Standard of Living in the Dominican Republic

Video Transcript

Some of the things that I think [are] part of our culture is that people might not have money, maybe to buy food for the next day, but they're usually wearing nice clothes. They try to get nice clothes. Designer clothes, things that people take from here [in the U.S.] over there and they buy it from friends and different stores. And things that they do there, is that if you know somebody from the store you can always pay later. Depending, not in the city but if you go to small stores and you know the owner. You'll take some clothes today and then pay [for] it [in] fifteen days, or thirty days. Layaway. But you take the clothes, you wear it and everything. So people tend to buy nice tennis shoes, nice jackets, nice jeans. And especially if they're working in an office, or something like that.

And they always try to look nice and have a nice car if they can. So you can see a very old house falling apart but they have a nice car, a nice stereo, TVs, and nice clothes.

Everybody has a Blackberry over there, even the guy that's on the tricycle selling fruits. So things like that. Every messenger that has a motorcycle is talking on the phone, an iPhone or the latest Blackberry. That's what happens over there, so it's funny.

In this video, a Dominican American describes the standard of living in the country.