Letter from Santo Domingo, 6/12/98

Millner

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In June of 1998, I returned to the DR for a visit. (I had lived there from 1993 to 1996, and then moved to Florida.) I wrote my friend a 30-page letter detailing my impressions (and kept a copy as a record of the trip). A few excerpts:

6/12/98
ARRIVAL
"A rooster is crowing. Merengue music plays faintly in the background. The sun is shining in a beautiful blue sky. I'm drenched in sweat. I'm back in Santo Domingo ..."

6/18/98
AMATEUR PHILOSOPHY
(written after walking the streets for a few hours)
"There's a song by Merle Haggard called "Today I Started Loving You Again." Well, that's the way I felt about Santo Domingo today. It was a half sunny, half overcast day ... nothing special, but I realized the reason I like it here so much: This is life as it was meant to be. It's hot and dirty and uncomfortable, but that's how life is.

"When you live in a place like Florida, where everything is air-conditioned and freeze-dried and neatly packaged and processed, you're so far removed from both the pleasures and pains of real living that you sink into a kind of puddle of mediocrity: nothing is bad, but then again nothing is really good. You're so insulated from unpleasant experiences - the heat, for example - you can't take any real joy in something like the rain, because it's just something that happens outside your air-conditioned window. In the US, you're looking at life from the sidelines; here you're plunged directly into the 'the stuff of life.' You're sweaty and dirty and hot and thirsty, but by God it feels good when you drink that iced-cold Coca Cola or feel the first drops of rain on your shoulder. You walk around the streets and people are laughing and shouting and music is playing and for the first time in your life you feel like you're really living."

6/19/98
AFTERNOON WITH A FRIEND
(Note: "Amarillis" is the ex-wife, who accompanied me on the trip. We fought all the time.)

"Juan and I picked up some food for his mother and then headed over to his apartment. Then - and this was the highlight of the day - we got two nearly frozen Presidentes from a colmado around the corner and walked down to the sea. The water was smashing up against the rocks; it was about five different shades of blue. We drank our beer on the cliffs overlooking the Caribbean and I asked J. if he would consider inviting Amarillis down here and then throwing her off a cliff. He declined."

6/20/98
MY EX BROTHER-IN-LAW
"I returned to the Manor at 12:30 a.m. Pablito was spread out on a cushion on the floor watching TV. He looked like a huge beached whale just lying there like that -- rolls upon rolls of fat, hair all over his body, a sheet barely covering his privates, and the hair on his head shooting out in all directions like a 70s afro gone crazy. I considered asking him for the money he owed me. Twenty dollars could buy a lot down here! I hesitated for a moment, then said, "Forget it, " and went to bed without mentioning it."

6/21/98
ANOTHER EX BROTHER-IN-LAW
"The ride home would have been funny if I hadn't been so scared. Antonio took us in his car. He drove like the proverbial macho Latin maniac, switching lanes, speeding, flashing his brights ... At one point, I noticed that the traffic light was green but that nobody was moving. How could that be? These drivers are always in a rush. Then I noticed that the red light was also on - nobody knew whether to stop or go."
 
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