Zona Colonial

My days consist mostly of eating, sleeping and finding places to keep cool. I'm feeling more comfortable here than I did when I first arrived last year, mostly because I got a feel for the place through my lucky find, my tour guide, Ernesto. So last night, after the sun set, I decided to take a walk through some of the streets that I passed through in Ernesto's air-conditioned jeep last year.

I am struck by the number of old buildings that remain. Big, stone, colonial buildings, some in ruin, others being used as churches or whatever. I wonder if these buildings were originally temples that were torn down by the Spanish and the stones used to build monuments to themselves and their gods.

I loved walking around and seeing people hanging out, listening to music, playing chess or dominos, talking, eating, etc. No one has air-conditioning, it seems, so everything is open, and people hang outside to keep cool.

I find it ironic, somehow poetic, that this island which is the birthplace of the new world, in many ways represents the worst in exploitation by colonizers, slave traders and missionaries. The Dominican Republic seems to be surviving, but on the other end of the island lies Haiti, a country in total ruin with a population that is starving and has no means of escape. I read in the newspaper today that 60 Haitians trying to make it to Miami on a raft were intercepted by the coast guard. Too bad they weren't Cubans, they would have been welcomed in with open arms. Coming from a totalirian state that happens to be a US puppet doesn't count when one's life is at stake. They were sent back to Haiti - a virtual death sentence.

Yet, here in the DR, in the colonial zone, tourists arrive and visit the "first" church in the new world, and the "first" street, and the "first" hospital, and take pictures with the pigeons in front of the statue of Colombus and think nothing of what colonization and slavery meant for the millions who have suffered, nor for those who have benefited. I love coming here and will enjoy my time at the beach, but I somehow feel that my prior justification that my much-needed tourist dollars are helping just isn't cutting it. I feel like I should be coming here and doing something to help, not just coming so that I can relax. I remember this feeling from last year, this unsettling feeling that I am somehow exploiting the poverty of the people who live here. We'll see where this feeling leads me as I sit on the beach next week and read the two books I brought to help me out.