What I have learned about Dominican culture

In this blog post I am going to attempt to share what I have learned so far about Dominican culture. In many ways it is different from the culture that I grew up in, but in other ways it is very similar. This description is only generalization that I have read about and only from the experiences with the very small proportion of Dominicans that I have been able to interact with, so please take all of this with a grain of salt. Every Dominican is different.

Families

Many extended families in the Dominican Republic live under the same roof or in the same neighborhood. Often grown adults still live with their parents until they are married. Sometimes families can live in a duplex-type set-up. For example, my host family lives directly above their grandmother, connected by stairs on the outside of the building. While my host aunt lives less than a block away with her family.

Piropos (aka compliments)

This term is literally translated to compliments, but mostly means cat-calling. “Tigueres”, or Dominican men who are known to be flirtatious with women and often up to no good will call after women as they walk by saying things like “Hello beautiful”, “Hello sexy”, and making kissy or hissing noises. You can find piropos on nearly every street you walk on.

Also being obviously white and an American people often call Americano or Rubia when I walk by.

Public Transportation

There are many types of public transportation in the Dominican Republic. There are carro publicos, which are small beat-up cars, which are supposed to have driver identifications and logos of officiality. There are also carro piratos which are unmarked cars that are not officially recognized. These cars most often have the driver, two people in the front seat and five people in the back seat. You are often very squished next to the person next to you, almost sitting on a lap or barely sitting on the a seat at all. There are also gua-guas which are almost like small busses that have many seats and standing room. In gua-guas one is often standing squished up against other people trying not to fall. There are also taxis which can be called and pick you up and are often more expensive, but more comfortable and a great option when traveling after dark. Lastly, there are motoconchos, or motorcycles that you ride on the back of. The Dominican Republic is the only county that I know of that the Peace Corps allows volunteers to ride motorcycles. It is very necessary in this country because there are some sites that one can only arrive by motoconcho.

Compartir

Sharing stories with one another and just spending time with one another is very important in Dominican culture. Often people sit on the road in plastic chairs and chat. People are more than welcome to drop by at any time unannounced to visit in the home. Often if someone has come by the house around a meal time they will be offered to stay and eat with the family. Keeping the door closed in this culture also means one does not want to be disturbed and people often do not relax in their room. Other people other than yourself are not invited into bedrooms to hang-out and chat, people will often instead sit in the living room of the house or out front to chat. Community and family are very important to many Dominicans. Often people will come late to events perhaps because they ran into someone they knew on the street and stopped to chat. Spending time and sharing with a friend or family member is very important.

The raising of children also often play into this attitude of sharing and community. Often if a child’s parent is unable to take care of them or moves away to make money, the child can stay with a grandparent, aunt, or uncle. In less extreme cases for example, a young mother can often count on being able to eat her food in peace `when out to dinner for example, while someone else in the family cares for the baby. Picking up and touching babies is very accepted in the Dominican Republic. One instance that I have seen are people at church passing around a baby after the service had finished. The mother did not have to worry.

Shoes in the house

Coming from a Minnesota home, I am used to taking off my snowy boots or any shoes for that matter the moment I enter someone’s house. In many houses in the Dominican Republic, people where shoes all of the time, even in the shower of their own home.

Bucket showers

Some other volunteers have running water in my community, but I have been taking bucket showers. The water to use for bucket showers is collected in large vats on the back terrace and is covered. I get water from these vats with a green bucket and then poor this water into my black bucket in the bathroom. I then use a smaller bucket to pour water over my head, sudds up, and then rinse off, while trying to waste as little water a possible. Often Dominicans take 2-3 showers a day. Before coming here I thought this sounded like a lot, but after sitting in this humid heat I realize why so many showers make someone comfortable. Often I come home from my day of classes and my clothes are drenched in sweat. My face nearly always feels oily from the humidity and I now take two showers a day (which I would have never down in the States). Although some people could warm up their water on a stove, my family does not and a dump of cold water on my head every morning is often very refreshing and a great wake-up call.

Toilet Protocol

Because my family does not have running water, I also flush the toilet by pouring water into the toilet bowl until it is nearly full and then the water runs into the drain. I also follow the rules of “if its yellow let it mellow”. Toilets in the Dominican Republic also are not able to flush toilet paper and so in every toilet that you use here there is a trash can next to it that is a receptacle for used toilet paper. Also due to the lack of running water, I must throw off what I have been taught since kindergarten to always wash my hands after using the bathroom and use hand sanitizer after using my bathroom at home. (Luckily, at the Peace Corps school I am able to wash my hands with running water.)

Gracias a los Dios

Many people in the Dominican Republic use the term “Si Dios quiere” daily. This term often does not literally mean if god wants, but just means generally it might or it might not happen.

Also referring to health in the Dominican Republic, some people believe that diseases are caused by acts of God or by bad air. The other day, when talking to a Dominican woman, her sister, and another volunteer, I was telling them how one of the volunteers thought she had Chickenguyo and my fellow volunteer immediately lathered on his bug spray as a precaution against the mosquito that are vectors that carry this disease. The woman I was talking to said in Spanish, but you guys know that Chickenguyo is not caused by mosquitos, it is caused by bad air right?. Being a biochemistry major, I know in the scientific community this is not an acceptable answer, but it is way that some people understand a disease such as Chickenguyo. Likely when discussing HIV risk and protection in my future work in the Dominican Republic I will run into different ways of thinking about disease than I understand them scientifically. I am still unsure of how to fully address these types of differences in understandings in the future.

Rain

Often American volunteers will be trudging along the street to shop at the local colmado (local store) or coming to or from school in heavy rain. While I am getting soaked from the rain right through my raincoat for example (as I did today) many Dominicans are huddled under roofs or simply stay at home from their engagements to avoid the rain. Also, men do not often carry umbrellas here unless they are really big to share because with umbrellas they are seen as wimps. Also related to water, often trash is just thrown into litter rivers that has rain runoff. I often walk by little creeks that are next to beautiful trees, yet filled with a ton of trash. Burning trash, lack of mitigation against air pollution in general, and throwing trash in the street is very common from what I have seen so far in this country.

Music

The music is always loud and always fun. There are two dances that we learned in our Peace Corps training this week-The Merengue dances and the Bachata. Probably the most popular artist now is lovingly known as “Romeo”. Often music can be heard blasting from colmados at top volume or from speakers on the street until 11:30 at night on weekdays. This music is sometimes so loud that my house shakes (I am not exaggerating). For example, my host sister’s baby son can sleep through ANYTHING because he is used to falling asleep to this music every night. When sitting on the street or in colmodos you can sometimes not hear conversations because the music is so loud.