Dajabon

Last week, Nate made a day trip to Dajabon, a town on the Haitian border. Each day, Haitians bring goods across the border to Dajabon and sell them on the street. Nate, Ryan Holloway who leads our micro-business ministery, three outreach participants, and six women who have received micro-loans made this trip to see if it would be profitable for women to buy goods from Haiti to sell locally here in Jarabacoa.We packed into a van and left Jarabacoa at 4:45 a.m. Two young men who are studying at a local forestry school hitched a ride with us to Dajabon to spend several weeks with their families. One of them brought along his fighting rooster which he held in his lap during the trip. At about 6:00 a.m. when the sun began to rise, the rooster started crowing. It crowed off and on until we got to Dajabon three hours later.

(An angry mob seeks revenge.)

Upon reaching Dajabon we unloaded and began to enter the Haitian vending area, but almost immediately we were warned, "Stay back, stay back, it's dangerous!" We were told that some days earlier, a Haitian had killed a Dominican and now a mob was seeking revenge. As the angry mob armed with clubs and baseball bats came down the street, Haitians abandoned their goods and ran. Shortly after, a dozen soldiers came to restore order. After an hour, the Haitians cautiously returned to gather up their goods, but many of them didn't stay. As a result of the mob, our trip wasn't as productive as we had hoped. However we were able to see the types of goods being sold and determined that buying from Dajabon and selling in Jarabacoa may be a micro-business opportunity for a few of the women we are working with.

The trip also highlighted the tension that sometimes exists between Dominicans and Haitians in the Dominican Republic.