lenghty but worth the read (I think)
Well I have some experience from all this that I can share. I'm been watching this board since 1999, my first vacation back from the DR and yes stayed on a resort. Yes my friends and I got friendly with the animation staff and made good friends with them. It's now 2002 and my friend and I have been back every year sometimes twice a year and sometimes we saw a few of them on our next vacation and sometimes we just met other friends.
My point is at first you could say I fell for someone but after reading all these posts and learning what a sanki panki was I put up my guard and was you could say a B*tch sometimes and had no sympathy when he started whining about money. I went back to this resort 2x and the second time he had all this money and we were always going out, he was buying drinks, had a cell phone and thought he was so cool. Well some of the other girls on the resort had mentioned that he had some 50year old German lady supporting him. Well that turned up into one ugly agruement and that was the end of it for awhile. My friend and I went back in 2001 2x and I never contacted him. We didn't stay at a resort this time which was the first time we were on our own and were travelling from SD and BC but we did hook up with some other friends we had met at the resort the year before. No one worked at this resort anymore (which was in Bavaro) and were all in the capital. I found out my friend moved to South America where he was working. The summer of last year I got a phone call from him and he was back in SD and just wanted to say hi but was going back to SA in a month or so. That was the last I heard from him.
This year my friend I usually travel with went down there for 6 months to do volunteer work so I joined her for 2 weeks and that was quite the expereince. She lives on the outskirts of SD, no resort area here, it took 2hr to get to BC, outside her complex was all this polution since she lived near a port but I loved it. I loved being with all the locals, our friends came by and took us out and trust me it is not as easy to meet someone outside of a resort. Sure the locals will dance with you but that's it, after the night is done you go home and they go home. It felt like going out at any other time back home, and these people were genuinely nice people.
Now the main point, I ended up calling my friend to see if he was home or still alive and he answered the phone we were both very surprised to hear from eachother and found out things didn't work out in SA and he's been back since December. We ended up meeting and he seemed like a different person, sure I haven't seen him since his resort days. He was living with his sister and brother-in-law he still hadn't found a job but said was looking and could easily go back to a resort job but that is the last thing he wanted. He said it wasn't healthy working there, he admitted everything, regarding the 50yr old when at the time he was 25 y.o, he admitted everyone was sanki's, even the resort girls and they were the worse. He admitted that he only saw tourists and these rich women who had lots of money. And he admitted using them and having many women and he didn't care for them at all. He even admitted that about the first time he met me. But that was everyone, not only him. But he admitted he changed and likes his lifestyle now alot better, more healthier. He's lived in NY before where he went to school so we can have meaningful conversations and his english is excellent. He admitted that he had missed me not alot but did miss me and that's why he called last summer.
I told him I was thinking of coming down for a few months to stay with my friend who is working there and he said to me if I come down to come for myself b/c I want to and not for anyone else. He mentioned that what I was seeing on my last trip wasn't really a paradise vacation so I would have a better sense of what the DR is all about. We spent the second week together, he borrowed his friends car and spent a few days in Samana where we stayed at his friends place. I had an awesome time and I still don't trust him 100% and I told him that but slowly I can tell he has changed and if I see him again, I see him, but after a year and half of not getting in contact with him, if it was meant to be then it will happen.
And just to let you know, he wouldn't want to go out of his house without any money, he knew I wasn't going to give it to him so he would ask his siblings and then he came out, and it wasn't really going out, it was more getting money for transportation to get to my friends place. I spent some afternoons sitting in front of his house with his aunt and grandmother who used to make coffee for me and the aunt feed me oranges and in my mind I just smiled thinking wow this is what it feels like being in their shoes on a lazy afternoon day.
If anyone wants further details let me know I will email you.
d
