Canton Family Trip to Dominican Republic Brings Back Life Lessons

Part II  The Real Work Begins.

The Kadis  family and the Watkinson group noticed how beautiful the Dominican Republic is - the mountains, tropical forests, valleys and rivers – as they made their way, by bus, to their home base in the city of La Romana.  

The basic schedule for the next five days would be to live, eat and prepare for their work day at home base, then get out into the field.

“The kids were anxious at first,” remembered Michael Kadis. “We were all anxious about the unknown. That lasted until we met the people.”

“When we visited our first batey camp,” says Kadis, “and saw how happy the people were to see us, that was it. Anxiety gone. We had work to do.”

A note on bateyes: Bateyes are wooden, shanty-town type structures with dirt floors. They were constructed in the 1960’s for Haitian workers who came to the Dominican Republic, looking for work in the thriving sugar industry. Decades later, the bateyes are still without running water, electricity, kitchen or bath facilities. The batey villages house 50 to 250 people; with multiple families living in each 10x12 foot space.

There are few educational opportunities for children who live in the bateyes and no health care to speak of. The only consistent source of food is that gathered at the sugarcane fields. Private relief organizations provide  basic necessities, but life remains a sruggle.

The daily schedule for the Watkinson group was organized in a manner to provide maximum exposure to the people in the bateyes.

7:00 a.m.

After breakfast, supplies were gathered and the group boarded buses for the 1 to 2 hour ride to one of the five bateyes they would visit in the next five days.

9:00 a.m.

The group set up their medical, dental and pharmaceutical stations for the day. The Haitians would already be lined up outside the stations, to get assistance. Kadis and his team saw between 88 and 115 people, per day.

Noon

Lunch was usually a mix of rice and leftovers from the previous night with the occasional treat – a cold soda. “It was very difficult eating lunch with all the children lined up outside, watching us through the window, and having no food of their own.”

1:00 p.m.

The afternoon was spent delivering food packages, designed to sustain the families in the bateyes for the next few days. The group attempted to visit every family in the particular batey they were in that day. There are about 250 bateyes, so it’s impossible to get to all of them in one week’s time.

Another project for the group involved building water filtration systems for the bateys and teaching the residents how to use them.

“While we had an interpreter available, to translate the mixture of Spanish and Creole French the people speak, we managed to communicate through gestures, or otherwise. The children especially knew how to tell or show us what they needed.”  

One afternoon, the group spent a few amazing hours at an orphanage in La Romana, creating games and playing with the children.

While Kadis was proud of how the entire Watkinson group conducted themselves, he recalls a special sense of pride when he watched his own kids playing with the Haitian children. “I’ll always remember how Bryce and Devin reacted as the children interacted with them; playing with Devin’s blond hair and hanging onto Bryce. It was so great.”

 4:00/5:00 p.m.

The Watkinson group returned to home base by bus.

At home base, the group prepared small baggies of prescriptions drugs and food packages, (rice, sardines, black beans, oil, pasts), for the next day.

7:00 p.m.

Dinner.

8:00 p.m.

More baggies prepared and food packages parceled out. “We spent hours each day doing this.”

11:00 p.m. 

Lights out in the dorms. “We were usually asleep by 10:00 p.m.!”

Then, they started anew the next day.

 Coming Wednesday: Part III Back Home. Lessons Learned.