and find out that you are paying for a whole little settlement of 10 huts. You complain to the Electricity company and they disconnect the huts from you, take the wire away, but you still have to pay the bill. The next day the huts are reconnected to you again.

The second problem is the number of deaths by electrocution. It is appalling. Almost nothing is earthed and so when a live wire falls onto a zinc roof it is a recipe for disaster. Plus the fact that

the best known remedy for electrocution is to cut the person being electrocuted with a machete so that the electricity flows out of their body.

When your electricity goes off unexpectedly you can call a 24 hour help line. They are very nice people. They lie all the time and tell you what they think you want to hear, when the reality is that they have no clue. One will tell you that there is a problem and it is being sorted and the electricity will be back soon. You call 30 minutes later and you will be told that it is off for maintenance. I was once without electricity for 5 days as a snake had been totally inconsiderate

and climbed on top of a transformer and fried itself, blowing the transformer fuse. On that occasion I was given a whole host of reasons as to why there was no electricity and not one included a dead snake. Every call will end with: "Thank you so much for calling and have a good day/night". How the hell can you have a good night when it is steaming hot and you have no electricity for fans??

Anyway, back to the inverter. I now live in a D zone. Planned outages for around 12 hours a day. One day it is on in the afternoon and the night, the next it is on in the morning and the evening.

The electricity company very kindly provide a timetable on line. To cope with this we have a bank of batteries - kept under lock and key so no one nicks them - and an inverter, so that when the electricity goes out the inverter kicks in. Two days ago it didn't kick in. It was sick and had to go off to the Inverter hospital, have a quick replacement of some bits and then came home. Thank goodness it was fixed, as living without electricity is no fun at all and goodness only knows how my neighbours manage - most of whom have no inverters at all.

The tale of the missing toilet

2011-11-11T15:28:00.010-04:00

All was fine in the new house apart from the shower in stepson's bathroom which was blocked and the water would not drain away. The easy solution, I thought, was to buy a plunger and unblock it, and if that failed, to poke a bit of wire down the plug hole and unblock it. It was not to be. The owner's brother turned up and said that the pipe from the shower to the road had to be replaced which would entail breaking up the concrete yard and putting the pipe in and then cementing over it again.

There appear to be two types of waste water:

agua negra (black water) which goes into a septic tank and plain old dirty water from the sink or shower or washing machine. The later goes through pipes out into the street and on washing day most street around here are flooded with soapy water.

Anyway, the so called plumbers descended on us, broke up the concrete with pick axes and laid new pipe. Shower was still blocked. In the end they got a piece of wire, shoved it down the plug hole in the shower and pulled out a plastic toy. I said not a word.

The shower then worked perfectly.

The owner's brother then decided that there was a problem with the septic tank. For some reason he worked this out while standing on the roof. All seemed fine to me, but he insisted on opening it which involves breaking concrete again as they are always all concreted in. The lid was pried off

and the tank was full of what looked like dirty water. Now apparently the tank had been emptied a month ago, and they should only need emptying every several years, not months. In fact if it works really well it should last a lifetime.

According to my husband they are supposed to be full of water, as some stuff floats to the top where there is a pipe and then it floats off somewhere. I have no idea where, and as there is no proper sewage system here, I assume it just floats off to another part of the garden - under the concrete. The solid waste which one assumes is heavier, sinks to the bottom where it supposedly biodegrades. So, once the owner's brother saw it was full, he summoned Robert, who is the sewage disposal man. Robert arrived with his pipes and sucked the septic tank dry.

There was then a long discussion as to why it was full of water. My husband tried to tell them it was supposed to be, but was ignored. It was then decided that the walls of the sewage pit were being invaded by roots of the palm trees, and those roots were transporting rainwater into the sewage tank. Basically the reverse of everything I thought I knew, in that roots transport water to the tree, not the tree uses roots to transport water away from it.

They prepared to cut down the palm trees. Luckily they were dissuaded from that, and then I became aware of their next plan when I went to the bathroom to go to the toilet. The toilet had gone. Totally vanished. On returning outside I politely asked if anyone had seen the toilet and was informed that that particular toilet had too much water in it and it was that causing the problem. They were going to buy a new toilet.

The new toilet arrived, and was eventually fitted. The septic tank was resealed with more concrete and everyone patted each other on the back. Problem successfully solved.

I still have absolutely no idea what the problem was, nor how removing a perfectly functioning toilet and replacing it with same model has solved anything.

Still every one is happy and the old toilet has disappeared to a new home somewhere.

Moving house

2011-11-02T11:07:00.008-04:00

We decided to move house for a variety of reasons. Where we lived was dusty or muddy depending on the amount of sun or rain. This meant that how ever often I mopped or swept (weesped as my husband says it), the house was dirty and the dogs were even dirtier. The track outside the house was one of the main thoroughfares and so was busy and noisy, kids constantly encouraging the dogs to bark, and a stream of venders broadcasting their wares through loud speakers. There was music from stereos from every house behind, to the side and in front for what seemed like 24 hours a day. Time to go.

On the one hand it is not easy to find a house to rent as there are no signs outside, no listings in local papers, but if you put the word out you are looking a constant stream of people appear who take you to various houses - all hoping you will rent them and they then receive commission from the owners. In the end it took around a month to find the right house. Nice and spacious, my first ever en suite bathroom, guest room, lovely outside terrace where Danilo could work, surrounded by concrete and not mud, and high walls all around. Plenty of space for the dogs, and in a quiet area.

It took 4 days to move as, unlike England, you do not pack things neatly in labelled boxes and then they are collected by a professional removal company. Everything was thrown in my jeep, beds and sofas were balanced precariously on the top with guys standing on the sides holding on to them. Things which were too big or too heavy for the jeep were carried, the cooker was wheeled here in a wheelbarrow. I stayed at the new house to arrange things here, and to save me stressing out as I saw how things were thrown in the jeep.

The fridge arrived safely, but they did not take anything out of it and so it was full of ketchup and mayonnaise, soya sauce and melted butter. The back fell off the washing machine, and we had to mount it on blocks so that the hose could fit in the drain hole. The top from the wardrobe went missing, as did the screws to put the doors back on. In true Dominican fashion screws were simply taken from something else, so an item which had four screws now only has 2 or 3.

The inverter for the electricity was moved and re-installed. For some reason whenever we were on inverter power, the mouse on my lap top went crazy. It was eventually discovered that although the house was wired for earth that not only was there no earth, the earth wires had been stuck to the positive ones and so double electricity was coming through the plug sockets. It was no big issue for the Dominicans who lived here as their plugs had no earth prong. Mine do. The electrician told me just to snap the earth prong off the plug, but I said I preferred him to fix it, which thankfully he did.

So now we are installed. Happy, no mosquitoes, no noise, no dust. In just a couple of days I have got used to the cockerels who start at 4.30 and am sleeping like a baby. The dogs love it too as they have more space, more shade but less people to bark at.

What it means to have a Dominican friend

2011-10-16T14:02:00.013-04:00

A friend will ask you how you are

A Dominican friend will tell you you look good, will hug you and give you a kiss.

A friend sends you flowers and a card when you are in hospital

A Dominican friend will sleep on a chair at your side

A friend will ask to borrow something and will give it back 2 days later

A Dominican friend will ask to borrow something and after a week will forget it was yours

A friend will offer you the sofa to sleep on

A Dominican friend will give you his bed, he will sleep on the floor and not let you sleep but spend the whole night talking to you

A friend will know a few things about you

A Dominican friend will be able to write a book with all the things he knows about you

A friend will give you a paracetomal when you are hungover

A Dominican friend will make you chicken soup, and give you his grandmother's cures, and will make sure you drink the soup, even hand feeding you.

A friend will knock on your door, waiting for you to open it

A Dominican friend will open the door, walk in and then say I am here

A friend will ask you to make them coffee

A Dominican friend will go into the kitchen, make the coffee and go next door to ask a neighbour for sugar if you have none

Poverty

2011-10-11T13:19:00.013-04:00

The Dominican Republic is a poor country. It is highly stratified with a very small and very wealthy upper class, a small but growing middle class and a very large working and peasant class , many of whom live in absolute poverty. There is high unemployment especially among the youth and for those who do work the average wage is around 100 pounds a month. So how does this affect the way that the people live?

Housing

Houses tend to be rented or built on pieces of land where the owner isn’t present – squatting if you like.

Those that are rented are block or wood built with zinc roofs and will cost from 20- 30 pounds a month to rent. Although the zinc roofs mean that they are hot in the daytime they are cool at night, especially if they are built of wood, and do not retain heat like the concrete blocks do

Inside, the houses will typically have a living area and a

sleeping area with cooking often being carried out outside, although some houses do have kitchens. Although poor, every house will have its television and everybody will have their mobile phone!

Instead of doors between each room there is usually a curtain. If lucky the floors are of concrete, but many

houses still only have a dirt floor.

The squatters build houses out of whatever is available and in one of the pictures below you can see the children’s room made out of cardboard. Many houses will have neither running water nor a toilet - there may be a latrine in the garden or yard which can be shared by several families or people simply use the woods around.

Shopping

Shopping is done daily at the colmado or corner shop.. There are various reasons for this. Firstly there is usually not the money to do ‘a big shop’.

In fact most of the poorer Dominicans have never been into a supermarket.

Secondly you can buy everything at the colmado in small quantities: onestock cube, a little bit of oil, a few ounces of rice, one clove of garlic, a few pesos of chicken. This keeps the cost down, and remember many people do not have a fridge so could not store food in the heat. And most importantly the colmado will offer credit, so if you cannot pay that day they will simply write down what you owe on a piece of cardboard torn from a packet of something and when some money arrives you can pay them back.

Saving

Obviously with so little money it is impossible to save. If you are in desperate need of funds, for a medical bill for example, then the family or neighbours will chip in and help. People will say they want to borrow money but most will never pay it back as there is no way they can. Many will play the lottery for only a few pesos at a time, because winning the lottery is the only way they will climb out of poverty. Very few make it out of the class they were born into. Education costs money. The public schools are free, but the children needs books, pencils, uniforms and although many parents start off with good intentions, very few children finish their education. Even if they do, most good jobs go to those with family connections and hence if you started poor it is almost impossible to move out of your ‘class’.

But in part, poverty has made the Dominicans the people they are. Friendly – as in the barrios or neighbourhoods everyone knows each other and helps each other out. Generous – if you have food you give it to your neighbour as tomorrow they may have to give it to you. Optimistic – when you live in poverty you have to believe that tomorrow your life will be better, otherwise you would be miserable all of the time. And Dominicans are happy. They say we are alive and we have our health and so with that they are happy. As long as there is food on the table for that day they ask for no more.

I used to find it hard when people would come to the house and I would have to feed them when I had only cooked enough food for me and my family. I would find it hard when someone borrowed money and then didn’t pay it back. Now I live in a barrio I understand where they come from and why they behave like they do. The generosity of those who have nothing is humbling and a lesson which is worth learning for all of us who come from consumerist societies.

Water - or lack of it

2011-09-26T11:44:00.009-04:00

Water is something I have always taken for granted. You turn on the tap and out it comes - always. In my previous house here we had a well, and unless the electricity was off and the pump didn't work, there was always water. OK it was a bit smelly at times, such as when a cat fell in the well and we didn't discover it for a week, but there was always water.

In this house we have proper water from

the street, which is a lot more hygienic. I assume it comes from a reservoir somewhere. It comes into a cistern which is in the back garden and from there comes into the house, and some of it somehow goes up to a big black tank on the roof which is known as a tinaco. The idea is that if, for any reason the street water goes off then the tinaco should be full and will come out of the taps easily as it is on the roof. Up until a couple of weeks ago the system had worked perfectly and the landlord had told us that the street water hardly ever went off. Hmmm. The street water did go off a lot, in fact every week for 2 or 3 days

and once for 2 weeks at a time when I was told they were scrubbing the main tanks with bleach to get rid of cholera - a comforting thought.

Most houses have a tinaco on the roof and the only issue with ours was that it didnt seem able to stop itself filling with water so when you could see it overflowing you had to turn a knob on the feeder pipe to stop any more water going into it.

One day I noticed that even when I turned the knob it was still leaking water and mentioned it to my husband. He, like many Dominicans is not 'a stitch in time saves nine' sort of person. So he ignored me. I phoned the landlord and said "the tinaco is leaking", and he ignored me too.

A week later, we had no water. None at all, so I called

the landlord and he came round. "The tinaco is empty as it is leaking", I said. He said he would connect an electric pump which would pump street water up to the tinaco. I told him it was a waste of time as the tinaco was leaking. He ignored me.

He spent all day on the pump and set it working. It pumped for a couple of hours and then we checked the water. Nada, nothing. He came back the next day to look. "The tinaco is leaking", he said.

The next day he returns with PVC glue stuff in a tube and mends the tinaco, and pumps water and hey presto the tinaco starts to fill up.

Whilst we were without water we could fill buckets up from the cistern, but as there was no street water the cistern was going down and down, and in the end I had to hold onto my husband's legs to stop him falling in as he was filling up buckets and pans.

It is certainly not the same showering with a saucepan, and fingers crossed the tinaco will stay full, and I won't be taking water for granted again.

A day at the river

2011-09-20T10:44:00.009-04:00

Dominicans love going to the river, and last Saturday we were invited by some of our neighbours to join them for a river outing. Some of them piled into an old Nissan and the rest squished into my jeep and off we set. The journey didnt take long, although the road became worse and worse the closer we got. In fact on two occasions the passengers had to get out of the car and walk while it struggled up the hilly bits. My old jeep coped admirably though. Eventually we parked, took out all of the supplies, ice box, chickens, big cooking pans, and set off on what they told me would be a short walk.

The hill in front of us was the destination, to

where the river actually began. We were going to trek to the other side. So much for a short walk! I was wearing flip flops as I had no idea we had to walk so far, and anyway I have no 'tenis' as they call trainers here.

We walked upwards through jungles, crossed the river 5 or 6 times, precariously balancing on rocks. The water was beautiful and clear and also very fast moving and often came well above our knees. I felt like I was in a war film carrying my rifle above my head. More than once I had a piggy back courtesy of my husband. All of the

Dominicans took off their tenis so as not to get them wet or dirty and did the whole trek bare foot. No idea how.

We eventually arrived at a beautiful clear pool with the water cascading down into it. It really was gorgeous.

The fire was built, the men stripped down to their underpants and the preparation of the food began. It was discovered that the lady in charge of the food had forgotten the salt. I said it didn't matter but I was informed that water will not

boil without salt in it and therefore the rice would not cook. I didn't bother arguing and so one of the lads was sent back down the trail to find some salt. He returned an hour later.

In the meantime, the bottle of rum came out and everyone had a slurp and jumped in the river - the women fully clothed as is usual. Some of the boys climbed the rocks at the side, including my husband, and they went off to explore, returning with arms full of wood to light the fire. It was like being a girl guide again.

The food was great: chicken and vegetables with

fluffy salty rice! All washed down with copious amounts of rum and cranberry.

After lunch it was time for the obligatory sleep - I

have no idea how Dominicans can sleep anywhere and at any time!

Eventually as the sun disappeared behind the top of the hill, it was time to pack up and wend our way back down the track and home.

A great day, full of fun and rum and laughter.

Come on Irene (and Silly Boy)

2011-08-26T10:14:00.015-04:00

Hurricane Irene arrived last Monday, well very early Tuesday morning. The track moved dramatically in the last 36 hours. Originally she was due south of the the Dominican Republic, then a direct hit on the capital, Santo Domingo, then a direct hit on us, and she finally ran around 50 miles off the North coast.

When there is a hurricane en route I spend a lot of time checking where it is going, where it might go and how strong it is. There are lots of excellent sites on the internet and they tell you exactly at

at what time it will arrive at your location, so that you can plan accordingly and prepare. As we have no glass in the house there is no need to board up anything, we just make sure the mobile phones are charged, the car has petrol in it, and all loose items in the garden are moved inside. I moved the car away from trees and warned number two son that if it was bad he would have the dogs sleeping with him. The Dominicans, however, totally ignore it! I tell them a hurricane is coming and they smile and say "it won't come here".

This time they were right. I was woken up at 3am with wind and rain which lasted until about lunchtime, but there was no damage. Once again we had managed to miss a direct hit.

However, as often happens when there is a lot of rain the rivers overflow and all of the settlements near the river are flooded out.

This picture was sent to me by a friend in San Pedro de Macoris. She said that there were even fish swimming inside the houses. But as usual the Dominicans take it in their stride. Often the police and emergency services try to persuade people to leave, but they are concerned that their possessions will be stolen and so they stay put.

At least there are no soggy carpets and most people manage to dry things out quite quickly.

The local vet - the one who also stuffs animals - called a month or so ago and asked us to take an English mastiff who had been kept in Santiago zoo in a small cage for his whole life. His name was Mammoth, pronounced Mamoo, and he was terribly thin and covered with sores. He is slowly improving and here he is with my Great Dane, Tyson. I used to think Tyson was big until I saw Mamoo. We changed his name to Sumo and that is sort of his name, but we discovered he is blind and walks into things all the time, so he now usually called SillyBoy as that is what we end up saying to him all of the time

As you can imagine he is causing quite a stir and we have a fairly constant stream of people with their female dogs wanting him to mate with them. This entails locking up our other dogs and then hoping Silly Boy does his thing. Personally I think he should have some privacy but this being the DR we always have a crowd of around 50 at the gate yelling encouragement and giving him advice. None of it works. So far although everything appears to be in working order, he has been unable to actually get it in so as to speak. He is just too large for the females and even though the owners of the females have made them stand on boxes and tables he is unable to aim correctly. Still he is enjoying trying I think.

New Beginnings

2011-07-28T13:00:00.014-04:00

It was 5 years ago this week, July 22nd 2006, at 10.30 at night this tiny little .22 bullet was shot through my throat at close range by a couple of Haitians who I interrupted trying to rob the house. The bullet entered my throat, went through the top of my right lung and ended up stuck in my back, close to the surface. Local Dominicans and Haitians took me to hospital using a combination of carrying me, on the back of a motoconcho and a borrowed car, where the doctor did a tracheotomy - cutting in the wrong place so damaged my vocal chords - and I

then went in a clapped out ambulance to Santo Domingo where chest drains were inserted. I spent 12 days in hospital and then came home, and a couple of weeks later I was right as rain - apart from a dodgy voice. The bullet was moving around my back - you can see it in this picture and so it was cut out with a Gillette razor blade a few weeks later.

Being shot doesn't hurt, I didn't feel a thing until around 12 hours later when I felt like I had been run over by a bus. The chest drains actually hurt more. Your body seems to have this amazing ability to produce pain killers and something to stop you panicking - I was very calm. It was just uncomfortable not being able to breath as one lung had been punctured and the other was collapsing as the chest cavity filled with air and blood

When your lung is punctured the air has to go somewhere and it actually went under the skin and filled the top half of my body. My head swelled to double its size as did my arms and my boobs! And if you touched me where there was air, my skin squeaked! Interestingly although I never lost consciousness, I can only remember up to being in the car going to the local hospital and then nothing until just before the ambulance arrived at the hospital in Santo Domingo. At that point I was being bagged with oxygen - and the oxygen ran out. I remember then very clearly signalling to my husband that I was out of air, by slashing my hand across my throat, and I waved goodbye to him. Seconds later we arrived at the ER. Unfortunately they will not begin to treat you without a deposit, and luckily there is a cashpoint machine right outside the ER to make it easy for you to get cash. My husband got the deposit out and a few hours later I was pronounced out of danger. Total cost was around 700,000 pesos which was around14,000 pounds.

So here we are 5 years later and this week we are all working! Number 2 step son has opened a cafe, which sells hot dogs for 20 pesos (30 pence), freshly squeezed fruit juices, and fried chicken and plantain chips for 60 pesos (one pound). Unfortunately various items keep disappearing from the house and turning up in his cafe. Knives, chopping board, stereo, extension lead, and there you can see husband, Danilo, sitting on one of the bar stools from the house. The other one disappeared from the house today as well. Still, the cafe is doing well, taking around 40 to 60 pounds a day!

And I am now working for an American couple, researching on line, translating from Spanish to English, and sourcing things for them. One of the things they wanted was muslin bags, and not finding them here, I bought some muslin and gave it to the local tailor to sew. His sewing machine has come out of the ark, but it seems to work well! His name is Feo which means ugly, but he didn't look that bad to me. He sits in the main street outside his little shop, and has a box next to him where people drop in their clothes to be mended. It costs around 20 pesos to have a pair of trousers hemmed - so I doubt he will be rich soon!

The plantain

2011-07-09T13:19:00.013-04:00

The humble plantain is known as a platano here in the Dominican Republic and is one of the staple foods. It sells at between 4 and 12 pesos depending on the size and the season - that is between 6 and 15 pence for one. They are usually sold green, but can also be used when they are ripe.

Once you have your plantain the first thing you have to do is to peel it which as not as easy as it sounds. You have to put cooking oil on your hands otherwise they turn black with some residue which is on the outside of the banana. Then you cut off the top and bottom and using a blunt knife, score down from top to bottom whilst at the same time sliding the knife under the skin. Repeat this around three times and then it is easy to just peel the skin off. It sounds easy, but even after 10 years I still end up gouging lumps out of my plantains.

One of the main ways of eating plantains is mashed. It is called mangu and we eat it most days at midday with fried salami, fried onions and fried eggs. For those who eat breakfast, it is the standard breakfast here. I mash my plantains with butter and milk, but they are usually just mashed with their cooking water.

A variation of mangu is called mofongo and in this instance the plantains are mashed with garlic and bacon. For some reason it is served in a big wooden egg cup. Mofongo is usually eaten with stewed beef or chicken, and it is delicious.

If you ask for it in a restaurant be careful not to confuse it with mondongo as that is tripe.

Another use for plantains is in a dish called pastellon which is delicious.

For this you use the ripe platanos, i.e. when they are yellow, and it is basically like a lasagne but without the cheese sauce and using platanos in place of the lasagne. Layers of tomato and minced beef, layers of cheese and layers of mashed plantains.

And finally tostones which are I suppose the Dominican equivalent of french fries or chips. These are fried plantain chips and are eaten usually with fried chicken or fried fish or fried chops. In fact with anything.

So many uses for one little banana. I must admit I was not particularly keen on plantains at first but now I am as addicted to them as Dominicans are.

In fact if people feel you have adapted well to this country they say you are aplatanado - like a plantain I suppose!

The colmado

2011-06-20T13:15:00.007-04:00

Colmado in Spanish literally means full to the brim, and is the word used here for the equivalent of a corner shop. They are all over the place, and in my street alone there must be 7 or 8. Some are tiny, no more than a little shack, but most are the size you see here. They are all totally full of merchandise and are open from early in the morning, between 7 and 8, to between 8 and midnight at night. The ones here close for lunchtime between 12 and 2.

Colmados are not self service. You ask for what you want, well actually you demand it by screaming "dame", which means give me. It doesn't matter if anyone else is being

served, you just shout anyway. He or she who shouts loudest is served next.

You can buy just about anything you

need. Many things are sold loose, such as rice, flour, sugar, washing powder and things you might not expect like cornflakes, oil, vinegar, soya sauce. You just take a container in and they fill it up for you. There are always vegetables available such as plantains, yellow bananas, yucca, green peppers, onions and potatoes, tomatos and celery. As far as meat is concerned it is restricted to chicken, which is usually in a washing up bowl and

comes with feet and neck, smoked pork chops and of course salami.

A large percentage of people buy on credit and carry around a little piece of cardboard with what they owe on it, torn off a packet of something. Then when they get paid on the 15th or the 30th, or the 25th for government jobs, they take their piece of cardboard to the colmado and pay it all and then are given another torn off scrap of cardboard.

As well as being the main place for food, the colmado doubles up as a bar at night - and all day Sunday - and the main social centre of the neighbourhood. There is usually a television in one corner and the colmado fills up for baseball games and the daily soap opera programmes. At night everyone gathers and sits on the ubiquitous plastic chairs and drinks beer and rum.

There have been two key subjects in our colmado this week. Firstly the lack of street water, which has been turned off for over a week now whilst the tanks are cleaned apparently to stop the spread of cholera which has now hit this area. We have had a large tank in the street to use for water - how that is more healthy I am not really sure. The second topic has been the road which as you remember was full of mud. This morning a steam roller was driving up and down it, so we now have compacted mud and I was told that they are going to set fire to the road with petrol and then pour black stuff over it. I am not sure exactly how that is going to work, or if it is a Dominican way of tarmacking a road. I am sure that it will be a delightful experience as the whole street is set on fire.

Watch this space as they say.

Hurricane season

2011-06-05T14:06:00.014-04:00

The hurricane season began on June 1st and ends on the last day of November. This is my 9th full season and so far, touch wood, I have only been in the tail end of a Category One hurricane and maybe 6 or 7 tropical storms. They were bad enough so I am not looking forward to being in anything any stronger.

It has been raining every day since the season started,and this is the road outside the house. Walking in flip flops has become next to impossible as they just

get stuck in the mud.

Where we live now we should be less affected by hurricanes as they tend to hit the south of the island more than the north. And the north has more earthquakes than the south - not sure which I would prefer given the choice

During hurricane season I check the various hurricane websites every day. You need to be aware in advance of what is happening, especially

The hurricane web sites will show the amount of Saharan dust in the air - a lot is good as for some reason it dissipates hurricanes. Also the sea temperature - the hotter the sea the easier for a hurricane to grow. They also show the wind direction. I am not sure why, but in the early season they tend to head for the Dominican Republic and then veer northwards towards the Bahamas before they get too close. Then later on in the season, they go in a

straight line into the Caribbean sea, and then turn northwards, which is when we could get a direct hit. The web sites are very accurate about timing

as well. I remember one tropical storm which we were not really expecting to be close. I happened to check the website and it said it would be a direct hit at 6.30pm. By now it was around 4.30. I called my husband and told him to come home as a storm was coming, and we ate early. He told me I was exaggerating, and we sat down to play dominoes on our patio. At 6.30 on the dot the storm arrived. You get no warning apart from the fact that everything is very still and the birds stop singing - there is not a sound, no crickets, no frogs. The domino table was blown over, the trees bent over and the wind and the rain was ferocious. All the the Haitians and Dominicans who lived in huts nearby came to us for shelter that night. We had over 100 people in the house.as the local news channels often are not, and my Dominican and Haitian friends rely on me for information.

And that was only a tropical storm.

Apart from the wind which destroys houses and downs power lines, the main problem is the water. Although this is a tropical island where heavy downpours are a way of life, there appears to be no efficient way to cope with the rains and flooding happens all of the time. As soon as a storm starts the authorities turn the electricity off to save hundreds being electrocuted as the wires are blown down. So not only do you have to cope with the wind and the water, you also have to do it in the dark.

The other thing to remember is the eye. The wind will come from one direction and then as the eye passes over, all is quiet. During Hurricane George which was the last Category 5 to hit, when the eye passed over there was bright sunlight and everyone went into the streets thinking it was over. An hour or so later it started again, this time with the wind coming from the opposite direction. Most of the injuries happen during the second half when people are in the open thinking it is all over, and they are hit by flying debris.

So, stay safe everyone this season.

Wash Day

2011-05-30T15:29:00.014-04:00

Wash day here is not one of my favourite days. In England I didn't really have a wash day. When there was a pile of clothes to be washed you just threw them into the automatic washing machine, switched it on and left it. Then later in the day into the tumble dryer and there you go.

It is not quite like that here.

Many people, especially in the campos - the villages - wash by hand and lots of them will go down to the river. The key components are fa (washing powder) which is sold loose in the colmados and bleach known as chloro. Everything is bleached. In addition a block of yellow fatty soap is used.

It will take all day, and obviously with the heat here there always seem to be a lot of clothes to wash.

Luckily I have a washing machine. Well a twin tub to be accurate. They are all made of plastic so that they can be kept outside, and appear to work with clockwork although actually they need electricity to function. They are very simple. You fill the wash side with water and fa and bleach. Turn knob and it washes for around 20 minutes. You then turn another knob and it drains. Then I fill it back up with water again and repeat to rinse. I am not sure that Dominicans do the rinsing bit.

Then you empty it again and then put the clothes into the spinner and spin. Simple. The water usually drains into a gutter in the garden and then disappears into a bigger gutter outside the house which goes into the street.

I decided to wash the other day and was moving the washing machine to outside the back door when the whole top came off.

It appeared that all of the screws had disappeared which held it in place. Further investigation took place and it became apparent that number two son needed some screws but rather than going to the ironmongers to get them he just took them out of the washing machine - as you do

So the washing machine would not work, but not to worry I just had to call the mobile washing machine delivery man and he rents you one for the morning or afternoon.

Luckily, once we had new screws then mine works again however the spinner appears to have no brake so the only way to stop it is to stick a stick in it - I am convinced I will

break my arm one day.

One each load is done, then all that remains is to jam it onto the barbed wire fence in the garden - no need for pegs here at all, and everyone does the same. All of the clothes are usually turned inside out to save bleaching by the sun. Every item of clothing I own now has holes in it - I obviously still dont have the hang of doing it properly!

Dominican Espany

2011-05-23T12:24:00.010-04:00

When I first arrived in the Dominican Republic, I could not speak a word of Spanish. However, I could speak French and German, and having learnt languages before I assumed it would not be that difficult. What I did not realise was that Dominican Spanish is different. To start with they do not pronounce any of the letter 's'. It does not matter where it is in the word - it disappears. Plus they tend to leave off the endings of the words.

This sign, belonging to a funeral parlour, should say "Por favor, no traes muertos despues de la 6" which means please do not bring dead people after 6 o' clock. As you can see, spelling is obviously not a strong point - and remember to die in the day time.

As well as not pronouncing the letter 's'. there are many words which Dominican Spanish has taken from English, although at first they are not really recognisable. In sport for example there is Bakebo, Gol and Beybol. Food and drink such as wiki, sanwee and hamberge.

Here they managed to spell Gas Station correctly - gas being petrol - but struggled a bit with wash!

There are many other words too which can take a while to decipher: pantis, swiche (switch), aypo - this is hard - an Ipod, tapee (tape), teni (tennis

shoes), poloshe (t shirt), chelon (chaise longue) and emay (e-mail).

In addition, Dominican Spanish will we use the brand name such as Hoover for all similar appliances. So a razor blade is a Gilay (Gillette), washing powder is Fa (fab), porridge oats are Quacker.

The missing out of the 's' can make it very hard to understand at first. Como tu ta should be como tu estas or how are you. I remember asking my husband if the cats needed food. "No, tan full" he replied, which should have been "no, ellos estan full". Another English word creeping in there.

Driving around is always fun as everywhere you go there are signs to decipher. This one here says "It is prohibited to wash pigs". Then it states law 64-00 - I had no idea there was a law against washing pigs.

So if you are learning Dominican Spanish - good luck to you. On paper it seems easy enough, it is just when you are listening to people or trying to read what they have written that things get difficult.

Dominicans and noise

2011-05-13T15:15:00.002-04:00

When I first arrived here I loved the fact that there was music on the buses, in the supermarket, in the street, in the corner shops (colmados). There was dancing or singing everywhere, which made me feel as if everyone was happy. But the music is not played quietly in the background - Dominicans appear to have to have their music turned up very very loud. The most important

thing in the colmado is the sound system. It is turned on first thing in the morning when they open and then plays all day until closing time - around midnight. It is usually so loud that you can't hear yourself think let alone try and buy anything.

Houses all have stereo systems - the louder you can play your music the richer you are seen to be as you can afford a good system. The music is turned on first thing in the morningl to accompany the daily sweeping and mopping and is played most of the day. But what I don't understand is how people can talk to each other and hear each other when the music is so loud. I have become convinced

that the Dominican race has different voices and hearing to the English one. An English car will have a normal stereo in it. Look at this picture of a Dominican car! If you look inside the boot of any Dominican car you will find it full of speakers - no space at all for your shopping.

And it is not just the music that is loud. They speak loudly - especially on the mobile phone. My mother is always telling my husband to "Be quiet" as he talks so loudly. Maybe because the music is so loud that people learn to speak louder from an early age to make themselves heard.

In the afternoons people sit on plastic chairs in front of their houses and shout at each other across the street - they wouldn't dream of sitting next to each other. And if you want to talk to someone you shout out their name and they have to come to you. You would never dream of going to look for them. So living in a Dominican barrio it is a constant cacophony of sound, with the different music, with people shouting at each other, shouting for their kids!

I thought it was just me, being English, who found all this noise a little bit much sometimes. But yesterday the barrio fought back.

One of the houses here is owned or rented by a man who lives in Nuevo Yol (New York), and every month he sends money back for the family who live there. When the money arrives it is party time - day and night until 4am. The music has not stopped from Friday to Wednesday this week. The neighbours have had enough and yesterday told the family that if there is any more loud music they would call the police to take the speakers away - which is how loud music is dealt with here.

Since then total silence. It is the first time I can remember that Dominicans have turned down the music.

I went to the colmado this morning and even they do not have their music on. The only sound around is the geese, the occasional donkey, the dogs barking and the hens clucking - mind you this one in the colmado will probably spend the afternoon asleep.

Living with a Dominican Man

2011-05-02T12:47:00.012-04:00

I have been living with a Dominican man for 10 years, married for the last 6 nearly. Here you can see what a handsome couple we make when he was presented with an award for being the biggest contributor towards helping youth sport in the area.

When you are married to someone from a different culture, background,and country, with a different language, education, and upbringing, it certainly brings with it a whole variety of challenges.

1. Generosity

I love this about Dominicans. They share everything. If someone is hungry they will give them food, give them a bed if they have nowhere to sleep. Help pay for medicines and the doctor if they are sick. They will lend their car or motorbike to anyone who asks. It is a lovely part of their nature and I find it very humbling as it makes me realise how careful we are with our possessions in the developed world. However it can be frustrating when the Christmas presents you bought him, like the new denim jacket, the camera, the new pair of jeans, mysteriously disappear even before the end of January. Sometimes given away, sometimes 'borrowed' by the children or family, never to be returned.

2. Family

Family are incredibly important. There is no system of social security and very few people have pensions, so when you are old and decrepit your children look after you. No Granny dumping here. What is more, as soon as the children start working they give part of their wages to their parents. It is just the way it is. My husband's third son lives in Spain with his mother and every month he sends us half of his pocket money. When you are sick and in hospital the whole family moves into your hospital room and looks after you and brings you food - nurses just come and change drips or give injections. If you are unlucky enough to go to jail the family brings you food every day.

But when the family come to visit they take over. I don't spend time in the kitchen, preparing for their visit. Once they arrive they just walk in, take everything out of the freezer, and start cooking. They take my clothes out of the closet and wash and iron them. At first it would do my head in, now I just let them get on with it and try not to cry when I see the nice piece of beef I was saving for next Sunday lunch being chopped up and thrown in a pot of rice. And remember, your Dominican man will of course send money to his parents, and they will always come first in his life - no point in fighting it. Both of my husband's parents are dead, but we send money to his brothers and sisters if they really need it.

3. Optimistic

Dominican men are very optimistic and generally live for the day. It is wise not to let them have total control of the finances or you are unlikely to last the week let alone the month. My husband has an amazing ability not to dwell on the past at all, it is not worth it, he says, it is past. If you have food for the day then everything is right with the world, and if you don't, then someone is sure to give it to you. Life here is all about laughter and appreciating the good, however small it is, rather than dwelling on the problems, or what might happen.

4. The truth

This is a tad difficult for your typical Dominican man. He will always tell you what he thinks you want to hear, and will never tell you anything he knows will make you cross. If you are a tourist on holiday and you ask any Dominican if it will be sunny tomorrow they will always say yes, as that is what you want to hear. I would realise the car was missing and ask where it was. The answer is always the same: "Nearby," or "It will be here soon" or "What's for tea?" Anything rather than tell me it had been lent to someone who had no driving licence and who had taken it to a town 4 hours away.

The great thing though about being with someone so different to yourself is that you both find wonderment in each other's country and culture. I will laugh in amazement when I see the kids going to school on the bus, and he cannot see what I am laughing about as it is normal for him. And when we are in England he is like a cross between Crocodile Dundee and ET as he sees so many things that are different, such as trains - there are none here - horses wearing coats in the cold weather, white smoke coming out of your mouth when you breath in the cold air.

Life is one long journey of adapting to each other's ways. The washing line is used to hang fish on to dry in the sun covered in salt and oregano (one of his specialties) and the laundry is hung on a barbed wire fence to save on pegs.

He cannot read a map and when we travel anywhere I say use the map and he says ask people en route. So as I usually drive, every journey takes a long time as we have to stop for me to read the map, and stop for him to ask people. We laugh about whose system worked best but we always get to where we are going in the end though - and that is what it is all about isn't it?

Fixing things - the Dominican way

2011-04-23T10:21:00.016-04:00

Dominicans do not tend to have tool boxes. If they have tools they lend them to people and never get them back, or people just 'borrow' them. Those that managed to keep hold of their tools look after them carefully, those that don't, well they improvise, and no one can improvise like a Dominican.

Instead of a hammer you use a rock. Several times when the car would not start you firstly have to squeeze a lime over the battery contacts and then you hit the battery with a rock. It works every time. Instead of screwdrivers you use a knife. Any knife including the most expensive. I have got through 5 complete knife sets since I have been here.

The door fell off our fridge (no not this one). I would have bought a new special piece to fix it. No. Make holes in the fridge door with a knife, hitting it with a rock, and put a normal door hinge on the fridge. It works.

Plastic containers are used for everything as well as their original purpose. As well as being used as a down pipe, if you go to the orthapaedic ward in the local hospital you will see several bleach containers filled with sand hanging off the edge of the beds with a piece of rope. These are used instead of weights and pulleys for traction for broken legs.

The same with plastic bags. Once brought home they are not only used to put rubbish in, especially toilet paper as you can't put it in the toilet here, but every time it rains you will see all the ladies running around with plastic bags on their heads. The same when they go into the sea or the river, have to have the plastic bag on the head.

We bought a new television a few years ago. I would have measured to make sure it fitted in the place especially made in the unit. It wasn't measured and it didn't fit. Do you; 1) take it back, 2) put it somewhere else or 3) hack a piece out of the cabinet with a machete so that the television fits and the door no longer closes on the cabinet. Yes, you have guessed it. Option 3.

Friends come to stay for the night. A Dominican general and his girlfriend. They stay in the spare bedroom in a lovely mahogany bed. The headboard starts banging against the wall.

Do they; 1) move the bed away from the wall, 2) put a towel or a t-shirt between the head board and the wall, or 3) find the toolbox which was kept in the spare bedroom for safekeeping and nail the headboard to the wall with 3 inch nails.

The headboard split in two a few weeks later.

I love it though as if anything breaks you do not have to wait for a professional to come and fix it. There is always someone on hand to botch for you, as long as you have knives, string, a rock and a machete then everything can be fixed.

The burners in my gas stove have rusted away. The solution is to take out the burners and just have the gas pipe coming straight into the oven. It is unfortunately not temperature controlled - it is blast furnace or blast furnace - but it works!

Everything always works - for a time anyway!

Dominican transportation

2011-04-18T13:00:00.000-04:00

The main means of transportation in the Dominican Republic is the motorbike. Naturally there are cars and trucks and bicycles but most families, especially the poorer ones, will have a motorbike.

As well as people using them for their own personal transportation they are also used as taxis, known as motoconchos. This is usually a full time job for the rider, and someone who is doing this is said to be a 'motoconchista' who is 'conchando'. None of these words are in the dictionary.

Whan I first arrived here there was no way I was going to use this form of transport. I would never dream of going on a motorbike in the UK, and there was no way I would start now. It took me 24 hours to change my mind. Walking in the hot sun was not very pleasant, and a trip of a mile or so was only around 30 pence. So I started using motoconchos.

The first thing you have to learn is now to get on and off. You should always do this from the left, the side away from the exhaust pipe, otherwise you will often end up with nasty burns on your legs.

I began by holding on tightly to the driver, slowly learning to hold on a little less tightly, then putting my hands behind me to hold on to the bar behind the passenger seat, and eventually not holding on at all.

There appears to be no limit as to the number of people who can be carried on one small bike, and the driver will always help you by carrying your shopping for you.

And motoconchos are not only used for carrying people. Whatever you need, whatever you want you can always call a motoconcho to bring it to you.

In the streets they ride up and down selling things, such as eggs, bread, ice cream, brushes and pork scratchings.

If you need to do some washing, and you have no washing machine, you can call the washing machine man and he will come on his motorbike with the washing machine on the back, rent it to you for

around 80 pence an hour, then he will come and pick it up and go on to his next customer

If you need your fridge repaired, just call the motoconcho and he will hoist your fridge onto the back of his bike and take it off for you.

The bike are almost always bought on credit, with interest rates at over 100% a year. If the payments are missed at all then the interest becomes even more. Given that the bikes are so necessary for the motoconcho to earn a living, they are always desperate to keep them, and if they don't keep up the payments then the bikes will be repossessed and they will lose all of the money they have paid so far. In order to keep up the payments they will often pawn pieces of the bike such as the instrument panel, the indicators and the lights. Hence it is wise if you take a motoconcho at night to check it has lights. If not, the driver will usually take his mobile phone and hold it in front with one hand so that other drivers on the road will hopefully see a mobile phone twinkling in the distance, and be a tad less likely to hit you.

The bikes are not only used for carrying people and household items. They are even more widely used in the rural areas where people are too poor to have a car, and often the roads are not wide enough or suitable for a car either.

Obviously it is a little more difficult to carry live animals than a dead fridge, but Dominicans always manage to find a way around the problem.

It cannot be denied that it is a very dangerous mode of transportation, and hundreds of motorbike riders and their passengers are killed every year.

Very few wear helmets and even fewer wear protective clothing. Occasionally the police will try to clamp down on them and arrest them if they are not wearing helmets - once they start doing that those that do not have helmets, which is the majority, will put anything protective on their heads, including saucepans.

Motoconchos are a Dominican institution, and you will always see something which will make you smile and wonder at the ingenuity of the local people here.

Getting up in the morning

2011-04-16T11:58:00.001-04:00

When I used to get up in the mornings in the UK, I would be woken up by the alarm clock, walk to the bathroom on plush carpet, hot shower, switch on coffee machine, pick up newspaper and mail from the doormat, and bring in the bottle of milk which was sitting outside the front door. It's not quite the same where I am now.

I am woken up at any time from 6am to 7am. Sometimes by the dogs barking, sometimes cocks crowing, sometimes by the geese which wander up and down the street attacking anyone who passes, and sometimes by the neighbours putting the stereo on so loudly our bed jumps up and down. If people have a stereo here they put it on as loudly so that they can show the neighbours that they can afford a good system.

The sun is almost always shining in through the windows. We have no glass, but metal slats which you can close if it rains. I walk to the bathroom, avoiding any dead animals which the cats have brought in overnight, usually lizards or spiders but the occasional baby rat or bird. I go to clean my teeth and have a wash, hoping that there is water. The water comes in by pipe but is turned off for 2 or 3 days at a time every week or so. When this happens I have to go into the garden and open the tap for the tinaco which is a big black plastic tank on the roof. Then we have water from the tinaco until it runs out, hopefully not before the mains water is on again when it refills the tinaco.

Then into the kitchen to make the coffee. No electric coffee machine but a greca, which is a metal old fashioned type of coffee percolator which you fill with water underneath and coffee on top and put on the cooker to boil. Coffee is grown locally, and when made in the greca it really is fabulous and worth getting out of bed for.

Unfortunately you need gas for the cooker to work and there is no piped gas in the country. Everyone has a little gas tank which you fill up at a gas station. The trouble is there is no way you can tell when it is going to run out so sometimes you are desperate for your coffee and there is no gas. If that happens you have to call a motorbike taxi, (motoconcho) or go yourself and take the tank to be filled.

Then it is hopefully time for a shower. I say hopefully as the hot watercomes from the shower head itself which has a little heater in it. When you turn the water on it is heated up as it comes through the shower head. But for it to work we have to have mains electricity. The electricity comes on twice a day for 3 to 4 hours a time. When there is no electricity we use an inverter which is attached to a bank of car batteries.

It works well, but so as not to drain the batteries the shower is not attached to the inverter, nor is the fridge. We also cannot iron nor use the microwave when the inverter is on. Apart from that it works well and it feels like we have constant electricity which is nice.

So, after hopefully having coffee and a hot shower, it is time for breakfast.

This is why I love this place. I just walk out of the back door into beautiful sunshine. Two yards away is the grapefruit tree. Once you have eaten a grapefruit straight from the tree you will be totally addicted to it. It is a completely different flavour. Unfortunately I have to wait until November for them to be ready. At the moment there are lemons on the lemon tree, and the mangos will be ready next week. We also have guava which are all year round, and passion fruit too. Plus at the moment there are guanabana which are large, green and prickly but inside they are delicious, with a soft white fruit which tastes a little like a sweet pear.

No post on the mat, as no postal service here, no newspaper and no pints of milk on the doorstep. But there is nothing like sitting outside in the sunshine in the early morning, listening to all the sounds, drinking fabulous coffee and eating fruit straight off the tree.

RIP Shakira

2011-04-14T09:22:00.001-04:00

Shakira aka Shaka died yesterday. She was a Belgian Malinois, and was only 9 months old. Shaka was given to us by some friends who had a large litter of Malinois puppies and wanted to take them to a dog fair in the capital. Most hotels aren't too happy about a hotel room full of pooping pups so they came and stayed in our guest house and to to say thanks, gave us Shakira.

She was a typical puppy and more. Chewed everything, stole cushions from the house at every opportunity, and although was fabulous with the cats inside the house she would turn into a murderess if she caught them outside.

A couple of months ago she killed one the the neighbours chickens, which stupidly flew over the wall. The rule of the jungle here came into play and she was poisoned. That's what happens in the campo when you kill a neighbour's chicken. We did not know of any vets here but I phoned one who told me what to give her which I did, and then we discovered the local vet.

His name is Dr Francis. You can tell he is a doctor as he wears a special ring. Not sure if that is a Dominican or an American thing. Francis is very large and wears a vest, although he sometimes puts on scrubs if you are lucky. His surgery is only 5 minutes drive away, and in the main area it has 4 cages in it. One with 2 monkeys in, one with budgies, one with cockerels and one with rabbits and chicks in together. He also has a long line of jam jars with a Siamese fighting fish in each one. If you are feeling rich you can bet on a fish and they put two in a jar together and see which one wins. Makes a change from the lottery I suppose.

Francis is there 24/7 and you can call or visit whenever you like, he also loves animals. The trouble is I am not sure he actually knows what he is doing. Shakira has been sick on and off since the poisoning episode - each time the same symptoms, not eating, lethargic, and obviously very anaemic as her tongue and gums were very pale. He managed to cure her each time with diagnoses ranging from gastro enteritis due to digging up dead cat 3 times, lung infection, heart problems, cancer, and the latest was sickle cell anaemia. Anyway, this time she was very ill, and died whilst at his surgery. He performed a post mortem and said it was definitely poisoning and she was bleeding internally. Probably due to the first time.

When I took her in for the last time he was busy stuffing a parrot, so am hoping he will not stuff Shakira. You can never tell with Francis.

I should say however that he successfully sorted Cojo's hernia and chopped his balls off at the same time. Cojo is the 3 legged cat. He also believes in natural remedies for the animals - raw mince for diarrhea and shark oil for chest infections - which I have not been able to find.

We will miss Shaka, always full of life and great fun. The other dogs are missing her too.

Sanky Panky

2011-04-11T10:00:00.001-04:00

Most Dominican men would love to meet and marry a foreign lady. This is for a whole variety of reasons. Firstly is probably economic. Foreigners usually have more money, which is not difficult as the average wage here, for those who are working is around 100 pounds a month. They also can potentially give a Dominican man the chance to have a visa to leave the country, whether temporary or permanently. Many Dominicans dream of working and living abroad, believing the streets are lined with gold in what they call Nuevo Yol (New York). Another reason is status, which is very important to Dominicans. If you have a foreign girlfriend or wife, your reputation increases amongst your peers. And finally there is the relationship aspect. Dominicans believe that foreign women make better wives in that they are less controlling, less confrontational and less argumentative.

However, whilst several relationships between Dominicans and foreign women work well, there is, amongst the Dominicans, a breed apart known as Sanky Pankies. These are men who make a business out of relationships. They will usually work in tourist businesses, hotels, bars, tour

agencies, and their main source of income is making foreign women fall for them and then send them money on a regular basis. Those who work well will often have several women on the go at once.

For those people on the outside looking in on these relationships, it can be somewhat unbelievable that women would allow themselves to be scammed like this. However, Sankies can be very persuasive. Often the women have been unable to find a partner or love in their own countries, and Sankies appear to be totally unconcerned about looks or age. They can make a woman fall for them in days. Whilst the woman is on holiday they make some money, maybe have meals paid for them, or she will buy him a new mobile phone or some trainers. However, the real income starts once the woman returns home, desperately in love with her Dominican man. The ruses used to be that their mother was ill or they were in jail and could she please send some money. And for some reason the women always send the money. Over the past few years though, the Sankies have become more and more demanding and it appears to me that more and more women are being taken in.

If a Sanky believes he has someone who will send him sufficient money on a regular basis then he will say he has left his job, or he will actually leave it. He will use a variety of reasons such as his boss said he could no longer work as he has a foreign girlfriend, or, if the woman visits often, he will say that he cannot take sufficient time off work to be with her. They will then expect the woman to pay his 'wages'. These would have been from US$ 150 to maybe 250 a month, but they will increase this figure dramatically up to US$ 1000 a month. And the women will send the money. They will often ask for their rent to be paid. Usually they will live in a typical Dominican house with the rest of the family paying around US$30-50 a month, but suddenly they will say they live in an apartment which costs more like US$450 a month. When the girlfriend visits they will be in the apartment, but as soon as she leaves they will move out, but she will still send the rent.

They all use the "I am in jail and please help me get out" card. This can cost a serious amount of money such as US$ 5,000. Now, more and more are trying it for smaller amounts saying they have been stopped by the police for speeding, or for not wearing a helmet on a motorbike and if the girlfriend does not send money they will go to jail. Whilst it is true that once the police know a Sanky has a foreign girlfriend who sends a lot of money they will ask for a cut, they often work together with the Sanky to extort money.

The family will often become involved and help to take money from the unsuspecting girlfriend. The standard practice is to take the girlfriend to meet the family who are always very nice and always live in a basic Dominican house. Then the mother will become sick, and she may even call the girlfriend directly saying she has cancer or something equally bad. She will beg the girlfriend for help. The Sanky himself will often be sick, and fail to mention that Dominican Republic has public hospitals where treatment is free, although medicines are not. This is another way of raising a large amount of money.

However, whilst all of this is not right, the worst is when at last the girlfriend marries the Sanky and then obtains a visa for him to go and live with her in her country. Some have up to 6 women trying to get visas for them at the same time, and some even marry several times. The Sankies will say that they are working to get the visa and need money for a passport and each of the women will send money. Even if he only has one applying for a visa for him, very often once he arrives in her country he will leave her within a matter of months. She of course will be broken hearted and several thousand dollars poorer.

Not all Dominican men are Sankies. Not all of those who work in tourism are. But those who are true Sankies are expert con men who prey on foreign tourists who are often at a vulnerable stage in their lives. And they are becoming more demanding and more outrageous. If you do start a relationship with a Dominican man, you need to be aware of the potential Sanky ploys, and if you are already with one, try not sending him money for a while - see if he hangs around. if not, you know what he is.

Toilet Paper

2011-04-06T10:52:00.000-04:00

In the Dominican Republic, in the campo, which is the word for village, there are no toilets. If you are lucky you have a latrine - a hole dug in the ground - with a little hut built on top of it, or plastic sheets around it for privacy. Most people will just do as the bears do - and go in the woods.

Obviously there is no toilet paper, so the alternative of choice is a tusa, which is a corn on the cob, without the corn. Having learned this, I assumed that when you wanted to take your trip to the woods, firstly you had to gather wood for the fire. Then you had to go to the river to collect water. Make the fire, boil the water, cook the corn and eat it. Once the husk had cooled you could then take yourself off to the woods armed with your tusa. As long as it was not too late.

Luckily that is not the case. The chickens eat the corn, straight off the husk, so the yards are full of readily prepared tusas, which can be gathered and stacked for whenever the need arises.

We do not live in the campo at the minute, so luckily we have toilet paper. However, we are on an economy drive. Toilet paper costs around 15 pesos a roll which is about 30 pence. But my husband went to do the shopping at a local supermarket and he bought Charmin. A big pack. It cost an absolute fortune. There was no way we could justify spending that amount on toilet paper, especially with 4 men in the house. As it was double thickness, I made them unravel it all and make two rolls out of one - still considerably softer than a tusa.

Off we go

2011-04-03T10:31:00.000-04:00

My very first post on my very first blog, and very exciting it is too.

I am currently writing a book, called surprisingly enough, "What about your saucepans?", which is what my mother said to me when I told her I was leaving the UK, my well paid job, and my husband to go off and travel the world as a scuba diving instructor. I left the saucepans behind as well. I am trying to get the book published at the moment, so in the meantime have started this blog, to give you something to read until the book appears.

I will be talking about all sorts of things related to the Dominican Republic, the country, the people, their customs and habits, what it is like to live here.

I hope you enjoy it.