DR: Bearing Witness
By EmilyRuskamp. Filed in Uncategorized |
Dajabon is a city on the edge of the DR’s border with Haiti, separated from the other side by the Massacre River. On Mondays and Fridays, the bridge that joins the two sides is opened for thousands of Haitians to come to Dajabon freely for the market.
They come from all over Haiti to this market in Dajabon because the food, supplies, household items, clothes, etc., that they can buy in the DR are unavailable in Haiti. So, they flock to Dajabon, many of them camping out on the Haitian side of the river in make-shift shacks, for food to feed their families for survival as well as to purchase bulk goods for resale in Haiti.
As an observer of this event, it felt to me like a “once in a lifetime” experience. However, I have to keep in mind that this happens all year round, twice a week, always busy. It is my responsibility to share with you some of the images that have been imprinted on my mind.
As we stood on the bridge, watching a heavy, steady stream of people going in and out, I noticed that, while I didn’t see anyone missing shoes as they walked in, many people walked out without shoes on their feet, carrying on their heads large baskets or bags of rice or pushing wheel barrels and huge wooden carts overloaded with goods.
Looking down on the Massacre River, its banks littered with trash, I saw two children, a boy and a girl, sitting in the water. The girl was brushing her teeth while helping the boy rub soap all over his body. Upsteam a little ways, at least twenty or thirty Haitians were washing clothes and laying them out to dry on a sand bar, while others played games and chased each other around. Further downstream, others were drinking out of the same River.
A group of about six women, each with at least two large bags, one on their head and one in their hands, held up their skirts as they waded across the river. The guards on the other side told them they couldn’t cross there, until finally I saw one of them climb up anyway. When she reached the top, she set down her bag for a moment and she reached into her pocket and handed something to the guard. She waved over the other women, and they, too, climbed out one by one and payed the guard for their passage into the market.
As our group of six students and Kyle, our professor, moved through the market in a single-file line, the urgency of the people was apparent in the pushing, shoving, cutting off, and pocket grabbing that was going on. As we freely walked out of the market through one of its boundary side streets, a person with much darker skin trying to do the same thing was stopped by a guard and pushed back into the market. Another was allowed to stay outside the boundary after handing a few coins to the guard.
In the afternoon we drove on a highway near Haiti. On one side of us I saw the green, foresty mountains of the Dominican Republic. On the other side, the mountains were scattered with a few trees and covered only by weeds and a few small plots of thin, sickly corn growing on the mountainside. The mountains themselves, to me, were silent reminders of desperation, desolation, and death.
A mother stared at us as we drove by and watched as her daughter, wearing a tattered, faded yellow dress, ran alongside the pickup, holding out her hands and yelling, “Dame algo!” (“Give me something!”), her dirty bare feet pounding against the rough, rocky road.
By Emily Ruskamp