How could I forget the Pringooools?!

The packaging seems to imply that if I eat Pringooools I will be filled with athletic prowess.

Things in the Dominican Republic that make me giggle

Often the products you find in shops are sources of amusement when traveling in countries different from your own. The following are examples of things I found in the Dominican Republic that made me giggle.

 Have you enjoyed a bit too much Ponche (eggnog) and are beginning to resemble Santa Clause?

Then La Fuerza and Campeon are highly recommended!  

(Ok, not really since both taste seriously horrible, but man they're cheap as!)

Have a craving for sweets? Try a delicious chocole ship cookie! 

 Not your thing? How about a dona?

Misspellings make me laugh. 


Wash sweets down with some Sobrino, which made me giggle because it means "nephew". 
It doesn't seem as funny now.

Dominican ladies take their hair seriously. Consequently, you can get professional style salon stations basically everywhere here. Like say you're at the hardware store and your honey is looking for lawnmowers, you can easily convince him to buy you a perm machine since they're conveniently located next to said machinery! 

Your man not convinced? Is he ranting about the unnecessary expenditure of funds? Perhaps while he enjoys his free cafecito, you can help him calm down and see reason.

Keeping your clothes looking good is also important, so the nice folks of La Sirena have a tailor and dry cleaner right there so you can shop while your clothes are being mended! 

Check it people!  You're eating cheap Dominican food, using free WiFi, and looking at the Puerto Plata beach. Not bad, especially considering you're doing all these things from what is essentially a Walmart cafeteria. Too bad when I was growing up on the Malecon this was a tree covered plot with a quaint, French run restaurant. Whatever, my abuelo complained that the French lady put a cap on the amount of wine he and his buddies could buy when they went there. Good riddance! 

Food just tastes better when it's got a corporate logo on it and you can look out at the concrete 
with a sea of cars parked on it.


What really makes me giggle, though, is getting to spend time with great people!

From right to left: Angi Kang, International Program Director for Health Horizons International, 
Johnathan, First son of Rachel, MSMPH (Master of Smiles and Melting People's Hearts), 
Rachel Sticklee, Founder of La Tienda fairtrade art coop in Villa Ascension, 
William Carl "The Poop Guy" Brown III, MD, MSc, expert in tropical parasites, and yours truly.

No matter where you are in the world, it's all about the people (and the food).

Buried Alive: Did a Haitian Voodoo Priestess try to create a zombie in Los Algodones?

On Tuesday, April 13, 2010 a group of Haitians exhumed the body of Yeliná Chelí from the Los Algodones cemetary. Yeliná Chelí was a 35 year old Haitian woman who, according to family and friends, was killed and buried three days earlier after bewitching, white powder was blown in her face by a supposed Haitian voodoo witch who was pursuing Yeliná's husband. The police arrested Yeliná Chelí's parents, Bolo Chelí and Anyeliná Pie, along with the other Haitian villagers responsible for digging up her cadaver, requesting that the remains be turned over to them for further study. Her family exhumed her body because they believed that she had been given zombie powder and was still alive underground. When they dug her up, the coffin of  Yeliná Chelí was lined with sweat. Is it possible that Yeliná Chelí was buried alive?

Yeliná Chelí was a resident of Villa Esperanza, a section of the Hatian batay Los Algodones, which falls under the municipality of Montellano.  It has been an area of severe socioeconomic depression for many years. I remember visiting it when I was a teenager and helping out with various distribution projects. My favorite was called a milk ministry; we gathered all the children from the village into the church where we'd exchange songs and hand out cookies, glasses of milk, hard-boiled eggs and sometimes toys. In recent years, missionary Elio Madonia, through The Samaritan Foundation, has worked with teams to improve conditions in the area, establishing Villa Esperanza, but conditions are still far from ideal since viable work for Haitians is simply not available in the Dominican Republic. In a place where people struggle to meet their most basic needs and the very real racial tension between Haitian immigrants and Dominicans is high, talk of voodoo witch craft is taken very seriously and has intense sociocultural ramifications. 


There was an intimidate backlash against Haitians in the form of comments left on online news articles about the exhumation and blogs. One reader of Almomento.net, going by the username "de la rosa", wrote:


"What else can they give us, these sons of the god Damballa... they adore African gods... continuing as slaves like before... while they continue in this way, they won't have progress and they will continue being the most neglected people in the world... this teaches THE HAITIAN WOMAN SOLAIN PIE who went to San Cristobal in a two million peso Yipeta with body guards... she's making herself "white" she mine as well comb the hair on her head of rock... THEY DENY THEMSELVES... they don't know who they are... Haiti is an abortion of American imperialists... the difficult thing is that this curse has fallen on THE SACRED DOMINICAN NATION... The time has come, dominicans, to defend your country...!"


To which "History Man" responded, "Amen". [Click HERE for full article with comments]

The title of a blog written for deDominicanos.com says it all: "Haitianos traen ignorancia y miseria a Dominicana [Haitians bring ignorance and misery to Dominicans]" The author insists that education is the only way forward since uneducated Dominicans are being swayed by voodoo and occult beliefs too. [Click HERE for full blog entry with photo of zombie powder ritual and video of the exhumation] 


So lets get back to the good stuff. You said something about bewitching white powder and zombification, right? What's that all about?

Apparently, zombies were traditionally created by powerful voodoo priests (or priestesses) to be used as a workforce. Priests would blow a white powder on victims who would then "die" and were buried. The priest would later dig up the body and "bring it back to life" but continue giving it doses of other drugs to keep the person in a zombie state to be used as a perfect slave laborer. The classic tale of a modern-day zombie is that of Clairvis Narcisse, who was pronounced dead in 1962 by staff at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Deschapelles, Haiti and was buried but was found very much alive 18 years later and returned to his village.

Cool! How can I make one?


According to Wade Davis, an anthropologist and author of several books on the topic of Haitian voodoo, the main active ingredient in zombie powder is tetrodotoxin, the deadly neurotoxin found in Puffer fish. There are a bunch of other things in there as well, but the other three ingredients almost always found are Bufo marinus (marine toad), Osteopilus dominicensis (Hyla tree frog), and human remains. Lovely. Let's get mixing! Hang on, not so fast. Davis also concludes that cultural factors play a significant part in the creation of zombies, so you can't just blow some powder on someone and expect it to make a zombie if the person doesn't believe in the process himself. Too bad. My dishes need a zombie to wash them. [For more information read Wade Davis' books. I'm currently reading The Serpent and the Rainbow and finding it super interesting. Or just watch the movie.]


So do Dominicans practice voodoo too?


Voodoo is a syncretic religion that has for centuries adapted to fit into other religious systems, most obviously Catholic, and it is widely considered a strictly Haitian belief system in the Dominican Republic. However, according to an article on dr1, since voodoo is something still feared by the majority of Dominicans as a result of the teachings of the church and the belief that it's a Haitian thing, many Dominicans do actually practice it but call it "21 Divisiones". Apparently it is so culturally significant that some Catholic Dominicans have alters to Belié Belcán, a loa in Dominican voodoo. So voodoo is operating behind 21 Divisiones, which is then hiding behind Catholicism. Talk about religious layering!


What about Yeliná Chelí? What exactly happened to her and how do Haitians feel about the incident? 


Her body is currently at the Institute of Forensic Sciences in Santiago awaiting autopsy to determine cause of death. Since this is the Dominican Republic, don't hold your breath until they have the results. We're closer to having our own pet zombies like in the movie Fido than accurate results. Incidentally, Fido is an excellent zombie movie, as is Zombieland.


The real tragedy is the aforementioned backlash on the part of some Dominicans who already distrust Haitians and feel they are anything from dirty to cannibalistic and the sentiment of hopelessness felt by many Haitians that incidents like this one only worsen. Just two days ago Kreyol speakers of a mission group staying at Crossroads were saddened after their conversation with village youth at Villa Ascension who expressed shame about being Haitian because of incidents like this one. 


While I don't agree with the sentiment of the author of the deDominicanos blog I mentioned earlier, I do agree that education is the key to a better future for the Dominican Republic. Dominicans need to promote not only the education of Dominicans, but also that of Haitians and include lessons in Haitian and Dominican history and cross-cultural understanding. Only then will both cultures begin to be able to interact in a peaceful manner.

 The voodoo temple in Caribaio, near Villa Ascension.

Living in the Dominican Republic: Things that amuse me Part II

1) The fact that there exists an internet cafe/photocopy place/coffee shop/bar/disco tech that has you spin a roulette wheel to determine what percentage of your tab you pay.

My abuelo gives it a spin. He got 50% off!


You can get 100% of your bill covered like these lucky people:


There are other types of rewards too, like free coffee! PhotoBar is a must visit if you're ever in Cabrera.


2) I love giving random people rides; it brightens people's days and helps cut their transportation costs.

These kids were chopping wood and we offered them a lift so they didn't have to carry their load so far. Too cute!


These kids were just getting off from school, so we gave them a ride to their village.


3) This isn't a good thing by any stretch of the imagination, but it's something you wouldn't find in the states ever: racially explicit flour. Here people are openly characterized according to the degree of their skin's darkness, which indicates their proximity to either the elite descendants of Spanish colonialists or African slaves. Apparently flour can be found ranging from Negrito to Morenita (mixed) to blanco (white).


It's possible that my dad and I have way too much fun grocery shopping!


Another amusing thing that can be found at La Sirena,which is basically a Latino Walmart:

Professional hair salon stations to keep your hair looking lovely.


Have extra time on your hands? Play dress up with La Sirena online moda!

I love that you can buy fresh made juices with no sugar added.


4) I love that politicians campaign by hiring trucks with giant speakers to blast popular music (usually Merengue)and guys on motorbikes carrying banners to ride through towns getting people excited, or at least causing much "appreciated" traffic jams.

Driving through Nagua we were stopped for a while by a procession for Chu.


And as we were trying to leave our apartment in Cabrera we were delayed by another politico's attempts at raising support...too bad his groupies decided to crowd into a dead end street, which made exiting comically frustrating.

Come on, you can totally fit more speakers in that truck!



Alright, enough computer for me! Off to take a walk in the great outdoors and smell some flowers, whose aroma will hopefully cover the odor of my sweat!

P.S. If you read this blog and are a fan, become a follower and single-handedly raise my self esteem by 10 whole points! Come on, you need a Google account anyway to keep up with today's trends!

Things that amuse me about living in the Dominican Republic

Living in a developing country has it's challenges as things seldom turn out quite the way you anticipated, but there's something I find liberating in having my expectations continually challenged. I'm forced to keep things in my life flexible, forced to adapt and adjust as things around me change. You have to always have plans A through Z, or no plans whatsoever, since you never know where you'll end up, what you'll end up doing, or who you'll end up doing whatever it is you end up doing with!

And then there's the simple fact that you can get away with doing way more of what you want to do without having to worry about rules! As a kid I used to ride on trucks, sneak into fancy resorts to use the pool, climb trees and eat fruit, and whenever we'd get pulled over by police my dad would have me cry and that generally worked (I was younger and cuter:-).

There's also the issue of safety, or general lack there of. When I was little I remember at the fair by the fort at the end of the malecon in Puerto Plata I'd ride on these swings that spun around really fast and went pretty high up in the air but, because it was the DR, there weren't any safety straps, which added an element of excitement. I mean, what's the point of a ride if you're not actually risking injury?!

Seat belts, who needs those? Apparently only the people in the front seat according to Dominican law, hence our riding in true hippy style from Sosua to Las Galeras.


On the topic of safety, I'm pretty sure anyone can wake up and decide that he wants to be an electrician. What other possible explanation could there be for this monstrosity of wires I found at a restaurant?


Or the fact that electricians feel it's safe practice to lean their ladders on active electrical cables like this guy:


And on what planet is this a good idea?


I seriously once saw a guy lighting his cigarette next to the propane tank's fill valve while steering his motorbike with his elbow. Come on peeps!

And what about road rules? My dad and I have often discussed how amazing it is how few accidents there are here given the apparent chaos on the streets. They don't even have lanes painted on most of the roads, there's no problem with creating extra lanes when you want to, passing on the right is no problem, there are cows, kids, and people selling stuff in the middle of the road, and everyone goes at their own pace, which means some people seem to be barely moving while others are zipping by like they've got a hot date waiting for them. At first this all seems intimidating, but after a while there is an appearance of a system. Basically you honk to let people know where you are, when you want to pass, and when you don't want to let someone into your lane. My dad feels safer driving here than in the US because he says that here you can safely assume that everyone drives crazy, so you just watch out and do your thing. In the US you assume everyone knows what they're doing and are following the rules so you can get away with zoning out, which means you're not prepared when that random guy defies the rules and accidents happen. However, my dad insists that when accidents do happen here they're really bad, especially when public transport is involved since there are so many people squished into the three respective types of public transport, or Publicos: Guaguas (vans), Caritos (cars), and Motoconchos (motorbikes).


Yea, it's pretty typical to have at least one person leaning out the Guagua door holding on for dear life.

Fact: My dad and I saw seven people on a motorbike last month and none of them were babies. I challenge you to top that sighting!

I love riding on publicos because you never know who you're going to meet. You might get to ride with a baseball team!


These kids looked about junior high age and they were hilarious. They told the driver he could only stop for women, which became comically problematic when there was a group of women with one man and the kids tried to let only the women on board. The man did not find them so amusing.

I love it!

There's heaps more that I find amusing about living in the Dominican Republic, but it's siesta time (another enjoyable practice)!

Dominican political parties: A test in color coordination

Political posters advertising the candidates for the upcoming local elections for the positions of Sindaco (mayor), Vice Sindaco, and Diputado of Sosua/Caberete line the principle highway that runs from Puerto Plata to Caberete. Each poster is brightly colored to show with party the candidate pledges allegiance to, but don't for a second be fooled into thinking that these allegiances are permanent; like many things in Dominican culture, political parties are fluid organizations given to spontaneous shifts in loyalty.

Willy Olivence (a.k.a. "El Chamo") was running for Sindaco of Sosua with the red party (PRSC Catholic reformists) but recently decided to change sides and is now running as Vice Sindaco for the white party (revolutionary "socialist" party PRD)who has Ilana Neumann as their Sindaco candidate. Oh, and FYI the white party is also the blue party. The red party now has the very Dominican named Vladimir Céspedes. Apparently Vladimir, the current mayor of Sosua, had wanted El Chamo to help him form a coalition between the liberal party (PLD) and PRSC but El Chamo preferred to go blue, which is of course white. In total there are about 22 parties but only 12 are running for office in Sosua.

My vote would go to Ilana, not so much because I'm a socialist but more because her posters are pretty. They have a simple white backdrop and feature everyday people looking happy. Her posters say she stands for things like women, jobs, youth, and a better future. She even stands for sports! Come on, who wouldn't want those things? I mean, clearly the aesthetic appeal of one's posters is the most important indicator of future political effectiveness. In this poster she says that she's for family.



This guy is running for the purple people (PLD), who are the current people in office on the national scale with President Leonel Fernandez.


This poster amuses me. What exactly is he looking at? I feel like he could, at any moment, begin to sing some sort of operatic love song.