VirtualTourist Member REYNALDOPICHARDO
| Page Views: 7,569 | BIENVENIDOS!!! by REYNALDOPICHARDO - last update: Jun 19, 2003 |
THE HISTORY YOU WON'T READ IN YOUR HISTORY BOOK | WITH MY TRAVEL CLOTHES ON READY FOR THE TRIP!!! |
My name is Reynaldo A. Pichardo, I was born in The City of Santiago de Los 30 Caballeros, located in "EL Valle del Cibao" Cibao Valley, in the Dom. Rep., I have traveled to other countries since I was about 5 years old, my first trip out of the borders of my homeland was to neighboring Haiti, as you Know by now, Dom. Rep. shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, Our two countries share a Bloody past, but one has to remenber before there was a Dom. Rep., the country was settled by spanish colonists on the eastern part and used the local Taino indians for most of their hard labor(which later contributed not in small part to their demise) and the ones born to the sexual relations of the colonists and the Taino Indians, often called Mestizos, the western part of the island, today Haiti was occupied by the colonists as well but they used newly bought slaves from Africa, and having believed what their captors told them, that they were to be able to work as hard as mules, they were summited to very harsh and inhumane conditions, these slaves shared very little simpathy for those in the western part of the island, following a revolt from their tormentors, they sought to rid the island of all colonists and their power, not believing that mestizos where subjects of slavery themselves, but in much less hardships, they commited many attrocities in the cities they controlled, and it was a matter of time before they were fought relentlessly back to the western part of the island, the colonists achieved this with the help of those mestizos now given their rights as equals, for they suffered the same conditions under the yoke of the Haitian occupation, since then there's a very thick layer of mistrust between the two countries, Haiti has been always overlooked since it's independance by investors and merchants, at the time most of these were white people who didn't want to lose their moneys in a country govern by ex-slaves, and risk beeing able to dispute any problems without a white official, it has been a very high price to pay by Haiti, for their people suffered the most heavy and gruesome part of the colonist's yoke, greed at it's peak.
The island of Hispaniola was discovered by Cristobal Colon in the year 1492, this part of history almost all the world know about, what you never got to learn in school is what happened after that, the island was inhabited by the Tainos, an Arawac indian race, they were wiped out as a race completely, only those children born to colonists who forced Tainas concubines to copulate with them, are the ones that survived along the mulatos, the children born to mestizos and the local Blacks, white colonists seldom recognized these newborns with their last names, some did, the vast majority didn't, even today it's common to find many farming and rural towns where the majority of people look more like an european town than a caribbean one, by the looks of their people, white with blue eyes, light hair colors, these towns have been kept intact because of their remote and sometimes untraveled locations, albeit commerce is very regional, families seldom saw need to emmigrate, these kind of towns are most common in the Cibao region than other parts of the country.
more to come later....
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| I ALWAYS KEPT SEARCHING FOR CASH IN MY POCKETS |
|  | ABOUT ME! I'm filthy rich! yeah... so I wish!
I was born in the city of Santiago de Los 30 Caballeros, the 7th in line of 8 children, to Don Jose Atanahel Pichardo y Perez and Dona Olga Altagracia Ramirez y Minayah, my brothers and sisters today are all married with kids, for the exeption of the two remaining males, my brother and me, we were originally 5 girls and 3 boys, but my oldest brother Vidal Pichardo, who shared the same name as one of my ancestors of whom you will get to read about in one of my picture's descriptions, rested in peace in 1982 at the age of 19, one month shy of his 20th birthday, so he's a 19 year old that will never grow old to be teased about the wrinkles and bald head. We where raised on a street that was witness to the fiercest battle for the restoration of the Republic, I could walk about some 100 yards to the Fortaleza San Luis "Fort of Saint Louis" and watch the national police music band perform all weekend in the inside yard, walk to the city's business center within minutes, at the Calle El Sol "The Sun street", or go to the monumento "The Monument", later when I was some 6 or 7 years old we moved to our 3rd home(my family resided in a previous home before I was born)and the one that stood our home to this day in Villa Olga, Funny it shares the name with my mom, so we used to joke it was mom's villa, Kids!
My father loved to travel and see new stuff, he always brought home the weirdest stuff our young eyes had seen, and he always made sure to take a part of us in his trips abroad, remember we were 8 kids? can you imagine the havoc?!, they took us once all together to Puerto Rico since they figured it to be a short and quick trip from home, they figured wrong!, and never tried it again, LoL!, after that it was 4x4, four with mom, and four with dad, I always made sure I got to travel with dad, he used to let me do all kinds of things, mom would had killed me if she knew!, I can't honestly say I remenber all the countries we went to, for they were too many and too often, a cool thing about it was that we were always the new guys in all these weird schools, I remenber learning in german and french, those were the 2 most important in Europe at that time, english was not so spread there as nowdays, vouz comprend moi? nes comprend pas? I forgot how to write the D... thing but still can speak and get my Hot cocoa, as for german? yes I can write it, read it and eat it!, yeah right!!... Germany is not a country for the faint of heart, people are very frank, and it may seem rude, but truly it's a style of their own!, why waste time, just shoot it!, Sie Waren Gewesen Gewarnt!!!, Nein really, they are very nice and have very old traditions, one that I couldn't enjoy because I was too young to drink beer, but they have the coolest steins to drink beer i'd seen in my life! |
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grannymim Wed Feb 28, 2007 03:26 UTC
It was so enjoyable reading your home page, personal album and travel pages, particularly about your warm, witty and delightful family! gm in Memphis TN USA | mary2u99 Fri Sep 1, 2006 05:30 UTC
Happy Birthday to you, enjoy your day and keep travelling.:-) | deecat Fri Sep 1, 2006 02:10 UTC
Love your travelogues, especially all the older photos of you and your family. A warm birthday wish goes out to you from Chicago. | blahdeblah6 Wed Jul 19, 2006 00:40 UTC
greetings. Just want to say please don't use that word "anglo-saxon" unless you are talking about English people. |
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