Dominican Republic

This is an image of what a normal village in the Dominican Republic looks like. Its not the exotic beaches and sprawling resorts that most people envision when they picture the country. The reality is poverty stricken villages like this lining the streets of the DR. They all have tin roofs that look more like sheets of shutters just draped along the top of their crumbling foundations. They have no electricity and no running water. The people in this particular town probably use their filthy, fly infested water source as a mean to bathe and wash their clothes. They consider this a luxury because in other towns they have to trek miles to reach the ocean so they can bathe. Incredibly not everything about this picture is somber and depressing. You can see how close the "houses" if you can even call them that, are to one another. The sense of community in these places are amazing. If you were to visit, as I did, the air would be filled the sounds of children singing and laughing as they play baseball in a dirt field. For them this slum is their home and some how they still manage to smile.