Frustrated pickpocket

Having just done a blog on the crime situation, and pickpockets in general, it was only fitting that shortly after, a pickpocket would attempt, thankfully unsuccessfully, to pick my pocket.

Here's how it happened. I walked up to a parked public car. The car fills up and then leaves, and it still needed a few more people. I noticed a woman waiting for someone to fill the more uncomfortable part of the front seat--that is the one where you are halfway sitting on the parking brake, and the driver is shifting right next to your leg--and decided to oblige her. The instant I got in, a man jumped in front of her so that he could sit next to me. His accomplice sat in the back, as did the other woman.

I immediately became suspicious. Why had this man been so rude? Why was it so important to him to sit there? He began the usual pocket fumble, as the driver began to drive off. I scooted over noticably and stared at his hand in his pocket. He asked the driver if the car went somewhere everyone knows it doesn't. Upon receiving a "no," he asked to be let out. The driver was irritated, but I was relieved.

Once the two were gone, we had to back up and wait for two more to fill the empty spaces. As we drove off, I told the driver that the man was a pickpocket, and the woman behind me confirmed it. He went around the block and came back to the starting point, to make sure the two hadn't just hopped into the next car. The guy who works with the company asked him why he had come back. When he told him about the pickpockets, the guy said, "Yes, I recognized them." He knew that they were pickpockets, but had simply watched them get into the car!

Half the way home, the driver gave the other woman and myself a lecture. "You should have told me. I would have taken care of him." He pulled a baseball bat out from under his seat. He said that they have a room upstairs in their office where they take pickpockets when they catch them, and that they break all their ribs, and beat them badly, and that they usually die of their injuries. He wasn't joking. Vigilante justice is just part of this Dominican Life.

Cell phone number five...another one bites the dust & fun times in public cars

I must have a sign on my back that says "steal my cell phone." My fifth cell phone disappeared last week. It was stolen in a public car by pickpockets, as were two of the others. Another was stolen at knifepoint, along with my nice little camera. One was stolen from my friend about five minutes after I warned her to be very careful. I can't blame her, though. Those guys are pretty skilled.

You might think that I'm not being careful myself. Au contrair. I'm careful to the point of near paranoia! Pickpockets have attempted, unsuccessfully, to rob me many more times than they have done so successfully.

Part of living in a big city here is facing up to the crime rate. I have to take things into consideration when I decide to go someplace. Can I go in that area alone safely? If I take a picture here, will I be mugged for my camera a few minutes later? (Hint: take your indoor pictures with your nice camera, and get a disposable for your wandering around pictures.) I think about what time I can finish my shopping. It must be before dark, or I have to add in the cost of a taxi.

When I want to take a public car (functions like a bus on a route, but with less people), I have to quickly evaluate its safety. Does it have the green or yellow top? If not, it is a "pirate" and could be less safe. Does it look like it has been used for a public car? That is, does it look like it is three miles from the junkyard? Then it is probably safe to ride in--not necessarily mechanically, but probably it is a legitimate car on a route.

Yet I have been robbed in cars that were legit as well--they just go to another route to perpetrate their crimes.
Once I got in the front seat-- I must stop here and explain that the front seats are for three people. The left bucket seat is for the driver, and the right for not one, but two passengers. As I headed into the front seat, I see the other person is a man with a bandage wrapped around his ankle. He kept squirming and adjusting his position, and getting me to change mine, pretending that he was in pain. When it was obvious that no position would suit him, I said, I'll get in the back. The driver pulled over. As I reached for the back door handle, the two ladies inside said the back was "full." Now full, means you've paid four passages. If that was true, the driver would have told me no, it was full. They sped off. I found that I had been relieved of my change purse. Every one in the car was part of the gang. The two women were there to make women feel comfortable entering, and to reach through the space between seats, and steal what they could.

Another time, there was another gang of four, and I was once again in the front seat. I paid my fare upon entering. The other guy kept acting strangely, putting his hand behind a briefcase-like canvas bag, and moving it around, while instructing me to open the window. He was trying to distract me in order to let the others rob me. I clung tightly to my back pack and kept saying, what are you doing? The man said to the driver, "let her out; she's going to be too much trouble." The driver returned my money and dropped me on the curb.

Once I was carrying a load of cash. (I now take a taxi if I have much cash on me.) A man hopped in the car ahead of me, rather than behind me as he should have. So I already knew something was up. Then he proceeded to rummage through his pockets. As we are sitting tightly, pocket to pocket, this is a favorite trick. It feels like he is in his pocket, but then suddenly he is in yours, and it feels the same. I knew immediately what he was up to. I slapped my hand down over my pocket, and glared at him. He asked the driver if the car went someplace it didn't go, then had the driver let him out because he was in the wrong car.

I could go on and on about all the times I had been robbed or someone had attempted to rob me. But there were also the times when I was leaving my umbrella or my keys, or my change purse was falling out of my pocket, and another passenger or a driver helped me out.

The fact is, any big city has its pickpockets. The difference in this one is, perhaps, that they are known to the drivers, and often to the police, but nothing is done about them.

Lying is part of normal customer service here!

Customer service is a nightmare here.

I haven't made a post lately because my internet has been out. During two different outages, I lost 11 days of Internet service. The chances are I will not be reimbursed for at least five of those days, because their (choose one or more of the following) lazy/ inept/purposely deceitful customer service people did not bother to make a report of my complaint when I called. Therefore, according to them, it was not reported at that time, and cannot be credited.

The first time, there was a cable cut on a main road, and there was a general outage of Internet service for a large part of the city. Unfortunately, when the cable was repaired, I still didn't have Internet. I had no way of knowing that it was repaired already, so I didn't call back till the third day. They said to hold, and in a matter of a few seconds, I had Internet again.

The second outage proved to be much more complicated. Like the first, it began with a general outage, but this time limited to my area of town. I called on the first and reported it. It would be back on that night or at least by the morning.

IN fact, I was told that daily. I was promised that without a doubt, they would have it back on (fill in the blank) this afternoon, tomorrow morning, within 24 to 72 hours. Also I was told twice that a supervisor would call me. Not one of these promises came true for the first 7 days. Finally, on the 8th day, after probably 15 phone calls total, one lost day of work, and who knows how many hours lost on the eternal hold system, a technician came and replaced my defective modem. It took about 15 minutes for him to set it up and get it checked out. (He had to call the company, and they put him on hold too.) A speed test revealed supposedly the correct speed, but trying to play a youtube video proved that I was not really getting that kind of speed. They are undoubtedly throttling that site, and other popular sites, as that happens whether it is a peak hour or not.

I also brought to an end, almost, over three months of visits to my former phone company. My account is now at zero--or at least they claim it is. But they can't give me the paper to prove it unless I come back and stand in their line for 30 minutes or more. I've spent hours in their line. Every person who works there knows me, I've been there over and over again. I've been lied to repeatedly. In fact, when I tried to transfer my Internet service to my new location, I was lied to over and over (tomorrow, today, in three days etc.) until after an entire month, I was finally informed that they do not even offer service in my area!

The poor customer service is why many Dominicans just give up and let themselves be cheated. They pay bills they do not owe, because they know that the business will simply not correct them. Customer service from the major services here routinely lie to their customers. Sadly, that is just part of this Dominican Life.

out of gas

A few days ago a friend and I took a taxi home. Now the first thing you need to know is that taking a Taxi home from school costs a little less than $5. A taxi is what you use when it rains, when you have something large to carry, or when you go wild at the grocery store. Of course if you spend a certain amount at the grocery, they will take your purchase home for you. But I digress.

Anyway, we were in the taxi, and suddenly it started going very slowly. The driver informed us that he was running out of gas, but that the gas station was very close, and he was sure we could make it. We weren't very concerned, because it was on the car route, so the worst case scenario was that we would have to take a public car.

Oh, did I mention that most of the public cars and a good amount of the taxi's run on propane gas? That's right, cooking gas. The tank is in the trunk.

The driver got out and fiddled with the tank, thinking he could get a few more miles out of it, but was unsuccessful. About that time, another car came up behind and offered us a push. So he pushed us to the top of the hill, and from there we were able to coast into the gas station. The drivers of public transportation are always helping each other out.

This isn't the first time I've run out of gas in a taxi. The thing about propane gas tanks is that it is hard for the drivers to know just how much gas they have left.

Ahhh this Dominican Life.

Looking through American eyes

I'm going to have a housemate! We need lots of help at the deaf school, and she is coming to be a volunteer this year. She will do work for which it is very difficult to find qualified Dominicans.

But where will she stay? I looked through the two bedrooms which are possibilities. One is my office, and full of office stuff, of course. The second is basically a warehouse for school materials that we cannot keep at the school all the time for space reasons. So they go back and forth as needed.

The more I look at them through American eyes, the more I'm afraid she will be horrified and immediately want to find another place. Both rooms have water damage and peeling paint. And the color of paint is a sort of royal blue. It's a very inexpensive paint, and basically makes the rooms look like a cheap bar. There is not a lot of point to repainting, because as soon as the apt. above, currently vacant, gets rented again, the water damage will continue. Oh, and the mold that appears on all the wooden doors, and various other surfaces in the house...I forgot about that. In a word, it's all pretty ugly. It's not a healthy place to live because of the vermin.

There's a rat--yes, a rat---that runs around here at night. Correction: it's probably a family, or maybe even a tribe of rats. But I've never seen more than one at a time, at least. There are cockroaches, although not huge amounts. With no screens on the window, it is easy for rats and roaches to get in.

The electricity is off about fifty percent of the time, though we do have car batteries and an inverter that will at least power the lights and other things that aren't heavy users of electricity.

But what can I do? This is the way I live, and this is the way my neighbors live. Peeling paint, leaky roofs, rats, and roaches are not such a big deal. We take it all in stride, as a normal part of this Dominican Life.

Do tell!

Where I grew up, you don't ask people certain questions. Now I'm sure that there are forbidden questions here too--they just aren't the same ones I'm used to. I'm not in Kansas anymore.

Today, I was on my way home in a taxi. The driver asked me why I was here, how long I had lived in my apt., where I was born, who lives with me, am I married?, what about children?, how much does my apt. cost? What was I doing at the place he picked me up? Where do I work?--and a bunch of other stuff. Some things I answered, sometimes vaguely, and other questions I avoided.

As an American, I've been taught from a young age not to tell strangers--especially strange men, certain info. It can put me in danger. But here, no one thinks twice about asking very personal questions the very first time they meet you, even though they aren't meeting you through friends, but in an un-introduced context like a taxi ride.

This isn't the first time this has happened. It is a frequent occurrence. Dominican men will rarely converse with you without one of their first questions being about your marital status and the number of children you have. After that, they know better which tactic to use in their flirtations. I cannot even tell you how many taxi and public car drivers have proposed to me directly or hinted that they were interested in marrying me, two minutes after getting into their car! (They didn't say it was so they could get a visa to the US or share my dollar tree, but that was obvious.)

Usually I respond that I really only got in the car to get somewhere, not to find a husband, thanks anyway. And age doesn't matter. I've had 20 year olds doing this! These aren't the "sankies" of the resorts and hotels--professionals who spend their time wooing foreigners to try to divest them of some of their cash, and if they "get lucky" marry them and move to the Promised Land. These are just regular guys, working for a living. But I don't take it too seriously. I've learned that it is the custom,. Would a man really be macho if he didn't flirt with a woman? It's nothing to get upset about, just part of this Dominican Life.

When you think you've seen it all...

You haven't. Now I'm very used to seeing people throw trash on the street. It is the norm here. When you are done with that bottle of water, chuck it out the window. Candy wrappers? No problem, throw them on the ground. Then it rains. And all the drains get stopped up from the trash, and it's the government's fault.

But the other day...well that one took the cake. First see this video

Now the next thing that happened was a young girl dragged a 50 gallon drum full of garbage over to the street, and started dumping it into our little flash flood. She wasn't the only one. Even though the trash truck does make regular stops in this barrio, and had been there only the day before, the people are accustomed to waiting for the flood, then dumping their garbage in it.

The garbage runs downward two more blocks, and then empties into a sort of canal. I don't know where it goes from there.

Once the rain stops, the water finishes running off in just five or ten minutes, and you can see the street again--now littered with garbage. The lady down the street told me that she's been living there for 16 years, and that is the way it's always been done since she's been there.

While I really think the barrio's problems with drainage are more serious than just some clogged drains, I'm sure that the trash doesn't help matters.

We have two tropical storms heading our way, and lots of rain coming up. This means flooding all over the city,at many intersections, the homes by the river and probably the same flooding over most of the nation, with some deaths as a result. Some of the flooding is self-inflicted, by people who thoughtlessly throw trash on the ground. Some is due to horrendously inadequate drainage systems. And sometimes it's just because the rain is so intense that no drainage system could handle it. But flooding is not anything unusual, just part of this Dominican Life.