Mamajuana

The Dominican Republic is famous for its beaches and food. It's also famous for something called Mamajuna.

Mamajuna is a mixture of various herbs, plants, roots and other ingredients.  You just add rum and maybe some red wine and you're ready to go.  There are numerous recipes for Mamajuna, all you have to do is find the one that works for you and have at it.  I sampled a bit and it wasn't bad.

You can also buy Mamajuna premixed and save yourself a lot of trouble.

Now that I've told you Mamajuana is a famous trademark of the Dominican Republic, let me tell you why.  Better yet, a few photos will explain everything.

Notice the sign says "para vigor sexual".  Translation probably really isn't necessary, but just in case, it means "for sexual vigor".

That's right, if you want a little extra something in your sex life, stock up on Mamajuana.  Ladies, it will work for you too.   If you click on the photo above you can read a little more about what else it cures.  

Here's a closer look at the label of a Mamajuana bottle.

Remember I said that all you need to do is mix a little rum with your Mamajuana?  Well, in the Dominican Republic there's a very good chance that rum will be Brugal.

Brugal is the national rum of the Dominican Republic.  It's a perfect companion for your cuba libre.   A cuba libre is nothing more than a rum and coke.  In fact, I wrote a brief post about this a long time ago.  

¡Cuba Libre!

Let's get back to Brugal.  I decided to try it for myself, so I ordered my cuba libre with Brugal.  It was good, although it was a little stronger than I expected.   In fact, Brugal's potency has led to a very well known saying in the Dominican Republic about Brugal.  

El que toma Brugal pelea o rapa

Whoever drinks Brugal either fights or fucks

Sorry to be so vulgar, but hey, that's what it means and I'm not going to give you a watered down translation that will put you into an embarrassing situation later, or even worse get you in trouble.  

Rapa comes from the verb rapar, and in standard Spanish means to cut.  But clearly in certain contexts in Dominican slang it also has another meaning.

There's one more national Dominican drink you should know about.

Presidente is the national beer of the Dominica Republic.  I have to admit, I liked it.  Make sure to give it a try if you go.

Well, that's it.  That pretty much wraps up my Dominican experience.  It was definitely fun and I hope to do it again someday.

¡Hasta la próxima!

¡Vamos por un chimi!

In my last post about my adventures in Santo Domingo, I made a reference to an unnamed place where my friend Hector took me to grab a bite to eat.  Well, it's time to name this unnamed place and tell you exactly what it was I ate.

The place is called La Markesina, and they specialize in serving chimi's.

What's a chimi you ask?  This is a chimi:

To the naked eye, it looks like any old hamburger.  Well, as far as I'm concerned it's probably the best damn hamburger I've ever had.  This thing could easily out sell the Big Mac if you ask me.

Anyway, my personal taste buds aside, a chimi is the Dominican version of a hamburger.  It's full name is chimichurri, not to be confused with the Argentinian salsa of the same name.

Let's talk a little more about La Markesina.

La Markesina is a very popular place in Santo Domingo, but it's not a regular hamburger place like here in the US.  It's an outdoor "restaurant" if you will.  Actually, think of it as more of a puesto de hamburguesas - hamburger stand.

I was only thinking about stuffing my face when I was there, so I didn't take a photo of the place, but luckily I found some photos on their Facebook page.  We'll get to the pictures in a minute, let's talk about the process of getting your hands on one of these delicious hamburgers.

First you have to place your order.  The menu is pretty extensive.

I had the #4, El Doble Full de To' or The double with everything.  To' is short for todo.

After you decide what you want, you give your order to the guys working the grill.

Once your order is in, you have a seat and they bring your food to you when it's done.

As you can see, the seating is outside.  You basically just hang out and shoot the breeze.  At night it's a virtual party.  People are everywhere, not to mention the music.  If the music isn't coming out of a boom box then it's coming out of a car stereo.  You can even have a nice cold beer while you're relaxing and enjoying your chimi.

I gotta say, if you go to Santo Domingo, La Markesina is place you just have to go to.  If even if you don't, you have to try a chimi, no matter where you get it from.  Add it to your list of things to do, you won't regret it.

You can find them on Facebook if you want to take a closer look at what they have to offer.

https://www.facebook.com/LAMARKESINA

While the chimi was probably the highlight of my food adventures, there was one other thing that really got my attention, and it's called a yaniqueque.

I saw my first yaniqueque on the beach in Boca Chica, which is about an hour away from Santo Domingo.  You may know a yaniqueque as a good old Johnny Cake.  Personally I had never heard of them in English either.  Anyway, people were walking around the beach selling them all day long.

After you buy your yaniqueque, add ketchup to taste and have at it.

I have to admit, my trip to the beach was pretty interesting.  Aside from trying a yaniqueque, I tried coconut milk straight out of a coconut for the first time, and I believe I even saw a few sanky panky's appling their trade.

What's a sanky panky you ask?  Well, a sanky panky is a guy trying to find female tourists willing to pay him to spend time with her and wine and dine him.  Some sanky panky's are looking for something even bigger, like finding a woman willing to marry him and take him back to her country.  In fact, there was even a very popular Domican movie about sanky panky's, not surprisingly called Sanky Panky.  It's in Spanish, and it's kinda cute.  If you've got a few hours to kill and want to practice your Spanish check it out.

That's it for now.  I've got one more post to make to bring you 100% up to speed on my Dominican adventures, so stay tuned!

Hay mucha bulla en la calle

In my last post I shared some of the Dominican Spanish I learned with you and in this post I'm going to pick up where I left off.  None of these words are in any particular order, unless you consider random a form of order.

Now let's get down to business.

So there I was talking with my new Dominican friend, Hector.   The place he took me to was pretty popular, lot's of people hanging out eating, talking with friends, enjoying the music and just having a good time in general.  Then Hector says to me....

Hay mucha bulla en la calle

You probably already know what happened next.  First came the deer in headlights look, and then came my famous question "¿Cómo?"

It turns out that bulla is a synonym for the word ruido, noise.

Hay mucha bulla en la calle
There's a lot of noise in the street

Mi vecino hace mucha bulla
My neighbor makes a lot of noise

Another word I picked up is palomo.  Actually, I already knew about the word palomo.  It means pigeon, but in Dominican slang palomo can be used as a synonym for tonto.  And just in case you don't know, tonto means stupid or dumb, so un tonto is a stupid person.  Tonta for a woman.

Es un palomo
He's an idiot

I don't know what it is about bird related vocabulary, but even the word pájaro (bird) has a different meaning in Dominican slang.

No soy pájara
I'm not a homosexual

Pájaro for a guy.

My friendly hotel bartender taught me that if you want to say somebody is really good at something, you can say they are montro.

Tu eres montro bailando

A quick search in Google also reveals that montro has a few other meanings:

MONTRO  (Mon-Tro):
n. noun.,1. From the word “MONSTRO” meaning Monster.
2. used as “dude” or “man”,
3. Can also be used to describe something cool, or “hot”, as in “ese carro esta Montro!” (That car is hot)
 Example:1. “Dimelo montro!” = “Whats up man!?”

You can find the word montro and more Dominican slang at this site: That's Dominican

Here's a strange word I learned, zafacón.  It means trash can.  It's not slang, it's just the word they use.  I'm accustomed to hearing bote.

No tires basura al piso, echala en el zafacón
Don't throw trash on the floor, throw in the the trash can.

That's it for today.  I've got some more things to share with you about my trip to la República Dominicana, so I'm going to get busy writing those posts as well as some other things I've got pending.

¡Hasta la próxima!

Bienvenido a la República Dominicana

I just recently took a trip to la República Dominicana.  It wasn't my first time there, but it was my first trip to Santo Domingo.  Actually, the cities full name is called Santo Domingo de Guzmán.  But hey, no need to get all technical and stuff, Santo Domingo will do.

I was only there for a few days, and there was a lot to take in.  While I didn't get to do and see everything I wanted, I managed to squeeze in a few things.  A few of the touristy things to do in Santo Domingo are to walk along the Malecón, visit the Acuario Nacional, La Catedral Primada de América, and walk and shop on El Conde.  I'll write about those a little later.  Today I'm going to tell you about what you really come here for, the Spanish.

Let's get to it.

My Spanish adventures started well before I arrived.  It was a pleasure to land in the Miami airport and immediately being able to start speaking Spanish.  There was nothing out of the ordinary to report though, until I got on the plane.

The sobrecargo or asistente de vuelo (flight attendant) was serving drinks and I asked for a coca, short for coca-cola.  I picked that habit up from my experiences with Mexican Spanish, it's a very common way of asking for a coke.  Anyway, he paused for a moment and then asked "coca-cola?", to which I replied "sí".  It wasn't until a few days later that I found out why he asked.

It turns out that in Dominican Spanish the word coca is short for cocaina, not coca-cola.  Imagine my surprise.  Needless to say, for the rest of my time there I made sure to ask for a coca-cola.  In fact, I'll probably use the full name from now on.

The weather in Santo Domingo is really nice in the morning before the heat really kicks in, so every  morning I actually did quite a bit of walking, and along the way I would always greet people with the ever-so famous buenos días.  Funny thing is, everyone greeted me with buen día.   It didn't take me long to catch on and get with the program.

The next thing I noticed is that they use aló to answer the phone.  Given that I'm accustomed to hearing bueno, this stuck out like a sore thumb.

Now let's talk about colmados.  Colmados can be found all over the Santo Domingo.  A colmado is something like a store at a gas station, where they sell things like sodas, snacks and basic groceries.  The true hallmark of a colmado is that you'll find several chairs out front where you can just pull up a seat, chit-chat, relax and even drink a beer.  Here's a photo:

Moving right along, let's talk about getting around the city.  A very popular and economic way of getting around is via a mototaxi, also known as a motoconcho.

Mototaxi's are everywhere in the city.  While I never personally saw a mototaxi with that many passengers, it wouldn't surprise me.  Got luggage, bags or something else to carry?  No problem.  These guys are experts and can transport you and your belongings with no problem.  Although notice I didn't say safely.  These mototaxi's weave in and out of traffic like crazy.  I'm surprised I didn't witness any crashes.  One of the cab drivers I rode with confirmed my suspicions that crashes do happen every so often.  I like to experience the local culture, but riding a motoconcho was too much for me.  Also, a mototaxi is typically a moto, or motocicleta (motorcycle), but it can also be a pasolo, which is a scooter.  Don't quote me on this, but  pasolo might be a Dominican word. I'm working on trying to confirm that.

Like most countries, you can also catch a taxi.  But like me, you probably wouldn't take this taxi.

This particular taxi (and yes, people actually ride in cabs like this) is called a publico. A publico is a shared cab.  Multiple people get in and pay the fare to their destination.  I didn't try a publico, maybe next time.

There didn't appear to be a standard for cabs, One time I rode in what was a fairly recent and well kept Honda Accord that seemed brand new.  And the next day I saw this.  Go figure.

Since we're on the subject of transportation, here's a phrase for you.

Hay mucho tapón

Didn't catch that?  How about if I rephrase it?

Hay mucho transito

Still no luck?  OK, let me explain.

Hay mucho tapón 
Hay mucho transito 
There's a lot of traffic

Don't ask me, I just report the Spanish as I learn it.  While everybody knows the word trafico, which is standard Spanish for traffic, I never heard anybody use it.

I'm going to call this a wrap for today, but don't worry, there's more to come.  I tried out some new foods (long time followers of my blog know I love to eat) and I still have more words and experiences to share with you.

¡Hasta la próxima!