This Global Walk Outside | Day 19: Dominican Republic (Small Yard)
Hi! I’m Emily, and I have lived in the Dominican Republic (DR) for 12 years. I met my husband here (he’s also from the US), and we have two little boys. We both serve with faith-based NGO’s. We live at the beach, but love the mountains almost as much!
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Our yard here is much smaller than the one I grew up with, and full of rocks instead of grass. Most houses, including ours, have slatted windows that let in all the heat, sounds, and smells of our neighborhood. We feel like we are outdoors all the time. When we visit the US, being indoors feels sealed off and so quiet! The DR doesn’t have big public green spaces or parks like the US, so on the coast where we live, if you want to be outdoors in nature, you’re pretty limited to the beach.
This is the view when you walk out our back door, through the laundry room, to the backyard. The “laundry room” does house our washer, but it mostly serves as storage – for cleaning supplies, outdoor furniture, beach gear, and surfboards. It’s nice to be able to stand at the kitchen sink and see out to the grill.
We probably use our backyard most for hanging laundry. Very few people have dryers in the DR, but with the sun blazing down most days, clothes dry on the line in just a few hours. The backyard’s second most important function is as play space for our two little boys. We have a totally enclosed yard, which means I can send them out to play while I get work done inside. Especially during pandemic lockdowns, we are thankful to have a safe place to let the boys ride bikes, blow bubbles, chase geckos, and drive trucks when they get too wild to be inside.
We originally thought we wanted a second floor apartment, but I am so glad we live on the ground floor! Having this backyard where the boys can play has been invaluable. And we don’t wish we had grass any more – the rocks and dirt are perfect construction materials for our truck-loving boys! We do have to spray regularly for fire ants, and once in a while we have to chase out the neighbor’s chicken!
This is the view from the far side of the yard. We grill four to five times a week, so that we don’t have to heat up the house! We also host friends for supper on a regular basis. In the evening, the sun goes down and the breeze picks up, making it a really nice place to sit and talk.
See that sun? I took this photo before 8 am and it was already so bright and hot! The sun makes the backyard unbearably hot for a good chunk of the day, but it does dry the laundry!
Everyone hangs their clothes outside to dry – dryers are a real luxury. Everyone also keeps their tank of cooking gas outside. Dominicans don’t spend much time outside because of that strong sun. However, in late afternoon and evening, people sit outside their houses to enjoy the shade and breeze. We get to see and greet a lot of our neighbors when we play on the street in front of our house in the evenings
We got patio lights a few years ago, and it totally transformed our backyard! My husband and I have had many at-home date nights out there after the boys are in bed. It’s a nice industrial-chic vibe with the razor wire, too. It’s common here to have either razor wire or broken glass at the top of your wall for security. The avocado tree technically belongs to our neighbor, but Dominican law states that all the avocados that hang on our side of the wall belong to us!
We live in an apartment building that has three other units. Our landlord lives in one, and good friends have lived in another for the past five years. Having friends in the same building means built-in playdates and babysitters, someone to borrow an egg from, and a feeling of security knowing we can call them whenever we need help. Our landlord uses that spiral staircase to access the tinacos that store tap water up on the roof.
Our carport is connected to the backyard, so when we can go from the car straight to the hose, and then around the back into the laundry room. We hose everything and everyone off after a trip to the beach – which is an almost daily occurrence for us. A hidden perk of ground floor living, and a huge help in keeping sand out of the house!
Having a carport is another unexpected perk of living on the ground floor, because it protects our car from the heat of the sun. For security reasons, most houses in the DR have a gated parking area of some sort. We do get tired of living behind bars and gates, but the tradeoff of safety makes it worth a constantly-striped view of the outdoors. It also makes us appreciate huge glass windows without bars when we do encounter them!
Besides the car, we store all kinds of outdoor things in the carport. Our shoes stay out there so that our house stays cleaner. We also keep the boys’ bikes, stroller, baseball and soccer equipment, sidewalk chalk, and other outdoor toys here for easy access. Since our street is a dead-end street, it doesn’t get much traffic. We often play ball and ride bikes out there in the evenings.