Thanks for all the replies. Let me tell you the problem I have.
We are going through a tug of war over my son. His dada doesnt want us to take him to DR. We are divorced you see. It was bitter to say the least. We have been to DR and we love it. We need crime stats so we can say for certain that its not like down-town Baghdad. We know it isnt but to the ignorant you may aswell be talking Swahili!
Please help.
Here's something interesting to keep in mind: Rank Order - Current account balance
The Dominican Republic is ranked 127th among 166 countries. By the way, the DR's 2006 current account balance is a negative US$ -1,124,000,000.
And the CIA says that the conventional short form for the Dominican Republic is ....
conventional short form: The Dominican
For God's sake, no! "The United" should be only used to talk about ManU!!!
Regarding Santiago, I don't know, I'm just about to move to RD and I am also interested in knowing about good places to live and as far as I recall Santiago was a nightmare to me. On that ocassion - about three years ago - I was lonely planeting RD and though it didn't mean any trouble for me anywhere else in the country, it was very hard and even scary to be a girl walking along Santiago's streets on her own. Even getting a cab was not cool. And I'm not even talking about walking at night, I'm talking about moving around the city at 3pm!!
Giving my profession, I might have to make my living in SDQ or even Santiago, thus I'm trully concerned about the problems that may face a single woman living in those cities: what places I should avoid? On what hood I shouldn't even think on living... what about the transportation? (I'm not planning on buying a car after having remained in the same job for at least 6 months) Is public transport dangerous? Is it punctual? Do buses have specific routes? Where should I get info on these subjects???
(please help)
V.