PATRULLA FRONTERIZA – 1 YEAR 8 MO. 7 DAYS

Prejudice.

Something happened during the med mission last week that revealed some of that vile in me.

The archway loomed over people as they walked towards the bridge crossing the Massacre River, the place where Trujillo butchered thousands of Haitians during his dictatorship. This day, it was lined with Haitian women beating the wet out of their laundered clothes.

We watched them as well as the guards keeping the bridge’s gate barred. When the group had decided to go take a look at the border, I had really no idea what I was going to see. My only previous looks happened via newspapers after the quake in January. (We did not go to Haiti, so don’t freak out Peace Corps or you, Mom).

UN workers watched from the middle cage created by the two flanking metal doors – that of the Haitian side and that of the Dominican.

A Haitian man carrying a heavy load of chickens from Dajabon walked deliberately towards the door. Someone spoke rapidly in Creole. I glanced back at the women in the river.

A noise.

The chickens came flying back over from behind the gate, hitting the Dominican soil with a thud. People were yelling.

Fury and confusion swelled.

I immediately cursed Dominicans for an apparent oppression of Haitians. I saw a man carrying food he had bought to sale. I know how much Haiti depends on transactions like these for survival, and my heart leapt in my throat to think what that loss might mean for him and others. I imagined Dominicans throwing the birds back, and I burned.

And then … I was wrong?

The Dominican guards started asking for our photos to show ‘the truth’ of how double-sided this issue is. They claimed that it was the other Haitians throwing the chickens back over the gate out of anger. Was it a form of protest or just misplaced outrage?

The Dominican government has ‘closed’ the border to prevent the spread of the Haitian cholera epidemic – something that can be likened to spitting in the wind considering it’s a disease that spreads by water, and the border is one long river… This means a huge negative impact on the economy of Haiti because it means they cannot sell or buy food on Dominican soil.

And perhaps there is even a third reason:

Back in the car, one of the women with us who spoke Creole said someone had been yelling that the birds were diseased and that the man would not to enter with them. Was the produce already infected with something on the Dominican side?

This could also be possible. We’ve been told that  the disease has a 100 percent chance of coming here, and that the government, minding its tourism, will not admit cases have happened here until they absolutely have to.

By the end of this week, I will have given eight mini-lectures on Cholera at my community center, and I am slotted to give one Monday night at the elementary school.

During the conversations, I am always sure to mention that the disease is believed to have been brought to Haiti from foreign aid workers during the earthquake. I also discuss that it’s proliferation is as dramatic over there as it will be here because there are little to no differences in the two countries’ water systems.

I want to continue to combat the racism I have seen on buses and in my community.

Still, who knows what really happened that day on the bridge?

I realize the fervor to defend one people who are generally marginalized by another society can be just as destructive as the racism they face if I let it become the lens through which I see all situations.

“Prejudice cannot see the things that are because it is always looking for things that aren’t.” – Author Unknown