Holy Week in Dominican Republic

You'll get different perspectives depending on who you talk to about Holy Week in Dominican Republic. It's the most sacred religious week, holidays for others, and for some it's both with partying

This past week in Dominican Republic was Holy Week known locally as Semana Santa. It runs the last week of march and through Good Friday and Easter. A time for prayer and church services. Also, family and friends get together and celebrate. This was my second time being in the DR during holy week, and it’s noticeably very quiet on Friday throughout the weekend. With church services everywhere, from day to night. The whole country is celebrating Holy Week and there seems to be more church service than normal. From Monday to Thursday everything seemed to have gone quite normally. This time of the year, not only are tourist coming in the country for the holidays, also are Dominicans that live abroad coming back to visit family and friends. Those that work in the country are on holiday for a week. During the week its customary not to eat meat, but that is mainly practiced on Good Friday. Fish meals, vegetarian and vegan meals are now highlighted lol. Surrounded by the Caribbean Sea, one of the top choices for fish would be the red snapper fish. So, for local fishermen, I can imagine this being the best time of the year for business. On the Friday practically everything was closed, the roads were quiet, not many people were outside either.  

Habichuelas con dulce

There are a few different traditional meals during Holy Week. Such as Dominican-style stewed cod, rice with coconut, potato salad, and the most popular Habichuelas con dulce. Sweet beans aka Habichuelas con dulce is a dessert that I myself was not familiar with. When my lady said she was going to make it, I didn't know what to expect or that it was a traditional dessert. A simple recipe, but that takes monitoring the pot.  

Ingredients include Beans, Coconut milk, Sugar, Cinnamon, Vanilla, Cloves and Raisins. It will take some time to boil the beans till they are soft and then blend them. Cook with all the ingredients and at the very end add vanilla and raisins. It’s also a tradition to eat it with milk cookies.  

looking over partial of the open space area

Saturday was a different experience though. It seemed like everyone had plans to go somewhere on the island to party with family and friends. We decided to do the same and drove a short distance to a nearby town. We went to a nice home first, had some food. There was lots of food, in many different catering trays in the kitchen. There was roasted chicken, rice and beans, salads and cakes. Enough food for the many guests that kept coming to the home to meet up before heading out to the river. So, after some time when everyone ate, we all headed to the river. When arriving at the river there was a steep hill that we had to drive up to enter the area. Now that we got in, I could notice that there was music playing, beer tents, 4wheelers driving and I counted about 4 horses. Everyone was having a good time, despite the little rain that came and went. Up the hill there was a bar, and it was packed, people were crammed up from their shoulder to shoulder. Outside there was much more personal space in this huge open area. Mostly kids were in the water, and the majority of the adults were standing by the cars and trucks socializing with the trunks open playing music for everyone to hear.  

BBQ spot right at the corner of the street

After spending hours hanging out, socializing and meeting new people, we decided to get ready to go in order to beat the oncoming traffic. We were out from noon till about 9 pm, and we wanted to make it to this outdoor BBQ grill spot. Driving back, I could see there was a party on every corner, and they looked like they were just getting started lol. We somewhat beat traffic but ran into one traffic jam. Luckily some good samaritans took it upon themselves to help direct the traffic. In true Dominican fashion, a few guys walking by started to direct traffic, even another fella jumped out his truck to help lol. They saved us some significant time, that’s for sure. We got to our destination, not sure when the BBQ spot closes, but from looking at the atmosphere it didn't seem as if they were closing anytime soon. Probably my favorite street food so far, it's like walking into a friend's BBQ. The meal consists of steamed cassava that is cut up, a salad that they pour some type of light dressing over it, and BBQ chicken right off the grill filling the other side of the container.  All in all, a wonderful day, I didn’t see an argument, or any type of conflict. People were having beverages but managed to stay respectful to one another the whole time. This is why it’s always a pleasure to go out, no matter the occasion. Another thing I really appreciate about Dominican Republic, people go out to have a good time, not to ruin the other person's time.