General info? help needed

I won't tackle everything in your post, but will take a stab at a few.

First off, don't call the country "the Dominican." If you're not going to use the full name, call it the "DR."

Typical foods? Rather than rehash, I strongly suggest you visit the following website, which covers this topic extensively: http://www.dominicancooking.com/

Typical transport? Within cities, motorbikes, often referred to as "motoconchos," and taxis, either regular type or the cheap ones (often in poor physical shape) on fixed routes known as "publicos" or "conchos." In Santo Domingo & Santiago, there is also a municipal bus system.

Between cities, the common transport are buses. On main routes, they tend to be large, comfortable buses (better than Greyhounds in the US). To lesser cities there are minibuses, often crowded with no AC, but relatively cheap.

Famous people? Sports stars, of course, such as Sammy Sosa, and Baseball Hall of Famer Juan Marichal. Musical artists such as Juan Luis Guerra, who has a Grammy. Among the older folks, there was film star Maria Montez (look her up on the web), born in Barahona. [One such site is http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Cinema/2892/]. Among the notorous of course there was the dictator Trujillo. We actually had a long thread recently on famous Dominicans -- check the "search" function (button above).

Main form of communication? Basically all the forms we have in the US, except regular postal service (abysmal, totally unreliable in the DR). DR has a pretty good & modern telecom infrastructure, quite an extensive radio & TV network, and over 7 news dailies.

National sport? That's easy -- baseball. They're loco about baseball. Everything else is a distant second.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Keith

E N C Y C L O P E D I A ????

I hope you are under 13 years of age.

HB