Say, What’s that Song Called?

Dominican men love to sing.

I first noticed this when good ol Charlie picked me up at the Punta Cana airport and after a couple minutes of conversation started singing to the radio’s tune. But it wasn’t only Charlie. In nearly every situation I have been in this country, there has been a singing man involved. At the resort in Punta Cana, the waiters at breakfast would always be singing (or rapping) love songs (or dirty lyrics) to the ladies at the table. At night when the workers were off and I would occasionally join some of the guys by their trailers for a couple hours of dominoes, often the only noises one could hear were the slamming of the dominoes on the table (I loved this) and the radio playing some bachata. But the silence would only last for so long because someone would start singing along. When our group stopped at a church in Higuey one of the security guards was just sitting there singing. Ditto with the policeman on horse in Santo Domingo who I heard when the cab Ebs, Cita, and I were in stopped at a traffic light our first night. Or how about that bus from Veron to Santo Domingo with the 6 drunk kids in the way back hollering to the songs on the radio (yes, there is always music playing on public transportation in this country which I think is pretty awesome) and shouting at the driver when he changed the station and eventually turned it off because they were so loud (a big dude from the front of the bus gave em a bit of a talking to). And the guys sitting next to me in the guagua from S.D. to Samana who every so often started crooning for everyone to hear. Or Cita’s friend of a friend of a friend at a quiet moment in during dinner, or Leonel and Amaury the two neighbors who work as day laborers for Cindy and Jose start singing bachata or merengue (but never ever reggaeton) and so on and so on. It seriously must be in their blood something. I mean if all Liben men dance (and trust me, we do), then all Dominican men sing.