A Passport for Caito

Four months in country this week and we have moved out of our host family and into our very own two-bedroom block house in our village. Our village sits just off the highway eight miles north east of San Pedro de Macoris in what many Dominicans and foreigners alike term the baseball hotbed of the DR. Apparently many superstars have come from the area such as Sammy Sosa and Julio Franco. In fact, two of our most recent host family “cousins” who are 16 and 18 years old respectfully, spend their mornings riding their motorcycle to the baseball diamond in San Pedro and training from 7am to 12noon daily. A grand majority of youth who are athletically inclined, religiously train to become baseball players while either finishing their high school education or upon completion fo their high school education.

Our village is a Batey, which I’ve mentioned before, Bateyes in the Dominican Republic were created around the sugar can industry. While I’m still trying to learn the exact history of our particular batey, a large number of Haitians were brought to the batey to cut the sugar cane. I found this website which shares a really nice synopsis of what the bateyes generally are: http://www.cotni.org/articles/49.

Because many of the field workers in the sugarcane were brought from Haiti as young men, they did not have passports or even birth certificates when they left Haiti to work here; they were often too poor to afford the fees associated with obtaining a birth certificate, much less a passport. In the Dominican Republic, without a birth certificate an individual is not permitted to attend school after eighth grade, obtain legal work, travel without fear of being deported, nor have the opportunity to provide documentation to one’s children. To add to the story, the Haitian men who were brought here to work in the sugarcane fields were initially brought by the Dominican government and some private companies, who also guaranteed a payment of a pension to workers who were brought over.

I recently met and have been welcomed into the home on several occasions by one of these men who came to the Batey to work in the sugar can fields when he was 18 years old. He’s now 70 years old, lives with his wife and three of his five children in a one room block house with a three room wood house “addition” and he continues to work as a day laborer in the Conuco (farm) from 6am to 4pm six days a week at the orphanage where I’m volunteering. His name is Caito and he is owed a pension but is not allowed to receive his pension because the sugar cane industry won’t pay a pension to someone who is in the country without the proper documents. Caito does have a birth certificate from Haiti, however he doesn’t have his Haitian passport. Phoebe and I recently joined Caito and a young girl from my orphanage to observe their application process for their passports, with the hopes that Caito will eventually be paid his pension.

A group of about 45 men in their 60’s and 70’s and a few women gathered in a room at a retreat center near Consuelo (a city about 20 KM from our batey) to meet with representatives from the UN and employees from the Haitian Embassy to help with their applications for passports. Another group of men and women met with a legal representative from a private agency who is collaborating with the UN and Haitian embassy to obtain birth certificates for other residents who are in the country without the proper documentation.

Caito should have his passport in 8 to 12 weeks at which point he’ll be able to apply for his pension. Here’s to Caito!

While still in my diagnostic phase of the Peace Corps, I hope to begin working on documentation projects throughout my service. I cannot and do not take any sort of credit for Caito's process, I'm grateful to have been given the opportunity to be with him during this wonderous day.

With love, Dan