It's Just Another Day

How do I even begin to describe the evening that has just passed? This has been one of those moments that earn Peace Corps the name of “the toughest job you’ll ever love.” Or, least the “toughest” part. The day in general was pretty good. It started with my first Catholic mass in the community. There was a disappointing turnout, or I suppose it would be disappointing for someone who cares about how many people attend church services. Regardless, there were about 25 people, including me and the priest, in a church that could easily fit 75 people. Most of these were women, and with the exception of one old man, those who weren’t women, were children. Interesting, no? We also have an Evangelical church, which was surprising to see when I first arrived in country, but after seeing a number of them in all sections of the capital and in the various communities where we did training, I’d be more surprised if there wasn’t one in my town. Anyways, my first “service” with them was last night. Just after dinner my dona told me that the evangelicals were going to come over for a prayer session. To the house? I asked. She said yes. But you aren’t evangelical? I asked, because all doubts expressed in Spanish are in fact questions. That’s true, she replied.

I am not at liberty to find things odd here. Obviously this is the case because I’m the weird one, but also because I’m pretty new to find much of anything “different”. To me nothing is typical, so how could anything be atypical? Well, my host brother came in and heard the news about the Evangelicals and responded in much the same way as me, so I guess things can still be unusual with me around. J
So they came, and prayed, very much aloud, which is interesting coming from my North Shore Catholic background. I did not partake in the orations, both because I wouldn’t, and because I don’t understand most of them, most of the time.
After the Catholic mass I attended, I went exploring with my younger friends who live across the street. The regular players are a 7 year old girl, her 5 year old sister, and their 2 year old neighbor. Today we also played with the girls’ 1 year old sister. Very adorable kids, who love to show me around, over rivers, under barbed wire fences, and through piles of manure. I usually get to carry the little ones, who never wear shoes. Today I insisted that they put on their shoes. Still, I ended up carrying my little 2 year old friend, whose name by the way, is Bimbo.
This evening I hung out with my teenage friends. They range in age from 13 to 17, and there are many more of them. They are all pretty enthusiastic, and don’t seem to mind including me in their plans, and in fact tend to seek me out. I love to feel popular with teenagers.

Anyways, we went for a walk. When the power goes out here, as I’m sure you can imagine, it gets quite dark. Passing cars, with their headlights on, are usually the most effective source of light on nights like that. Tonight was one of those nights. As we were walking down the street and laughing and singing and doing other things that cool teenagers do (well I guess I was just observing the cool kids) we came across a car with lights ablaze. When you walk toward something that is the only light, it takes a minute to adjust to whatever is going on near and around that light.

You know when something terrible is happening, and as you observe the different pieces of it, you don’t quite understand what they all mean? That was me tonight. What I saw when my eyes adjusted to the light was men dressed in the police-military uniforms I’ve seen many times before. One man had a shotgun pointed at a civilian, and the other armed man was searching the civilian. To go from singing and laughing to that, was quite a shock. Only then did I notice that my large group of friends had dissipated, but one. I asked her what was going on, if it was common. She said it was rade. She said they were looking for drugs in people’s pockets, oh, and for Haitians. But there are a lot of Haitians here, I said. Yah, and they’re rounding them up, the illegals. Oh, are there a lot of illegal Haitians here? Yah, they all are.

Just then, I looked up into the back of the truck. Another armed man was holding his gun in the second most-scary way possible, gripping it by the nose and hoisting it above his head like a baseball bat. He’s just going to intimidate the men in the back of the truck, he wouldn’t actually hit them like that, I was trying to convince myself. Well, tonight for the first time in my life, I found out what it sounds like when something hard strikes a human body. I guess I’d never heard it before because I’ve been lucky enough not have seen anything like that before, and because it’s the kind of sound that they can’t get quite right in the movies. It’s one that I won’t forget for a very long time. The police officer had struck the man on the head, all of this was an effort to get him to move over in the truck.

My instinct was to turn my back to the violence, a sort of knee-jerk reaction, a hope that if I couldn’t see it, it couldn’t be happening. Maybe I could spare these men from that pain and embarrassment by just turning around. The woman in front of whose home this was all happening was coming out to see it just as I had turned around. Hello Eliza. Hello dona. Would you like a chair?

Did she mean for me to actually sit and watch? I had no intention of staying to watch. The only thing I could possibly conceive of doing was running away. But, if I ran away I couldn’t make sure it ended quickly, and without anyone else feeling any more pain. I looked around and noticed something I hadn’t before. There were many Dominicans standing and watching, and yes, some were sitting. Was this a typical Saturday night entertainment?

Again I asked, is this common? No, my friend told me. All of the sudden I started noticing how dark everyone’s skin was. The stereotype is that Haitians are darker than Dominicans, and all of the men in the back of the truck had much darker skin than those beating them. Quite a few very dark men came to see what was happening. The Dominicans explained the situation, and told them to get lost, and as soon as those men looked to see who had been taken into the truck, they quickly got out of there.

The truck had trouble getting started. The driver wanted to leave, although not as badly as I wanted him to, but the engine was being difficult. My teenage friends and some of their older counterparts, except the women, appeared and helped to push the truck to get it started. This would be one more example of how complex Dominican-Haitian relations are. The same people who never speak, pretend not to see one another on the street, though they live in a community of less than 500 and go to the same schools, alerted the other of potential danger, and then helped the capturers get away with the same people they’d just tried to avoid getting captured.
After this there was little I could do to keep from thinking about it. I think my friend could sense it; she didn’t leave my side for the rest of the night. She wanted to go for another walk, to see someone who was ill. I wasn’t quite sure what that would mean, but if it was getting as much attention as it was, I knew it wasn’t usual. Also, being a health volunteer I thought it would be a good idea for me to see whatever it indeed was.

We arrived at a house lit by someone’s cell phone and a tiny candle. There was a lot of commotion at the door, behind which lay a teenage boy, who I later learned is 13 years old. He was lying down, panting, and was obviously uncomfortable. In a moment like this, once you take in the situation and remind yourself that you’re a health volunteer, it’s hard to know exactly what to do or say. I’ve only just arrived here, after all. Who am I to tell these people what to do? At the same time, there is not a question in my mind that the last thing that boy needed was for so many people, easily 30 or so, to be in his cramped house, making so much noise and watching him.

So, I simply asked what was wrong. Asthma. And does he have medicine? Someone went to go get it, they left almost 2 hours ago and should be back soon. While I was there another car arrived that announced that they’d be taking the boy to the city. They covered him in long sleeves and a wool hat, and carried him into a pickup truck. Some other boys hopped on the back of the truck and then they were off.

Since I first wrote this, I haven’t heard how the boy is doing, although I did learn that he has fits like that every once in a while, so I think he’s better. As for the Haitians who got carried away, I can’t be sure they were actually from community, and I would assume that I would have heard something if they were. Again, I am new here, so perhaps I’m not going to be filled in on gossip for a while, especially Haitian gossip. I do feel fairly certain that the men who got beaten that night were already in the truck from a rade in another town. Not that that makes me feel any better about it.