Living Arrangements & El Tigueraje

In order to facilitate our cultural integration, we are assigned to host families during training and for the first three months at our site. I’ve been pretty lucky with the families that were selected for me. In Santo Domingo, my Doña (host mom) has been accepting members of our organization for over 20 years, so she is very experienced. Her husband lives in New York. Most Dominicans have a family member living abroad. The only other person in the house was her 28 year old son. It is very common for people to live at their parents’ house until they are married. Singles living alone is a rare exception.

In El Seibo I was placed with a family headed by Don Garcia, a retired military officer who worked as a personal driver for various Dominican ambassadors. He would rattle off facts about other countries he had worked in when we played dominoes at night. Garcia also spent plenty of time in the DR, as he could tell you the precise distance between scores of towns. The family had hosted one other American before me. Their only son, who still lived with them, was very different from my host brother in Santo Domingo (despite having the same age). He was not very friendly and represented a prime example of what is referred to here as a “Tiguere”, which I will explain later.

The family I lived with in my actual site for the first four months is very well connected with the community. As I mentioned before, the father is running for his party’s nomination for mayor. Aside from his wife, two of his daughters (ages 2,6) and one of his sons (9) also live in the house. He also has children that live in other towns by a previous wife. It is not rare for Dominican men to have more than one family, but the hombres responsible for supporting them even if the legal system has not formally recognized the arrangement.

El Tigueraje

As with many Dominican expressions, there are two meanings (doble sentido) to the word Tiguere. It can be used to describe someone who is astute or clever, and that is sometimes applied to a man’s luck with the ladies. On the other hand, it is a negative term used for a man who is basically a leech. He usually does not have a job, at least not a “real” job. He doesn’t think much about the future, just lives for the day. A Tiguere tries to get the most benefit he can for himself with the least amount of effort.

The political and economic system of the Dominican Republic is often referred to as a “Tigueraje”, because public officials are seen as only trying to line their pockets. This country still lacks a cohesive sense of national identity. They are certainly nationalistic, especially when it comes to differentiating themselves from their neighbor to West, but they do not have a well-established concept of citizenship. The consequences can be seen everywhere. For example, education and infrastructure are severely underfunded. In fact, the DR has one of the worst rated education systems in the world.

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