Dominican Republic: Features

General writing about the Dominican Republic – by, for and about expats!

Glitz, Bling and Merengue: "Candidates and their supporters do not canvass door to door here in the DR as they do in the UK. Instead they have 'caravans' - motorcades with the candidate sitting on the roof of an SUV via the sun roof, surrounded by supporters in a procession of vehicles. Some vehicles will be trucks with 20 or 30 enthusiastic supporters waving and yelling at the crowds. Plus the ubiquitous mobile ghetto-blaster, of course." Ginnie Bedggood takes a wry look at election campaigning DR style!
Can I Count Your Vote? - Dunno, Can You...?: "The electorate were given a very large voting paper to decide on Senators, Deputies, Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors. Photos of the worthy aspirants were included because not everyone in the DR can read. Even then not all could see: one elderly lady who could not see the photos clearly duly marked one of them. Then she held her voting paper up close to her eyes and remonstrated with her daughter, 'Hey! You didn't tell me I voted for Baldy.' " Ginnie Bedggood looks at the often chaotic count in the recent Dominican Republic elections.
Quisqueya: "It would be very easy to write the book from the narrow point of view of a Briton abroad and to dismiss the differences of life in the DR as shortcomings or oddities on the part of the Dominicans. Ginnie steers well clear of this trap and, indeed, gently chides the naivety of some of the many foreigners who've visited Puerto Plata with a view to settling." Dave reviews "Quisqueya", Ginnie Bedggood's account - at turns funny, candid and hard-hitting - of her first eight years as an expat in the Dominican Republic. Compulsory reading for any expat planning to move to a developing country!