Today some members of the D.R. team were blessed with the opportunity to travel to some of the Makarios students’ homes in Chichiga, a Haitian batay outside of Montellano. As the group headed away from the Makarios school, the ocean breeze swirled through the van in the afternoon heat.
After passing rows and rows of sugar cane, the “gua gua” turned down a dusty dirt road. The first image in sight upon arriving in Chichiga was the shining faces of the excited children ready to head off to preschool. When the van came to a stop, the group stepped out to tour the batay with Robin, a teacher at the Makarios school. As the group walked around the village, numerous smiling faces greeted Robin and welcomed the group with a friendly “hola.” The short tour around Chichiga ended within ten minutes and upon returning to the van we found it full of preschoolers ecstatic to journey to school.
The “gua gua” once again headed off down the road filled with bumps and turns. The tightly squeezed van ride did not end the preschoolers excitement for school, the entire “gua gua” ride the children sang to one another a song in Creole, the Haitian native language. Intially, I believed, because even Robin could not understand the Creole the children used as a first language, the linguistic differences would provide a division between Haitians and Dominicans at the Makarios school similar to that division present in the modern day Dominican Republic.
This division in the D.R. is especially prevalent in batays where towns divide themselves in half by nationality. However, the moment the “gua gua” arrived at the Makarios school the Haitian preschoolers, who had traveled with the group, became united with the rest of the school children. The occurrence of friendships amongst children without regard for nationality gave the whole group great hope in the promise of tomorrow for Dominican society. The possibility that one day all people living in the Dominican Republic can live together and regard one another just as the preschoolers do, without the influence of prejudice, provides a great chance for a future of peace.
(Madeline Baird)