“Cheapie! Cheapie!”

On a recent trip to the Dominican Republic, I was lying on a beach chair next to my wife, eyes closed, enjoying the sounds of the ocean on one of the most beautiful white sand beaches I have ever been to, when I heard my wife say, “Nice moves!” Although I have been known to cut a rug on occasion, I was just lying there. I knew she couldn’t have been talking to me, so I opened my eyes to see what caused her to say this. There was a young Dominican boy dancing near us on the beach. Once the dancing was over, he pulled out a handmade cardboard “folder” that contained a selection of woven bracelets and said with a huge smile, “Hello, my friends! I have bracelets for sale - Cheapie! Cheapie!” We politely told him we were not interested, and he proclaimed once again, “Cheapie! Cheapie!” We once again told him we were not interested, but told him to keep on dancing. He smiled and went on his way.

Before we left for the Dominican Republic, we heard a lot about how aggressive the people in the airports, the streets, and the beaches were about selling their wares and services. We’ve experienced this a lot in our travels to Mexico, and it’s to be expected in poorer countries, but we got the impression that they would be even more aggressive. We once had a child follow us the entire length of the boardwalk in Cabo San Lucas, begging us to buy a pack of gum from her. Like a broken record, we kept on repeating, “No, gracias.”

As it turns out, most everyone we came in contact in the DR with was very friendly and helpful! There were the people trying to offer us a taxi at the airport, but we were able to get around them and potential scams buy pre-arranging transportation (which we highly recommend). There were also people on the beach from tour companies trying to sell us excursions and others selling jewelry, hats, etc. After telling them nicely, “No, gracias” a couple of times, they were polite and moved on. We didn’t go into the downtown area of Punta Cana, so we may have missed a lot of the sellers there. However, we did walk around the bigger city of Santo Domingo, and there were only a few people selling wares.

These types of encounters used to bother me a lot more than they do now. I used to think to myself, “I am on vacation. Who is this person to come up to me while I am on my hard-earned vacation, and ask me to buy this stuff? Go away!”

The more I travel, the more I have realized that we are guests in these places, and they are merely trying to earn a living. I know nothing about their situation and used to only see the experience through my “lens” by projecting my version of life and the world on to the situation. We all do it. How can we not?

However, I choose to no longer get annoyed at these people or the situation like I used to, and just chalk it up to part of traveling to other places. Most of these people are very nice, and, when you tell them a couple of times that you are not interested, they will move on. There are the occasional overly-persistent ones, and I am just more stern with them. Still, no big deal in the end. I find it easier to just adopt a mindset of going with the flow and not allowing little things like this to become a nuisance to me.