Your fault.

[Plane]

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2014-05-12

If everything you are going through is none of your fault, you are too powerless.


Hmmm...

In the USA our best philosophers are cartoonists.

[Xavier_Onassis]

THat is not exactly philosophy, but it is a clever turn of phrase.

On vacation, be back next week.

[Plane]

  I hope you have a good vacation.

   I could enjoy something vicarious if you feel like sharing when you return.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Pretty uneventful, but I may think of something.
Getting caught up on books.  Sherman Alexis is my current favorite. A Spokane Indian. Probably the best current American Indian novelist.

[sirs]

Enjoy it as much as you can, Professor

[Christians4LessGvt]

On vacation, be back next week.

what tropical beach are you lounging on this time?

[Xavier_Onassis]

The only beer available seems to be Presidente Light.
The US taxes beer based on alcohol content, but the consumer pays the same price, so light beer is more profitable. That beer conlomerate that owns Presidente and Bud lobbied the Domincan to change their laws accordingly. The church and hospitals also agreed, as it lowered the numbr of drunks and herefore accidents. So now no one sells anything but lite beer here.

I am not a drinker, but I will be glad to get back to my refrigerator which holds Mosehead an Yuengling.

I am a ways from the beach.  A US xpat and I are tryng to find the source of a transparent blue crystal someone fond in the Baorucos, near the coffee town of Polo. He has a recently restored Toyota Land Cruiser pickup with a 6 cyl Diesel and 20 inches of ground clearence. He calls it El mulo rojo.

[Plane]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larimar


Is it Larimar?

I just found this with a web search, seems Larimar is quite rare and has only been found on the Dominican Republic.

The same mineral found elsewhere is never blue.

[Xavier_Onassis]

The Larimar mines are not far from the coastal highway that goes westward towards the Haitian border at Pedernales/ Anse a Pitre.  The mines belong to the miners, or at least some of the miners, as they often hire others and employ their children in digging rocks out of the dirt.  The entire SW peninsula of Hispaniola was once a separate island millions of years ago, and Larimar is thought to be produced by volcanic activity long ago. There are no volcanoes in the DR now, thought there are several in other parts of the Caribbean, notably on Monserrat.

The SW Coast has not been exploited for tourism. There is nowhere in Barahona where one can rent a car, though you can make a deal with a local driver, which is probably a wise idea.  It is not uncommon for some hapless foreigner to get tail-ended an one of the usually ignored stoplights by someone on a scooter or the ubiquitous Loncin and other under 200cc one cylinder motorcycles. An American expat friend of mine  has solved this problem by hiring a member of the Policia Militar to drive for him. He has a 1975 Toyota Land Cruiser pickup which he recently bought and fixed up. If has a Diesel engine and 4WD and I am a witness that it will go anywhere. It has about 18" of ground clearance.

The beaches along the SW coast W of Azua tend to be rocky rather than sandy, and the sea is really rough. There is a powerful undertow. The best swimming and beach lounging places are at  San Rafael and Los Patos, where spring-fed freshwater rivers flow in to a series of pools near the beach.  The best beach is said to be at the Bahia de loe Aguilas (Bay of the Eagles), which is sandy and somewhere inaccessible. There are people near there that live in caves under the cliffs over the beach and who ferry tourists around to the beach. You need a 4WD to get to the beach. Rainfall tends to wash out the roads.  The ground is very rocky.   Some day I will go there, but so far, I haven't.

The best developed beaches in the DR are E of the capital, and along the north coast, from Montecristi to Las Galeras. That must be over 400 miles.

[Plane]

................ There are no volcanoes in the DR now, thought there are several in other parts of the Caribbean, notably on Monserrat.

  I have been to Montserrat.
  It was beautiful, from the mountaintop the horizon was as far away as I have ever seen it , half buried cannon studded the mountain above the coves , millions were being spent to build a new resort not yet open when I was there, the forest was lush with tropical plants and farms were  thick with fruit trees .
   I attended a play put on by the locals where I could not understand the dialog but the music was peppy and skillfully played. The people seemed generally hopeful, cheerful , hospitable .

    I met a German couple there , I served as their translator for a few hours because I could understand the islanders if they would speak slowly, the Germans were looking for ghost stories to make film of, and had heard that there was an interesting voodun cult there. We didn't find that.

   I met an old American who was investing his lifesavings in renovating an old, large house into a mini hotel or "Bed and Breakfast", Charlie Drell, I wonder if he is alright.

   I suppose I was lucky to see al of this while it was still there, last I heard the island was still not safe and much of the forest and farm was burned off and the buildings were collapsing under ash.

     The people have nearly all left , I don't know where.

      I would not know how sad this is if I had not seen how nice it was .

[Xavier_Onassis]

Many of the people of Montserrat migrated to other British Caribbean islands, including the British Virgins and on to the US Virgins.

It is not called voodoo, in the British islands, it is often called Obeah, and is somewhat different than its Haitian counterpart.

[Plane]

   So asking for Voodoo or ghost dancers sounded suspicious or ignorant?

[Xavier_Onassis]

There may indeed be Obeah cultists on Monserrat. As a rule, African spiritual religions tend to be concentrated into a fairly small bunch of believers, and the cultists tend to be very private about their rituals. You are unlikely to see a Vodun ceremony in Louisiana, either, but these do take place regularly.

The members of cults do not want to be part of some sort of a foreign entertainment film to be shown to nonbelievers. To do this is thought to be an affront to the Orishas (or whatever they are called in Obeah). Obeah was subversive and illegal in the British colonial days, as its practitioners tended to take part in slave insurrections and anti government protests.  Haiti's government has not made vodun illegal for many years.

Of about 15,000 Monserratians, 8000 evacuated, leaving around 7000 or so on the island.  There was a failed slave rebellion on March 17, 1768, and there were a lot of Irish indentured servants, whose descendants formed 12% of the total population. The rest are Black and mulattoes. St Patrick's Day is a major holiday, celebrated by everyone. The nearest  island is Antigua. Monserrat was too small to be made independent, so it is still a part of the British West Indies.

[Plane]

Oh?

Does that mean that they had British social services?

I didn't realize this at the time , but I did see that the currency looked English.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Monserrat, the British Virgins (Tortola, Anegada, jOST van Dyke. Virgin Gorda and maybe 50 other isles and rocks) are two of the 14 British Overseas Territories. They are self-governing, more or less and have a combined population of around 350,000.
\
I don't know how many of the services they share with the residents of the UK. I think all the residents can hold UK passports and can migrate to the UK at will.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Overseas_Territories