Hispanola

At the end of the month of May, I participated, along with about 15 other PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) in a conference called “A Look at Immigration, the Border and the Bateys.” It was put together by a committee of PCVs that deals with issues in bateys and on the border. I don’t live in a batey, nor is my community that close to the border, but I was encouraged to get involved in the committee after the events I witnessed of mistreatment of Haitians in my town last December.

The conference was thought-provoking. We heard from a number of Dominican and Haitian-Dominican experts and representatives from NGOs that are working in the area, as well as from a congressman from the capital who is very anti-immigration and caused quite a stir among the rest of the speakers.

The problems this island faces are profound and go back centuries. Being here to witness them in 2008 hasn’t been easy, although I am pleased to say that I haven’t witnessed any brutality in the way I saw it in December, since then.

But every day I am reminded of the divide and wish that there was more I could do. For instance, one of the speakers at the conference told us a story of a case in a town very close to mine where a Haitian got in a fight with or attacked a Dominican and as retribution, a clan of Dominicans got together and killed 17 Haitians and burned all of the homes where Haitians lived in the community. After this, the President visited the town and swore he would work toward improving relations between Haitians and Dominicans. I pretty sure everyone’s still waiting.
Today I made a mistake. I embarrassed myself. I felt like such an idiot afterwards, especially because my intentions were in the right place, as if that was all that matters. I know I came off as looking like the spoiled girl that I am. You see, there’s a health-promoter conference being put on by the health PCVs and only 3 of us from my group of volunteers were selected to participate, me included. Of course, just as I realized I probably should withdraw my name from consideration for participation, due to a lack of interest in that subject area in my town, I was selected. Since then I’ve been having a hard time getting women interested in accompanying me to the conference. So, on try number 6 I asked a Haitian woman who lives in my town if she’d like to come. As I was describing it to her I acknowledged that I understood she has her children to look after. She was shaking her head and I was getting more and more discouraged. She’s been the most active Haitian woman in these meetings, she speaks incredible Spanish and has helped bring other Haitian women to the meetings, so I really wanted her to come. She finally had to interrupt me to tell me she couldn’t go because she doesn’t have papers. Immediately I dismissed the idea telling her she wouldn’t need to present anything at the conference to Peace Corps in the way of papers and then realized she was referring to the multiple police check points on the high way.

Alright, I thought to myself, how are we going to solve this one? Sure, there are about 5 check points between us and Santiago, but after that (the conference is in Jarabacoa) there probably won’t be any. If we go on the bus that leaves right from here we might be okay as far as the cobrador (bus doorman) goes for bribing the police to let us pass without problems. Alright, I conceded, that’s a bit risky. So then a million other ideas ran through my head including me insisting we get through without problems because I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer, damn it! Of course, I might get the Peace Corps into trouble if I tried that one. Headlines would read, “Peace Corps Volunteers Working as Human Traffickers.” Delightful. And then, and I’m not proud to admit this, I considered that as long as the police didn’t see her face we’d be okay, so if we just put her in a hooded sweatshirt and pull the hood up real tight...

Well of course I didn’t think of that being a reason she wouldn’t be able to come because it’s not a problem for me, never has been, and never will be, and because it’s not a problem for the Dominicans who go to these conferences and who leave their town every so often. Can you imagine having to explain to some ideological-know-it-all- twenty-something year-old-white-chic that you can’t go to her great conference with her because you don’t want to get carried off by the police for not having papers? If she did come and did get caught the best case scenario would probably be deportation to some town right over the border. Her husband and children would be here, with no idea where she was. I don’t want to describe what the worst case scenario could be.