Snuffy if you will allow me I would like to offer my 2 cents into this thread as to how I interpret the situation here in the DR and where I see it going.
There are times that I reminisce to my younger days. Just like many of those mentioned in this thread of playing outside till called in, knowing all your neighbors and the general comradely feeling held within the community. This ?laid back? feeling allowed people to retire for the night with their doors open in the warm summer nights to allow the cool breeze to circulate throughout the house. It allowed you to leave your keys in the ignition due to the fact that you didn?t need to look for them at five in the morning as you left for work in the city. The occasional mention on the news of a house break-in or a car being stolen always occurred in a distant part of your world and had no effect on you other then to comment as to how bad some people in the world were.
This form of life was alive and well until at least 1964 in the US throughout the majority of the country. It was at this time in my life that I decided to join the military and see the world. It was a few years later that I returned to my country of birth and was met by a large group of strangers calling me a baby killer and other choice words that I realized that things had changed drastically from that which was evident when I left. This was further reinforced when I got to my old neighborhood where I grew up. There were a number of new neighbors that stayed to themselves. People no longer left their doors open but rather locked them at night and removed the keys from the ignition of their cars.
Upon questioning all the old neighbors as to the change from the old habits I was always met with the same answers. The reason for this change and isolation all seemed to revolve around drugs and the crime that it produced through the want or need to purchase it and the desire a person felt to distance themselves from the possibility of involvement with people of that caliber.
Through the years this isolation has continued to grow and the need or imagined need to protect ones family and self from the effects that crime and drugs has played on the shaping of community life has reinforced this isolation. As the security of the child has come under so much strain through the corner sales of drugs, drive by random shootings and similar situations the parents have had to change their concept of life in the community. This has required the supposed isolation of family and therefore the need of things like television and other things to try to fill that gap lost from lack of interaction with the community. Added conveniences like air condition have only helped in this isolation in that it affords the family more comfort in its isolation.
In the time that I have lived here in the DR I have seen a gradual increase in the drugs and the crime associated with it increasing and as such I think it has had a direct result is the increased isolation of the Dominican people. The Dominicans have not had, in the last 50 years, any firm assurance that its policing agencies would adequately protect them. With the failure of being able to distinguish the good guys from the bad only reinforces the feeling of helplessness and the need for isolation for protection.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news as I too thoroughly enjoy the intermingling offered by the Dominican culture but I honestly believe that will all change as the DR experiences the same changes that transpired in the US. The scourge of drugs is a proven problem with its destruction on humanity and the crime that always follows in its footsteps. With the vast network of rehabilitation centers, police agencies, court system and jails the US has it has failed year after year to get a handle on this problem. With that which the DR has in resources, or lack thereof, and the steady rise in drug use, sales and transport here how can this country not end up going through major changes in its culture?
Rick
There are times that I reminisce to my younger days. Just like many of those mentioned in this thread of playing outside till called in, knowing all your neighbors and the general comradely feeling held within the community. This ?laid back? feeling allowed people to retire for the night with their doors open in the warm summer nights to allow the cool breeze to circulate throughout the house. It allowed you to leave your keys in the ignition due to the fact that you didn?t need to look for them at five in the morning as you left for work in the city. The occasional mention on the news of a house break-in or a car being stolen always occurred in a distant part of your world and had no effect on you other then to comment as to how bad some people in the world were.
This form of life was alive and well until at least 1964 in the US throughout the majority of the country. It was at this time in my life that I decided to join the military and see the world. It was a few years later that I returned to my country of birth and was met by a large group of strangers calling me a baby killer and other choice words that I realized that things had changed drastically from that which was evident when I left. This was further reinforced when I got to my old neighborhood where I grew up. There were a number of new neighbors that stayed to themselves. People no longer left their doors open but rather locked them at night and removed the keys from the ignition of their cars.
Upon questioning all the old neighbors as to the change from the old habits I was always met with the same answers. The reason for this change and isolation all seemed to revolve around drugs and the crime that it produced through the want or need to purchase it and the desire a person felt to distance themselves from the possibility of involvement with people of that caliber.
Through the years this isolation has continued to grow and the need or imagined need to protect ones family and self from the effects that crime and drugs has played on the shaping of community life has reinforced this isolation. As the security of the child has come under so much strain through the corner sales of drugs, drive by random shootings and similar situations the parents have had to change their concept of life in the community. This has required the supposed isolation of family and therefore the need of things like television and other things to try to fill that gap lost from lack of interaction with the community. Added conveniences like air condition have only helped in this isolation in that it affords the family more comfort in its isolation.
In the time that I have lived here in the DR I have seen a gradual increase in the drugs and the crime associated with it increasing and as such I think it has had a direct result is the increased isolation of the Dominican people. The Dominicans have not had, in the last 50 years, any firm assurance that its policing agencies would adequately protect them. With the failure of being able to distinguish the good guys from the bad only reinforces the feeling of helplessness and the need for isolation for protection.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news as I too thoroughly enjoy the intermingling offered by the Dominican culture but I honestly believe that will all change as the DR experiences the same changes that transpired in the US. The scourge of drugs is a proven problem with its destruction on humanity and the crime that always follows in its footsteps. With the vast network of rehabilitation centers, police agencies, court system and jails the US has it has failed year after year to get a handle on this problem. With that which the DR has in resources, or lack thereof, and the steady rise in drug use, sales and transport here how can this country not end up going through major changes in its culture?
Rick
Yes I appreciate Matilda's husband had something to with it & the respect that people have for him but I think it's something more & she is too modest to say so. I think she has made herself part of her community; she welcomes visitors, she feeds them, she wakes up smiling (all her own words) and my guess is she so doesn't fit the stereotype the neighbours might previously have had about an expat that they're interested in her as a person because she is interested in them as people. She doesn't moan (even after the shooting when heaven knows she had enough reason to), she gets on with things and when it all seems a bit much she laughs about it. Am I right, Matilda? And even though she doesn't live in a barrio (at least I don't think she does) she has a natural 'barrio sociability' and people respond to that.