done. Before going to bed I felt a mild twinge along the lines of "I
should charge my laptop in case the electricity's out tomorrow" which
has been happening a lot. I didn't, and the electricity was out today.
So I asked around about a good place to get electricity and wifi. I
tried a hotel down the street, but there wasn't a good place to sit
so they directed me to the university. After a short, chill bus ride
I enter through the gates of the Autonomous University of Santo
Domingo (UASD) which is apparently the first university in the
hemisphere, founded 15-something. Lots of big buildings, open
spaces, and Dominican girls in power outfits walking around under
parasols.
The "Sala Digital" right next to the entrance looks promising, but
they imply I'm not supposed to be there and direct me to the library
saying there's free wifi there. Fair enough. Some kids tell me
where it is, and I walk up the steps to a very large modern
building. I'm not sure I'll be able to enter without ID, but it
looks like people are walking in passed the security folks without
flashing anything. As I stroll up though, one of them comes towards
me with a hand out. Fair enough, I am obviously not a Dominican
college student student.
But Jigga?, that's not the problem; the problem is I'm wearing
shorts. Yep, no shorts allowed in the college library. "No me
diga!," laughing, partly because the word for shorts is "bermudas"
which a) sounds funny in Spanish b) is funny because it's a specific
word gone general in another language (what's the word for that?) and
c) because the shorts I'm wearing aren't quite bermuda shorts but
they are totally offensive from any non-wacky modern fashion
perspective. I think they're Ocean Pacific or Gotcha, and they're
hot pink with a yellow horizontal stripe across the crotch and butt.
The security guy's familiar "rules is rules" apologetic attitude is
definitely intermingled with a more judgmental "dude, what are you
wearing that for?"
Whatever, I'm in the Caribbean, dude. Except that's just background
for them. Flip flops are banned too, which I would have been wearing
except I lost one in Haiti.
Anyway, I chuckle my way through it and ask if they could make an
exception for a foreigner who didn't know and just needs to get some
writing done. One of the security guys actually goes and asks
somebody, and comes back in a few minutes with the OK From Higher
Up. Sweet! But in the meantime I'd already unattached myself from
the need for a successful outcome and switched to adventure mode,
which was a good thing.
I enter the library and Woo, it's chilly in here. The AC is maxxed
and I should have worn pants I guess. I walk up a huge central
staircase and on the fourth floor the AC is mellowed out by the sun
pouring in through big modern windows and the way gasses behave.
Find a chair with an outlet and plug in. Ouch, still no electricity,
all the outlets are decoys. This is a new building, and there's no
indication it's running on emergency power, though the computers in
the center of the room are all plugged into orange "I get electricity
from backup batteries please don't plug a vacuum into me" outlets. I
could plug in there, but there's no chairs and I didn't want to be
standing there with my pale legs appalling everybody. So I start
asking around about the electricity thing, and some people don't seem
to know, and others say that the outlets on the second floor. I
descend back down into the chillier levels, but still no luck.
Then I hear the subtle hissing sound which means anything from "nice
ass" to "hey mister". I figure my shorts are to blame and not
because they flatter my butt. Okay, yeah I know but I asked some
folks down there and they said it was cool. They didn't have the
proper authorization? No, but they actually went and asked their
boss. Lets go over and ask them. No? Okay, I'll come with you down
to the security office. This kid has to be 8 years younger than me
but apparently they teach officiousness in high school. In the
security office they have to go and ask somebody else, there are like
four people involved in the decision, none of them are sympathetic,
and the fashion judge comes back with a guilty verdict: no shorts.
Out I go back into the sun and the parasol twirling girls.
So I ask about electricity and get directed to a building across the
street. There's a power outlet right next to a chair, but then I
realize one of the outlets looks like it caught on fire at some point
and I don't even bother. I make my way upstairs and find an unused
room with an outlet in the corner that wouldn't look promising if it
there wasn't a wire running out the side to a switch that seemed to
power the lights. The room is entirely unfurnished except for a
highschool chair-desk who's desk is shoulder-leaning at like a 20%
angle from horizontal, and who's seat is delaminating and splintery.
There's another chair on the opposite side of the room but--no lie--
as I walk over to move it I realize its legs are cemented to the
floor. There's something charming about the desk though so I sit
down and get to work, with a petty compulsion to write about the
experience, which is basically little more than an American
complaining about the plumbing. Zero work done, and maybe if I was
wearing pants I wouldn't feel the plywood splinters poking me in the
butt.
Suddenly, a student walks in, tries to move the chair, then gives up
and sits in it. He asks me where I'm from, and eventually I tell him
the story of why I'm there. He explains that Dominican culture is
very formal. The library may be the only building where shorts are
banned, but you would never see anybody wearing shorts or flip flops
to class. It reflects a belief, for better or worse, that education
happens through polite behavior, he said. (Though the logic seemed to
rest mostly on the coincidence that the concepts "polite" and
"educated" in Spanish share a word.) I told him there was nothing
of the sort in the US, and he was shocked that you could walk into
the library at Harvard in flip flops. I told him girls sometimes
wore pajamas to classes, but I think that was too much to register.
I didn't even tell him about the clothing optional campuses. Another
funny thing was he thought the Alps were in the US, and it took me a
while to even understand what he was talking about.
More generally, there's definitely a lot of latent fascism here. At
the park last night there was a pack of young cops waving automatic
rifles around like they were drunk and stopping cars in a really
unprofessional way. There are bona fide police states (near here)
where the cops are more chill. And they just passed a law that
requires bars to close at 12:00 on weeknights. It's probably just a
hangover from US-backed authoritarian regimes, but I'm not sure.
