Originally Posted by
camaro1257
Anecdotal Observation.
First I would like to say that I do not believe that any group of people ethnic,cultural or religious is innately better than the other. I have traveled extensively, but the countries I have spent the most amount of time in have been the United States, The Dominican Republic and Colombia in that order. The other countries I have spent time in have not been sufficient to make an adequate assessment.
I retired in October 2014 and 2 weeks later I was living in the Dominican Republic. Since I have been living here I have noticed a pattern of behavior that I do not recall in the other places I have been. I am not saying this pattern is uniquely Dominican, perhaps I am just more sensitive to it because I am paying more attention to my interactions with Dominican people.
My concern is not specifically monger related, I have had business interactions personal agreements with Dominican people both men and woman and have discovered that frequently there is a lack of integrity. Specifically I have noticed that it is difficult to take many of the Dominican people I have met at their word.The most common example is making appointments and Dominicans being late or not showing up at all. It is difficult to understand why make an appointment if you have no intentions on keeping it?
This lack of integrity extends to loaning money. I have learned if you give a Dominican money under the pretense it is a loan the majority of the time it will not be a loan because they will not pay it back in fact the money can be considered a gift and not a loan. The concept of keeping one’s word seems to be foreign. When I purchased my vehicle I had an agreement with the seller to do certain things that were not done at the time of the sale. I did not discover the work was not done until the day after the sale was complete. I ordered some parts for the same vehicle at a local garage and the proprietor advised he made the order, I later discovered he had not ordered the parts when he said he did, however they subsequently came a couple months later. It should be noted I had the same experience at 2 different garages.
And of course from the mongers perspective there are the women who make false promises who say they are going to do something and fail to do what is promised or they change the terms or price which is something many Dominican Republic mongers have experienced at least once. When you challenge them and try to keep them accountable they either make excuses, ignore you and make no effort to change.
By no means am I saying that I have not met people of integrity while living here but it seems like the majority of Dominicans that I have encountered will say whatever they need to say to accomplish whatever their objectives are. The majority of my interaction with Dominican people has been poor to middle class; I have not had the opportunity to mingle with the highly educated and wealthy class Dominicans so I have no idea if the lack of integrity crosses socio ecomomic barriers in the Dominican Republic.
I have the strangest feeling living in the Dominican Republic, I feel connected to the land but not to the people. I cannot imagine living the rest of my life in a place where I cannot take people at their word. I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but if I tell you I am going to do something you can trust there will be a good reason if I do not do what I said I was going to do. As for integrity in the Dominican Republic when I find it it’s like breathing a breath of fresh air…
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