On the way down to breakfast, I stop to tell Piti and Eseline to meet us in the restaurant. They are sitting on the edge of their double bed, looking small and frightened, their suitcase packed at their feet, the baby in her arms. I wonder how long they have been waiting for one of us to come get them. There is a stuffy smell in the room. I look around. The windows are closed, and neither the overhead fan nor the air conditioner has been turned on. In the bathroom, the toilet has not been flushed. It’s my fault. I was too tired last night to do for Eseline what Charlie did for us in Moustique: a crash course on using the amenities in the room.
Downstairs, Madame Myrième is already at her post, record book open, the three cell phones lined up next to the calculator. “Bonjour, Madame.” This time I get a bonjour back.
Over toast and jam and eggs, and watery American coffee that has Bill shaking his head (“They should go to Moustique to learn to make coffee!”), we discuss the day’s plans. We have to cross the border before it closes at five p.m., but maybe we should spend part of the day sightseeing? Once the colonial capital, Cap-Haïtien is steeped in history: the slave revolt that eventually freed the colony started in nearby Bois Caiman during a Vodou ceremony, so the legend goes. It’d be gratifying to tour the area with Piti and Eseline, who haven’t seen much of their own country. And it is their honeymoon!
But talking it over with Homero, we change our minds. Today is Friday, market day at the border. Huge crowds move back and forth between the two countries, buying and selling everything from clothes to car parts to sacks of carbon to bottles of rum to cell phones to farm produce and animals. The bad side of all this commotion is that traffic virtually stops. Pickups, donkeys, wheelbarrows, carts, as well as men and women bearing loads, inch across the bridge. The good side is that during the height of this consumer chaos, the guards don’t bother to check documents. But as closing time nears, security clamps down. Every vehicle, every pedestrian is scrutinized. It is best if we go in the middle of market day, and perhaps, ojalá, keep your fingers crossed, we will get across the border without being stopped.
Sounds like a no-brainer to me. Besides, how can any of us enjoy ourselves sightseeing while the worry hangs over our heads about what will happen at the border in a few hours? More and more, I am feeling caught in an old story, this time involving a Haitian, not a holy family, and on an island in the Caribbean, not a desert in Judea. But it makes sense that if a redeemer for the poor, the helpless, those at the margins were to come round again, he would choose the most impoverished country in the hemisphere to be born in.
A good cup of coffee, some Dramamine
Before we leave Okap, we decide to take a spin around town. Spin is actually not a word to use in connection with traffic in Cap-Haïtien. During the workday, it’s difficult to move with ease: huge trucks stop two, three deep to unload their cargo; wares are laid out on sheets that extend into the street itself; pedestrians wind their way among stalled vehicles, pushing wheelbarrows or carrying loads on their backs. Brightly colored tap-taps, the little pickup trucks that serve as Haiti’s main means of transport, display their curious names above their windshields in Kreyòl, French, English. How do the owners decide what to call them? I wonder. Some I can guess: PASSION, GOD BLESS, MERCI JÉSUS, TOUT EST POSSIBLE, but what about ILLUSION or MAMMA MIA or RABBI or KREYÒLA? And wouldn’t an owner worry that he’d scare away potential passengers with a name like DEZESPERE, Despair?
I keep snapping pictures from the pickup. But every time I put down my window, a merchant approaches, even if I shake my head no, as if what I might not want from ten feet away will become irresistible when it’s in my face.
Later I will e-mail Homero, asking him, as a Dominican, what most surprised him about Haiti. “The fact that, despite so much poverty, the lack of money, the bad economy, everywhere we went, people were selling something: whether it was mangoes on the road to Bassin-Bleu or car parts and pineapples in Cap-Haïtien or even the refreshments and cigarettes at the wedding. But who was buying?” In the case of the mangoes, I guess we were. But Homero is right: all along the streets of Okap, I don’t see a single shopper, but almost everyone seems to want to sell us something.
What most surprised me? The white UN tanks that would come creeping eerily down the streets. True, I’d not been keeping up with Haitian news, but the only enemy I was seeing everywhere was poverty.
Maybe because a goal always helps to focus sightseeing, we decide to look for a drugstore to buy Eseline some Dramamine. Although the roads from here on out will be a lot better, it’s still an hour to the border, and then a three-hour drive from Dajabón to my parents’ house in Santiago, where we will spend the night. We want to spare her and ourselves a repeat of yesterday’s saga. Bill also wants to find a café where he can drink a good cup of Haitian coffee before leaving the country.
But we might as well be the knights of the Round Table searching for the Holy Grail. We get hopelessly lost and end up stuck in traffic until we’re ready to give up. Piti asks a pedestrian, who confirms that there is a pharmacy near the cathedral on the main square. We are very close; it is very simple. By now, we should know what such phrases mean here: very close, very simple. But almost as if Haiti were out to show us that we will never guess her riddles or plumb her mysteries, a few turns, and we run into the beautiful white cathedral on a large, elegant square.
We park and set out to find a drugstore while Bill stays behind, guarding our luggage in the open flatbed. Eseline and the baby wait in the backseat. For some reason, she has not wanted to get out at any of our stops, like a caged bird that prefers the safety of its enclosure to the dangerous freedom beyond.
While Homero and Piti continue on their Dramamine mission, Eli and I peel off to peek inside the cathedral. Fifteen minutes later, when we reunite at the pickup, Homero and Eli report they could not find the pharmacy. But Bill has had better luck. A few doors down from the pickup at a small restaurant, he bought what he claims is the best cup of coffee in Haiti. (Yes, even better than in Moustique.)
But then, an unsettling incident occurs. As Bill is waiting for us, a woman comes charging across the street, berating him, an angry rant that went on and on. People stopped to watch; shopkeepers came out of their stores.
“Could you tell what was wrong?”
“She kept repeating blan this, blan that.” A white man; a big, silver pickup; a young Haitian girl and a baby in the backseat—Bill could guess what she was thinking.
But he had no idea what the woman would do. Would she incite onlookers? Would she attack him? Finally, another woman with a sidewalk stand of sodas said something to the angry woman and gave her a bottle of water, which seemed to douse her anger. She went back across the street, still calling out something to Bill.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him.
“It’s no big deal,” he says, shrugging the incident away. But from then on, whenever he regales our friends at supper parties with the story of our trip, Bill will mention this moment. It’s as if he can’t help mulling it over, the way the tongue keeps investigating an absent tooth. The way I keep thinking about the girl in Bassin-Bleu wanting a piece of my jewelry, and I wouldn’t give it to her.
Actually, it’s a surprise that this was the only racial incident, not counting the kids at the wedding who were terrified of our pale skin. Haiti’s has been a race-driven history, and not just during colonial times, and not just whites against blacks, but internally down the generations, the light-skin mulatto elite against the darker noirs; the noirs not trusting the griffes or the jaunes.
Of course, the biggest target of hatred were the whites, who had once been the enslavers. At the moment of Haiti’s founding as a freed nation in 1804, Boisrond-Tonnerre, one of the signers of its declaration of independence, remarked that the document “should have the skin of a blan for parchment, his skull for inkwell, his blood for ink, and a bayonet for pen.” I’m glad that I learn about this remark only after our trip to Haiti.
Before we leave Okap, we try one last time to find a pharmacy. Several people have confirmed that a few blocks away, up a little alleyway, we will find what we are looking for. And sure enough, as if Haiti is determined to surprise us once again, an eleventh-hour rescue, the dark horse that wins the race, we find the tiny shop. It is no larger than a hallway, a narrow slot between buildings, easy to miss. The walls are lined with shelves to the ceiling, the shelves covered with plastic sheeting and scantily stocked with bottles and odd items like a game of Trivial Pursuit.
The pharmacist, a middle-aged woman wearing a top bursting with enormous bright-pink flowers and matching pink hoop earrings—her, you can’t miss—nods. Of course, she has Dramamine pills. How many do we want? (All pills are sold piecemeal.) Three will do, Piti decides. The first one will be wasted, as Eseline swallows it right off, and ten minutes later when we’re on our way, she vomits it up. But a second pill does the trick.
With our two missions accomplished, we decide to head for the border. Somehow, the incident of the angry woman seems a signal that we have overstayed our welcome. But even after we’ve left, we’ll keep thinking about Haiti a lot, in total disproportion to the short time we spent there. Back in the States, a friend will share how she had a similar haunting reaction after visiting Brazil for the first time many years ago. “It stops you in your tracks. Mind and body. When we see a thing, what then is the obligation? That’s a really big question and I worry about the answer.”
Tranquila, tranquila
On the way to Ouanaminthe, I try to meditate. Instead of Bassin-Bleu, Bassin-Bleu, my new mantra is tranquila, tranquila. Stay calm. Otherwise, I’ll betray our precious cargo by looking nervous. Besides, we already have proof that no matter how much head shaking goes on, little problems can be resolved at the border.
And there is a small part of me that, despite my huge doubts, wants to believe Piti. He keeps claiming that the immigration office on the Haitian side will be able to grant a temporary pass for his wife and child. “Pero, Piti,” I keep interjecting. “You don’t have any proof she is your wife. The baby has no birth certificate, proving that you are the father.” Of course, all you have to do is look at that little face to see the spitting image of Piti.
We stop at the immigration building on the Haitian side. Piti gets out to inquire, while the rest of us wait in the pickup, including Eseline and Ludy. As the minutes tick by, I start wondering if Piti himself has been arrested. Tranquila, tranquila, I keep telling myself.
Eseline, too, is jumpy. She has been feeling fine since taking the second Dramamine. But now she is looking around, amazed by the swarming market crowd that surrounds the pickup. Everywhere you turn there are makeshift stands, wheelbarrows full of yams, plantains, oranges, big bundles of disposable diapers, cane chairs, clothing, a tangle of motorcycles, trucks, cars, carts. There are plenty of shoppers here, including many Dominicans who buy cheap merchandise on the Haitian side and then cross the bridge to sell it for double or triple the price.
Piti comes out from the small wooden building, his round, boyish face suddenly an old man’s worried one. The Haitian officials have told him that there is nothing they can do. He’ll have to ask their counterparts on the other side.
“Ask them for what?” I ask him pointedly.
“Can I bring in my wife and baby,” he answers, as if Eseline and Ludy are pieces of luggage, not two human beings.
How could Piti think he’d get away with this? (How could I?) We both know Dominicans are notorious for their treatment of Haitians. In our own rural community, Haitians and Dominicans live peaceably, working side by side. But this is a rare harmony, one riddled with pointed jokes, racist comments, a blind prejudice all the more remarkable coming from those who have been victims themselves of oppression and poverty. One time a contingent of Dominican workers on the farm came to us protesting the fact that Haitian workers got the same daily wage as they. And yet, were it not for Haitian labor, Dominican agriculture, in addition to many other sectors of the economy, would come to a standstill. But no matter our interdependence, and I say this with shame, a poor Haitian can’t count on having rights on Dominican soil.
But, right this moment, what I’m feeling is frustration with Piti for putting his wife and child in this predicament. It looks like we will have to turn right around and drive ten hours back to Moustique. It’s either that or Piti finds a way to cross the Massacre River at night with the help of a smuggler.
“My wife, my little baby,” Piti keeps pleading, as if we could work miracles.
We inch our way through the market crowd, the pickup parting the way as we go. Homero and Eli ride in the flatbed since we’ve been warned that anyone could grab one of our bags and run off. Not that anyone could get very far in this swarm of people, animals, and vehicles.
On the other side, the lieutenant with the gold teeth comes up to the pickup. “How was your time in Haiti?” he asks, craning his neck to look inside the cab. I rattle on about the wedding, what a long trip it was, how we’re so glad to be back. But he is not listening. His eye has been caught by the Haitian couple in the backseat. Tranquila, tranquila, I quiet my noisy, thumping heart, as if it were the contraband I needed to hide.
“What about them?” He nods toward Piti and Eseline.
“Oh, he’s got his passport and visa.” I hand over Piti’s documents. “He works up on our farm,” I tell the lieutenant, though technically, Piti is now the capataz on a neighbor’s farm. But the lieutenant doesn’t care about anecdotal details. He takes the passport, reviews it, then nods: everything is in order. He hands it back and looks beyond Piti to Eseline. For the first time since I embraced feminism as a young woman, I am willing invisibility on two females. May Eseline and Ludy disappear; may they be mere appendages to a husband with a passport and visa.
But the lieutenant didn’t earn his gold teeth by being a blind chauvinist. “Them,” he nods. “What about their documents?”
It is not often that I can’t come up with a single word, but this is one of those times. I can’t even seem to be able to tell the lieutenant the truth, which should not be that difficult, as I wouldn’t have to invent it.
Once again, Homero comes to the rescue. “Lieutenant, we have a little problem. Our worker here has his papers but his wife and baby don’t. Is there a way to resolve this situation?”
Surprisingly, the lieutenant does not shake his head. This, I should realize, is a bad sign. He doesn’t have to pretend to hidden cameras. There is nothing he can do to help an undocumented Haitian enter the Dominican Republic. Although he checks documents, his only authority is over vehicles—that’s why he could help us with the pickup permit on our way to Haiti. We will have to inquire at Dominican immigration. But before he can let us proceed, the pickup needs to be fumigated. No telling what it picked up next door—in addition to undocumented Haitians.
A young man with a canister strapped to his back sprays each tire, then slaps the side of the pickup. We’re good to go. The lieutenant is waving us through. Bill drives past the enclosed yard, under the archway that welcomes us into the Dominican Republic, and halfway down the street into Dajabón, carried along by the market crowd. No one stops us. No one comes after us. “Keep going, keep going!” I’m yelling at Bill, my one Bonnie-and-Clyde moment.
“No, no, no!” Now it’s Homero shaking his head. That is a very bad idea. We might get away with not going back and paying our entry fees. But between Dajabón and Santiago, there are at least ten military checkpoints. The minute the guardias spot a Haitian in the vehicle, they will ask to check passports, visas. The penalties can be dire: Eseline and the baby deported, the rest of us arrested, the pickup impounded.
“But I thought you said market day we could just whiz through the border?” I remind Homero.
“We could, you saw. But now we have to figure out what to do about the checkpoints.”
What does he suggest? “El que tiene boca llega a Roma,” he quotes a popular Dominican saying. I
f you have a mouth you can get to Rome. But if you are Haitian, getting into the DR is another story.
Homero, Piti, and I walk back under the arches to Immigration to get all our passports stamped, our fees paid, and—we hope—our little problem resolved. Bill and Eli stay behind with Eseline and Ludy to guard the luggage. Immigration seems to consist of two windows looking out on an inner courtyard, packed with people pressing in on all sides. I say this as a Dominican, so I don’t mean to insult anyone, but we did not get the gene for waiting on line.
Homero and Piti and I join the pushing crowd, and all too soon, we’re facing a middle-aged woman, who doesn’t even bother to glance up. We pay our fees, get our passports stamped, and then, lightly, I broach the question. “What can we do about a Haitian mother and her child who don’t have any documents?” The woman, who has been mindlessly doing her job—collecting fees, stamping passports without bothering to corroborate faces with photos—looks up. This is one fool worth checking out. “She needs to apply for her documents in Haiti.”
“But what if she’s here and needs to enter now?”
The woman is shaking her head, little movements of incredulity rather than negation. She cannot believe anyone could be this ignorant. “Without documents, she cannot enter this country.”
Oh yeah? Haitian mother and child are already halfway down the main street in Dajabón. But I know better than to bite the hand that might be willing to take something under the table. “What about clemency? She’s a young girl; this is her first child.” It’s as if I’m on a talk show, trying to drum up audience support.
The woman sighs. She has to get back to work. But the fact that she doesn’t bother to give me a lecture about rules being rules suggests that she knows that the rules are bendable. “Talk to one of the officials inside, maybe they can help you.”
We only need to send one Daniel into the lion’s den, and Homero has a good track record. In he goes to try and locate the official we dealt with two days ago. I head back to the pickup to give my fellow travelers an update, leaving Piti pacing in front of the door of the building, awaiting the fate of his wife and child.