Well…. I know that I have been quiet for a while now… sorry about that.
I think I want to start with a correction to the last blog post. Apparently they do have sewers here and a sewage treatment facility somewhere. I guess beneath these shacks there is some kind of infrastructure for water and sewer. So it was my bad earlier for not knowing that and believing what I had been told, (that they had no sewers). My apologies.
Someone recently told me… these people did not know they were poor until the western world came along and told them they were poor. (interesting food for thought)
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So… things have not exactly been going great for me here lately on this adventure. As you might have read… I have been having problems with my ex. (something that has kept me awake at night with fear)… and Elena has gone home to Germany… so I suddenly find myself alone in a strange land (that was never my plan).
Before Elena left last week I was able to convince her to come into town to the great cruiser bar Wendy’s and play a game of chess with me. So that was a nice memory together before she left the next day. Elena did not know how to play chess before she came on board WildChild 3 months ago and now she is a pretty good chess player. Mind you neither one of us won this match because we got called away in the middle. Although I will admit I was just about to trounce her.. ha ha ha.
We also went out together to a cool local bar/club called Astrid’s place for a meal together before she left. I wanted Elena to at least see the place a little bit before she left. We had a nice meal together and even got to play a free game of pool. Astrid (in the red shirt) is a really interesting and wild character. I do not know much about her.. she is Austrian… arrived here by sailboat a long time ago… has been here for years… and she has this wild and free spirit that I just love. She is very friendly and has an easy going open spirit. Astrid will just break out dancing whenever the mood strikes her.
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After Elena left I got my Navy Lieutenant friend Stefan to help me deal with my monkey problem. I don’t want to have a monkey problem… I never agreed to have a monkey problem… how ever on earth did I end up with a monkey problem… sigh… this whole thing is so depressing. Didn’t I get rid of that monkey months ago at great personal expense and pain and suffering so that I could move forward in the adventure monkey free…? So how on earth 3 months later am I still having a monkey problem…? But… perhaps that is just the way things are with monkeys huh…?
So step 1 with my monkey problem was to create a local layer of defense. The way I have figured things… that whatever crazy darkness has monkey so off his center he wants to come here to murder me… I need him to not be able to ambush me. If/when he does come here he will be a white gringo out of his element who does not speak the local language or know the area. He will probably have to get here by plane and taxi to Luperon and eventually another gringo (sailor) will run into him as he asks for directions to find me. So.. since secrecy would be his ally… I took that away from him. I made up posters with his picture and a short explanation of the situation to inform the local cruisers of my danger.
I have told everyone to misdirect anyone who comes looking for Lexi and warn Lexi. I figure that if I at least have warning that he is here I can take more drastic defensive steps before he can reach me.
Next with the help of my lieutenant friend I reported the potential danger to the authorities…. umm.. and.. well that was interesting.
I am so incredibly grateful to the Lieutenant for all of his help navigating the legal system here. I guess I am so used to, or perhaps conditioned to, the way things are in the west, that this was a very complicated learning curve for me. Back home we call it a justice system… here… it is more like a complicated maze of paper. Oh how they still do love paper here.
So to start we wanted to report the threat to the local police… I do not speak the language so Stefan was kind enough to be my translator, and to be honest, just a wonderful advocate for me, and he didn’t have to be, he chose to be.
After speaking with the local police chief he informed me that we do not actually make a report with the police… we have to go to the “Facaillia..??” to make a report then bring the report back to the police. So we did that.
If Monkey does show up here in Luperon he will be arrested by either the Navy or the Police, whoever finds him first. I figure that will be a good step for me in the right direction.
The next thing we had to do was bring a copy of the poster to the local ministry of tourism…? Yep.. I know that sounds weird but they have a lot of power around here and are the gringo’s best friend. They actually keep us protected. The ministry of tourism here is tied in with local government and they want to keep this place safe for tourists. They seem to quietly oversee all of our needs and keep this place as a lovely safe place to visit. Local hoodlums do not mess with the ministry of tourism here.
So.. well… I figure that couldn’t hurt my case… the more eyes and ears on watch on my behalf the better. The ministry of tourism lady said she would get the poster put up all over town.
With the local layers of defense in place it was time to go to the big city an hours drive away and go to the courts to see if we could get monkey blocked from entering the country at the airport. If he cannot get into the country then I figure I will actually be safe.
Again thank goodness for the Lieutenant’s help with this too, there would be no way I could ever have understood or figured that system out on my own. He was kind enough to drive me all over town as we searched multiple buildings and court systems for the right place to go.
There were many inquiring conversations at various stops all conducted in Spanish by my friend that eventually lead us to the gender courts..? I guess men hurting and abusing women is such a problem here that there is an entire branch of their court system designed just to deal with this issue. Not an encouraging sign for gender equality in this place huh…? Here women are definitely “less than” men.
Inside the building Stefan did most of the talking so I seldom understood what was going on. We waited in the waiting room with a bunch of other people. I must admit that I did break down crying while waiting there. There was a quiet lady sitting in the corner with a black eye also waiting her turn to see the courts, and a lady with a broken arm and bandages waiting too. My head began to reel with thoughts of… “how the hell did I (me.. Lexi) end up here in my life? How could I, a strong smart educated Canadian woman end up in need of court protection from a crazy ex-boyfriend in this second world country…? Clearly these other women had much more serious problems than I do… how could I possibly be here with them?
Eventually our turn came and we went into a back office and spoke with a… hmm.. judge guy maybe… where he wrote another report and chatted with my friend in Spanish about whatever and then we had to go sit back down and wait again. Later we went to another office of a judge (maybe??) lady and she read papers and wrote some more papers again while my advocate spoke on my behalf.
Essentially what I later found out it came down to… is that they wanted to take my phone to their “lab” to verify the email threats are authentic (no way was I going to surrender my cell phone) and they needed a copy of his passport. She said they cannot just take my word for what his name is? They need to enter his passport number into the system to get him blocked at the airport.
I offered my login information for my G-mail account so their techs could go in and verify the emails from the server (no need for my client device to verify they could just use their own client and access the server directly) but this is way beyond their understanding. This is still a paper kind of place, although some of them did appear to have very old desktop computers on their desk.
As for the passport… how the heck could I be expected to have that information. The very point is that Monkey and I have broken up… you know… I return your stuff to you and we go separate ways. I didn’t have his passport… I gave that back to him. A phone call to the Canadian embassy reassured me that Canadian privacy laws would not allow them to give out anyone’s passport number, not even to the police or courts here.
I cried again… a whole day spent to run up against a brick wall.
Well… a more recent development… I was able to blackmail monkey into sending me a copy of his passport and drivers license last week. Friday the Lieutenant and I went back to the courts and were able to get the immigration block on Monkey’s passport. He can now never come to the Dominican Republic. If he does show up he will immediately be arrested and sent back to Canada… ! YAY… !!!! score one for the good guys.
So now I am safe again. I can sleep again. I can relax again.
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About all this monkey business…. Lexi are you over reacting..? he was probably just blowing off steam when he was drunk…
Well… maybe…
Here is they way I look at things…
It is never ok for anyone to start sending death threats to anyone… ever…! That is not acceptable behaviour.
Prisons are full of men who claim to be innocent and sweet nice guys… Everyone has a good side to them and a bad side. Thousands of men who have beaten or murdered women are behind bars claiming to be innocent (despite conviction) and say they never meant for it to happen.. yet their baser primitive instincts compelled them while they were hurting or angry to lash out…
I know monkey very well… and he is exactly that type of guy… always the best of intentions… sees himself as a sweet nice guy… and overlooks his abusive behaviours… and he is highly emotionally driven by animal instinct. It’s why he is such a convincing con man… he believes his own delusions. He is a very extreme kind of man… and he reacts automatically by blind animal instinct when he is emotional. He is perfectly capable of murdering me.
Probably he will eventually calm down… but… if he does not move forward… if he remains in the darkness that has driven him to dream about thoughts of murder and violence….. and… I did not do everything I reasonably could to protect myself… and the bad day comes… I would always regret not trying to protect myself (assuming I lived thru the encounter).
I believe that one of the best ways to live your life without regrets is to always do your best… always try… do what you can… then even when bad shit lands on you there is a clear conscious to fall back upon. I did my best.
Monkey problem solved… Lexi safe
Cheers sailors… stay safe too…
Captain Lexi