Walking through the Bateyes

Walking through the Bateyes 

Walking through the bateyes was something I haven’t seen. A batey is a village of predominately Haitian sugar cane workers who live in deep and unrelenting poverty in the Dominican Republic. It was poverty like I’ve never experienced or seen before. It was like when I visited Mexico and the small towns where people had very little resources and also lived with poor health. The houses of the bateyes were built with all type of material from wood to sheets of metal siding. A view from a whole new perspective was formed for me. In seeing the living conditions of the people who live in the bateyes. It was a very humbling experience to not take what I have at home in the United States for granted. 

Things that Americans and others who have so much often take for granted every day these people would cherish and be so happy to have. Although many of the children in the bateyes had very little they still found ways to make them happy and play. Even if it was giving one of their friends or buddies a ride on their bike or playing rock, paper, scissors. To have so little and still find the best in the little thing around us is the most beautiful and touching thing there could be, but it is also eye-opening and heartbreaking. One thing which really upset me when we were in the batey is that there were places called “Bancas,” which are sometimes a place to gamble on sport but in the bateys it was a place to buy lottery tickets. To have a place such as a “banca” in a poor community as a batey infuriated me. In the United States it is very similar where liquor stores or places to purchase lottery tickets are strategically placed in lower income communities to prevent them from improving their way of life or socioeconomic status. It infuriating to see the evil and malice in people taking advantage of such a poor community as the people living in the bateyes. They are struggling every day to feed their families and themselves, little to no access to healthcare, or them not having the proper sanitation and clean water those resources could have gone to other than a “banca.” 

 

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