Santo Do-Mango

I like to consider myself an very environmentally friendly person. I recycle, I always attempt to pick up any trash that I happen to find strewn about. When diving I always gather up any fishing line I find wrapped around coral, or plastic on the reef. So it comes as a big surprise to me, that I was very nearly arrested and locked up abroad...for littering.

It happened in 2009 when I was living in the Dominican Republic. Some friends of mine and I decided to make the 4 hour drive to the capital city Santo Domingo to do some shopping. Taking along our Dominican friend Claudio for protection and his native knowledge of the country, we loaded up on snacks, beers, tunes, and headed out on our adventure.

The first leg of our journey passed uneventfully, we ate our snacks and drank our beers as we cruised across the countryside. Now I'm not sure about the entire country, but from what I experienced, the DR doesn't have any real trash collection system to speak of. Trash is piled up and burned sporadically, or just dumped here or there along the road. Being the Green Eco Friendly person I am, I collected the bottles and bags of chips to throw away when we got back to a gas station, or restaurant or something. Meanwhile, my friends shook their heads at my naiveté and continued to whip their empties out the window. 

When we reached Santo Domingo we did our shopping and were cruising around when we noticed a guy selling mangoes on the side of the road. Claudio pulled up and asked the guy how much they cost. 100 pesos for 10.  That's about $3 for 10 enormous, fresh, juicy, mangoes. We bought all he had and made him go get more.

So the backseat full of mangoes, and us tearing happily away at the bright orange flesh, juice dripping down our cheeks we proceeded to head home. Having earlier found something that resembled a trashcan, I had thrown away my bag of garbage. And after asking Claudio what I should do with my mango peel, he responded, "throw it out the damn window already!"

Seeing as how it was a mango peel and easily biodegradable, I lowered my window and dropped a piece of mango peel onto the street below.

That was about 30 seconds before 2 Dominican motorcycle police pulled up beside us and began banging on my window.

Claudio cursed and lowered the window only to leave me face to face with two irate dominicans screaming at me in rapid spanish. 

My spanish officially having fled in my terror, Claudio took over trying to talk to the police. 
 Here is a translated breakdown on their conversation:

Claudio: I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY!..what did she do?

Police: THIS GIRL IS THROWING GARBAGE ALL OVER THE STREET! WE CAN TAKE HER TO JAIL FOR THAT!

Claudio: I'm sorry! She's Canadian...she doesn't know any better!

Me: but i'm Ameri-

Claudio (to me, in english): SHUT UP!

Police: she wouldn't do that in her own country! what makes you think it's ok for her to do it here?!

Claudio: I'm very sorry, it won't happen again! She knows now.

Police: she is going to have to pay a fine!

Claudio ( to me)  : give me 1000 pesos! hurry! 
(to the police) Here you go... see, no problem. *smiles*

Police: *taking the money and pocketing it while glaring at me* Ok. go away now. 

Claudio wasted no time in getting us the hell out of there. About a mile down the road my friend Julia (who spent the whole morning whipping waterbottles onto the street) turned around and in hysterical laughter sputters out, "you just got publicly flogged for littering a mango peel!!!!!!" 

I failed to see the humor. 

As we left the city, we passed the penitentiary. Laughing, Claudio turned to me and asked, "you sure you no wanna go to to the jail?"

Looking at all the razor wire and armed guards, I'd never been so sure of anything in my life.