Way before my time here....
My opinions are based on life since I came here.
I have many friends from the poor side of the D.R.
Spend time in the campos, see what they have to live on.
Like buying maybe a pound of chicken and some rice to feed a family of four their one meal for the day.
I know first hand that some of the people, including the children, in places like Villa Bau are starving, eating at best once a day. They are the lucky ones, some aren't that lucky. The simple thing like water, is turned on for a few hours maybe once or twice in 2-3 months. Some can't afford a tinaco to store it, and maybe have a barrel. Even then, hard to store 2-3 months supply of water. The water trucks deliver at 1 peso a gallon. Does not seem like much, but do the math. Could there be a connection of "no water" and the business of the water trucks? You see them all the time out there, someone is making money. Meanwhile the poliicos are enjoying a life of luxury.
The people being hungry is not limited to the campos, I see them going door to door in some places in the city begging for something to eat. Most of us ex-pats never see these things because it's not part of our daily way of living here, but it is there, most will never realize what's under their noses.
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Where I stay in Barahona I see poverty as you describe all the time. My house there is the only one with a tinaco, others get by with passing a garden hose around from one house to another, and toting water in buckets for as long as the free public water exists, usually from 7 to 11 AM.
Electricity is sporadic and no one pays for it. The main occupations seem to be motoconching and buying food crops like gandules and peddling them at the local market and in a beat up pickup truck. selling gandules, tomatoes, avocados, bananas, plaintains, yuca and stuff driving around. Every morning, a kid comes by and sells me aguacates for 20 pesos each. Lucky for him I love aguacates. The people I know do not go hungry, but they mostly eat rice and gandules, accompanied with pieces of scrawny chicken and bits of beef gristle cooked far too long in tomato sauce.
When several people (and any are too many) have the price of some Brugal, they get drunk, and start fighting with their wives and children over stupid fits of jealousy. Inlaws defend the daughters, mothers defend the sons, and no one makes any sense. Every other word is "co?o". They throw rocks and bottles and it is wise to go home and lock the door. When the fighting goes on for too long, some neighbor shows his displeasure by lobbing large rocks at the roofs of the offenders, but they have poor aim, and often hit the wrong roofs. Little damage is done and nothing seems to be harmed, but the next morning there are a lot of hungover people picking up bottles and misplaced rocks or even worse, not picking them up.
If I were elected a leader in Barahona, I would have no idea whatever how to improve these people's lives. The scenery around Barahona is beautiful, but the beaches are mostly rocky rather than sandy and the ocean is rough rather than calm as it is on the NC or places like Las Terrenas or Juan Dolio, so I do not see tourism as the way to improve life for the Barahoneros.
Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, with sugarcane cut out in the fields delivered by train to the Ingenio that employs about 6000 of the population of around 70,000.
Two years ago, they revitalized the Malecon. Now they have put up a wall of zinc roofing around the Parque Central and are planning to redo it. They seem to be planning to do this very slowly, as I have seen no one working there.