I continue to be overwhelmed by the acts of solidarity I am witnessing. My former Peace Corps community, Batey 8, a Haitian and Haitian-Dominican village and itself one of the poorest settings in the Dominican Republic, is sending volunteers into Haiti and to the Haitian-Dominican border town of Jimani to assist with the relief efforts.
For the past six days, those Batey residents with medical training – a handful are nursing students at a state-run university nearby – have been in Haiti attending to injured survivors. The community itself is sending food, clothes, and medical supplies each day in the back of a pickup truck, and many others are along the border at Jimani translating Haitian Creole to Spanish in the Dominican hospitals tending to Haitians.
When understood in the context of the longstanding hostility between Haitians and Dominicans, and the grinding poverty of the Dominican’s Bateys, these courageous acts of solidarity are all the more inspiring.
Filed under: Bateys, Dominican Republic, Personal Revelations | Tags: Batey, Carnival, Development, Dominican Republic, Failed State, FONKOZE, Haiti, Peace Corps
Before getting here, I was nervous. It was really a combination of things. First and foremost, there was my job, a job I would commit to for at least two years, yet about which I was short on details. Then there was Haitian Creole. Could I really pick it up in two-months like I told myself I could? Then there was the mystery of Haiti.
Haiti had fascinated me from afar while I was in the Dominican Republic. It was a country I was forbidden from experiencing while with the Peace Corps, yet a country that was consistently sending its people my way. Poor and hungry, Haitian peasants would wash up in my Batey looking to find reassurance in a feeling of Haiti and maybe a little solidarity among our Haitian-Dominican population. They found a slice of Haiti. But as for solidarity, we were all out of that.
In my Batey, I heard stories about Haiti – mostly ugly tales – from the adult sons and daughters of aged Haitian immigrants. They themselves had never gotten to know the country from which grandparents or parents had fled, for economic more than political reasons, but they knew they were happy on the outside.
While in my Batey on the Dominican side, Haiti was a dark, gloomy place of misery, suffering and helplessness. It was one big tragedy. Haiti was full of bad people using Voodoo to do bad things to good people. A place where petty jealousies led one neighbor against another, poisoning livestock or even family members to get even.
Is this Haiti? (more…)
Filed under: Bateys, Dominican Republic, Personal Revelations | Tags: Batey, Dominican Republic, Economics, Haiti, Mass Media, Peace Corps, Xenophobia
I lived in the Dominican Republic as a Peace Corps volunteer from September 2006 to November 2008 – 27 full months. The Dominican Republic shares the diminutive island of Hispaniola with Haiti. The DR is a lower-middle income country with a GDP per capita about ten times Haiti’s $600 per day. Not a rich country, but a land of milk and honey relative to Haiti.
Nevertheless, in my 27 months, not once – not once – did I hear about how many Dominican-made goods Haiti consumes; about the sheer quantity of goods that literally pour over the border. It was not until I arrived in Haiti that I was able to see the extent to which Dominican consumer goods dominate the Haitian market and so boost the Dominican economy.
Mind you, this is no small piece of news to stumble upon. The Dominican press and politicians of all stripes rarely let an opportunity pass without excoriating Haiti and Haitians for provoking all the DR’s woes. They are the perpetual scapegoat for the failures of Dominican politicians and the Dominican state. Socially, Haitian immigration into the DR is portrayed as a threat to the Dominican social-fabric; economically, they are blamed for taking menial jobs and driving down wages, while being an oversized strain on the national budget. “Haitian” is actually an insult. (more…)
