Blue Life

By Roberto Garabell

 The Dominican Republic and its people depend highly on agriculture for their livelihood. They owe most of their development as a country to tourism and free trade. Trading clothes, cigars, coffee, flowers, sugar and vegetables are some of the commercial activities that the people are accustomed to. Some of the major trade items include petroleum, wood, industrial raw materials, food products and pharmaceuticals.

Africans and mixed Europeans were some of the very first inhabitants of the Dominican Republic. Many of the people practice Catholicism and have a very rich tradition of art and culture that they are very proud of. They have always promoted art, music and crafts into their livelihood. They celebrate jazz and local folk music in a special festival every year.

The Dominican Republic is the earliest of all the European colonies in the Western Hemisphere. Columbus established the settlement on the island of Santo Domingo in 1496. It became the main base for Spanish activities until the conquest of Mexico occurred. The Spanish lost to the French in 1664 and the latter took over the Western half of the island which is now known as Haiti. Toussaint L’Ouverture liberated the island in the 1790s; he was then rapidly followed by many others in the rule of Haiti. The most highly praised ruler of the island was Boyer. During his presidency, he united the two halves of the island together, although not permanently.

Boyer was able to maintain a degree of stability for the region. In the mid-1820s, he invaded and conquered the eastern half of the island of Santo Domingo. In 1821, the inhabitants rose in the rebellion against Spain. Boyer then began his rule over French-speaking Haiti and ruled Santo Domingo as a conquered province. Boyer’s rule was overthrown during the revolution in 1843. The upheaval of the revolution caused a good turning point for the eastern half of the island, when it finally claimed its independence from Haiti and became known as the Dominican Republic.

After a time, rulers of the Dominican Republic thought that the independence they so longed for was a foolhardy step, mainly due to the fear that another larger and much stronger invasion might occur from their neighbor, Haiti. From 1861 to 1865, the nation voluntarily returned to the status of a Spanish colony. During the early 20th century, there was a bit of danger in the cards for the Dominican Republic, due to European nations forcibly intervening in order to collect past due debts from the country. For a period of time, U.S. rule was forced upon the Republic. In 1916, Woodrow Wilson sent the Marines to the Republic during economic chaos and civil war, and the American military lasted there for eight years. The U.S. occupied the country between 1916 and 1924. Between 1930 and 1961, a dictator by the name of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina took over rule of the country until his assassination.

Attempts at Democracy

After the assassination of Trujillo, there were many attempts to establish democracy. The frustration of coups, civil war and the renewal of American military aid did not make it any easier. In, 1966, Balaguer was elected president of the Republic and remained in office until 1978, when he lost the election to Antonio Guzman. Guzman did not stay long in office and lost his election to Salvador Blanco in 1982. However, in 1986 the aging and almost blind Balaguer was once again elected president. In 1994, the allegations of fraud in the election of Balaguer led to a new election in 1996, when Balaguer was barred. When he departed, he took the last link of the Trujillo era with him.

The Dominican Republic has had a rocky past and its history has been shady to say the least. Today, they have gained their diplomatic standing and are proud to call their country home.

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What Coverage Can You Expect With Your Travel Insurance?

By Mary Sullivan

 You may have heard there’s a major increase in travel insurance sales because of all the terrorism scares, environmental disasters occurring, and outbreaks of disease. Like everything else, you must know the ropes before jumping in headlong. If you get scared and want to cancel your trip, your policy may not cover you.

Say you’re afraid of a bombing in the subway or something like that, it may not be covered. The possibility of a hurricane a thousand miles away that MIGHT hit the beach you plan to visit most likely isn’t covered as well. Know ahead of time you’ll get no help for any of these situations by purchasing travel insurance.

What travel insurance will cover, is payment to you for non-reimbursable portions of your vacation. Those non refundable costs might be plane fare and good faith payments on motel rooms. Situations that would warrant payment are when the holder of the policy has to delay, or cancel a planned trip, or if the insured is stranded somewhere then the cost of hotel accommodations and meals would be covered.

Travelers insurance will cover, however, your medical expenses should it occur overseas. Since many overseas hospitals will not accept foreign medical insurance, travel insurance may be especially helpful. But of course, there are exceptions.

Many calamities that spur the purchase of travel insurance are not covered at all. Several policies do not cover terrorism at all. The concerned buyer must select their travel insurance deliberately and with these exclusions in mind.

But, even the policies that cover terrorist attacks will usually only make payment if there was an attack within 30 days of your departure and your schedule included that city. Travel insurance won’t help you much if, for example, a bombing in London has scared you into canceling your plans to go elsewhere in England or even to Paris. You could say there is no insurance for being afraid.

The sad fact is, being afraid is why insurance sells! But fears are the only thing that the majority of policies won’t cover. These policies will also require you purchase the specific insurance coverage you want (i.e. terrorism) within 15 days of booking your trip, or you will not be covered.

However, the majority of insurance companies did cover the cost of meals and hotel stays for those policy holders who were stuck in London in 2006 after the foiled plot to blow up planes. However, the policies would not pay if you wanted to cancel because there wasn’t a real attack.

What that travel insurance policy is going to cost you depends on the price of your actual trip as well as what you are going to want to cover. A comprehensive policy covers; cancellations, delays that strand you, lost luggage, flight accident, and emergency medical attention. You have the option of buying just the insurance that you specifically want.

There are even companies who sell policies that allow you to cancel for any reason. If you cancel your trip up to three fourths of the cost can be covered by the policy if there is a “cancel for any reason” clause. Generally you will pay an additional forty percent premium to get this coverage.

Travel insurance brokers sell roughly seventeen million policies every year in the U.S. Yearly sales of these policies have almost doubled since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. With the occurrence of disease outbreaks and environmental disasters, sales are expected to continue to rise.

When deciding on how much travel insurance and what needs coverage one should bear in mind that many companies that provide travel will often not penalize the traveler if they must cancel or delay their flight or cruise due to large scale interruption in transportation. Sometimes coverage by travelers policies is not necessary and the traveler can be reimbursed by the companies or hotels.

Go to this site for further information on compare travel insurance quotes. For further insights on compare travel insurance prices be sure to visit that site.

Why are the Thais celebrating New Year three times?

By Shama Kern

 What if I told you that I live in an area where the year is 2553? No, I am not schizophrenic, I did not watch one too many science fiction movies, and I do not live on another planet. Such a place does exist, it is called Thailand, and here they use a different calendar which puts us in the year 2553.

Our western calendar starts at the birth of Jesus, 2010 years ago. Not surprisingly, the Buddhist calendar begins at the time when Buddha was born, 2553 years ago. The dates in Thailand generally use the Buddhist year which can be rather confusing for anyone not familiar with this system. Buddha was born 543 years before Jesus, so if you add this number to the year 2010 you will arrive at 2553 of the Buddhist calendar.

The celebration of the Buddhist New Year takes place in mid-April, the hottest and dryest season of the year. This New Year’s celebration is for the most part a water throwing event where everyone comes out and soaks whoever is in range with lots of water. Where I live, in Chiang Mai, the water throwing goes on for a solid seven days.

Although the Thais celebrate their New Year in April, they start counting it as of January 1. To confuse things even more, written dates in Thailand mostly combine the days and months of the Christian calendar with the Buddhist year.

The true Buddhist calendar is quite complex and is mostly used to calculate dates for religious events and big festivals. The calendar is more of a timing tool for determining the ideal dates for important events or decisions in life rather than a time keeping system. The Buddhist calendar is not just a time keeping system but a method to calculate the importance of each day for our activities. The younger Thais nowadays dont know how to calculate and use the Buddhist calendar anymore. The tradition is being kept alive by monks and the older generation.

Believe it or not, there is a third New Year in Thailand, and that is celebrated by the six million Chinese that are part of the ethnic mix here. They have their own calendar again and their own colorful and noisy New Years celebration in late January or early February. The tell tale sign of a Chinese party is the machine gun like sound of small firecrackers. These are small firecrackers strung up one after another, and they explode in rapid-fire fashion. Another unique Chinese tradition is the lion dance where two men slip into the same colorful costume and together perform sometimes incredibly acrobatic dances that truly look like a gigantic animal is moving about.

Most international business in the world uses the Gregorian Christian calendar, and the Thais do that as well. They use both calendars, and the western New Year is a public holiday in Thailand also with fireworks and celebrations just like in the West. In Thailand any excuse is good enough for a party, and the Thais have an impressive collection of them: Flower festivals, food festivals, New Year (all three of them), Buddha days, temple festivals, the king’s birthday and quite a few more. Some festivals last several days and include huge parades, lavish festivities with spectacular floats, colorful parades, performances of singing, dancing, and of course eating. Festival dates change every year since most of them are calculated with the Buddhist calendar.

Now it is 2010 in Thailand and it is also 2553. And yes, we have three New Years celebrations every year, and if you are confused about what date it is on which calendar, dont worry about it and just join the party! The Thais have a saying that expresses the Thai view of life: “maipenrai” - meaning “don’t worry”, “it doesn’t matter”, “no big deal”, “it’s okay”, “forget about it”, “let it go”. This is a useful word to know when you visit Thailand since it reflects the Thai attitude about life beautifully.

I give you some examples how to use it: January 1 New Year is not really part of our tradition, but maipenrai, its a great opportunity to have a fantastic party, so lets celebrate it. Or: Christmas has nothing to do with Buddhism, but maipenrai, its another reason to have a party, so lets celebrate it anyway.

Thais would never think that non-Buddhist festivals like Christmas have no place in their country or might even conflict with Buddhist beliefs. Now can you imagine the USA or any western country putting on a national festival for a Buddhist holiday just for the fun of it? No chance! But the Thais are highly tolerant, fun loving and non judgmental when it comes to other religions. Thais are fun loving people, and there is always one festival or another happening wherever you are. This is one of the great pleasures of living here.

For more information about living and traveling in Thailand please visit http://www.shamakern.com

The author is an expat who lives permanently in Thailand. He writes entertaining and informative stories about a fascinating country.

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