Sat 16 May 2009
The Guest House on Tanca Street
I venture out into the world, this time the Caribbean, like a moth at midnight seeking a flame. I go to the islands without any plans or itinerary except a vague idea that this trip, like all the others will provide me enough adventure and inspiration to justify the effort.
I arrive in the morning and take a bus to Old San Juan. I get off at the bus terminal in the old city and haul myself and my bags up the street where I take the trolley that drops me off in front of The Guest House on Tanca Street, my home in Old San Juan.
My room is at the end of a long hallway in an old building in the heart of Old San Juan. I have a bay window in my room with a rear view of a brick building. I have a bed with clean sheets, a frig., a squeaky ceiling fan and a small but adequate closet—all the necessities of life. I unpack and take off to explore my new neighborhood.
After traversing the narrow streets and dodging tourists boarding cruise ships in the harbor, I find a quiet bar on San Sebastian and order a cuba libre. I sit at the mahogany bar sipping my rum & coke watching an American pro-football game on the TV above the bar. You know you are in an American colony when the bars are filled with gringos watching pro-football games in real time on C-Span.
Old San Juan is a shopping mall for throngs of touristas flowing from the portals of floating hotels into Old San Juan peering into tourist shops and frequenting the many restaurants, bars and cafes lining the narrow streets and alleys in the old town. I am rudely reminded of the global economy as I walk by the Burger King across from La Capilla de San Francisco. Situated among the small shops selling seashells, bikinis, precious stones and carnival masks are the Starbucks and Golden Arches.
At night I discover el Callejo΄n de la Capilla, the Chapel alley, across from the chapel of San Francisco. In this urban alley graphic graffiti shouts from its grey walls, “The white man is doomed, FBI Asesinados mataron el hombre pero no la idea” (referring to the recent murder and suspected assassination of Puerto Rican nationalist leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios by the FBI) and other equally provocative words and paintings.
I sit at a small café sipping my Bacardi and lime, watching the parade of swinging senoritas and cool cats who at midnight pass through the alley into the NuYoRican Club where la musica Latina, la rumba y salsa resonate until the break of dawn when I return to my empty bed on a sloping street in old San Juan.
Dr. Shah
After my exploration of Old San Juan I walk down the hall to my room and peek into the slightly open door of a room a couple doors up and across from mine. Inside I see a large painting of a lovely nude Asian woman leaning against the far wall. The hotel owner, Senior Castro, says a Persian doctor lives there.
Curiosity and a rash along my lower right cheek overcome my reservations. I knock softly. A short stout man with an unshaven face and wild gray hair opens the door. I introduce myself as his neighbor from down the hall and he invites me into his small studio apartment. He unfolds a chair and seats me next to a small cluttered round table. He sits across from me on his rumpled bed dangling his hairy twisted toes.
The floor is strewn with coffee grounds and cigarette butts. Beside Dr. Shah’s bed is a Persian prayer rug. Dr. Shah says, “I can’t read English although I speak it quite well.” He cooks his meals on a hot plate on the floor of his room. He smokes cigarettes and drinks beer and rum. He tells me about his life of close calls and conspiracies and shows me an old photo of him standing on the roof with a full head of black hair flexing his bountiful biceps .Dr. Shah treats my skin rash with a white cream he squeezes from a tube buried under empty wrappers and bread crumbs on the small table across from his bed. I ask him about the nude painting. “The Japanese girl is my ex lover. She cost me a fortune and then she left me when the money ran out,” he says ruefully as he scratches his toes. Dr. Shah loves to sit on the edge of his bed and talk about his paranoiac phobias. He scarcely leaves his room. He passes time away by talking to travelers like me. The doctor says his health has been fragile since he survived an attempt on his life by a black guy who lives upstairs and a Jewish millionaire who lives in Tel Aviv. I thank him for treating my rash and offer him a beer which he kindly accepts. On my way out he hands me his card.
Once a day during my week in Old San Juan I interrupt his madcap meditations. He warmly welcomes me, unfolds a chair for me to sit on and we talk about him and his paranoid fantasies and my neurotic realities. During my visits he offers me a beer and fruit. On one occasion I transcribe in English a spiritually inspiring letter to one of his friends. He never learned to read or write English; though fluent in English and Farsi. He doesn’t speak Spanish but has lived in this room in this guest house for years.
Damaras is my next door neighbor. She is a Santeria devotee and a Nuyorican with an attitude. She is the local pot supplier. She gets her marijuana from La Perla, a downscale barrio that sits below the wall on the coastline not far from here. When sober she is very agreeable and loans me a tea cup.
However, one day I anger her while she is sitting stoned on the balcony sipping her rum. She shouts at me, “Why do you ask so many questions?” I retreat into silence and let her ramble on into incoherence.
Christmas Eve
While lounging on the roof looking at the floating hotels on the harbor I meet mellow Jurriaan, the Flying Dutchman. He pilots a tourist sloop on the inland sea of his native Holland. He is on his six month vacation from cruising tourists around on his klipper.
Jurriaan is long, lean and blond, a real ladies’ man. We hang out together for a few days diggin’ the scene on el Callejo΄n, drinking rum and the nightlife at the NuYo Rican Café. He is a firm believer in water therapy. “Water can cure anything,” he says, “by drinking it, swimming in it and cleaning with it. It kills lots of harmful bacteria,” he says earnestly.
On Christmas Eve Jurriaan and I attend midnight mass at the Chapel of San Francisco then we join a few new friends on the roof of the Guest House on Tanca St.. We share the sacrament in the mystery of this star-studded night in Old San Juan. Jurriaan falls in love with a lovely New York dancer who has joined us in our roof top reverie. I return to my room and fall asleep.
Delores, my former flame, flies in on my last day in the colony and we have lunch together. I introduce her to my new friends and show her around Old San Juan. After the dogs sniff my bags I get on the plane and take a night flight to the Dominican Republic.
Zona Colonial
I arrive in Santo Domingo just before midnight, my flight having been delayed a couple hours by a mechanical problem. Jesus meets me at the airport. Bettye, the owner of the Galeri΄a, had arranged for Jesus to drive me to her guest house in la Zona Colonial. Bettye rents rooms in her colonial two-story stucco and red tiled casa on la Plaza Toledo.
I ride down el malecon and through the dusky streets of Santo Domingo until arriving in front of a colonial style building facing a dark empty street. I have no pesos so I give Jesus dollars and he loans me some pesos. He gives me the key to my room and the key to the barred security gate. Jesus wishes me good night and takes off into the night. I have enough light from a distant street lamp to place the key in the lock to the wrought iron gate. As I try to unlock the gate a figure lunges at me from the shadows and collapses at my feet. After I recover from the shock I see a nondescript figure writhing on the ground. He/she is begging for pesos. This poor soul extends a hand and I hurriedly hand her/him some pesos. As she/he disappears in the shadows I open the gate and then the door to my room. The room has twin beds, a vanity and shower. The bathroom is in a tiny space that crams my long legs when sitting on the toilet.
The next morning after shaving and shower, I walk out my door into the bright sunshine and onto the now bustling street. I walk around la casa onto la Plaza Toledo and into la Galeri΄a where I find a buxom middle-aged blond dressed in a flossy black Latin lace dress showing a priceless piece of Haitian art to a tourist. Bettye greets me warmly once her prospective client leaves. She and I sit in her gallery sipping tea while we catch up on each others lives. She once lived in my old home town, La Jolla, California. She has one of the finest collections of Art, Dominican and Haitian, in the country. I give her a copy of my latest poetry book and she proposes that I do a reading in her gallery. I agree to when I return from my island tour.
While wandering in the upscale Zona Colonial at night I happen upon the Cuban Culture Club a stones’ throw from la Plaza de Cristobal Colon where I sit down for dinner and rum.. After two days of exploring the cafes, jewelry stores and bars on Parque Colo΄n I head north to Sosu΄a and the beach.
Sosua
is a small town on the north coast between the resort towns of Puerto Plata and Cabarete
I arrive in the early afternoon at my new home at Rocky’s Rock & Blues Bar Hotel. I drop off my gear and head for the beach a short walk from Rocky’s. I stroll the beach lined with funky bars and cafes filled with Europeans on holiday. The beach stretches for several kilometers and is lined with European-owned and occupied bars, restaurants and shops selling t-shirts and sodas.
That night I venture out with Alban and Sarah, a young couple from Los Angeles whom I met in the guest house while using the internet. Alban is a French national living and working in Los Angeles. Sarah is his Eurasian fiancée. She’s employed by the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, California.
We stroll around the darkened neighborhood where Christmas decorations compete with neon lights, until we stop at a huge oblong open air bar. The place is jumpin’ with bright lights and scantily clad girls flitting like mariposas from bar stool to bar stool seeking the nectar of the night from money-laden middle-aged European men sitting at the bar. My new friends and I circle the bar then walk up the arcing stairway to the upper bar and dance floor that is virtually empty. We order drinks and sit at a cocktail table peering down through plexiglas on the denizens of the lower bar flirting, drinking and philandering through the Dominican night. After a while the voyeurism loses its charm we leave behind the hordes of hookers and the legion of lusting gringos. I say good night to Alban and Sarah and start to cross the road to my room in the guesthouse.
I hear the voice of a deranged angel of the night. I see her across the street just before she makes a beeline for me shouting, “Are you looking for a date? Can I make you happy?” I keep on walking as she catches up with me, then lunges at me and grabs my crotch. Startled, I rush back to my room and lock the door.
I leave this brothel by the bay the very next day on a cross-island bus ride to Las Galeras, a tiny quiet tourist town on the far northeast coast of la Samana peninsula. Here I discover la cultura dominicana y el ritmo dominicana, where the seas’ horizon is a blend of heavenly hues of blue.
Las Galeras
I check into el Paradiso Bungalow located near the main intersection of town. This is quiet and laid back place where tourists don’t congest the streets but swim and sun on the beach and eat and drink in their hotels. There are a few small restaurants and bars near the intersection, but most socializing occurs at the tourist hotels and at the open air bar and restaurant located at the end of the main street on the beach front were locals outnumber los touristas. Here everyone chills on soulful seafood washed down with rum and beer. The scene is mellow and the European ex pats are well adjusted to the beach culture and idyllic scenery. Sunset is a heavenly blend of post card perfect blue sky and turquoise sea. I attend a New Years Eve party on the remote and romantic beach at el Rincon. We welcome the New Year with rum and lobster under a panoply of sparkling stars and moon shine in the obsidian sky. Lovely ladies teach me la Bachata to Afro-Dominicano rhythms played by an inspired ensemble of local musicians.
Baile la Bachata
Bonita senorita cuanto cobras
para ensenar me a bailar
la bachata?
“Don Tomas, nada para ti”
uno dos tres quatro
adelante atras a lado
uno dos tres cuatro
adelante atras a lado
muchisimas gracias
para ensenar me
a bailar la bachata
“Don Tomas de nada, asi”
uno dos tres quatro
adelante atras a lado
uno dos tres quatro
adelante atras a lado
Ahora bella dominicana
puedes ensenar me amor
“No mas Don Tomas”
un dos tres quatro
adelante atras a lado
un dos tres quatro
adelante atras a lado
After several days strolling the idyllic beaches and swimming in the turquoise sea, I depart from this tranquil spot on God’s good earth for las Terranas, a city situated on the north coast of la Samana΄ peninsula.
While waiting at the hotel bar for a concho (pickups and minivans converted to public transport) to Samana΄, I meet Sam, local tour guide from Southern Asia. I buy him a beer, and we talk about the nature site he can show me for a modest price. I tell him I have seen enough to satisfy myself. Sam insists there is more to see and for a modest price he can show me around. I ask him if he is a Muslim. He answers, “I am a Muslim when it relates to women and Catholic when it relates to drinking.” We laugh and while the time away until the concho stops in front of the bar. I say goodbye Sam and to Las Galeras heading west on the open road.
Fractured Forearm
On the ride from tranquil Las Galeras to las Terrenas I am sitting in the back of a pickup on a wooden bench with a load of locals who climb on and jump off at each stop in each small town or village.
Midway across the peninsula the driver stops and a good-looking copper complexioned young man climbs onto the back and sits on a bench facing me. He has a grotesquely swollen scared forearm. He sees my pained expression and introduces himself to me as we careen down the narrow road crossing la Samana΄. Antonio tells me how he crushed his forearm in a moto concho (motorbike) accident. After several surgeries he has been left with a forearm filled with fragments of bone floating in a mass of blood clots and severed veins. Antonio lives in constant low grade pain. He has no sling to carry his burden. He bravely holds it up, stark reminder of human frailty and strength. The life of this smiling young man has been shattered like the bone in his forearm.
Wishfully, I tell him to go to neighboring Cuba where they have excellent surgeons who are affordable. Still smiling he says he can not afford the plane fare. He jumps off just outside of las Terrenas. He has an appointment with another Dominican doctor who he hopes can heal his fractured future.
Las Terranas
Paradise is afflicted by a cacophony of moto conchos racing up and down el malecon and a plethora of European expats who own most of the hotels, restaurants and shops. I must say the whites have adjusted well to life on this laid back beach town. They seem to have everything under control including the locals.
The main road along the waterfront is where the action is: outdoor restaurants, bars, discos and other tourist attractions. My favorite venues are the Haitian art galleries with the Haitian artists sitting before canvases with paint and brush. I buy a couple pieces of Haitian art from street vendors on my way through town to the barrio where the amiable hostess of a locally owned restaurant serves up tasty home-cooked meals and cool beer. One day while eating at a café on the beach a local shares with me a popular joke on la isla touristica :
How does one identify a Frenchman in the Dominican Republic?
He has a baguette in one hand and a dominicana in the other.
How does one recognize a German in the Dominican Republic?
He has a beer in one hand and a dominicana in the other.
How does one know an Italian in the Dominican Republic?
He has a dominicana in each hand.
While sitting at a bar on the beach, I meet a cordial middle-aged French woman, Monique, who owns the bar and a restaurant across the road. We discuss the Dominican scene and people. Monique says, “The Dominicans have no culture.” Caught by surprise I ask, “What do you mean by that?” She says, “They don’t have any sense of national nor racial pride.”
National pride when taken to an extreme can result in Neo-Con Nationalism in the U.S.A. which has resulted in an agenda of xenophobia and imperialism/ militarism that has alienated the world and exacerbated the threat of terrorism. However Monique makes a cogent point when it comes to the absence of racial pride. Like most Latin Americans, Dominicans suffer from pigmentocracy. They distinguish degrees of negritude with lighter complexions preferred and privileged. and darker complexions despised and deprived. The upper class and virtually all of the campaign posters that line the roads and towns clearly define who rules this island—the high yellas and near whites. However, unlike Cubans they remain reticent about acknowledging their African ancestry and traditions.
Santiago de Los Caballeros
My next stop after a long ride in a cramped concho is Santiago, the second city of La Republica Dominicana nestled below the islands’ verdant central highlands. I arrive in the rush of midday and take a taxi to a small hotel near the central plaza. When I arrive, slender and comely Dulkin is cleaning rooms. She drops everything and leads me to a room on the upper floor of this quaint two- story building. After I settle in my room and take a shower, Dulkin invites me to her mother’s house for lunch.
It’s a short walk from my hotel across a busy thoroughfare to where her mother and two sisters live. Her mother, Carmen, is a warm and hospitable middle-aged woman, darker complexioned than her three daughters. Carmen makes me feel right at home. She serves me a typical Dominican meal of guandules (green pigeon peas), arroz y pollo, con vino blanco. Afterwards, sister Soccoro serves me superb dark Dominican rum and I recite some of my poemas in Spanish and give them a copy of my bilingual poetry book, Vientos de Cambio. They are very grateful and I leave feeling, for the first time, a close connection to the people of this isla touristica.
Carmen’s other daughter, Theresa, is a government lawyer. Three single women and one child living in this comfortable two-story apartment in the heart of Santiago. I wonder as I walk back to my hotel room. Where are the men in these women’s lives?
One afternoon I climb the Monumento a los He΄roes de la Restauracio΄n de la Repu΄blica where I enjoy the scenic view of the city and surrounding green covered mountains. When I return to the hotel three fellow colombiano guests are gathered on the patio celebrating with loud talk, Latin music and rum. They invite me to join them. We engage in light-hearted conversation and drink rum and soda. They introduce me to their Dominican girlfriends who sit quietly sipping rum and giggling at the antics of their intoxicated patrons. Enrique, who appears to be the oldest, refuses to learn English because he hates yanquis. I remind him that the yanquis are propping up Columbia’s right wing government. He shrugs and takes another shot of rum and soda.
The highlight of my trip to Santiago is my visit to el Museo Folklo΄rico where noted Domincan poet Don Tomas Morel’s son, Tomas Jr., is the curator. The museum is down a few blocks and around the corner from my hotel. Tomas gives me a tour of the museum with its folk art, Carnival caretas (masks) and costumes. The next day Tomas introduces me to a few of the local poets and we exchange poetry books over rum and insightful conversation. For the first time I feel like I am getting some critical opinion about life and times in D.R. Posted on the wall in a prominent place in the museum is this poignant quote from Tomas Sr.:
El hombre soltero vive como un rey
Pero muere como un perro
A single man lives like a king
But dies like a dog
One night I take a cab uptown to a club called Bar Code on calle de Cuba. In this indoor/outdoor bar/restaurant the locals gather to dance the night away to Afro-Dominican rhythms played by el Barco de Jazz Combo replete with congas, bongo΄s, tambores, guitaras y piano. The guys and gals get down to the beat on the crowded dance floor.
In Santiago I become close to the culture of the Dominican Republic. Here, I can converse with poets and walk the streets without being attacked by desperate hookers. Here one finds authentic Dominican art in the galleries and best of all there is hardly a gringo anywhere to be seen. Tragically, the life of the Haitian’s living in the Dominican Republic is more marginal than the undocumented Latinos living in the United States. It is estimated that one million Haitians live in the DR with only a few thousand living here legally. About the same number of Dominicans lives in the USA. Most of the Haitians I see are artists in the numerous galleries lining the streets of tourist towns like las Terranas. They are in the shadows and on the side streets as they struggle to survive doing jobs the Dominicans won’t do.
The next morning I am on my way south returning to Santo Domingo and then home.
Santo Domingo
I arrive by taxi at la Zona Colonial on Thursday in the early afternoon and rent a room in the Hotel Freeman on Calle Isabel La Cato΄lica near Parque Colo΄n only a few doors from my first home in the DR. After settling in, I walk down the street to Bettye’s Galleri΄a. She warmly welcomes me home and confirms my poetry reading on Saturday.
On Friday the 13th I taxi to the Museo de arte Morderna near the center of the city. Highlights of the Museo del Hombre Dominicano include a collection of Taino artifacts, a section on slavery during the colonial period and African influences in the DR (including a section of Vodun (voodoo). After viewing the permanent collection of Dominican art at the Museo de Arte Moderno, I cross a busy street to catch a concho or taxi to the Zona Colonial.
I see folks lined up in front of a grey nondescript one-story building. I pull out my digital camera to take a photo of this representative group of Dominicans. After snapping the photo and again facing traffic to wave down a cab I hear a loud authoritative voice behind me.I turn and see a tall black Dominican soldier standing in the shade of an adjacent building gesturing for me to approach him. Puzzled, I ask him in Spanish, “Que quieres?” “What do you want?” He ignores my question and orders me to enter the area where he stands; an area cordoned by a steel cable connected to concrete pylons. I reluctantly enter the area and again ask him, “Que quiere? Porque me llama!” “Why do you call me?” He sternly asks to see my film. I ask him, “Porque?” He tells me it is forbidden to take photos. I ask him, “Porque?” He starts rattling off in clipped Spanish about it being forbidden to take photos of this building. I know I am in deep shit when he insists on taking my film. I refuse. Just as the soldier and I reach the tipping point in our stand off, a mulato man in civilian clothes wearing an official ID necklace arrives on the scene. He tells me in English, “It is forbidden to take photos of the American consulate.” “Since when?” I ask.
“Since 9-11,” He replies.
I tell him, “I had no idea this was the American consulate. There are no symbols or words indicating that this is the American consulate. There is no American flag, no signs forbidding the taking of photos, nada.”
I explain that I’m an African American taking photos for artistic reasons to capture a cross section of Dominican faces. With a smile the mulato says, “We are all mixed Tomas, but here you are white. These people are in line to obtain visas to the U.S.A.” He says, “The soldier is just doing his job. Just go along with the officer.”
I follow his advice and give the soldier my driver’s license. The soldier takes it and disappears into the building. He returns after a short while. He is holding a clip board. It’s an incident report. After questioning me about who I am and where I come from he mellows out, hands me my license. I hail the first taxi I see and head back to the hotel. A close call on Friday the 13th.
Saturday afternoon Bettye provides an abundance of fine wine and finger food for the guests who attend my poetry reading in her Galleri΄a. My words are warmly received by the many American expats in attendance and by Ce΄sar Zapata, the Secretario de Cultura. I give him an autographed copy of Vientos. He invites me to be a guest on his radio talk show. I regrettably decline his invitation due to my scheduled departure early Sunday morning.
tomas 05
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