Freedom

A blog post by Adam.  We relaxed in the morning, and then headed out for a luxurious lunch in a hut on the coast...

The hut.

Inside the hut.

After lunch, we walked a bit along the promenade next to Santo Domingo's coastline.  We came to a square where children who could barely walk were allowed to rent small plastic cars and drive them with minimal parental supervision.  Some children were frightened and refused to drive their rented cars.  Other children were fearless and proceeded to repeatedly crash into other children and onlookers.  It was good fun with little safety.

Melissa takes a break along the promenade.

It had been a full afternoon and we were ready to head back home. On our way home, however, we passed a barber hanging out on the front steps of his barber shop, "House of Pleasure"  I needed a haircut and the price was only $5.  We entered the House of Pleasure without thinking twice.

The music was blaring. And the mosquitoes were dancing.  Luckily the barber had an electrified tennis racket which he waved around my entire body prior to the cutting, killing every mosquito within a 3 feet radius.  He gallantly did the same for Melissa and handed her the racket when finished for her continued self protection.  Then the styling commenced...

He took his time, using different razors and scissors to cut my hair, shave my ear hairs, trim my beard, and sculpt my eyebrows. It was an intense treatment. With so much time on our hands we had a chance to talk.  The barber had lived in various parts of the U.S. for many years but had been deported 9 years ago. He prefers the Dominican Republic because there is more freedom here. The U.S. is crazy about rules and laws.  In the DR you can drink on the street (or as it happens, in a barber shop...in the middle of the haircut he asked a boy who was hanging out in the shop to grab his beer for him).  In the DR you can play your music as loud as you want (as it happens, the music in the barber shop was VERY loud, although he turned it down a few notches knowing our North American ears are sensitive).

It was a new perspective on a favorite American value. The barber had a point. You were free to do lots of things here that didn't really fly in the U.S., either because the laws here are less stringent or more likely because they aren't enforced. For example, people freely drive like maniacs (including children in small plastic cars), throw trash on the ground, and borrow electricity from power lines (our host brother who used to work for the state electric commission thought that as much as 40 - 50% of electricity in the country might be "borrowed").

Hundreds of electric wires crisscrossing a Santo Domingo street.  Is this regulated? 

I guess America's right wing is right that the U.S. is a totalitarian state...not that I've heard of many of them wanting to come to Santo Domingo to live in poverty and claim free electricity.

I don't think I'll ever be able to fully embrace the barber's Dominican style freedom. The problem is that when I look around, I don't see freedom (sadly, I also fail to see freedom in many corners of the U.S.). A few people here are doing well, some people are doing OK, and most are struggling.  The masses that are struggling just to make ends meet seem to have few opportunities and little freedom to choose how or where they live, what they do, and who they are.  They just survive, perhaps with a beer in the park and loud music from the corner store.  Is that freedom?

My haircut of freedom outside of the House of Pleasure.