Sorry for late reply, I’m at the airport and the WiFi here is crazy patchy.
If you in a tourist area/restaurant/beach you better off speaking English. and yeah depending on how you dressed they will know you not from here/Haitian. Everywhere I went they knew I wasn’t from here and I had a bunch of brehs trying to sell me shyt. Had this phat ass fine chick literally pull my left arm, even though I had my other arm over my shorty, to whisper in my ear “I got good weed”. My girl was like to her “no no no no, you not about to do that” then she just laughed and said “these bytches crazy”. Now that I think about it, I had like 3 or 4 instances of women trying to sell me weed. But yeah, from the way you dress they can tell, and will literally swarm you, their hustle is non-stop. I guess cause the OG been here for a while he said you should just speak English anyway, he also said not to wander to far from the tourist area.
I’d also say learn the local currency/exchange rates but if you using dollars, you better off asking for change in dollars too. I met a couple from North Carolina, old heads, said they been here for a week, they said they got finessed for their change until they got home and checked the exchange rates, so they started demanding change in dollars, some stores were like “no, we only give change in pesos” so the lady was like “ok I’m not buying then”, and the store people changed up quick and sent a boy to go get change in dollars. Also, this North Carolina couple said it’s cheaper to do Airbnb than hotel, I don’t know how true it is, we stayed at a hotel 3 minutes walk from the beach, but the couple were staying at this Villa that was right on the beach.
Also, the wolves can tell if you’re a square or not, best to act like you know the place even if it’s your first time here. be regular but don’t be p*ssy, if nikkas keep tryna sell you shyt tell em nah I’m good. chopped it up with this dope boy said his name was “Franklin” gave me a business card and said “anything you need I gotchu, cars, property, girls, meditation (drugs) lemme know, if you wanna go cocobongo (a club here), hit me up first and I’ll set you up nice”. Dude was driving a nice car, and spoke English better than your average local.