About twenty years ago,
this property would have been managed with the Dominican owner living on his coffee farm and one of his sons living in the little house pictured above. The cement platform in the foreground is used for drying the coffee beans. Also present on the property but hidden from view is a rain catchment system, since there are few rivers or streams in the limestone mountains.
Today:
The lady in the picture is from Haiti. Together with her family and other friends or relatives from Haiti, they occupy the home of the Dominicans who have since moved into Paraiso or Barahona or even further away. As you may note, little effort has been put into renovating the buildings. This holds true for the coffee plantation. Because of falling prices over the years, coffee is considered to be a marginal source of income for most Dominicans. They do not want to invest in keeping up their buildings or the plantation since the profit margins are so low or even non-existent.
For the Haitians,
work on a coffee plantation is better than no work or exploitation on a soil eroded farm in Haiti. But the drawback is that the Haitians rarely earn enough to purchase property in the Dominican Republic. Without that incentive, it is difficult for them to establish roots. Our 10 small catholic schools have mostly Haitian students. They might stay for the entire school year, but then again the incentives for their parents are often in the form of migratory work. Thus the children often end up moving to the next job site. The coffee beans ripen earliest in the lower elevations. They are picked off the bushes and then the pulp is removed in a grinder. After that, the beans are placed in the sunlight on a cement surface to dry out. Then they are bundled and sold to middle men. There are other methods to prepare the beans for sale, and the best one is called the "organic" method. Our parish groups and the farmers' associations are working towards that goal. One benefit would be higher prices for the coffee beans and thus more funds to better pay the workers and invest in the coffee plantations.
Long term:
The best outcome would be the Dominican owners returning to their land and being able to make a decent living on it, together with their Haitian laborers. A big obstacle in this process is the huge propaganda on radio and TV against a rural life style. Children and youth are brainwashed into judging that rural life is a waste of time and energy. If you drive around Paraiso you will see many men and youths who do not work or who have sub-employment, as in being a motorcycle taxi driver.
Light:
There are projects in the Dominican Republic which have actually produced a transformation, with campesinos returning to their lands from over-crowded city slums. One examle is the work of Father Luis Quin in San Jose de las Casas. Wouldn't it be awesome to witnss such a change in the mountain villages of Paraiso!
