Thanks DR1 for your advice! Follow up to “Poor areas near Punta Cana”

Buffness

Self-imposed banned🫢
Oct 9, 2014
369
200
43
OK , so this is an update to my earlier post ‘Poor areas near Punta Cana ‘ and for those who are interested in how it all went …here goes…

First of all, thank you all (especially dv8 and Chirimoya) for your valuable advice …. We followed a lot of the good advice offered in the earlier post… Let me share some experience/ tips /lesson learnt …

1. First lesson learnt - Be prepared to go it alone . Many people will offer to help, but most if not all will fall by the wayside with excuses etc. . . I ended up doing almost everything myself – dealing with the Almacens , dividing up the sacks of - rice , beans, sugar etc and then packing each parcel equally to include rice, oil , beas, paco fish etc .It was not easy ! Time consuming.

2. In dealing with the Almacens – get a quote for everything – but don’t buy anything until you get another person (someone local with better spanish) to get a quote for the same things on your list . We saved almost 10,000 pesos with this approach. Long story.

3. The best advice I got from DR1 was to make sure that we gave to the people who needed it most . This was the most difficult part . Our local guide took us almost two hours out of Punta Cana - to near El Siebo – to find the “needy” . At first he tried to use the whole trip to visit and give the the gifts to his family , relatives and friends until I put a stop to that . He basically took us to his village and said – “give him , give her , don’t give them “ to people he knew . I had to shut that down . After that , and for the most part , I think we gave to people who really needed it.The best part was giving to the elderly and to a widow who really needed help.Also watching the kids smile when you gave them candy made us smile too.

4. Finally, the biggest surprise from the whole experience was that - although we went there to give, I think we came back with more than I imagined. When the people knew that this was just someone sharing gifts for his birthday (with no agenda) and not some government/charity/agency organization (not saying there is anything wrong with these), people were very friendly and welcoming. They wanted to share what they had – they showed their appreciation for the gifts. Most offered blessings and prayers. Some offered invitations to eat with them, drinks from coconuts freshly plucked from trees and some gave us freshly harvested mangoes (and other fruits) from local trees.

Long day., but I think it went well ….more or less. Now let me see to my birthday sancocho !
 

Derfish

Gold
Jan 7, 2016
4,441
2
0
OK , so this is an update to my earlier post ‘Poor areas near Punta Cana ‘ and for those who are interested in how it all went …here goes…

First of all, thank you all (especially dv8 and Chirimoya) for your valuable advice …. We followed a lot of the good advice offered in the earlier post… Let me share some experience/ tips /lesson learnt …

1. First lesson learnt - Be prepared to go it alone . Many people will offer to help, but most if not all will fall by the wayside with excuses etc. . . I ended up doing almost everything myself – dealing with the Almacens , dividing up the sacks of - rice , beans, sugar etc and then packing each parcel equally to include rice, oil , beas, paco fish etc .It was not easy ! Time consuming.

2. In dealing with the Almacens – get a quote for everything – but don’t buy anything until you get another person (someone local with better spanish) to get a quote for the same things on your list . We saved almost 10,000 pesos with this approach. Long story.

3. The best advice I got from DR1 was to make sure that we gave to the people who needed it most . This was the most difficult part . Our local guide took us almost two hours out of Punta Cana - to near El Siebo – to find the “needy” . At first he tried to use the whole trip to visit and give the the gifts to his family , relatives and friends until I put a stop to that . He basically took us to his village and said – “give him , give her , don’t give them “ to people he knew . I had to shut that down . After that , and for the most part , I think we gave to people who really needed it.The best part was giving to the elderly and to a widow who really needed help.Also watching the kids smile when you gave them candy made us smile too.

4. Finally, the biggest surprise from the whole experience was that - although we went there to give, I think we came back with more than I imagined. When the people knew that this was just someone sharing gifts for his birthday (with no agenda) and not some government/charity/agency organization (not saying there is anything wrong with these), people were very friendly and welcoming. They wanted to share what they had – they showed their appreciation for the gifts. Most offered blessings and prayers. Some offered invitations to eat with them, drinks from coconuts freshly plucked from trees and some gave us freshly harvested mangoes (and other fruits) from local trees.

Long day., but I think it went well ….more or less. Now let me see to my birthday sancocho !

Thanks for your generosity to our Dominican friends and for reporting back.
Der Fish
 

keepcoming

Moderator - Living & General Stuff
May 25, 2011
4,698
2,459
113
Yes thanks for giving us the update. Glad it went well. I am sure it was much appreciated.
 

melphis

Living my Dream
Apr 18, 2013
3,486
1,675
113
Totally agree with the other posters. Very happy it worked out for you and it is a great story.
 

dulce

Silver
Jan 1, 2002
2,523
211
63
Very nice to hear it that giving was a positive experience for you.
Thanks for the update.