Hello everyone - it's nice to get connected to folks interested (or in the D.R.). I'm kind of a "reverse" ex-pat - in that my family left the US to settle in Miches on the Northeast Coast (I was an infant) and we lived there 20 year, running a coconut plantation called "Cocoloco." While I now live in California, my heart remains tucked away on that sweet sweep of beach beyond Miches, called Playa Arriba, and in my memories of our life there. Must say my parents' plan to escape to paradise was far from their envisioned Eden; we lived there during the Trujillo years, and had familial turbulence as well. If it's OK to self-promote a bit, I just finished writing a memoir about that life, titled "The Coconut Latitudes: Secrets, Storms and Survival in the Caribbean." Publish date is Sept 2014, and it is available for pre-order via Amazon and Barnes & Noble now. I'd be thrilled if any of you sign up for my newsletter on my website: ritamgardner.com, or like my Facebook Author page: facebook.com/ritamgardner. I'm blessed to still have many of my childhood friends in Miches, Santo Domingo, plus those who are in US - and now with our existing technology we stay in touch. (Unlike when we lived there - we never had a phone or a vehicle - and mail was, shall we say, spotty (or even confiscated in the dictator years) - so we were pretty darned isolated. OK enough about me! Would love to hear from others.
I'm kind of a reverse expat
Welcome to the forums. Nothing like shameless promotion on your first post. I would suggest Taking an inexpensive ad here.
Rita,
Welcome to the forum. An interesting story for sure. You will be happy to know that the mail service is still the same as when you left and the electric probably not much better 
Bob K
Hi Bob - ha ha! Yes, I know the power is eternally a problem! I visited last year and was surprised when I didn't experience a power outage (either in Santo Domingo or in Miches) -- but folks still have their kerosene lanterns or generators or whatever! It's interesting also because when we moved there in the middle of last century, there was NO power - which is what my parents liked about the northeast coast. but...in his past life, my father had been an electrical engineer with GE- and installed power plants all over the world. When Miches finally became "electrified" - it drove my poor father nuts with all the radios blasting different merengues or shouting slogans or the like...and our life became pretty difficult. Ironic.
Where do you live?
It must have been a fascinating experience! We still have our inversors and backup batteries etc. not a week goes by that we don't have at least a short outage even in the "24/7" zones.
I know what you mean about the music. Seems they only have extra loud on their radios and stereos.
My wife and I "retired" to the north coast full time 8 years ago. We are between Sosua and Cabarete
Bob K
Must be nice planner! Here in Cabrera, our hydro
is out usually 1-4 hours every morning & 1-4 hours
every afternoon as well. In the evening 1-2 hours.
After midnight I am told that it's out sometimes for 6 hours!
I can't vouch for that, I'm sleeping.
Hey planner, do you still refer to electricity as "hydro" ?
No I had to give up use of the word "hydro"...... When I moved into my place in Santo Domingo I looked for 24 hour zones - we don't have regularly scheduled outages. Once in a while they notify us that they will go down for 6 hours for maintenance but usually it just goes down a few hours - meaning there is not enough electricity in the grid.
I have friends in zones that go down 6 to 8 hours a day in normal times. Hell no....
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