The Structure Of A Barrio

Snuffy

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May 3, 2002
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Ok, first this is just a discussion. I'm exploring the subject. I am sure this does not apply to some of you who are a cut above. Let's discuss this.

People could learn something from the structure of a barrio. Honestly. I kid not. Design Community Living Spaces in a way that forces people to interact. The homes are close together and in the center is a colmado, a barber, a hair salon, and other little types of business. You don't go out to your garage, get in your car, and drive to the convenience store...you walk out your front door and down the walkway, past other homes, to the store and then walk back. You all pull the lawn chairs out in the evening and sit out in the front and you are so close to others that you can talk to neighbors even several homes down. Ah, but everyone wants their own Big houses with all the land around it. Or that cool condo with the private entrance or entry thru garage.

Seriously, have you ever heard the term a "cold barrio". This was brought to my attention today that I live in a cold barrio. Got me to thinking. What changes people when they get a little money and can move away from the barrio. Maybe they move to an apartment. I lived in an apartment and we knew the neighbors but only because we agressively made an effort to know them. Most of the Dominicans would stay inside and interact little. What is going on here? The structure of the community area? Is it because the barrio homes are so small that people are out and about in the barrio? Is it because they don't work? Is it just because they are all poor? Or is it the way the barrio is laid out? Is it because none have cars? Should we ban cars in order to have better social interaction and less isolation.

In the USA...isolation and depression due to isolation is a huge problem. Even with people who work all day. I just wonder if the community lay out were different. If everyone had to park the cars on the outside of the community and walk in, and the houses were smaller and closer together...that in order to get to your home you have to walk past many other homes and see the neighbors and have them see you.

What is all this isolation about? I like to isolate sometimes. I just want to be alone. But it sure is nice to know that there are people to go talk to if and when I want...and I don't have to drive across town to do it. Now my wife, who is from the barrio, she rarely isolates. She definitely is more a social or socially healthy creature than I am. Is that because she grew up around lots and lots of people?

I once live in Jacksonville Beach florida. That was a neat little place to live at the time. Small homes and everyone was out and about. Pacific Beach in San Diego is similar. Lots of people walking.
I thought I wanted a nice home on about 2 acres of land. Now I'm thinking that is exactly what I don't want...and don't need.

OK here is the question. Be honest. What was your experience in the USA/Canada/Europe/Etc with where you lived and how you lived in relation to those living around you. Did you feel isolated or depressed due to isolation. How did moving to the DR change that. What is your experience with that now here in the DR?

This is a very complex subject. It could go in a lot of directions. AZB recently said...hold on let me find his comments...

"When I go to USA, I get adjusted to the life there in 1 hour. I almost forget that I live in DR. I simply take my car and go to computer stores (compUSA, microcenter), walmart, malls etc. It almost doesn't feel as if I had even left the country to live somewhere else. Then after a few days, it all gets boring, the malls, the shopping, the large screen TV the restaurants and the central a/c everywhere. I begin to miss the unorganization , the car honks, my mango tree and eeven the UBH from sosua. This is when I begin to plan my scape back to paradise."

He is talking about what I call the "Sterile USA". It does get boring fast. The way we have designed our world or allowed others to design it for us. The DR is a place that has yet to be designed. Do we want to design it or leave it the way it is? Maybe you don't want to clean up the trash after all. Maybe we want to leave it the way it is. Oh it will change. It is changing. As much as I *itch about certain aspects of this country...there is something to be said for the "unorganization" of it. Indeed the corruption is part of the unorganization of the country. When I first came here a friend told me that he lived here because he was suited to the "wild wild west" of it all. Do we want to change that "wild wild west". It does keep one on their toes and engaged. The people...personally I find them to be insincere...at least they do talk. That is a subject all in itself that I would like to discuss sometime...although I will probably offend many in doing so. But not like I have never been offensive. They do appear to be less critical of one another...more live and let live. A guy can have a wife and several girlfriends and it appears to be fine to everyone except the wife and girlfriends. People talk but for them to sincerely move beyond....ok ok...I'm not ready to offend anyone so I will stop here.

If we reach a point where we are perfectly safe does that take something away from us? If we feel no more discomfort ever...do we also lose our good feelings? If we sterilize our world...do we lose something?

Just change the name of this message to "Snuffy Looney Tunes".
 

SantiagoDR

The "REAL" SantiagoDR
Jan 12, 2006
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U.S.A. style isolation

If you want the USA style, for those in Santiago, they can move to Cerro Alto, as one hardly ever sees anyone in the streets there. I have a friend there and have been through it many dozens of times, can almost count the total number of people I have seen outside. lol

I like the barrio style, I always make a point of telling people in the U.S. how nice it is to "See and Talk" to people when one goes outside. I live in a "change over area" of the barrio, not barrio style and not totally U.S. style. I travel through the barrio style area to get to my partial U.S. style area.

Don - SantiagoDR
 
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The Lower East Side in NYC during the 1900's housed approx. 330,000 people per sq. mile mostly jews. The daily hustle and bustle of the pushcart peddlers, the milkman delivering daily, the iceboxes, the daily purchasing of food, the interactions was colorful to the casual observer. The visitors romanticized the ghetto, the tenements, the neighborhood which was alive with life. But those that were there wanted out. We romanticize the dominican ghettos but those who are there dream of a better life.
 

rellosk

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Mar 18, 2002
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The Lower East Side in NYC during the 1900's housed approx. 330,000 people per sq. mile mostly jews. The daily hustle and bustle of the pushcart peddlers, the milkman delivering daily, the iceboxes, the daily purchasing of food, the interactions was colorful to the casual observer. The visitors romanticized the ghetto, the tenements, the neighborhood which was alive with life. But those that were there wanted out. We romanticize the dominican ghettos but those who are there dream of a better life.
Well said.

I am one of those vistors that romanticze life in the barrios. I'm sure if I was forced to live there with little of no income, reality would quickly set in.
 

Hillbilly

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Jan 1, 2002
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During my life in the US, we always knew our neighbors. Sometimes we were the very best of friends, like family. I baby sat for some of them and a couple of them baby sat my little sister. We had dinners (cookouts) during the summer and lots of eggnog during the Christmas season. I do not recall ever locking our doors.

In the DR, we are friends with our neighbors, but not the same way. With exceptions. There are a few that we have known for 35 years or so, and they are truly family. Some are closer than blood.

However, our neighborhood is changing, and when we pass on, I am sure that it will become commercial and the idea of "neighborhood" will be gone from this part of Santiago.

In the barrios, there is a comradery(?)/camaraderie for sure. If you are part of it, you are in a very large extended family. And if you are an outsider who happens to be good friends with someone in the barrio, you are well taken care of...

HB>>>on a bad day
 

Snuffy

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May 3, 2002
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This is a misconception about the barrio...that everyone living there has no money. That their life is miserable. I know some that choose to live there. They could afford to live somewhere else but they choose not to. There are some nice homes in the barrios. Of course I am not talking about the worst barrios here. And all barrios are not the same in regard to crime, poverty, infrastructure, etc. I was in a barrio today and stopped to talk with a group of people...and the place was alive with people and I thought to myself...this would not be so bad. But it is true that many, if not most want out of the barrio. I had this discussion with my wife tonight and she was telling me that it takes years to develop good relationships in the barrio so that one feels at home. To me it almost looks like everyone knows everyone else. I wanted to know if she misses life in the barrio...if we lived in a clean barrio would she prefer that...she said no. I think that we could learn something about the layout of a barrio and apply it to the way we design living communities. I know that when I want to have a few beers...I have no problem going to a barrio. I like the liveliness of it. But your security level decreases when you go into some of these barrios and that was my point also...some of my best experiences in life were putting myself in situations that were less secure. But if we have money then we try to design everything with security first in mind. This can get out of hand and is part of the sterilization of America.

I thought this would be an interesting subject to discuss. Apparently I was incorrect. Ok, I will try another one.
 

Snuffy

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HB...I am very sorry that you are having a bad day. I have been to West Virginia several times...the last time was just a couple years ago. I love the people there and it is one of the areas I have thought of settling in. So I find it to still be a very warm place. Those type places are scattered throughout the USA. But the changing face of America is toward something else. I am very sorry to see this change. The reasons are complex and oh well I am sure it is one of those things that is just inevitable.
 

Texas Bill

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Feb 11, 2003
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Just food for thought---

Not all of Society is made up of gregarious people. Some actually like the isolation of their "own piece of land" in the middle of the city, town or village.
When I was growing up, we lived in small towns of from 50 to 2000 population where everyone knew you and you knew everyone. In that atmosphere everyone became either close friends or devoted enemies. You took care of everyone else's kids and they took care of yours. Very few people starved because either the local church group donated th their larder or someone better off did so. It was a community in the true sense of the word. The older men would gather on the street corner "downtown" and talk until suppertime, go home and eat, then if they had electricity, they would listen to the radio, or play cards (unless they were Baptists) until time to call it a night. The young kids would "play-out" until time to go home and to bed. There was always an adult to tell them when to quit. The teenagers would do their damnedest to get alone to do their own form of "playing-out", hoping the local constable didn't catch them and tell their parents.
The problem, as I see it, is one where present day society has "forgotten" how to interact with each other; has forgotten how to entertain themselves and forgotten how to make long lasting friendships. We now demand that we be entertained by TV and complain about the re-runs, forgetting that the take by the producers of that movie entertainment are paid less than they formally made through the theaters. We demand "social services" from our governments instead of relying on our own incentives and ambitions to take care of our sick and infirm; we place the duty of taking care of the indigent on those same social services and complain when our taxes go up as a result of the demands we place on the government. We no longer reinforce the learning cycle at home, but demand more and more of the "teachers" who work in a seemingly thankless environment produced by the complascent society that exists today.

I could go on and on, but you get my drift.

Whose fault is it?
It's our own for being buswhacked when our backs were turned, so to speak.

How do we change it?
We don't because we just don't want to put forth the effort to do so.

The politicians are always talking about "Family Values" but I don't really think they know what that really is. It's a "phrase" coined several years ago and has become caught up by a population that doesn't know either.

Oh, well, it started out being a nice day, then someone had to go and start this darn thread and got us all in another sour mood.

Texas Bill
 
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Lambada

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When we first moved here I found the people much friendlier than in my country of origin, UK. I suppose that wouldn't be hard, really. ;) I still find them much friendlier. I don't find them insincere, Snuffy, but I understand what you're getting at. I find that people here won't really open up to foreigners until you've 'earned your place' as we were saying on another thread in General Forum a while back. Sometimes, that 'earning' is proving one is here for the long haul. In tourist towns, Dominicans see foreigners come & go - I don't mean tourists, I mean residents. What would be the point, for a Dominican, of putting effort into a relationship that was only going to last a couple of years? Once you're accepted as being here for the long haul, everything changes. We ourselves change, because we have the comfort level of knowing we're 'at home' & our Dominican friends know it too & the interactions become far more profound in quality.

Initially I found the habit of people dropping by the house at all hours unannounced intensely annoying. But as I gained confidence I realised that for the most part they didn't even notice if I was still in my nightie, and even if they did, it didn't matter. That has been one of the changes I've noticed - fewer unannounced visitors, partly because we've moved to an up-market area & partly I'm sure, because of the need for greater security now than when we first moved here.

I don't experience the isolation you describe, Snuffy, even in an up-market area. We have great neighbours & our friend opposite is at home with the children because she has made a conscious choice to raise her own children and not have a muchacha do it. There are others around in the daytime, too, so in this area certain facets of 'barrio sociability' still exist. Other facets, like the power structure, also exist. A lot of families in our area are related to each other or have been living here for generations. Course it takes a new foreigner a few years to find out who is related to whom, but having already lived in DR 8 years before we built this house, we at least knew the right questions to ask.

I wonder how much isolation, like boredom, is an attitude of mind? Unlike Texas Bill I don't find this thread depressing because I love my life here and I have great people who are part of that life. Sure, I can see all sorts of changes in society here but I find that interesting and exciting to witness and be part of, not depressing. I certainly do not, in any way, hanker for the UK (quite the opposite) nor do I hanker for the days of my youth. They're still ahead of me..............:) Seriously, I love having the wisdom, experience and confidence it has taken 63 years to acquire and I couldn't be learning new things and facing new challenges in a better country.
 

2LeftFeet

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I live in NYC and never in the DR. I have visited. My sister lived there for a few months. I've worked in the "barrios" in NY and they are very similar so I am very familiar with the dynamics and set up. Everybody is closer and seems to know everyone's business. Living in an envirnoment that is not like that-- I long for it--- though I can see how it can get tiresome with everyone knowing your business before you do:) !
I live in an apartment building with 2 other apartments on my floor. I barely see my neighbors. When I do I make small talk. I only know the names of the people that live in 1 of the apartments and I still after living here for 10 years confuse the names of the son and husband so I just say Hi!
It's is very isolating. I'd love to pull up a chair in front of my building and just start to socialize with people but it's just not done-- not in the neighborhood that I live in.
 

Snuffy

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It is very late but having earlier eaten two chocolate coated vanilla bars from Splash...thank god for Splash...I have risen from my coffin. 10 freakin pesos for an ice cream bar that puts Helado Bon to shame.

Texas Bill...don't shoot me...you got some BBQ coming. I didn't mean it to be depressing although I can see how you can see it that way. My intent was to explore it to see if we can learn something.

I didn't say I was experiencing isolation here. I do isolate from time to time but it is a choice. That is my point. The structure of the society does not isolate the individual. Isolation is what exist in much of the USA and the direction in which it is moving. And even in the Bronx, where I have dominican friends, that isolation exist. I was shocked to find out that my dominican friends did not know their dominican neighbors who had lived in the next door apartment for several years.

So according to my wife it is the living in the same place for a long time that creates the good relationships between neighbors in the barrio...as Lambada and Texas Bill are saying. It isn't necessarily the way the barrio is so close together with so many people. Which sucks because the USA is very transient.

Is it that as poverty disappears and people have more money they have more options and they become transient and this leads to isolation from your neighbors? So you have to find other forms of the neighborhood zocalo...sort of like DR1. One day the DR is going to change. Enjoy the barrio while you can.
 

Snuffy

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Lambada...

"I still find them much friendlier. I don't find them insincere, Snuffy, but I understand what you're getting at. I find that people here won't really open up to foreigners until you've 'earned your place' as we were saying on another thread in General Forum a while back. Sometimes, that 'earning' is proving one is here for the long haul."

Thanks for that insite. I want to explore this in more detail so I can better understand the Dominican. So at a later date I will bring it up again. I find Doms to be very friendly but I also find that goes only so far. And perhaps it is because I haven't 'earned my place'. But I sense it is something else and if I do get into this then I will surely insult some but hey that makes it so much more interesting. I don't want to go there just yet.
 

2LeftFeet

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Dec 1, 2006
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I think the more money you have the more isolated you become-- you just don't have the time-- in the US.

Take Johnny to Soccer and Piano lessons on Tues and Fridays, Baseball on Mondays and Weds. Mary has Dance on Fridays and Art every other Tues. I get my nails done on Thurs and the Massage on Monday......

Poor people don't do that. Life in a lot of ways in simpler. Not as shallow. In NYC people that have more money will spend $800 to have a children's birthday party at Chuck E Cheese--- Poorer people will order a bunch of pizzas to the house and invite the neighbors.
 

Snuffy

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2LeftFeet...go buy a nice comfortable lawn chair and every day go out and sit for an hour. I will bet that people start talking to you and eventually others will come and sit with you. They will get accustomed to knowing you are going to be there. The hard part is initiating it. Don't put your sunglasses on and stare at a book. Look people in the eye as they pass by and give them a big smile as you say "hello, how was your day?"...just tell them you are getting a little sunshine.
 

Snuffy

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Well that is what I am trying to teach my wife not to become. That just because we have the money doesn't mean we have to find ways to spend it. Lets just be simple and not buy into every holiday that comes along. I tell people...please do not buy me anything for Christmas...I have everything I need and I don't want you wasting time and money on something I probably am not going to need or want. If I want something I go out and buy it. My wife thinks we have to acknowledge every holiday, every birthday, every event in the entire freakin world. No we don't. And I am always telling her...no Nita does not need that for her Birthday or Christmas....get her one or two simple things...and no she doesnt need a party every year. Soon we will have another child and I'm not playing that game because I will collapse from exhaustion running to the the Toy Store.
 

Snuffy

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You gotta find another place to live. That is to weird. Who are these people that want to isolate everyone.
 

Berzin

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Nov 17, 2004
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In the brazilian tv series "City of Men" you get the impression that the community has to band together to take care of their needs, from opening up a day care center, dealing the consequences of teen-age pregnancy, to the radio station that served the local population. The state has left the favleas of Brazil to fend for themselves for the most part and the citizens come up with unique ways to combat their problems. This creates a sense of community not found in more upscale areas, where basic necessities are more co-ordinated and organized.

I experienced this when I visited a barrio of Santo Domingo. The lights had been out all day and during the course of the evening people began to mingle outside my friends' apartment. We chipped in for some beer and frituras, listened to music and spent the night talking and joking. The sense that the community was in this together was palpable, but what was an interesting gathering of neighbors to me was just a typical night for them, and I cannot imagine how frustrating it has to be living like that every day of your life.