Photo by Joe Shlabotnik
I’m not a complainer. Really, I’m not. But having lived my first 68 years in the USA, I find that things being different take me some getting used to. Understand, please, I’m not asserting that “different†is wrong. It’s probably right for here; only I’m unused to it.
So, I’m sucking it up and learning to accept those different things. Still, I think it may amuse Dominicans reading this and help inform and prepare Americans, and Europeans and other “1st-worlders†wishing to settle here as well.
I’ll write about those differences – big and small – from time to time, and will preface it with this paragraph so that you know I’m not complaining.
The Dominican Difference #5:”Dominican Time” and Schedules
Schedules. I don’t mind “Caribbean Time†at all; not after years of catching a commuter train to and from the office. What the heck, I’m retired and can do pretty much what I want when I want to. And I understand that in Dominica where there are no trains or tightly scheduled buses things must naturally proceed in their own good time. That’s especially the case where many people don’t own their own transportation and often can scarcely afford the available transportation.
All this did not take me much getting used to even though I was raised by an adoptive father from Switzerland, where punctuality and schedule-keeping are virtually national obsessions.
TV Scheduling in Dominica
But there is one concession to scheduling I’d like to see Dominica adopt – TV scheduling. We used to have cable TV in the US and it came with a thing called a “set-top boxâ€. One could use the remote control to query the box to display a schedule of programs and the times and which channel they’d be on. Here, whether one has Marpin or SAT, there’s no box; one simply must channel-surf and uses at what’s on. With our time available, it would be nice to be able to plan to watch a movie or event on TV from the beginning, or at least set a recorder to capture it.
