What would you do?
...If you lived in Ojeda and had practically no income, since you don't own land and live too far away from the coffee plantations to make it worth your while to pick coffee, and even if you could get up there to pick the beans, the Haitian workers would out compete you! What would you do for income to put food on the table?
How about a rock party?
One day a home builder stops by your community and goes out to examine the rocks on the beach. He finds quite a few that are clean white; with relatively flat sides. Eduardo sees him examining the rocks and goes out to inquire. The man invites him to gather the clean white rocks into piles and then put them into bags. If Eduardo will do this, the man promises to pay fifteen pesos (fifty cents) per bag. They both agree to the measuring unit: empty five gallon paint buckets... and so a business got launched!
Teamwork:
Each afternoon, when the sun's rays don't blind people from distinguishing between really clean rocks and so-so rocks, Eduardo and his neighbors walk down from their homes to the beach, along with their grandchildren. Everyone joins in the task of gathering rocks; each according to his or her ability. As the darkness descends, the parents and grandparents begin to load the strong plastic bags and tie them off. Each bag weighs between forty to fifty pounds. They then carry the bags up to the side of the highway that runs along the coast, between Barahona and Pedernales.
Work is play/play is work:
Ordinarily, the adults would be ashamed to be seen doing this sort of lowest level menial labor. People have their dignity to uphold and when one stoops to picking up rocks, it is like broadcasting that the person is practically destitute. Who wants to reveal that kind of message to the community at large? How many people in the "developed" countries would rather jump out of a window than have their poverty known by their peers? But enter the children...and an embarrassing job becomes a fun exercise. Even teenagers are able to gather under the umbrella of fun making that the children deploy. Imagine how different this scene would be, without the laughing "little people"!
Who is really poor?
By choosing to work, rather than beg or sit around complaining, the adults in Ojeda who go down to the beach every afternoon have found a way to keep the worst of poverty at bay: poverty of spirit. When one observes the parents, grandparents and children all sharing in a common survival task, one senses a richness of spirit. These are not defeated people, even though life has not dealt them a royal flush or even two of a kind.
