Escape From Luperon / Planet VI

Hurricane Tomas is bearing down on Hispanola tonight. The boat should fare well. The storm’s drifted west towards Haiti. It’s a mute point to me. I’m in St. Thomas.
One month in the DR turned into two, then three. The plan to arrive in the Virgin Islands by the November tourist season disappeared. Not my doing, but done nonetheless. 
So a week ago I hugged my floating palace goodbye, made my way to Puerto Plata, bribed the guy at Immigration, jumped on a prop-jet to San Juan, then flew co-pilot in a Cessna 402 in the dark of the night. (Someone had borrowed the plane’s radar and storms were everywhere. I watched for thunderheads while the pilot searched for St. Thomas.)
Once on solid ground, I looked up an old friend who’s in the diamond business which isn't unusual here since everyone is in the jewelry business. (If you see a table of four at a restaurant, three of the guys sell stones. The other one owns a taxi.) Kids don’t sell lemonade here. They sell bling. 
My friend told me, “Good luck. Nobody‘s hiring this year. There aren’t any vacant  apartments either. And junk cars start at $5000.” A week later I had a full-time job, an apartment and a $2500 Toyota Corolla. Saint Thomas reminds me of a lot of the islands. Everyone has a strong opinion. Everyone is usually wrong.
But STT is also different. It’s not the “soon come, it’s de islands mon” mentality. It’s something else I can't quite put my finger on. Nothing works like it’s supposed to. Cable, internet and power are constantly going out. They pulled the main electrical generator offline for a two week check up last September. Now they are “hoping” it’ll be back in service by January. You will see a cable crew parked on the side of the road. Cones are set up. Guys are directing traffic. The crane’s positioned up next to the pole. And the guy in the carriage is on his cell phone talking to his girlfriend.
If you make the huge mistake of complaining about anything here, that’s considered rude. If you’re standing in a line and the clerk sees you glance at your watch, you’re done for. Whatever it is you need, he/she won’t have it. You will have to come back tomorrow. For example, it took me three consecutive days to get a post office box. (They don’t deliver mail here.) After they couldn’t find anything more wrong with my paperwork, they denied having any boxes available. I kept my cool and politely refused to budge. Eventually, they relented. No one here believes I actually got it. They think I’m lying. To them it’s just another “island tale” to be taken with a grain of salt.
p.s. I already miss the DR, a place I both loathed and loved, which is  kinda like a relationship when you think about it.