Two weeks ago, the mayor of Santiago de los Caballeros, Abel Martinez, issued orders to close down Los Hospedajes, the century-old market in the lower part of the city. Vendors there sold fruits and staples for resale to the public. Some of the stalls there have been in the same family for more than three generations. There are stories that tell of some of the vendors who were even born in their stalls.
However, Los Hospedajes does not present a very hygienic picture to any visitor, and it is crowded with people. Given these circumstances, the mayor, fighting the blight of the coronavirus, decided to shut it down at least for a while. After all, it is a city-owned property.
But the banana and plantain trees keep producing, the vegetable fields of Tireo and Constanza keep yielding their fruits and vegetables and the yucca and batata farms of Moca are still producing. All of these crops and more, come to Santiago daily.
With the Hospedaje closed and sealed off with Jersey barriers on all four access points, many of the vendors and truckers have taken to open shop along the new South Beltway in Santiago, the one that follows the river Yaque. There, customers can haggle for staples with truckers or the odd vendor, along about a kilometer of the roadway. The vendors are defiant, saying that they are not willing to let themselves die of hunger. Given the massive transfer of products, the local city government (the Ayuntamiento) has been obliged to undertake campaigns of spraying disinfectants and undertake other sanitation efforts at the new market area.
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El Caribe
6 April 2020