I think I was born in the wrong time period.. I would so gladly go back in time to the 50's and stay there .. and I was not even Alive then ..
The world was correct back then ..
- Thread starter MiamiDRGuy
- Start date
SD in 1956
The world was correct back then ..
The 50's were a truly magical time period like none other. That quickly ended with the assassination of JFK and the Vietnam War.
We live at Playa Najayo, very close to that house. Spectacular location. It was vacant a long time (with armed guards), then it was a military police station for at least a decade. There is an argument going on now because the police were removed (the locals are unhappy, they felt safer with them there). Apparently it now belongs to UNPHU, but the municipality is fighting that and wants possession so it can be restored and be open to visitors.
The beach there has a walled area, which was Trujillo’s private beach. Atop the wall was a lighted boardwalk. The boardwalk was destroyed by a hurricane a long time ago, but the wall remains. Photo below.
Across the road from that house is another property that the locals say belonged to a Trujillo family member. Beautiful home and grounds. The guy who’s lived there for decades tried to sell it not long ago, but (surprise!!!) there’s a problem with the title. Add to that the fact that most all of the property from beach all the way inland once belonged to one family there (including our property) and they are now trying to reclaim that house/land because they say it was stolen and never registered. The guy with the original title, a massive document, is 102 years old and tough as nails.
Speaking of liter, at least two major foam products producers in the DR will start to make all their products biodegradable.
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Wouldn't it be great if they headed up the effort to clean up all of the foam mess they've single-handedly they helped create?
Yes, but I wouldn't say they helped create the problem. Their foam products are made in their SD factories, but the DR isn't the only place that sell them. Throughout the Caribbean many of the foam cups, food storage, etc are exports from them, yet not in all the islands where they have a large impact in usage of their foam products are the streets and highways full of foam liter.
I always questioned why when a specific group does cleaning volunteer at a beach, why they never do that in stretches of certain highways. The 6 de Noviembre leaving SD to San Cristóbal is often disgusting with the amount of garbage on the sideof the road, especially around the toll booth.
Cleaning up DR is beyond any other infrastructure problem they have, it's under ever bush, high in the tress, on the fences and in the water ways
I pick up water, beer and soda bottles and Styrofoam lunch containers everyday. But the Haitian workers just toss them with no regard when they are done.
Dominicans do the same when there are some that work construction and there is almost no keeping up with their trash as 99.5% of them, without regard to income or social status, throws their garbage on the ground, even if a trash container is 3' feet away.
It is in the DNA of Hispaniola, and most of Latin America except maybe Uruguay
Yes and rock & roll started and music blossomed for 3 decades - until rap came along and has all but destroyed music.
Why volunteers? Does the D.R. not have chain gangs? You get 3 hots and a cot, and we get litter removal in exchange. Dress them up in pretty pink skirts and halter tops.
If that was the case, then the DR would had never been a mostly litter free country, yet it was. With Haiti litter has always been a problem. There are many books written by foreign visitors (mostly Americans, so much is in English) that visited the DR and Haiti in the 1800's and the 1900's before and during the Trujillo years and always make a point of how there was a difference in that regard in both countries. I haven't seen any mention of garbage problems in Haiti when it was a colony of France, but I have only read a handful of those and only because they are included after or before the Dominican chapters, as is the case below. Since it's already there, might as well read it but I don't purposefully research the past of other countries except the DR, the USA and Spain.
For example, this was said by Alpheus Hyatt Verrill who was from New Haven, CT when he visited the island in the early 1910's. It should be noted this was around two decades before Trujillo rose to power and before the "use once snd throw away" culture of today, so the cleanliness of Dominicans regarding public places was not a creation of Trujillo but rather a continuation from how the country has been since its inception and into colonial times. Something happened after Trujillo was removed, thougn the DR was still quite clean in the 60's and 70's.
He also visited Puerto Rico on that trip, so all three places are included in that book, in the order as follows: Puerto Rico (Porto Rico in the book), DR (San Domingo/Santo Domingo also appear in the book to refer to the DR) and lastly Haiti.
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They are always volunteers. The DR doesn't use its prisoners to do some work including picking up litter as is seen in several states of the USA. The last time the DR put some prisoners to work was under the Trujillo regime (and at that time existed the death penalty.) Probably, that fact lead to the current nom-usage of prisoners to work. The death penalty was outlawed after Trujillo too.
Do you know the name of this book? I looked him up and he was quite a prolific author of both fiction and non-fiction. He wrote a book about Jamaica (1931) that I'm going to try and find for a friend. This particular book I would like for myself and future students.
Porto Rico Past and Present and San Domingo of Today
The final chapters are dedicated to Haiti describing many places, the culture, etc; but for some reason is not included in the title.
The final chapters are dedicated to Haiti describing many places, the culture, etc; but for some reason is not included in the title.
During the covid curfews, they were putting people who they caught breaking the curfews to work clearing rubbish here on the north coast.