A Border Apart - A World Away

We finally did it.
Crossed the border into another world!
Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
One island, two worlds.

Same palm trees, same amazing sunsets.

But check out these roads, bridges, high rises, bus systems, small cars,

underground metro stations,

and multi-layer shopping malls!


It still had poor areas.
But they were just that, areas, not an entire country.


It suffered from corruption.

In fact, I've never been pulled over in Haiti and been told to pay a bribe, but the few days we were in the Dominican it happened.

We had made what must have been an illegal U-turn and a traffic agent signaled for us to pull over. Although neither of us spoke Spanish it was soon obvious he wanted us to pay a bribe for our misdemeanor. When he noticed that Jason had a Haitian license he began to speak Creole to us, since he was in fact a Haitian himself. After haggling for awhile, with his price slowly dropping from 2000 pesos (about $60 USD) to a 1000 pesos ($30 USD), I started to get annoyed.

"My baby is tired," I complained in Creole. "And he needs his sleep. Give me that license back." I reached out the window and began to pull Jason's license out of the agents hand. He held on tight, but I was determined. When I had finally wrestled it out of his grip, I pushed the automatic window button on our rental car and closed it tight. "Go Jason." I yelled. He stepped on the gas and we were gone.

All we could see in the review mirror was that man's bewildered look. Since he wasn't an actual police officer and carried neither gun or badge, I didn't care.
Note to readers: Don't try this yourself. It may not work out as well for you :)

While in Santo Domingo I got my promised trip the zoo.

Jayden was very excited because he got to see a dragon.
I didn't have the heart to tell him it was just an iguana!

We shopped, and ate at McDonalds of course.

And then it was time to go home again.
On the seven hour bus ride (which included a several hour wait at the border), I took pictures of my two favorite boys!

I guess all the excitement must have worn this one out!