sanky panky.

tourism.

that tricky tricky industry that supports the carribean. feeds the citizens. fun for the foreigners.

every developing country that depends on tourism has this funny phenomenon that in "dominican" is called Sanky Panky. like hankypanky. but with sankies.

or dominican - men and women - conartists who take poor, lonely foreigners for all they're worth. it's a typical scam, find a "rich-ER" looking woman or man, lonely or just alone... and throw them some pickup lines, flirt them up... make them fall in love with you.

your soul mate? sure, why not? what con-man can't make you think that you're in love with them? the perfect match? okay. they're there working their poor little butts off to support their family. you fall for the romance of it all.

and of course, in the end, you end up broke if you don't figure it out fast enough. the money requests, the "my family member is sick and we can't pay the bill" sob stories, the "i lost my job" scenario. and since you're not there in that poor, poor country, you have to believe it, right? i mean, are you really going to let that family member die? or the man you love starve to death?

no.

sad thing? it doesn't only happen on the beach? santiago isn't a tourist center. we've got little to offer in that regard. yet it seems that more i meet other people in "my situation" (being married to a dominican, not being duped by a conartist, thankyouverymuch) the more people i meet being "sankified".

the question just begs to be asked. if you were at home, would you allow your husband to sit around all day while you work your butt off in a job you hate?

i met a girl, a very nice girl by all means, in church the other day. intent on taking her jobless husband to the states. because there are no jobs here.

funny part of the story? he had a job. he QUIT his job. and now she works from 8 in the morning til 9 at night to support them. and when they move to the states, he has a job lined up... as a crewman for a landscaping firm. she'll be supporting them there too.

we know a few couple's like this. and it blows my mind. but more than that, i've got selfish reasons to not like it. when people meet us and know couples like them, they assume that amalio is also like that.

and i know i can't, or at least shouldn't, judge other people's situations. that's not fair. maybe this guy left his job for a valid reason, maybe she likes working so much. who knows? but i know it affects us. and i hate that.

and so to set the record straight - not that any of you, my 5 loyal readers, believe that we are that couple - we work. both of us. but mostly amalio. and hard. long. hours. in a public school. with 200 students divided into just 4 class groups.

thank you.