butterflywing

although very poor, and the people go without much of what we take for granted, and their lives are so hard, they are not underfed or dirty. they live very long, healthy lives. they eat a lot of veggie stews with some chicken in it, eggs, loads of fresh fruit. they trade for rice and grow beans. many have a cow and have milk. they barter with neighbors, in kind or for services for what they themselves don't have. they sell plantains and red bananas and fingerlings, oranges and limes and grapefruits. they also sell craft items. all to middlemen who sell to the cities. it gives them enough to live on including clothes, barbed wire, shoes if they want them (they don't), tin for roofing. they can slowly save for cows or donkeys. it's a very hard life, but neighbors take care of each other, raise each other's children if necessary and make sure that no one goes without. they are also deeply religious. a very hard-working life, but not an altogether bad one. they laugh and wave at the tour bus, even though they know they don't get coins from us. they do not beg. they have the bare essentials.

as city people earn more from tourism, they are building very large country houses. they are hiring servants and construction labor from among the country people. as money trickles into the countryside everything will start to change. electricity will also be more available and people will be able to buy transportation, i.e. motorbikes. within the next 5 years, i expect there will be suburbs, of a kind, all over the countryside, as well as more schools and later marriages and fewer children. a blessing and a curse. but the dominican republic is definitely on it's way.