Country Living In The Dominican Republic

by Expat Focus columnist Lindsay de Feliz

Out of the population of 10 million in the Dominican Republic, around 30% live in the country, in small settlements known as campos. Life in the campo is very different from life in the towns and cities, due to the lack of infrastructure and lack of work. Poverty is rife, but someone the inhabitants of the campos survive, raise children who then often leave to find work in the towns and cities.

The houses in the campos are usually made of planks, sliced up palm trees, although the richer will build theirs out of concrete blocks. The poorest houses are made of twigs or sugar cane, woven together. The roofs are invariably zinc sheet. Inside the houses the floor will just be dirt, or concrete for those who can afford it. The number of rooms in the house, will again depend on how much money the occupants have. Those who can afford it have a bedroom separate from the living area, and some even have two bedrooms, one for the children. Otherwise the children sleep in with the parents.

The living area may also have a kitchen at one end, but the majority has an outside kitchen or no kitchen at all. Cooking is usually done on a fogon, either made of cement like a table with an indent in it for the fire, or simply three concrete blocks on the floor with a space in the middle where you put either the wood or the charcoal.

One of the main problems in the campo is the water. In some areas the public water system delivers water in pipes, and a few people have a tap in the kitchen. More have a tap in the garden or maybe one in one garden which several people use. If there is no piped water to the community, then the alternatives are to dig a well, or to go to the river and conserve rainwater too. In some areas water is delivered in a truck – although most campo folk could not afford this.

In many campos, as the sun loses its heat in the late afternoon, you can see a steady stream of donkeys laden with plastic containers of all shapes and sizes, heading down to the river.

A lack of water means a lack of toilets, and the vast majority of campo houses have a latrine in the garden. In fact almost 50% of all homes in the Dominican Republic have a latrine rather than an indoor toilet. Apparently they get full, and so every few years the little zinc, wood, plastic, or tin structure ups sticks and is moved to another spot in the garden where a new hole is dug.

I remember visiting some of my husband’s friends in the campo in the hills above Barahona, in the south west. I asked to go to the toilet and was shown to the...


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Expat Experiences: Melanie Fitzsimmons de Alcequiez, Santiago - Dominican Republic

I'm Melanie, an American living in Santiago, the second largest city in the DR. It's been a journey, but I'm still alive.

I was young when I moved, I didn't really speak Spanish and I had had absolutely no idea what the Dominican Republic was until about six months before I moved. I know, I know. That's horrible. Blame it on bad geography education, but my knowledge of the Caribbean was Jamaica and Haiti - and only Haiti because there were some handsome Haitian soccer players on our high school team. The doors, however, of employment opened up and I would be given housing. The pay was minimal, but I wasn't looking to make money.

I first moved to the Dominican Republic in 2004 - just out of college and not really ready to work in the "real world." "I'll travel," I said, "and do some good work before I decide what to do next." The plan was to work for a year, maybe two, and then head back to corporate America. Little did I imagine I'd be here seven years later, married with two children, a fish, a brother-in-law and a sometimes live-in niece.

I spent my first three months mute. I had lived in Mexico during college and returned a few times to visit; I had Central American friends and I used Spanish a lot in Chicago. I wasn't prepared for Dominican Spanish. I didn't understand a word. I spoke in mime and mostly spent time with the kids I was teaching. Children are the most patient teachers.

I met my now-husband when I first arrived, we worked together in an elementary school and he helped me adapt to the new system. We started dating five months later, and when my contract was up, I had to decide what to do. The school I worked in was dysfunctional (as well as the religious organisation that ran it) and I couldn't continue there. I had no real job prospects at home, but I wasn't keen on jumping the gun into marriage. So, I travelled around the island a bit, and then headed to the States for a few months before I would make the conscious decision to move back to Santiago permanently.

Read more about Melanie's life in the Dominican Republic

Expat Experience: Lindsay de Feliz, Dominican Republic

Barrio Living In The Middle Of Nowhere by Lindsay de Feliz

I am Lindsay. English, mid 50s. Started out life as a linguist (French and German), ended up as Marketing lecturer at Kingston University, then Marketing Director of various Financial Institutions in the City.
I have been married to a very hunky Dominican for 7 years, and he has 3 boys who have all lived with us at various times. At the moment we have number two son with us, who is 21, and we also have 3 dogs and 10 cats.

I left the UK and ex husband in 2001. I just wanted more out of life and felt claustrophobic in London. I had developed a passion for scuba diving and had always loved travelling, meeting new people, experiencing new places, eating new food. My plan - such as it was - was to qualify as a PADI scuba diving instructor and then travel the world teaching diving, going from one tropical beach to the next. I didn't really think about where I would go or where I would end up. My first port of call was the Maldives, where the diving is second to none

I thought with a British passport I could work anywhere. Not true. I ended up doing my instructor's course in Singapore and the examination in Thailand.

I could have worked in Singapore but it was not a tropical paradise really, Thailand and the rest of Asia wanted work permits and at that time most dive schools preferred to employ locals. After a month of looking for work I ended up in Menorca as I could work legally there. But the Mediterranean Sea was cold - freezing in fact, and no beautiful corals or colourful fish - just the odd cod swimming past a clump of rocks.

I still wanted the tropical dream and thought that it would be handy if I could speak Spanish and then get work in South America where there were lots of sharks, as I was a shark specialty diver. I applied for a job in the Dominican Republic and came to the south coast in November 2001 for a 6 month contract with the plan to learn Spanish and then move on. But I fell in love with the country and the people and then one particular Dominican man, and I am till here ten years on


What challenges did you face during the move?

The main challenge when I originally left was dealing with the emotions of family and friends back in the UK who thought I had lost my mind, and were all waiting for me to come to my senses and go back to England. Having had a successful career and all the trappings that went with it, they could not understand how I could leave it all behind to live in a bikini and a sarong on a beach. I travelled light, with one bag with all of my scuba diving equipment and the other bag was the rest of my life. I basically left everything else behind.


How did you find somewhere to live?

When I arrived in the DR there was accommodation arranged through the dive school - a studio, which I upgraded after a month to a two bed flat which cost 400US$ a month. After a while there I began living with a Dominican man and his three young sons, and we moved to a bigger apartment with a garden. I then bought a villa in 750 square metres of land, 3 beds, 2 baths, pool and a servant's house, for 120,000 US$.

The buying process was fast and painless, and the house came with all the furniture. We now rent in a Dominican barrio and pay just over 100 pounds a month for a 3 bed 2 bath villa in a large garden. Prices are significantly cheaper in non expat or tourist areas.

Read more about life in the Dominican Republic