New Videos Of the Dominican Republic

A few months back I decided to keep my video camera with me while sitting on my balcony, relaxing with a few Presidentes. Without leaving the balcony, I shot vendors in trucks, carts, bicycles etc selling fruits, ice cream, eggs and even live chickens! I wanted to show a "slice of life" in Santo Domingo. Here is the broadband version, and here is the dialup version.

It is amazing what one can buy without leaving the front of your house or apartment. Many dominicans are used to buying food when they need it, rather than food shopping in a supermarket. With electricity being unreliable, storing food in a refrigerator is not a great idea unless you have back up power which most dominicans do not.

So they can walk to the corner colmado, and buy a handful of rice, a spoonful of butter, an egg or two, and some bread. THey can buy all sorts of food from the vendors that stop by. Some of which will anounce their arrival with a megaphone. I will never forget in one apartment we would here the same anouncement maybe three or four times per day. . ."veinte platanos, veinte pesos"! Which meant we could buy 20 bananas for 20 pesos. Prices have gone up since then! I still get a kick out of the "meals on wheels".

There is also a wide range of already cooked food available from street vendors, and we will post a video clip of that in the near future. We already have some great footage of "street corner cuisine".