One time Félix told me he’d had a dream that he’d won the lottery with the last digit of my cedula. When he played 7 that day, I don’t think he won… maybe because I made the number up…
I recently heard rumors that up in Nueva Yoi they’re thinking of putting radio-frequency identification chips in all new passports…
I’m at the Peace Corps office in La Capitai because the road back to my campo is impassable due to flooding and landslides. A volunteer who I haven’t previously met walks in and I casually greet her with a “hey, how’s it going.” She sighs and says that it’s been better. Taking on a more attentive tone, I say, “cuéntame.” She tells me about how she’s in the capital trying to track down the mother of one of the kids in her youth program. She explains to me how, in cases where parents abandon a child, they oftentimes come back every few months to “play parent.” But this mother has proven continually elusive. They had finally managed to arrange a meeting with her in the capital, but she never showed. All that they needed from here was a photocopy, or even a digital photo of the woman’s cedula so that the kid could be “declared”, or given a birth certificate. Without a birth certificate, among other things, a child can’t go to school past the 8th grade. When they turn 18, they can’t obtain a cedula, meaning they can’t obtain a job in the formal sector. My new friend tells me about how it’s hard to look at a child and to know that one day, at best, he’ll be the guy who sells Skim Ice popsicles at the side of the road.
It’s possible that guy selling Skim Ice at the side of the road can converse intelligently about international current events in Spanish, English, French, and Kreyol. I currently speak little more than 4 words of Kreyol, “Bonswa, komon ou ye?” – “Hey, how’s it going?” The recent arrivals from Gonaives, who’ve moved into Wilfredo’s old house smile and respond in their almost equally limited Spanish (it won’t remain so limited for long). For our community aqueduct, the deal is that every family has to pay a small fee and commit to working in its construction for a certain number of days. This proposition is less than simple for the segments of the population without a permanent or even a long-term housing situation.
The world feels flat when traveling in a jipeta with cushy suspension, but is bisected by a cordillera impassable in plastic campo chancletas. Immigrants walk these mountains toting duffle bags full of pirated DVDs for sale, windows to the projected image of the other side. Like suburbanites, campesinos commute – for factory work in the Zona Franca or to clean up after strangers in hotels. Serfdom has evolved into the surfdom of nomadic day laborers. La lucha sigue pero la lucha no tiene definición.