We are driving north towards San Francisco de Macoris from the capital, Santo Domingo. 

Little vignettes of this third world country blur through my mind as we speed along. I am groggy, blinking away sleep, but curious. I have never been here before. 

Three little black kids pump water into big blue plastic jugs from a well, five small boys play baseball alongside the road on a dirt patch, a man rides a horse with rope reins, goats pick through garbage in the ditch, a cow rummages for food in a dumpster, four men sit at a card table playing dominos. Wooden carts selling coconuts, banana bunches, and white eggs dot the roadside. Garbage is scattered everywhere. These scenes register in my brain a few seconds delayed, we are driving so fast. It seems cliché, like something I've seen in National Geographic, but it's real and right before me.