Beyond Borders 2005 Winter Newsletter
The Population Reference Bureau estimates that more than 2 million people in the world left their homes each year during the 1990s to search for a better life in a country other than their own: more than twenty million people during the decade. My friend Jean was one of them.
I came to know Jean while living in rural Haiti as part of Beyond Borders’ Apprenticeship in Shared Living Program in 2002. At the time he was residing with his parents, taking care of the family farm fields while his father recovered from a sudden, life-threatening illness. During the early months of my apprenticeship, Jean became my biggest ally—and his friendship my portal into the realities of Haitian life.
One hot afternoon, under the shade of a mango tree, he shared with me tales of his traveled past, stories that have since become familiar as I’ve heard them repeated by other Haitian acquaintances who have made similar journeys. “I would cry myself to sleep at night,” he began, his voice solemn and barely above a whisper.
For the next two hours he told me of leaving home and crossing the porous border to the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. He quickly discovered the harsh realities that await a cane cutter in a Dominican sugar cane field. “You know, don’t you,” he asked, “that the razor-sharp cane leaves can cut right through a man’s skin?” I shook my head unknowingly, adding this fact to the ever-growing list of things I didn’t learn growing up in the suburbs. “Open wounds don’t mix well with the pesticide they spray either,” he added.
The constant flow of Haitians like Jean willing to cross the border in order to work and live in such awful conditions says a lot about the situations they leave behind. Long days of back-breaking labor, requiring long sleeves in the sweltering Caribbean heat; paid not with cash, but with vouchers, most of which are not worth the paper they’re printed on. As Jean put it, “Misery…complete and utter misery.”
Yet, as it goes, Jean was one of the fortunate few. After landing a construction job in the capital city, he eventually made his way to one of the many posh resorts that line the Dominican coastline, selling coconuts that he’d carried on his head to tourists. He had returned to rural Haiti only after learning he was needed because of his father’s illness.
A few months after our conversation with Jean about his experience cutting cane, I left Haiti to attend my brother’s wedding in California. When I returned, Jean was gone. He didn’t tell a soul where he was headed, but it was easy to guess.
Jean’s story is not uncommon. Whether crossing the border for the cane fields of the Dominican Republic or stepping onto overcrowded boats sailing for Miami, thousands of Haitians each year risk everything in search of a better life (the Creole phrase is chache lavi). The current political instability has only added to the urgency. Beyond Borders knows the Haitian story isn’t confined to Haiti. More than a million Haitians live in places other than their homeland¬often unwanted, neglected, and exploited in the countries where they live.
This January Beyond Borders begins a new chapter by exploring how to serve alongside Haitians who have left Haiti in search of life. Our goal is to strengthening Beyond Borders’ programs by working with Haitians and Dominicans there—and also by building bridges across the Haitian/Dominican divide. A team of three—Anna Dioguardi, Leah Murphy and I (Leah and I married a little more than a year ago) will move to the Dominican Republic in January to begin learning Spanish and Dominican culture. Anna taught at the Loverture Cleary School in Haiti for a year in 2001, has participated in our Transformational Travel program, and most recently has been living in the Silk Hope Catholic Worker home in North Carolina. Leah is a dietitian and has been working at a hospital in California for the past two years.
We’re also excited that the Beyond Borders apprenticeship program is now being lived out in Miami for the first time, an area the first time the apprenticeship program is being lived out in Miami, an area where it’s estimated 300,000 Haitians live. New apprentice Maria Roesler, a recent graduate of Dana College in Blair, Nebraska, began her apprenticeship in November in the section of Miami known as Little Haiti. Apprentice Lindsey Strauch, who unfortunately had to leave Haiti because of health problems and then wasn’t able to return because of security concerns is continuing her own apprenticeship in Miami.
No matter where we live, we are all searching for life–in our jobs, our relationships, our faith. Christ calls us to seek first the kingdom of God. As part of that search, I’m grateful we have the chance to stand alongside many Haitians in their quest for quality education, stronger communities of faith, an end to child servitude, and the realization of basic human rights many of us take for granted. Christ says that when we seek we find. May we be people who seek and find the life of Christ as we love and serve our neighbors.
