Hi Editor Jorge,

     I want to thank you for printing my previous letter or at least considering it which I hope you did because it is important for the Dominican people to understand how foreigners see them and maybe take a hard look at some of the inequities and shortcomings that surround them on a daily basis. However, that is not the focus of this letter. 

I am dating my fiancée who is from the Navarette area so she is the only other person I know in your country besides the lady from whom I rented my apartment and you, so I am writing to you in the hopes that you could clue me in on some of the way things are done and how people live and survive there.

I have approached this subject with her a few times but she just skirts the issues and I did not pursue it because I did not know if I was stepping on toes and did not want to offend her. 

If you would permit me to relate to you some of my observations and subsequent questions I would be most appreciative. When I was traveling around in the Santiago area and visiting her extended family and other various places I noticed that nobody seems to be working during the day except maybe the shopkeepers or the retail merchants.

I know there is a high unemployment rate and there seems to be limited jobs but what do the men do all day every day besides ride around on there motorcycles and scooters?  Every time I visited her parents everyone was always home just sitting around talking with each other listening to music, drinking El Presidente Light, and ready to party at the drop of a hat. Where does the money come from to pay the day to day expenses like food, electricity, phone, utilities, etc.? 

They seem to be able to eat every day but how does the household exist and survive?  I have not really been able to get any good answers from my fiancee and I don't want to offend her but this is a mystery to me. Does the government give them a stipend each month? Do they have any kind of retirement plans or welfare system?

From an outsider looking in there seems to be a lot of inequities such as: everyone seems to have an automobile (and I have seen expensive ones too like Lexus and RV's), computers, satellite TV's, cell phones and other electronic toys. I have heard that the tax rate is huge but it obviously, must be lining somebody's pockets because the infrastructure there is definitely lacking.

The roads are horrible, there is no running water, no hot water, the plumbing for the toilets is so bad that the toilet paper cannot be flushed down the toilet and has to be put in a waste basket next to the toilet, there does not seem to be any regular mail delivery, and no police that I could see except the ones who fined me illegally, and I don't know about the public school systems, that is probably another story. Where does the  tax money go or is that where the monthly stipends originate?

Of course I can understand the tourist areas doing well like the Punta Cana area and Puerta Playa but what about the cities like Santiago. It also seems to me that there is no middle class, just the haves and the have nots.

Can you explain or enlighten me on these issues?  Also, what do the women do for work? Are they relegated to being kept women and housewives. 

I have noticed on the internet a lot of Dominican Dating Agencies, so do the younger eligible women most of whom are students just want to marry foreigners and leave the island?  I also noticed that prostitution is big in the Dominican Republic with a high HIV rate, is that how most of the women survive even though every home I went into had Catholic (religious) icons in every room. Is there some sort of double standard that exists there? 

Finally, I would like to say that maybe the Dominican people should start investing in themselves and get some kind of grass roots campaign started whereby they could develop some sort of GNP.

I know they export some coffee and sugar but they need to develop some kind of trade status with countries like China and Japan or Europe to get a better world status and start trading (import/export) by either making and marketing something unique that the world wants or needs for some trading leverage. Anyways, I thank you for reading this and if you can shed any light on any of my questions I would appreciate it.

Thanks again for your help.

Sincerely,

Paul Bailey (USA citizen residing in Idaho)

Ed.: Mr. Bailey, thanks for your candid look from the outside.