Over the years the skeptics, primarily the obots, have issued jokes to the effect that if I was in Kenya then Kenya must be located somewhere inside of the Dominican Republic.
Earlier today I was searching for a picture which I transferred the other day from my phone to a drive on my computer. I couldn’t find it. I already deleted it from phone so if it really wasn’t on one of my computer drives then it was likely lost forever.
I began opening older folders which contain pictures from a number of years ago in hopes that I had mistakenly dragged the picture over to one of these folders. One such folder contained pictures which I took with the original, or very first model, of the i-Phone (2007) which I bought in 2008.
As I was searching (very quickly because there are a lot of pictures) a preview of each picture was displayed off to the right side of my computer. I passed two pictures which I took from the passenger side of a SUV some years ago. Something caught me eye. I went back a couple of clicks and had a better look at it:
and:
The metadata indicates that these pictures are from April 2010 but for some reason I think that they are older (sometimes even creation dates are altered when transferring files). However, in April 2010 I may have been using my original i-Phone as somewhat of a ‘fish phone’ (i.e., a phone that you don’t mind taking on a fishing trip or anywhere with high risk of damage) so it very well may be that the pictures were taken in April 2010.
I any event what I noticed early today is listed directly below:
1. Rancho Kylimanyaro (English: Kilimanjaro ranch)
2. Avenida Masai Mara (English: Masai Mara avenue)
It appears that these places are located in the Dominican Republic in the province of San Cristóbal in the municipality of Villa Altagracia.
However, Masai Mara (established in 1961) is a large game reserve in Kenya!
Kilimanjaro is a region, which borders Kenya, in Tanzania and is also the name of the highest mountain in Africa!
I guess you really can find Kenya and Africa in the Dominican Republic, sort of.
In closing I also want to point out that in the Dominican Republic the acknowledged heritage is European (or Spain) and to a degree that of the indigenous Taino indian. African heritage is generally not acknowledged in the Dominican Republic and even when it is it is not.
The best way I can describe it is to give an example of the opposite: In the United States black Americans, regardless of how light or dark they are, generally don’t (maybe never) acknowledge their white or European heritage.
Note: Americans should not confuse Spain or Spanish with Mexican or the Hispanic culture seen in the United States nor should they confuse the extinct (other than that which exists in Dominican blood) indigenous Taino indians with the contemporary native American indians in the United States.
Having said that, names like Kylimanyaro and Masai Mara seem to be very atypical when found in the Dominican Republic. Perhaps there are others? I asked several Dominican friends tonight and none where aware of these places listed in this report and when I asked if they were aware of any other African-named places they all stated that they did not know any African places, names or words so they wouldn’t be able to tell me if there were any others here in the Dominican Republic.
I do, however, have a picture (which I took myself several years ago inside of the Museo del Hombre Dominicano) of all the indigenous Taino indian words which are in use in the Dominican Republic:
To be fair here is a additional picture that I took several years ago in front of the same museum. There are three (3) statues: European clergyman (front), indigenous Taino indian (right) and African slave (left):
Please exercise your free speech in the comments section below. There are no stipulations of political correctness on this blog. Speak your mind, give us your thoughts, both objective and subjective. Share your ideas, hunches, inklings or your expertise. Please provide recommendation and corrections if you spot errors in fact within the blog report. Lastly, remember that posting a comment is much like casting a vote, so please do so.
Postscript: I love the Dominican Republic and Africa. But I wouldn’t change anything about the unique and admirable culture found in the Dominican Republic.
Please stay tuned to the WOBIK blog for our upcoming report on extradition to Kenya.
So a place called “Kilimanjaro” in DomRep proves your fake Kenyan photo was really from Kenya after all? Or what is that unrelated tangent supposed to mean again?
If you were a street magician, you would starve. Your attempts to distract from the underlying issue are the worst.
How come you don’t just don’t post an image your PASSPORT showing you were indeed in Kenya at the time you said you were?
@ John:
Are you serious? For starters: It would instantly be deemed a forgery by the skeptics and anyone else who looks online and finds that every single obot on the planet has provided their findings of an “obvious and crude forgery.”
Lucas
I am admittedly just a ‘YouTube Warrior’ so I hope the following video is reasonably accurate and helpful to the discussion:
Juan Rodriguez, Dominican Ministry of Culture – Black In Latin America
Another swing, and a miss.
Smith strikes out once again.
@ Bruce:
The same Juan Rodriguez in the video was my professor when I was student at PUCMM (a Catholic university).
He also ran (and may still run) the museum noted in the report.
Lucas Daniel Smith wrote:
Thank you for today’s dose of irony.
@ Bruce:
Thank you again for posting the video of my old professor (PUCMM) Juan Rodriquez. I also want to add that Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (the black American) in the video is very much like other black Americans who visit the Dominican Republic. Black Americans tend to have an exceedingly burdensome and difficuly time understanding and accepting that they have discovered that Dominicans are not ‘black’ in the way that black Americans are.
From what I’ve seen first hand is that black Americans, after or while visiting the country, soon make it their sacred and imperative mission to make Dominicans believe that they are Africans. Additionally, these black Americans, shortly after facing the harsh reality that they are not “cool” as they were considered to be in the United States, quickly become staunch supporter of Haiti or pro-Haitian. However, they usually never visit Haiti and certainly wouldn’t reside in Haiti.
I love the Dominican Republic and I like the fact that Dominicans have a national identity. Why must everything be decided by color? Why is it some important to black Americans to ‘teach’ Dominicans who they are?
The Dominican Republic is unlike any other Latin American country and the culture here is not something that a black American or any foreigner will be able to quickly understand.
Terms of endearment such as “mi negro/negra” or ‘negrito’ (which is ‘black boy’…black Americans really dont like that one) or morena or morenita are all used by everyone here, even by whites, and such ternms would seem to be afrocentric, but are not. Unless you’ve lived here for a period of time and made lasting friendships and lived among common people which make up the majority of this wonderful country you would probably not be able to understand.
Most black Americans for some reason tend to believe that their version of “black” is the only version or at least the true and correct version. Black Americans tend to be racist towards tAfricans in the United States, which is baffling and once again reinforces the imaginary ‘one version’ or ‘true version’ which would go so far as to reject ‘African-from-Africa’ for that of the ‘African-American.’
Black Americans should consider the following before coming to the Dominican Republic:
1. Are you planning to come here because you’ve seen pictures online of the beautiful shape of the female Dominican body?
Forget about it, its not going to happen for you (unless you pay a lot of money) because your ‘black’ is not the ‘black’ that is popular here. Seriously, the ugliest and whitest nerd American will get far more action here than you will and they will spend significantly less $$$ in the process than you will.
2. Are you planning to come here smoking cigarettes, marihuana and wearing baggy clothing (so out of style my brother)?
I hope you like being looked at like a mentally unstable drug addict and that you like watching porno alone in your hotel room or paying money to tap that ‘fine homeless drug addict sex workers with wrecked body from Hell Comes to Frogtown movie (1988)’ who hobble around the tourists spots in the city.
3. Do you like Haiti and are you pro-Hatian?
Fine, then book a trip to Haiti and stop bothering Dominican brothers and sisters with al the back to Africa nonsense and the Haitian rights double-speak.
4. Are you a black American woman who like to wear their hair in ‘natural’ form?
Then please consider booking a getaway to lovely Haiti because in the Dominican Republic you will be called a ‘nido’ which means that you have a bird nest on your head.
Lucas. If you won’t post a scan of your passport with the entry and exit stamps for your “trip to Kenya”, perhaps you can provide other proof?
I am sure you know what vaccinations are required before travel to Kenya and you had those given in the period required prior to your travel by your doctor. You should still have the vaccination cards. It would be pretty stupid not to still be carrying them in your wallet. You can post scans of those. Or contact your doctor and have him/her mail the records to you in the DR. You can post scans of the envelope the records were mailed in with the date they were mailed along with the records showing you had the required vaccinations.
Seriously. If I was going to go Kenya to bring back a birth certificate I’d want to show proof that I was actually there. Had you testified in court, you most certainly would have had to provide proof that you actually went to Africa.
Or perhaps your visa when you entered Kenya? I am sure you also kept records like your flight. Post scans of your tickets or perhaps you can find the records of when you purchased the tickets for your flight?
If Smith can’t convince some random guys on the internet of his claims, what hope does he ever have of convincing someone with the power to aid him in his mad quest to remove Obama?
Smith needs to convince only one person: the one who is dumb enough to repeatedly open his wallet.
@ Andrew Vrba, PmG:
Another moronic comment from the closet racist dressed in the garb of an anti birther obot.
Lucas Daniel Smith wrote:
I think you have made some very interesting, perceptive and important comments here.
Would you mind if I cross posted this ‘thread’ over to the InspectorSmith Forum ? — under an expanded sub-forum title of:
News and Views from a Sociologist in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA
Lucas Daniel Smith wrote:
I’m surprised at you lucas usually when asked this you say the person asking must be a homosexual. Ah yes so now you’re taking the birther tactic and applying it to “obots” you mean like how anything pointing to a hawaiian birth is deemed by birthers to be false or a forgery? You’ve had years to prove you ever went to kenya and have failed to do so.
@ Bruce:
Thanks Bruce! Please cross post the the thread over to the Forum in the new expanded sub-forum title.