A Trip to the Beach

One would think that if a person lived just a few miles from some of the most beautiful tropical beaches in the world that he would visit often. The truth of the matter is, up to a month and a half ago we had only been to the beach twice even though we have lived here over a year. The first time was a school sponsored trip to introduce us to what was available. Since it was during the first week of school a year ago the whole experience was a blur and I was more worried about how I was going to survive school which was opening in a few days. The second trip was in June when my mother came to visit and we wanted to show her the beaches. I suppose this phenomenon is not new. It is like living next door to Disney World and not taking the time to visit.

Last year I had a very short chain. For most evenings and weekends I couldn’t leave my make-shift office at home because I had to prepare lessons for six different preparations to teach … three of which I had never taught before. This year I not only have the lesson plans from last year but I have only one subject I have never taught. I am in educational heaven! So when a teaching colleague and his wife asked us to go to the beach with them I felt that it would be a good thing to do. However, I must admit that at first if felt sort of funny planning to have fun on a weekend.

Our daughter had other plans so we decided to go to the beach with our friends by ourselves. None of us are fluent in Spanish but we decided to go anyway. One has to realize that although we live a mere 60 miles from the beach it takes over two hours to negotiate the best road there on a public bus. Getting there and back is three fourths of the experience. I suppose it is similar to what I remember of our days of family camping.

The problems of four foreigners getting to a “nearby” beach are far more complex that a simple bus ride. For example, since none of us are fluent in Spanish it took almost a half hour to get the taxi to pick us both up and deliver us to the Metro bus station. Then, for reasons we still don’t understand, their posted departure time of 9:15 was not honored and the next bus was not leaving until noon. So we quickly walked down the block to the rival bus company Caribe Tours where we found that all the tickets were sold out. Many people were crowded into the small terminal demanding a ticket, so the proprietors were trying to arrange for an extra bus to come.

We waited for a good hour talking with our friends in the small crowded air conditioned terminal while the overhead TV was showing a special documentary about the Air Force Thunderbirds. Because of the surrounding noise level I was leaning toward my friend so I could hear him. We were sitting in a row with our two wives between us. This meant that I was sitting on only half of my seat. Soon I was aware that another man had sat down next to me on the other half of the seat. I’m not sure that would have happened in the US.

The bus eventually came. As we took a seat, a young man who looked as foreign as we did sat next to me across the aisle on the bus as we traveled to the beach. He was quite vocal and eager to speak to us in English, so we learned quite a bit about him before the trip was finished. I had noticed him earlier at the bus terminal. He was with a dignified Caucasian woman who spoke Spanish as well as English. She had helped me understand what was happening when I tried to get my tickets. He was wearing shorts and had a T-shirt with a large picture of a mug of beer with the caption “Better than Mistletoe”, so I had quickly sized him up as one of those single Americans who come here for a few weeks of drinking and immorality. As we got to know Scott I was reminded again of how we can’t judge a book by its cover.

In reality this young man was from England (complete with the most exquisite English accent) and he was a missionary with an organization called YWAM (Youth with a Mission). This organization has charismatic leanings so he had his share of curious beliefs and doctrines. However, he appeared to have a genuine love for our Lord having been saved out of a world of selling drugs.

At Puerto Plata the bus stopped for a little more than a half hour while we waited for another connection to finish the trip to Sosua. My colleague friend wanted to confront Scott about how his testimony didn’t seem to match his T-shirt, but Scott disappeared after he got off the bus. We, on the other hand, waited in the crowded outdoor bus terminal while beggars took their turns giving an appeal. One skinny man who spoke and acted like a woman lifted his dirty T-shirt to the crowd to reveal some kind of device sticking out of his abdomen. After a short presentation he wandered through the crowd to collect money.

A toothless wrinkled women wearing a baggy dress that had not been washed in weeks had a different approach. She singled out a person and simply stood in front of them and wiggled her fingers near her mouth in an unmistakable message, “Give me some food.”

The bus finally arrived and we were dropped off on the side of the road in Sosua. Fortunately our friends had been here before so they knew how to get to the beach on foot. It took the next hour to find the beach, locate a changing room, decide where to park our bodies for the afternoon, and rent some beach loungers from a man named Lucio.

For the next two hours we lounged in the shade, went swimming in the crystalline turquoise waters, and --- warded off the beach hawkers. Every ten minutes our American bubble of “space” was invaded by sellers of homemade candy, fruit which they cut up with a large knife right in front of you, hair braiders, and jewelry which is always “free to look”. We learned very quickly how to wag our fore finger back and forth in a cultural symbol of “No, we don’t want any!” One group of men wanted to sing for us. My friend hired them to sing a love song for his wife’s birthday which happened to be on that very day. With eyes closed and mouths wide in musical passion it was obvious that they were missing more teeth than they were talent. They were actually quite good and it was a memorable experience.

During the entire afternoon two or three men shared the beach right next to us. They were brawny with tattoos all over their body like sailors on leave. The women with them were undisputedly women of the street whom they had hired for temporary companionship. The men spoke in English quite loudly all day using the “F” word profusely as if trying to out-do each other. The public displays of affection with the harlots were embarrassing to look at. One of the men was from Michigan and wore a prominent tattoo of the Christian fish symbol on his upper right arm.

When it was time to leave I went to the local pay-for-use bathroom to shower and change. My Christian friend approached the man from Michigan to ask him if he knew what the symbol meant that he displayed on his arm. Without a blink of an eye he replied, “Yeah, Jesus Christ God’s Son Savior”. My friend then told him that his behavior indicated that he didn’t really know who Jesus was. The man glared at him and said, “Take the log out of your own eye, buddy.”

This is an amazing story for two reasons. One, that my friend didn’t get his clock cleaned by this guy whose biceps were bigger than my thigh. And two, that a man from America who had obviously had some kind of Christian background could consider himself a Christian and yet engage in worldly behavior condemned by the Scriptures. To me this is an example of the kind of thinking occurring in many churches today justified under the label “freedom in Christ.”

When I came out of the bathroom I gave the woman who was sitting there a ten-peso coin for a “propina” (a tip). She sits there all day collecting money for the use of the bathroom and selling toilet paper. With my gesture of kindness I said, “En el nombre de Jesucristo”. I wasn’t brave enough to take on a brawny tattooed professing Christian but I wanted to identify with Christ in a small way.

Just before it was time to leave I watched three young bucks strut up the beach with an obvious attempt to show off for the girls. They looked to be late high school, muscular, cocky. Suddenly without warning, one of the Dominican young men, the one with his hair dyed blonde, took three fast steps forward, jumped into the air turning a complete 360 degrees, and landed on his feet in a perfect gymnastic move worthy of the Olympics. Unfortunately my wife and the others weren’t there to see it.

We walked to the Metro bus in time to buy our tickets and have an ice cream cone before its departure at 5:50. Before boarding the bus I asked the terminal attendant for the bathroom. I was directed to a urinal in the side of a building located in a shallow cement stall … no door … simply a urinal that looked like a low water fountain. Although I had to use it, the situation was a bit too public for me to be comfortable … although the people passing by didn’t seem to notice or care.

The sun retires every night between 6:30 and 7:30 all year long, so it was dark by the time we reached our home town of Santiago around 8:00 and took a taxi home. The trip to the beach was over. Out of the eleven hours we were gone, eight was spent getting there and back and only three hours were spent on the beach itself … just another trip to a Dominican beach.