After 11 months of working in Washington (and enjoying every minute of it), I can't tell you how excited I was to finally return to the field. It's been two years since I've been out of the country - quite possibly a new record - and three since the last time I lived abroad. So, when the chance came to go out into the field for a site visit, to say I jumped at the chance would be an understatement.
Last week (July 7th), I joined other colleagues from my office on a day-long tour of four of the bateys that we are working in. What is a batey, you ask?
Well, bateys are essentially rural ghettos. They were, at one time, residential barracks for migrant workers who worked the sugar cane plantations. Most of these workers came from Haiti, some forcibly, others by choice. They lived in barracks built for single men, and worked on the plantations all year. Over the years, these men brought their families to join them. These plantations have a long history in the DR. They were once private holdings, but Trujillo appropriated many as his own during his rule. After Trujillo was gone, the government nationalized the land he had taken, creating a national sugarcane business. Throughout all of this, the predominantly-Haitian migrant workers (and their families) continued to live in the bateys and work the land. When the price of sugar dropped, however, the government decided to end production on many of these plantations, essentially abandoning the workers. As it stands now, several generations of Dominican, Dominican-Haitian and Haitian families are stuck in their batey communities, without work, without social services, and, for the most part, without legal documentation to enable them to leave and seek out a better life in another town or city. The government allows them to continue to live in the bateys, but they cannot expand onto new land, nor can they work the land that the government abandoned for their own economic benefit. So there they live, in desperate straights, families of 6 in a one room home the size of my office.
So, that's the bateys in a nutshell. As for our work, we support the work of Save the Children and a Dominican Women's Development organization in at least 8 bateys throughout the country. The project is one of community development, basic health and education, and helping to provide the basic needs of shelter, water and sanitation. From what I saw last week, it seems like our partners have moved mountains in the two years they have been working. For example, we saw the founding meeting of a community water board, where all the households of a batey elected community members to leadership positions (most of them women) and agreed to pay a monthly charge for their water. For families that have so little, agreeing to pay consistently for the maintenance and upkeep of their community water source is a big deal. We also heard that two of the bateys recently had devastating fires which destroyed two barracks. The emergency response community group of one of those bateys, which was created through our project and had trained as first responders, managed to save the lives of 2 children with their quick and professional response to the fire. Imagine what we as a community do when there is a fire or other emergency in our neighborhood. We call 911 and then watch, right? This is some serious community building.
I could go on and on with the anecdotes and the challenges, but I think I've sufficiently painted a picture. For me, it was ultimately gratifying because, after 11 months of high level politics, policy and meetings, I finally returned to the field...and was reminded of why I'm doing this work in the first place. I count myself lucky to have such an exciting and fulfilling job. This makes me so very excited for the next two years.
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