It was the first night spend at
the hotel and although I slept real well, I ended up getting more bug
bites. Must have been the Benadryl I
took, which alleviated the pain and the itch, but once I woke up this morning
and my right arm was hecka itching and I realized that I have many bites by my
elbow and forearm…great. Breakfast was a
light one, but we were thinking that it was because we are going to have a
heavy lunch…but that’s a speculation.
After breakfast we had our academic seminar lead by Gloria on Migration,
where the students participated in a simulation of a Haitian boy who had a
monumental decision to make.
We then boarded the guagua and
made our way to Elias Piña where we met with volunteers of RJFS and made our way to
the Haiti/Dominican Republic border. We
drove to the immigration service center and we saw many police patrolling the
border but they were pretty lax. Why?
Because on Mondays and Fridays the border is open for Haitians to cross so that
they can sell products at the Binational Market. As we waited in the guagua for everything to
be in check we also had a pit stop before we would make or trek crossing the
border. As we got ready to cross the
first border it wasn’t what I was expecting.
Literally the border between the Dominican Republic and “no man’s land”
was literally metal barricades that were painted yellow and read, “Pare Cesparte.” As we crossed that border we definitely saw
the change…it looked dirty, dilapidated and it was pretty worn down…people
selling their merchandise and vehicles going back and forth. As we continued to walk further into “no
man’s land” it started clearing out a bit and you could see the amazing scenery
and landscape and stopped underneath a large tree, where Abraham from the RJFS
spoke to us and gave a history lesson.
He told us that “no man’s land” does not belong to either the DR nor
Haiti, but it is surrounded on the north, and east by the DR and south and west
by Haiti. He mentioned the name of the
city but I don’t remember it.
He then asked us if we wanted to
go to the other end of “no man’s land” to the Haitian border. I of course was dying to go and hoped that
the delegation would say yes!. After some
talking it was decided that we would go to see it. As I mentioned before, as we walked deeper,
and deeper into “no man’s land” you could see the writing on the walls change
from Spanish to Creole…which to me looked like French. As we approached the border again it was not
what I expected. It literally was two
metal posts linked by a chain with Haitian Police patrolling it. I was dying to cross it and step foot in the
country but wasn’t keep my hopes up. But
having Abraham from the RJFS helped a lot we literally walked around the chain
and walked to the customs/immigration booth where Abraham, tried communicating
with the guards. As luck would have it,
as we walked around the chain and into the building, or should I say stand
outside the building since we all didn’t fit…we all realized that we were on
the opposite side of the border…WE WERE IN HAITI! We spoke to the police asked questions we
stayed a pretty decent 15-20 minutes there and I took pictures! Yeah, I can say
that I have seen the entire island of HISPANOLA…haha!
As we walked back and crossed the
Haitian border we again walked through no man’s land we were walking away from
a calm serene part to the crowded, dirty and boisterous part with the goal of
crossing into the DR without any problems.
As we made our way, we literally looked like a blob of people of course
“norteamericanos” since we don’t look like a group of Haitians nor Dominican’s
we crossed through theyellow “Pare Cesparte” door and just like that—we were
back in the DR. After our nice trek of
border crossing we boarded the guagua and made our way to the Binational
Market. The Binational Market, is the
market where Haitians sell merchandise to the Dominican’s and vice versa. As we walked through the market it totally
reminded me of the “Flea Market” back home, except more crowded and the
nuisance of motorcycles weaving through.
Our RJFS volunteers and tour guides spent a good 20 minutes in the
market, before we walked to a nearby comedor to eat lunch.
During lunch it was nice to
mingle with the volunteers of the RJFS and getting their perspective and for
how long they have lived in the city of Elias Piña. As lunch began and people started to line
up…of course me being the gentleman was the last one to get in line. But as my luck would have it there was barely
any food left by the time I got there…no moros nor salad and vegetables for
me. The owner saw this and got me a
special plate with white rice, albichuela, and beef with chicken. It literally was really nice of her to do
that.
After lunch, we made the 1.5 guagua
ride back to San Juan de la Maguana.
Since we didn’t have Danny Boy our helper I ended up sitting in his
seat…sounds cool right?!?! Guess again, every time we had an official
checkpoint by the police, I had to open the door so they could look in the
guagua to make sure that we weren’t transporting any Haitians into the
country. We totally made it sooner than
the allotted time which was nice because it gave us some down time at the hotel
where I had the leadership meeting and was able to catch up the news and
weather. I logged onto Face and had
several notifications and messages about Tropical Storm Chantal and noticed that
we are in its path with a projected landfall in the DR Thursday
morning…interesting real interesting the thought of being in the Caribbean when
a tropical storm and or hurricane hits is a bit unsettling not going to lie.
As we finished our free time at
the hotel and got ready to go to teach our English class we all got our stuff
and walked to the school…unfortunately as I made it to the school I realized
that I had forgotten the bag of supplies and headed back to the hotel, luckily
it was only 3 blocks away, much closer than the prior hotel that we were
staying at. As I sit hear watching the
students teach their English classes I can see that the sky is getting darker
and clouds are sure rolling in fast. I
set in a desk under the metal eve and noticed that the thunder is getting
louder and louder and the lightning is getting brighter and brighter. As I am typing this sentence, it is pouring
and I mean pouring heavily out here…and yeah I am still under the metal eve
just waiting to see if it lightens up before we have to trek to the restaurant
to eat dinner. Time to stop typing and
see if this rain dies down because if not…I will totally be drenched by the
time I eat lunch…will keep you posted.
Btw, it’s officially 7:38 PM as I finish this part of the blog.
The torrential down pour
eventually lit up before we had to make our way to dinner so it was nice not
walking and getting drenched…we were also so hungry and exhausted because of
today’s activities that we could eat a horse.
We were treated to some surprises at dinner…we were given an appetizer
which ended up being popcorn and we got soda, Coca Cola to be exact. Our main entrée though was a hot dog…interesting
to see how the Dominican’s prep their dog…LOL! If you’re wondering it’s ketchup,
cabbage, mayo and what looks like nacho cheese.
After dinner we walked to the
hotel where we had our nightly meeting…I was so tired because of the Benadryl and
a annoyed with the kids on their behavior that the other teacher had to remind
them to get back on track and get to business.
When it was all done with, I had to help the student leader of the day
write the blog to Global Glimpse website. Finally done and will hopefully get some well deserved SLEEP!
Buenas Noches
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