They are a part of everyday life. It is impossible to imagine this as a North American, you need to experience it. There is the occasional trip to the grocery store, but every meal, party or day begins with a call to the Colmado. The 50cc motorcycles with milk crates attached in back and in front bring food and drink to every corner of the city: beer, ice, water, "refre[s]co", fruit, rice, eggs. If the beer isn't cold enough, send it back. They will reach into the freezer and pull up a Presidente, "dressed like a bride", put it in a paper bag and rush it to your door.
I don't call our Colmado. It is only half a block away so it is always faster to go there myself. Plus I don't have to pay the minutes on my phone if I walk. They still have soft drinks in glass bottles here. I have never liked drinking out of a plastic bottle, but since living here, I've developed a taste for pop. For RD$15 (about 40 cents) you can buy a 10oz bottle. It costs an extra five pesos if you want to take the bottle with you, so I always sit out in the sun on a plastic chair and put the bottle back on the counter when I'm done. This is what I will miss most about this country when I leave. It is a micro-managing community center that imagines the community as a block on a residential street. It is a never ending block party. It is a familiar face that asks if the white lady is your wife (when she walks by on her own they ask her to marry them, say that she needs to have a Dominican husband because they are better). It is the place to get ice when your fridge breaks for the third time in a month. (They reach for the cooler of ice as soon as they see you coming.) It is the first place you go when the power goes out, while the beer is still cold. It is a place to play Dominoes, dance, eat potato chips, be. It is the type of space that North Americans have abandoned for Wal-Mart and Costco. There are no made up names for Colmados, at least not many, because they are real places. It is a constant reminder to me that capitalism does not have to be completely inhuman, inhumane.
I remember when Simonite's Grocery closed when I was growing up in Thunder Bay. I didn't realize it then, but that was like a colmado. It was a place where neighbours bumped into each other, it defined our neighbourhood. There is something missing in a culture without corner stores. I want to be somewhere where no-one bats an eye when the favourite song comes on and the world stops spinning, to dance.