Cabarete

R and I headed off to Cabarete for the Labor Day weekend (whoa - sudden déjà vu to Jimmy Buffet's Come Monday). It was our first time out of Santo Domingo and was a very welcome break. We're very fortune to have generous friends who included us in their travel plans, which on this trip meant that they drove over three hours to Cabarete and three hours back and shared a condo with us. We had a great time enjoying the beach, eating (a lot) and going to Sosua and the monkey jungle. I can tell already that getting out of the city is absolutely critical to having a good tour here. I'm really enjoying my work in ACS, but the weekends need to be filled with exploration and soft sand. Forgive the bazillion photos, but this island is amazing!

Cabarete beach where I took a walk each morning that we were there, collecting shells and bits of coral.

Look at that water!

Cabarete is the kite-surfing capital of the Caribbean.

And now for a word about our adventure in the Monkey Jungle: Cool!

After a full day lazing about the beach on Saturday, on Sunday we headed over to Sosua and drove down a rough dirt road five miles to investigate the monkey jungle we'd heard about. Basically, it's an enclosed botanical garden with 40 free-roaming squirrel monkeys that happily scamper all over you in an attempt to get the fruit you offer on a little plate. There are iguanas, parrots and capuchin monkeys, too. Iguanas and parrots are not so fond of being petted, and the capuchins are too dangerous - they're small, but they can tear your face off - so they're kept in a separate enclosure within the garden. An aside here: monkeys are not indigenous to the Dominican Republic, and the squirrel monkeys in Sosua came from a Monkey Jungle in Florida. The capuchins are rescued from people who once owned them as pets but ultimately decided they couldn't care for them.

Ziplining is available, too, but we limited ourselves to the monkeys and really enjoyed the experience. The best thing about the place is that it's a non-profit that raises money to fund an on-site medical and dental clinic for the local people.

Everywhere you go in the DR you encounter these guards. Yes, that's a pistol-grip 12 gauge pump-action shotgun ... who knows if it was actually loaded. It reminded me of Elmer Fudd's popgun, but at least the guard was a good sport!

R and his new friend in the Monkey Jungle outside of Sosua.

I made a few friends of my own!

Iguana!

Sosua.

We had a wonderful breakfast at Fresh Fresh in Cabarete on Monday morning and then leisurely made our way back to the city. Although there is a road along the coast, we opted for the road over a mountain which offered gorgeous views. 

On the way back to Santo Domingo.

Gorgeous!

Working

I’ve actually been doing my job for about a month – including adjudicating passports and births abroad, and helping folks establish their US citizenship. Every day is different, every day is interesting. In the last month I’ve reported fraud, pended cases for more information, sought a legal opinion from Washington, requested DNA evidence to prove a relationship, and confiscated a passport, all while deciding whether the person at my window qualifies for services. Sometimes I conduct the interviews in Spanish, sometimes in English, sometimes a mixture of both. I’ve gotten really fluent at saying in Spanish, “Do you swear or affirm that all of the information in your application, as well as everything you say during this interview, is the truth and only the truth?”

In regard to documenting US citizen births abroad, most people don’t realize that there are certain rules that govern whether or not you can “transmit” citizenship to your child. Before I joined the Foreign Service I assumed, like everyone I knew, that if you’re a US citizen then any child you have is a US citizen immediately – slam dunk. Not true. There are several scenarios that might come in to play, and the rules are a bit different depending on where a person’s circumstances fall. Really, the only time a child receives citizenship at birth is if that child is born in the US or one of its territories (Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Guam, and Northern Marianas), but there are times when even that isn’t enough. Each circumstance has certain factors that must be taken into consideration when deciding citizenship.  Learn more about all the rules on my favorite site on the Internet, Wikipedia.  When doing your job involves granting US citizenship, it’s critical that each case is carefully and thoroughly considered in order to make the right decision.

In addition to the interviews at the window, each officer in American Citizen Services (ACS) is assigned a portfolio. These include: welfare/whereabouts, deaths, victims of crime, repatriation (this is when destitute US citizens want to return to the US), children’s issues, and arrests. These portfolios are the most challenging part of the work in ACS. Sometimes US citizens abroad make bad decisions - we try to help as much as we can, but sometimes there just isn't anything we can do. Those are the difficult cases.

And finally, after only a week in country, I volunteered to record a question/answer session for broadcast on a local radio program. A colleague and I had the opportunity to talk with a DJ about the different types of visas available to Dominicans and the work that we do in helping US citizens. We didn’t take live questions – I’m not ready for that yet – but it was still interesting. I keep trying to push myself outside of my comfort zone so I’ll grow and improve; by that measure, I grew a foot that day!

At the radio station.

Dominican Republic First Impressions

We arrived in the Dominican Republic on August 12 and were greeted at the airport by our sponsor and an Embassy vehicle/driver. We had almost made it through customs without anyone noticing the cats, but willingly paid the equivalent of about $10 each once the DR Department of Ag got wind of their presence. Once we loaded up everything in the van we set off to our permanent housing (which was a nice surprise, because we'd been told we'd have to live in temporary quarters for nearly a month). We had nearly reached our apartment when we were jarringly initiated into the joys of driving in Santo Domingo: another driver crashed into the side of our vehicle. It seemed to happen in slow-motion - R was looking out the window and saw the vehicle coming toward us and assumed he would stop. Our driver muttered under his breath angrily and we pulled over. Insurance information was exchanged and we were on our way again in a matter of minutes. No one was injured - all we could do was shake our heads.

Our apartment is pretty large - three bedrooms, three and a half baths. It's in a nice area of town, but it takes about 20 minutes to drive to the Embassy in the morning (usually more than 30 minutes coming in the afternoon due to traffic). The Embassy allows me to pay for use of a motor pool vehicle and driver to travel to and from work until our car arrives, and since the car's not due until the first part of October, I'm taking them up on the offer. Even when we get our car I'm not sure I'll drive here. Traffic is certifiably crazy. Drivers make three lanes out of a one lane road, motorcycles weave in and out of traffic, and honking is the preferred method of communication. I'm a good driver, but I don't know if I have the guts to drive as aggressively as would be necessary to survive on the mean streets of SD.

R and I have been happily taking taxis to see a bit of the city on the weekends. The normal price to travel anywhere in the city is about 250 pesos (equivalent to a little less than six US dollars). We ventured to the Zona Colonial on our first foray and visited the first cathedral of the Americas (the Basilica Catedral Santa Maria de la Encarnacion):

The ceiling.

The next weekend we headed over to the Botanical Garden:

This was the day after Hurricane Erika - look at the size of that leaf!

Part of the Japanese Garden.

Look at the size of those roots, would ya!

We really enjoyed the Botanical Garden and plan to go back when the weather is a bit cooler. An annual pass is about $11.

And finally, Calvin and Seamus seem to be acclimating very well. They love to go out on the balcony and soak in the warm weather, but they also love to stalk us. Especially around dinner time.