Parque Duarte during the Coronavirus

Have you ever heard about the popular Parque Duarte in the Colonial Zone? Especially on Fridays and Saturdays, it’s a famous park in the Zona Colonial where people get together for a quicker or longer conversation.

I would guess usually a good 20 – 30 people on a Friday afternoon at this little park. Usually, kids are playing in the streets, people read newspapers or are active on their mobile phones. The adjacent two Colmados (typical Dominican convenience stores) are usually open and supply the people with some drinks and snacks.

Now it looks the following at 4pm:

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Okay. I might not have a comparably recorded video to show the before. But the aftermath of the Coronavirus and the measures from the Dominican government show some drastic scenes.

Empty scenes. Abandoned scenes. Lonely scenes. Scenes you would never expect from a typically chaotic and loud city like Santo Domingo. But this is not staged for a movie scenery and has become a reality.

And the streets in the Colonial Zone during the Coronavirus?

Empty as well. Take a look at these pictures from the popular shopping street ‘El Conde’:

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I wasn’t shocked by that. But deeply disturbed about the fact, that I didn’t see Dominicans in the streets. They usually never hide and are always everywhere present. Until now it seems. No baseball game or political election will make the streets as empty as you see them on the pictures. At no time during the day, you would find ‘El Conde’ like this. Not even at night.

But seriously: Where are they?

I could find a few of them in the nearby supermarket:

Next page: Where are the Dominican people during the Coronavirus?