Dominican Republic

I started our day at Puerto Cabarete, the international, touristy, beach town reading an article in the bus about the 1999 anti-globalization protest in Seattle. The article talked about how one effect of globalization is that extremely different countries start to have cultures that are the similar because of the businesses and products there.

I noticed at Puerto Cabarete that it seemed so much like any touristy part of Europe or South Africa or even the United States- with the fancy hotels with their espresso machines and croissants and pools and restaurants that have nothing to do with Dominican food, and even down to the souvenirs that are sold- I have literally seen the same exact bracelets sold in South Africa and Hawaii. The same brands were here too on the people and in the shops.

Once I noticed this similarity I started thinking about how else the Dominican resembled countries I have been to- namely I thought about the extreme gap between rich and poor that was so painfully obvious at Cabarete, where very rich tourists sunbathed next to vendors who lived in the slums right outside Cabarete. I had the same feeling I did when I stayed at a hotel in Durban and learned that the people who served us breakfast were the people who had to travel four hours twice daily to get to their homes in the vast shanty towns we passed on the road (sorry if my terms are not very politically correct). But it is also the same in the United States. Even Champaign-Urbana has its ghetto. The skills and the mindset that I will start to acquire from this trip I will be able to apply to fight poverty and oppression all over the world in the future, including my own home town.

Globalization makes places so valuably different become so much the same culturally and economically. I felt guilty traveling to Cabarete at first but overall I am so glad we went not just because it was beautiful and the water was great but most of all because it has helped me put this trip in perspective for me and in the context of our larger global economic system that continues the kind of poverty we are dealing with.

Shara Esbenshade
University Laboratory High School
Urbana, IL