Donald Trump should be living with 150$ a month, like many in south America

Water is also not always available and even the higher class may not have hot water. This is actually the least problematic thing, cause the temperature rarely goes below 25 degrees celsius, the perfect temperature for insects to reproduce.

CHRISTIANITY AND CARS ARE AT EVERY STEP

Almost one car on five has a sticker about Maria, Jesus or God. The church has been forcibly imported and took a big place in society. This is the common factor for the people here, poor and rich, they all believe in Christianity and want to display it. You may find cars with no number plates, driving like crazy possibly killing anything in front of them, but showing a plate with a biblical aphorism.

Cars are everywhere, the air is well aromatized with exhaust gas flavor and you don’t have to worry about dying of cancer because you will probably end up hit by a car before cancer can progress.
That’s also a demographic control from the government I guess.
Big, luxurious churches are displaying the power of God, a big power, but not strong enough to fight poverty, or actually they do fight poverty, and they won the war against poverty, internal poverty, cause the churches have never been poor themselves, they rather keep poverty outside their doors, I am not sure this was what Jesus was teaching.

THE POSH UPPER CLASS INDIFFERENT AND FEELING SUPERIOR

The wealthy neighborhoods have well maintained clean streets, luxurious cars, expensive shops and people dressed in brand clothing. Many of those persons don’t seem to be noticing the problem of poverty, or at least, they don’t do much to balance their wealth.
How can you feel proud of yourself inside a sportive Porsche, while you see from the black windows of your supercar, five years old children begging or an older woman homeless peeing in her pants because she has not even where to do it?

Maybe the black windows of your car are not just made to protect you from the sun, but also from the shame of being indifferent and a parasite?  Those black glasses are not enough to isolate you from the poor, even your high-class hotel, resort, shopping mall, business center, it will not isolate you keeping you out of responsibility.
If you can help someone next to you, but you don’t do it, you are guilty.
There are always ways to help, even just talking.

PEOPLE AND BUSINESS

The only place where they’ve tried to cheat me so far it’s a big posh supermarket, where they tried to charge me more at the counter.
While in the markets, where poorest people is, I always get better prices than the one for locals.

DARK, BLACK, MORE BLACK, BLACKER

Talking with Dominican people I discover that they like Europeans, especially Spanish, even if during the colony time Spanish people massacred all the local population.
The just love white people.
Maybe that’s why they like them, because there is no autoctone anymore who cares about the matter.
By looking at the face of the people you can easily see that the most are a mix of European and African, having dark skin.
No traces of the native people.
In spite of the fact that most of the population is brown/black, still, Dominicans make huge differences between the level of ‘skin darkness’.
It seems that the darker you are the more you are marginalized.
Locals point at the darkest persons as “African”, too dark to have mixed up with the European in the past and probably from Haiti.

While in a basketball game with kids, I am told by pubers that the darkest ones are African–born in Santo Domingo but originally from Haiti–and they are less smart than brown people.
I tell them that I am a bit North African, as every south-Italian is–because of Hannibal–they are quite surprised and don’t answer.

WHO IS ACCOUNTABLE

I was talking to Esperanza, a sweet old lady that lives in the streets since a while, I was telling her that she could do some volunteering in exchanging for a bed and food. A woman nearby, just passing, that heard about this ‘work’,  interrupted  my conversation and told me: “I want to do it, she does not need it because she lives in the street and she is used to this lifestyle, she would not wake up on time to work”.

Hearing that is  actually really sad, because even common people, from average income families, are thinking that once someone is in the street, has to end his life in the streets. While Esperanza was really interested in ending her homelessness.

The passing woman was arguing that Esperanza is adapted to street life and this is supposed to be until the end of her life, because in this ‘gentlewoman’ mind, the homeless lifestyle would give Esperanza freedom, more liberty than living in a house.

I am quite sure that woman never slept in the street, otherwise, she would not link freedom with social margination as result of a capitalistic, egoistic society.

It’s easy to be indifferent and say that the poor is in that condition because of himself, that they are lazy, criminals, drug addicted and maybe they even have more money than a middle-class person but they hide it. This kind of thinking is what I hate the most.

Each person in the street is different, each of them has a different problem, which is mostly psychological, physical and economical. But what they need for sure is help, respect, and consideration, each of them in a different way.
Whom to blame if a child of eight years is in the street with no food, no water, no place? We may say their family, they were not supposed to make a child if they didn’t have the resources to let him grow. But if the family didn’t have the education to know enough about it, if the family didn’t even have condoms or didn’t technically know how to prevent pregnancy. If maybe the family is not even there, who is accountable?
We can say the state and institutions of course, but who is accountable to watch and push state and institutions to do the right thing?
We are all responsible, starting from the richest, which is using the most resources.

We can do many things to fight poverty, the first is to choose honest politicians with a program to have the rich pay for who has no money. We don’t just have to give a vote, we have also to participate and keep an eye on the results, providing feedback.

We can help the people next door, if you see someone in need for some food, give them food.
If you see someone needing clothes, give them clothes.
The most of us have a bathroom, people in the street don’t, we can offer them to take a shower.
If someone is needing some social contact or psychological help, talk to that person.

Ah, another thing you can do to save the planet, if you don’t want a world of tramps, DON’T VOTE TRUMP.