Every season, more foreigners arrive in Samaná with a backpack and a plan that depends on someone else paying for it. I call them begpackers. They come from richer countries with stronger currencies, and the cheap rent and free beaches stretch their money far. Yet they still arrive expecting a free room, a favor or a job they don’t intend to take seriously.
I used to help. I don’t anymore, and here’s why.
What happened when I helped
A man arrived from a wealthy welfare state. He was talented and said he was a capable freelancer. I gave him a job and a salary. I paid him upfront so he could buy a car and be productive. I let him live in a house of ours outside town, with air conditioning and bathrooms, in return for keeping an eye on the property.
What I got back was missed deadlines, no-shows, disappearances and a lifestyle of partying and drinking. The car made his life more comfortable and did nothing for his work. Then I found out he had been renting out our house to someone else and keeping the money, without telling me.
I gave him a job, a salary, an advance, a car and a home. He used the home to make money for himself.
The real cost
The cost isn’t only the money. Time and trust go too, and so does the opportunity I gave up. Every chance I handed to someone who treated it as a holiday was a chance I didn’t give to someone who would have built something with it.
Here, a salary supports a family. A job pays school fees, builds a house and starts a business. Local people work hard, show up and carry real responsibility, often with far fewer safety nets than a visitor has at home. They deserve the first call on my help.
My rule
If you come here to work, to build and to contribute, you’re welcome, and I’ll respect you for it. If you come here to be comfortable and expect others to cover it, this isn’t the place for you, and you can do that at home.
Our help, our jobs and our trust should go first to the local communities that make this place what it is. That’s the principle I run my business on now.
If you come here to build, you’re welcome. If you come here to beg, the help goes to the people who live here and earned it.
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