Quisqueya: Mad dogs and English couple by Ginnie Bedggood (PDF Download)

This is not your average 'retire and build home on tropical island' story.

True, Ginnie Bedggood and Grahame Bush did relocate to the Dominican Republic in 1992 and true that they ended up building a house, despite advice to the contrary. But 'home building' to them was never about bricks and mortar alone. This is much more the story of an expatriate couple who did it the hard way and gained more than they ever thought possible.

Quisqueya: Mad Dogs and English Couple charts their early years as foreign residents in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic where they arrived with four suitcases, US$3000 and a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel called Merengue. It chronicles the challenges they faced in adjusting to a different culture, not least trying to make ends meet from Dominican salaries (hunger included!) and their learning to cope with power outages and water shortages. What is different about the book is that this middle aged couple obviously thrived on these experiences and thus the story is both positive, uplifting and at times very funny. In the Dominican people they found a humanity missing from their first world existence in England; thus, despite all the problems and all the challenges Grahame Bush and Ginnie Bedggood found themselves internalising this humanity to become more simpático people themselves.

The book introduces some of the characters they met along the way, both Dominican and expat. From one of the latter they bought a one hundred year old wooden gingerbread house in Puerto Plata's town centre and started to run a Bed & Breakfast and relocation service for other potential expats.A sort of Year in Provence meets the Caribbean! The author has altered the names of some of the guests in order to be able to recount the tales with the humour she saw in the situations but which they may not have shared! As a result of some of these experiences, the couple decided that a Bed and Breakfast was not for them! So they did the one thing they said they would never do; this was to buy a plot of land to build their retirement home. But then, life is like that in the DR.

Building plans were interspersed with an inspection of the seamier side of Dominican life as they tried to help a fellow expat remain sane during a fourteenth month incarceration (his not theirs). Then they tried to help themselves remain sane during the house building process. The fact that they still live in Puerto Plata probably means they succeeded!

The book is a personal tale but one which is backed up with knowledge of Dominican history, politics and economic development.

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