Saturday, April 29, 2006
We are back on the good-guy theme again. We are a full year on from those articles regarding Massachusetts Man and Philadelphia knight-in-shining-armor but true to the vein of those stories those two individuals have been up to their good deed tricks again this past “winter”. More stationery supplies delivered and yet more teeth filled at their expense. They are but two examples of the good works that we hear of from time to time: we are sometimes visited by coordinated groups who take time off from their chores while in this country to enjoy a day at the beach and fortunate enough to find them relaxing down on a sun lounger in front of Playa Vista and hear their stories of “trying to make a difference”.
The other day it was rather back to the individual although in truth it was more like a group rolled into an individual. It was when he started pulling medicine after medicine out of his pocket to show examples of what he was offering to some of the under privileged people in these parts that we started taking serious notice. He is not a doctor
-actually a historian- but in his vast experience of visiting poor neighborhoods, particularly in Africa, he has learned of the immense usefulness of basic hygiene knowledge and of always being ready with a bag of over-the-counter medicines and ointments. He has been doling out toothbrushes, dental floss, pain relievers, muscle relaxing creams as well as clothing mainly in Los Conucos (near Juan Dolio) on his latest trip although his first visit to the DomRep saw him in the Las Terranas neighborhood near Samana. As the conversation progressed it became increasingly obvious that the man is actually a full-on professional humanitarian with the story deepening at each example of his attempts to put something back into life that has seemingly treated him well, though be it after a very difficult beginning.
His official move into the humanitarian arena began when he coupled his academic background and his belief in the power of education with his desire to give and formed the non-profit organization “South African Book Drive”. You can read more details regarding the man and his efforts at:
http://www.salemstate.edu/history/dudley/bookdrive.htm
His efforts have led to more than three million books being distributed across southern Africa and he related to us his plans for helping further in the DomRep. He talked of wanting to bring in 400 pounds of clothing a month and set up some academic programs in English. We naturally wish him the very best with his projects and suspect that he might be quite successful when we note that his organization is backed by a preponderance of people from the very same state of origin as Massachusetts Man.
Posted by Playa Vista @ 10:26 AM CST
Friday, April 21, 2006
Is supermarket shopping ever a frustrating experience for you?
We thought you might like to try this story out for size about a good friend of ours who went on a little local expedition for a few simple goodies and came back with absolutely nothing. Just to emphasize the point you should know that our friend, though an ex-pat, speaks fluent Spanish and remember that this expedition did not take place in one of those old communist countries, nor even in a current one such as North Korea or Cuba, but in the heart of our largest city, Santo Domingo, in one of the largest stores of the normally very well stocked and attended larger supermarket chains. So large indeed that the chain proclaims itself with the name “Jumbo”.
On entering the store he marched up to the regular meat counter where the previous week -by the way- he had been delightfully satisfied with the service of 100 grams of fillet of finest beef. So much so that he wanted to have the very same again this particular week. “No. We don’t sell it by the pound”. “You can buy the entire chunk of 10 lbs or not at all!” It was candidly not true, but the trickiest dilemma of all for our intrepid shopper was to convince the assistant of anything… least of all to give him just one tiresome pound of the delicious meat.
So he sloped off to get some 100% cotton socks. At the sock counter he couldn’t find what he wanted so he enlisted the “help” of another assistant. She pointed him to a section of what she thought he wanted. She rummaged very briefly and turned over a pair of socks and said, “There you are, that’s what you want.” Our friend looked at the label and noted instantly that it was clearly printed “100% polyamide.” He then said to the assistant, “Look here, this says 100% polyamide and I said I wanted 100% cotton.” “Yes that’s right, exactly the same thing,” she unhesitatingly and proudly responded. Totally nonplussed for an answer, our friend was now quite bewildered as to how to move on, in what way and where, let alone respond to this declaration.
He had actually come specifically for these two items, although he now realized with this mental buffeting there was another purchase he could make that could perhaps save his day. So he kind of drifted in the direction of the delicatessen stand for that third and face-saving item. He waited at the counter for several minutes while the lady on duty continued wrapping and packing various items with cellophane wrapping… not for anybody in particular because there wasn’t anybody else around. He then called her over and asked for 250 grams of cured ham. “Yes, certainly right away,” she said and went right back to her packing position and carried on packing. Our man waited a further five minutes meanwhile a number of other customers had gathered around in the hope of making purchases. The lady who had by now amply demonstrated her packing skills was called over again and began to attend directly to the other customers’ requests but not our friend’s who saw another period pass by without any movement on his request. He asked again (-actually he confessed to shouting this time-), “What about my *&%*#! cured ham?” “Oh, we don’t have any of that,” she said.
That was the end of our friend’s “Jumbo experience” and his relationship with them. He walked out completely empty-handed and flabbergasted vowing never to return ever again to that particular store on the Avenida Charles de Gaulle. He acknowledged he was thankful that capitalism really does hold sway here, because there are plenty of other supermarkets to choose from after all, as he relaxed with a drink in the Playa Vista bar recounting this particular supermarket adventure to us.
We heard that his next trip was nothing but successful not a single hitch but true to his word not at the Jumbo chain but at one of their big competitors, of course, Supermercado “Bravo”.
Posted by Playa Vista @ 04:02 PM CST
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
We are currently in ‘Semana Santa’- literally ‘Easter Week’ - which to the unfamiliar is a great festive time for the locals here in Boca Chica in particular. People arrive in droves from nearby Santo Domingo to enjoy the balmy breezes, the sun and the sand of ‘The Capital’s Beach’ and quite naturally to also escape for a few hours from congested city life.
Of course this is just one week in the perennial life of sun and sand on Boca Chica’s fine beach, and more than rumor seems to indicate, that currently Boca Chica is finally getting the attention that it deserves… not just from the locals, but from the authorities in the Big City too.
In January (see archive Jan 27th) we referred to an initiative from Politur - the police arm of the Ministry of Tourism - an initiative that allegedly has been taken to put some new order into Boca Chica. Our watchwords were ‘time will tell’… and that unfortunately remains the case. The changes we have seen are a reduced number of stray dogs roaming the town, the cordoning off from cars at the ‘Andres end’ of the beach and in addition Politur have laid down the law, several times in fact, to us and all other legal businesses regarding our facilities and practices. They have made very clear the importance of presenting only invoices with the properly registered business name at the top, and that all those invoices when paid must be franked with an official “PAID” stamp clearly flaunting the business name. This is all to help eliminate illegal practices, particularly overpricing. Regrettably we continue to hear of and witness the illegal operators carrying on just as before without even a reprimand concerning their entirely illegal and unprincipled “businesses”. We remain however sitting on the uncertain fence on this one and patiently still keep the subject in the “time will tell” category.
On a different subject, but related to the further improvement of Boca Chica, a time-frame was actually bravely put forward by the Minister of Tourism recently. He officially mentioned a period of four months, specifically beginning at the end of the current month to be precise, during which four of the nation’s beaches, including that of Boca Chica, shall have major rehabilitation work carried out principally to reverse the sand and coral reef erosion that has taken place over the years. A European company with expertise in this area has been contracted, and the contract is said to be worth €13 million!
We at Playa Vista look forward to seeing you on a newly revamped Boca Chica Beach within well… four months?
‘Time will tell’ now won’t it!
Posted by Playa Vista @ 05:05 PM CST
