The Dominican Republic is Very Different from Wisconsin

On the hour ride back to Port, we saw some of the cities in the Dominican Republic. It was easy to see that this place is very impoverished. Our tour guide (Gregorio) was explaining just what the country is like. He said that 42% of the economy is fed through tourism.  7% of the people are wealthy, 26% are middle-class, and the rest are below the poverty line.  My hope is that, by taking Jaden & Caleb to see these places, that they will have an appreciation for the things we enjoy in America. Here are a few of those images.

Cock Fighting Arena

Many homes were incomplete. Sometimes people were working on them and sometimes they looked more like a pile of rubble.

Motorcycle and mopeds were everywhere!  Taxis were actually motorbikes and were hauling people many places.

The Dominican Republic is mainly Catholic, but there is also voodoo present on the island. Our guide told a story about the history. It involved Lucifer & Michael and the fall of the angels from God's presence.  Because of this, most locals do not use their child's given name until they are at least 5 years old (start school) to protect against voodoo hexes. 

The colors of the houses and businesses have a meaning too. Most have three distinct colors. The first is the overall theme for the home. Blue is the color for love so we saw lot of blue houses. The second is the colors you hope for. The third is for the family...or something like that. (Google it).

Schools were yellow because they believe yellow speeds up learning.  Most of the little towns had a school where the kids could walk ot bike to. 

It was hard to get a photo, but this truck was LOADED with people who were coming from the sugar cane fields. Sugar cane was one of the top exports and people from Haiti would travel to the D.R. to work. For every 2,000 lbs of cane they harvested, they would make $7.00.  That is a lot of hard work!  The island that has the Dominican Republic and Haiti is split with Haiti having about 25% of the land space and the Dominican Republic having the rest. However, the population of both nations are approximately the same. Haiti is more impoverished than the Dominican Republic. 

As we left, many of the shop keepers came out to wave goodbye to our ship. It is no wonder since tourism is such a huge part of their economy. Our excursion took up the whole day, but it would be nice next time to do some more local exploration.