Saturday, May 29, 2004
Saved by mother nature’s own drainage system!
- the story from Boca Chica this week.
As you must have noticed the Dominican Republic was in the world’s news headlines again this week and regrettably for the very worst reasons. A tropical depression dumped the kind of water on our island that a Hollywood movie director might have imagined recreating in the shooting of ‘Noah and the Ark’.
The island of Hispaniola is sizeable enough to have quite a diversity of climate: the north typically gets more rain than the south. Here in Boca Chica on the south-coast May has the reputation of being a rainy month, but we know in recent years that it has barely lived up to that tag. This year however, it has rained, even if for just brief intervals most days of the month, but with little undue interruption to operations here… until last weekend that is.
It started raining on Saturday evening and it was still raining on the Sunday evening. In between it was either raining steadily or with a vengeance. The entire country was deluged and in the greater Santo Domingo area 53 cm (about 20 inches) - approximately one third of the annual rainfall - fell in those 24 hours with the devastating effect on the muddy slopes in Jimani and the surrounding area being relayed on TV screens around the world.
We are pleased to report that the damage in Boca Chica was minimal in spite of this downpour thanks entirely to the fact that there are no overland rivers running anywhere near here. The local terrain is pitted with underground caves, underground lakes and underground rivers, which very conveniently carry the water effortlessly and harmlessly down to the sea for us. Within a day everything was largely dried out, the minimal damage repaired and the severe downpour already seems like a distant memory here in our little corner of paradise.
Posted by Playa Vista @ 11:59 AM CST
Saturday, May 22, 2004
HURRAH… was indeed the word on Monday last. The streets were full of purple flag-waving supporters of the new president-elect: Leonel Fernández. According to the official figures he easily passed the required 50% achieving a convincing 57.11% of the national vote and carrying a full 26 of the nation’s 29 provinces. Here in municipality number 226 of Boca Chica he also carried the day obtaining a close to national average of 53.56%.
Monday was announced as a public holiday and the people celebrated with equal verve, their relief that the uncertainties were all over and their hopeful expectations for the future. Unfortunately violence, though limited but always looming potentially ruinously, did rear its head in full down in Barahona where a total of 6 people ended up losing their lives for alleged politically motivated reasons. Happily in the rest of the country incidents were reported to be few and far between and none of any note whatsoever in Boca Chica where the jubilation flowed through the streets nearly all day long. People who had seemingly kept their colors hidden took them out of the closet in the upsurge of joy, while those who had supported the white party ditched their old white flags and surprisingly seemed to fully embrace the change to come.
We had the pleasure of visiting an important government institution in Santo Domingo the following day and observed that the atmosphere in general in the city was very upbeat although those employed in the institution itself are phlegmatically resigned to the fact they will have to seek new employment because a change of government in this country means a clearance of nearly all public employees too.
Speaking of presidential change, this week sees the change of the label on the bottle of the exceedingly popular and indisputably good Presidente beer. Cerveceria Nacional Dominicana, the makers of the beer, claim the new label to be fresher, more modern and more stylized which appears to be a fair claim. Not a bad formula for our new president to follow when he is finally, according to the Dominican constitution, sworn in three months from now. He is reportedly by now busy with his plans for a new four year period within which the popular slogan from the election-campaign: ‘Vuelve el Progreso’ (Return to Progress) hopefully will come true sooner rather than later… and we wish him all the best!
Posted by Playa Vista @ 08:51 PM CST
Friday, May 14, 2004
You would have to be living up a very tall isolated palm tree here in the Dominican Republic not to be aware of a certain election taking place on Sunday.
The scene is that there are three main contesting political parties: the PRD (white) led by incumbent president Hipólito Mejía, the PLD (purple) led by ex-president Leonel Fernández and the PRSC (red) led by Eduardo Estrella.
We live in an avowedly democratic country although, by way of introducing historical background, it has to be remembered that there are many of the electorate who can still remember the old dictatorial days of the Trujillo regime prior to 1961.
Some years ago when we first arrived in this country, we remember people proudly pronouncing their hope for the future because of a newly elected young president by the name of Leonel Fernández who was clearly seen to be a complete break with the past. The election that had just taken place was their first, everybody said, without major violence – HURRAH!
In 2000 the constitution forbade Leonel running for a second consecutive term as president and the purple party lost, with a new man at the helm, to Hipólito Mejía’s white party who gained a clear victory over the other two parties so close to the required 50% + 1 vote, that the other parties admirably declined to subject the country to extended election posturing and bureaucratic torpor through a second round of voting – and further proof of Dominican democratic progress in that it was the second election without any major associated violence!
Elections here take center stage… television channels are inundated with all kind of political commentary, and party advertising is commonplace for many months well before election day. However, it is extremely noisy motorized street processions with the various party colors being waved in the form of flags and banners - often culminating in mass open-air rallies - which is the most visible way in which the parties gather support around themselves.
As residents but not citizens in this country we are permitted full rights except that of voting, and by this token we offer a few brief observations from the standpoint of non-partisanship.
The first is to say there is a great contrast between the 2000 election and that of this year. This time around there is palpable anxiety whereas in 2000 it seemed to be a simple relatively dispassionate run off as to who would govern the country for the next four years, as no particular group of people seemed to be any worse off and most to some extent or other better off than four years previous. A very quick check on some of the more notable fundaments at this juncture however reveals that in the last four years the peso has lost well over half its value against the dollar which has caused economic upheaval for all… especially the poorest. The country now clearly owes more money abroad than it ever did before and has been having difficulty rearranging its borrowings with the International Monetary Fund for some time now and… eye-grabbingly a president in office could not run for a second term according to the constitution back in 2000! We will steer clear of any comparisons on the emotive but regrettably not unimportant murky subject of corruption, which is claimed by many to play a lamentably large role in Dominican politics, and just keep to the facts.
We conducted a mini-Playa Vista Boca Chica straw poll casually between the hours of darkness last night and lunchtime today on ten people between the ages of 20 and 55, divided equally between male and female and spread across the socio-economic range - admittedly the margin for error statistically probably has no limits – nevertheless.. to our surprise ALL ten said they would vote for Leonel Fernández! Some added that if Leonel did not gain 50% +1 first time around then claims of electoral fraud would have to be made.
Our chief desire and hope is a peaceful outcome of the ongoing round and a clear and worthy winner at the first attempt so that we will be able to again say - HURRAH!
Posted by Playa Vista @ 03:11 PM CST
Saturday, May 8, 2004
We have from time to time described the animal life around us here at Playa Vista and we offer a little update. In spite of the major cull on the stray dogs in Boca Chica you will still notice a few parading around town in their own seemingly carefree way. Are they just the tough survivors of the early-April purge or do they come from that same, whereabouts unknown, stockpile of dogs from whence came original dog? Unfortunately, but seemingly quite naturally, some of them have unerringly already learned or relearned the irritating habit of barking raucously at the same time as their predecessors – that is when all civilized residents and visitors are fast asleep.
Our pair of green woodpeckers referred to in the story of Sept 9th last year is still sticking close to the one-way glass although the nature of their antics has changed. It was, you may remember, the female of the pair that initiated the whole mirror-charade whereas the male, with obvious reluctance, finally began to join in. It would seem that the male in particular has gone through a period of serious woodpecker self-analysis over the months, because he has moved on from merely tolerating his partners whims to taking up a seriously aggressive stance against what he clearly sees now only as a threatening invader to his territory. The hefty blows of his specialized beak directly on the glass can be heard resonating now in the early mornings, often at the very break of dawn, and it became so repetitive and drawn out it was obvious he had taken it upon himself to completely remove this irksome adversary – every single morning. How else could a full-powered beak repeatedly launched directly at an image in this way be interpreted! Months of persistence have unfortunately not paid off for the poor bird because his irritating antagonist continues to pop up unfailingly at exactly the same time as him on every single occasion. He has lessened his attacks in recent days which we take as a sign of mild compromise or possibly simple exhaustion, not that he has given up by any means, and we have noticed the female begin to sneak in again in the late afternoon for a check up on her undoubtedly attractive attire. However, there is an odd development: the habit seems to have passed on to a sparrow that last week began every single morning with an onslaught on the one-way glass doors on the second floor.
Let’s see how persistent that little wannabe pecker is compared with pro old-timer ‘Woody’!
Posted by Playa Vista @ 10:53 AM CST
