Caribe, la otra cara

Away from tourist enclaves and postcards, the Dominican Republic reveals itself as a lived landscape shaped by fog-laden hills, casabe cooked over wood-fired stoves, trucks heavy with tayota heading toward the island’s main markets, and goats wandering along trafficked roads.

Mornings in the mountain heart of the Caribbean begin wrapped in a sweatshirt, in the cool air of the field. Coffee is sipped from metal cups too hot to hold; scrambled eggs are eaten while chickens dart between our feet.

“Does it ever happen that someone goes off alone for a walk in the forest?” the question comes after hours spent surrounded by the community: cohesive, present, busy building, negotiating, fixing, deciding. “No” comes the answer, with laughter. “We’d think they were locos.”

Two seasons follow one another: Verano and Infierno. Along the seafront, coconuts are split open with a machete amid the bustle of SUVs with tinted windows heading toward air-conditioned shopping centers. After a while, nasal secretions mix with dark fragments of heavy metals. It turns out that mangoes, too, are seasonal: the man at the habitual stand offers me papaya to console. He warns me not to leave my long braid resting down my back: someone might cut it, because pelo bueno sells well.

Away from tourist enclaves and postcards, the Dominican Republic is a place lived from within, dense with work, heat, and movement. Pressed under the weight of heavy clouds, and then released into color.

[2011-2013-2014]