Estebanía is a small town about a 10-minute drive from the city of Azua de Compostela

Azua de Compostela

Azua de Compostela, also known simply as Azua, is a municipality of the Azua province in the Dominican Republic. It is the capital of Azua province, and is located 100 kilometres west of the national capital, Santo Domingo....

 in the Azua Province

Azua Province

Azua is a province of the Dominican Republic.-Municipalities and municipal districts:The province as of June 20 2006 is divided into the following municipalities and municipal districts within them:...

 of the Dominican Republic

Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...

. The town is close to another municipality named Las Charcas

Las Charcas

Las Charcas is a town in the Azua province of the Dominican Republic. As per a 2002 census, it had 4,687 inhabitants....

. The municipality covers an area of 187.27 km².

As with most other Dominican towns, baseball

Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

 is a major pastime in Estebanía. Local children play the sport at the town's baseball field, whether by themselves or with a team.

History

Estebanía was made a municipal district of Azua de Compostela in 1997 and then it was elevated to the category of municipality of the Azua province in 2001.

Population

The municipality had, in 2002, a total population of 7,754: 4,046 men and 3,708 women. The urban population was 71.6% of the total population. There is a large Haiti

Haiti

Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...

an population exists in the town.

Economy

The main economic activity of the municipality is agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

. The town is growing economically due to the support of Dominican emigrants living in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Most of the emigrants live in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, particularly Washington Heights

Washington Heights, Manhattan

Washington Heights is a New York City neighborhood in the northern reaches of the borough of Manhattan. It is named for Fort Washington, a fortification constructed at the highest point on Manhattan island by Continental Army troops during the American Revolutionary War, to defend the area from the...

, the Bronx, Queens

Queens

Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....

, and the suburbs of New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

 and Long Island

Long Island

Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

. However, many others live in Miami, Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

 and other parts of the Northeastern United States

Northeastern United States

The Northeastern United States is a region of the United States as defined by the United States Census Bureau.-Composition:The region comprises nine states: the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont; and the Mid-Atlantic states of New...

.

Men in the town are typically farmer

Farmer

A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...

s, while women are almost strictly housewives

Housewife

Housewife is a term used to describe a married woman with household responsibilities who is not employed outside the home. Merriam Webster describes a housewife as a married woman who is in charge of her household...

. However, women from poorer families work outside the house, either selling fresh produce

Produce

Produce is a generalized term for a group of farm-produced goods and, not limited to fruits and vegetables . More specifically, the term "produce" often implies that the products are fresh and generally in the same state as where they were harvested. In supermarkets the term is also used to refer...

or as maids in the homes of others.