The French

I woke up very early this morning, partly because I went to sleep very early last night. I was exhausted after four nights of trying to sleep through honking horns and the sounds of merengue going until midnight (and 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday). Santo Domingo was noisy, and Las Terrenas is VERY quiet, except for some froggy things and crickety things that were kind of singing me softly to sleep last night. I decided I wanted to go out early and beat the heat and find the laundry and supermarket. I didn't stop to think that nothing would be open at 6 a.m. though. I walked down the muddy, puddly, dirt road to the paved road that led into town. I had actually gone out last night and bought coffee and condensed milk, so I'd already had my coffee this morning. As I walked towards town, I passed a parade of very dark men heading in the other direction. I started to guess that they were Haitian because they seemed to be speaking some sort of French or Creole. I thought that every country has someone who is at the bottom who does the dirty work. We have the Mexicans, in Costa Rica it was the Nicaraguans, in Singapore, it was the Indonesians and Filipinos... here it seems to be the Haitians. I got onto the main street which was buzzing with motorbikes, trucks and ATV (all terrain vehicles that tourists look really stupid driving around on), but aside from a few very humble looking stalls, nothing was open. I found the Plaza where the supermarket was and a guy was washing off the pavement outside the door. I thought maybe I was in luck. He told me they were closed. I asked what time they opened and he said 8:30. It was 7:15. So I walked outside and sat under a little roof and watched everyone passing by. After a while I got tired of the exhaust fumes and walked a little further down the street until I found a little bakery. I bought a cookie and some orange juice and sat there listening to the music that was playing very loudly and watching the activity outside. People were moving in all directions, on foot, on bicycles, on motorcycles, in big trucks, in small trucks, in vans, SUVs, Jeeps, and ATVs. It was quite a beehive of activity. Eventually I thought I should leave the young guy working in the bakery alone again, and I went back to Plaza Rosada where the supermarket was. The little cafe in the center was now open, so I went and got a fruit plate. The cafe is run by a French woman and Plaza Rosada seems to be France Central. Lots of French people came in to the cafe and kissed everyone - on both cheeks, which I found a bit more pretentious and not as endearing as the Argentine one kiss. And then there was a crisis. The coffee maker was not working. A mob of very concerned French people were standing there looking worriedly at the coffee machine while the young black Dominican girl who worked there spoke to someone on the phone. Two impatient French guys got behind the counter and tried to fix the machine, but to no avail. The kisses became less passionate and everyone sat down to wait. I got up and went to the supermarket, which was finally open. At first I had a little basket because I didn't plan to buy much, but since this is France central, there were so many tempting things in the supermarket, unlike the mini market I went to last night that reminded me of pictures I saw of Zimbambwean supermarkets, or Russia under the communists. Here there was fresh French bread, cheeses, wines from all over the world, cured meats, yogurt, pasta, cous cous. I finally had to get a regular shopping cart as I loaded it up, not worried about how I would get it to my hotel, because the supermarket had a service to send groceries to your home. All of the negative feelings I was having for the French as I watched them stress over the broken coffee machine and wondering why they seem to be everywhere and always on vacation disappeared as I reveled in the bounty that was here precisely because of them. If Americans were the ones setting the tone in this supermarket, there would not have been nearly as rich a selection of food. I took a motorbike taxi back to the hotel, which was a lot easier than walking on the dirty, muddy, puddly road. As I sat on my terrace waiting anxiously for my groceries to arrive it started to rain. It was a beautiful rain that poured down into the garden, running off of the pastel buildings in the complex and making all of the colors from the grass and the trees and the flowers to the buildings and the sky, seem so vibrant. Finally, my groceries arrived. I had some smoked sausage pepperoni like thing a hunk of bread and went down to the pool as the maid cleaned my room. Ah, this seems like the life!