Santo Domingo, A weekend Getaway

I guess all governments are corrupt in their own ways. America is corrupt in that white police officers can kill little Black boys and get away with it and in the midst of all the turmoil, somehow Donald Trump became the ruler of the free world. Once that happened, racism became openly acceptable and America began separating immigrant children from their families upon illegal entry into the country. So being an American, there’s only but so much I can say about the governments of other nations, but at the very least, America attempts to hide its corruption behind rules that nobody understands and interpretations of those rules from racist white people... Cool.

However, I have been in the Dominican Republic now for less than two hours and part of me is ready to leave. Pastor spent two days at the Haitian embassy preparing and obtaining documents for a family road trip to the DR. Everything was stamped, signed and sealed, and organized together. After traveling six hours with nine people in an eight passenger car, we reach the border and the National Police of Haiti won’t allow us to leave the country with the car that we have paperwork for. Wow! We spent 30 minutes negotiating (and when I say we, I mean Pastor. I don’t even speak Creole) and finally get the okay to leave. Every ten feet, we had to stop the car, roll down the window and get all nine of our passports checked, but that was it. No big deal. We were on our way.

​However, we crossed the border into the Dominican and I felt life change. As soon as we passed through the gate, people were harassing us, pulling us this way and that way, asking for money for every passport and more money to expedite the process. I was grabbed and pulled to the front of a line to get my fingerprints done. I think my prints were taken under the wrong name honestly. People were yelling and rushing. It was hot and uncomfortable, and thank God, Pastor is fluent in Spanish. I know enough to have a basic conversation, but not to get me through the mess that was ENTRY!

It took us almost two hours to complete the exit and enter process of the two countries. Two long and hot hours in the sun. My Daddy laughed at me yesterday because my tan is so dark. As we left, the corruption began. In the next 20 minutes, we were stopped by several officers with guns on the side of the road. They all the same thing. HEYYYYYYY, HOW ARE YOU? *hand shakes/ daps* BIG FAMILY! *sticks head way into car* LET ME SEE ALL OF YOUR PASSPORTS! *pretends to care about who has a passport or not and who is the mother and father of which child* *looks harder at my passport and exclaims how they love American girls* AYE MAMIIIIIIII! *stares into the window at Pastor and waits for money to let us pass*
​

After a while, it became a disgusting routine. I guess it was good that men were exchanging wads of money at the border. They knew what was up. The Dominican Republic is a scam. This practice continues throughout the day, for the entire four more hours we drove to Santo Domingo. Although I was annoyed, what could you do? Was it worth risking whatever consequence came for a fake traffic stop for not obliging the police officers’ madness? What would happen? You couldn’t tell the cops. They were all in this together, scamming foreigners and locals alike.
​
We drove through what seemed like the desert. We drove past the ocean. Everything was so beautiful, but it was hard to focus on the beauty when you were being exploited at every opportunity.
​

If you're still here, hear me out. It was such a cool experience to drive across a country border. I've never done that, not even from New York to Canada, so it was really interesting to see how things worked. Santo Domingo is really like the Bronx in so many ways. I felt like I was walking down Fordham. It's crazy to me how The Dominican Republic is so much more developed than Haiti, but they share one island. There were American priced malls, restaurants,   fast food chains, and everything you could think of. There is clearly more money here. There is so much art on the streets to buy and free shots in the gift shots. The hotel was clean and pretty decent to stay in for acceptable prices. The entire trip wasn't bad. We ate, we shopped, we beached and I did enjoy myself. I just wish that there had been more of the Spanish culture I was hoping for. I  didn't go to another country to end up back in New York. The country is overly Americanized, but hey, that's Western culture.