Pleasure and Work

Katie's run off to Italy for two weeks, to complete the residency portion of her Harvard course in refugee mental health. Lucky her, as her first report was that Orvieto is beautiful. She will begin to deepen knowledge of a field that has long interested her, and around which she hopes to shape her career. I know from my limited experience in US and international refugee work how important, and often (actually, regularly) overlooked, mental health services are for refugees. Go get 'em, Katie!

Goodbye hugs. 

Ever loving of their mother

And so, I'm left in the DR with my day job and my other job, the puppies. I was thinking yesterday of how the puppies have helped us discover our surrounds. First, there is the fact that we must walk them. They don't particularly LIKE walking, but we sort of make them do it. And so, on walks we meet neighbors (not so much meeting as repeatedly saying hello, smiling, their clucking or awing at the pups), and take time to look at the colonial architecture while the dogs sniff (99% of the time aimed at some chicken bone that we can’t see but they eventually find. Dominicans LOVE fried chicken and throw bones all over the place).

The zona colonial is in varying states of preservation and decay.  

Stone from the ancient seabed was a common building material in colonial times. It's still frequently used for stairs,  walls, etc. 

                                                 

                                This colonial government building was made from seabed, as above. 

The second and most significant benefit has come through our relationship with Chookie, our dog sitter and household helper. Chookie runs a hair salon in her mother’s home, and has become Luna and Fia’s #1 public fan. The dogs run freely around the salon when in Chookie's care, and have made many friends there as well. Chookie, and her workmate Rosa, have given us pointers for security in the neighborhood, formally and informally introduced us to her neighbors, and  presented me to a group of domino players who have offered to have me join them whenever I like. 


Katie's studies in Italy position me as point man for the puppies. Nonetheless, we've been able to integrate them into my favorite elements of weekends and free time. First is the pool on our roof, which is small but incredibly refreshing. 

It’s only four stories up, but offers a great view of the colonial city and the Caribbean (not the most attractive part of the Sea, but it is suggestive of the rest). It’s open all day and night, which is great because ‘pool hours’ always disappoint me, so it serves well for morning pre-work dips, afternoon refreshers, and evening wine under the moon, stars, or whatever's going on in the tropical heavens. 

Katie's leg mind you, not mine

Lately we've benefitted from strong cool breezes, which at night seem like pre-storm winds, but mostly happen under clear skies. There must be something going on out in the open waters.  


After two years of mostly novel-free grad school, I've rediscovered "reading for pleasure". I still feel sort of guilty doing it at the expense of work or other pursuits, but it's great. I'm now finishing Graham Greene's The Comedians, which is about Haiti in the time of Papa Doc Duvalier. Many of the Haitian refugees in the DR fled from Papa and his thugs, the Tontons Macoute.  I highly recommend the book. 

 


















Finally, we've both been busy still setting up the house. My most recent project was a division between dogville and humanville on our porch. It's a rather rudimentary structure, built of cardboard, plastic from water bottles, bottle tops, and screws pinched from Ikea furniture. 

Cardboard division at right. Mini tropical paradise,  center.

Nevertheless, it keeps the teeth, pee, and hair on one half of the porch; and furniture, plants, candles and anything we don't want chewed to death on the other. 


And then there is work, the reason after all that Katie and I came to the DR. UNHCR has the UN mandate to ensure that refugees receive the protection they need in countries around the world. International refugee law is based on the Refugee Convention, which was created in 1951 to respond to WWII refugees and then updated and expanded in 1967 to officially apply to persons who flee persecution in other contexts.   Countries that are signatories to the Convention have the responsibility to receive asylum-seekers, and make a determination on their request in accordance with refugee law.  They must ensure that they have access to human rights in their countries of asylum, and that they are not deported to the country in which they fear persecution.


UNHCR was in the Dominican Republic between 1993 and 1997,  responding largely to inflows of Haitians fleeing the military government that overthrew Aristide in 1991. This was just one of a number of violent, unfair assumptions of power in Haiti's political history. UNHCR helped the Dominican government decide upon refugee claims during this period, and then left the country with the understanding that the Government would and could fulfill its obligations under international (and domestic) law. Nonetheless, the Dominican government did not systematically provide full protection for refugees. Most of the Haitians and nationals of other countries who sought asylum in the DR after 1997 were received, and allowed to apply for asylum, but have not had their cases studied. This means that they have the tenuous legal status of "asylum-seeker", which should prevent them from being deported, but does not allow them access to work. This situation, which is systematically aggravated by the fact that street-level authorities are not familiar with their country's asylum policies, with the legal value of an asylum-seeker certificate issue by the Government, or with the guarantee of non-return to the asylum-seeker's home country, makes for a hazardous and marginalized life for many asylum-seekers. It is hard for them to work, they are regularly detained, they have trouble accessing schools, and they do not have equal access to police protection.


UNHCR, absent in the country from 1997 to 2010, has returned to help the Government revamp its asylum system. They have welcomed us (though with hesitations that you can imagine) and have "helped us help them" in initial steps to stimulate the analysis of and decisions on some of the cases that have been pending now for over a decade. As you can imagine, this is challenging in many aspects. I'll continue to update on this and other aspects, as our work progresses. In the meantime, following are a few articles in English on refugees, migrants, and human rights in the DR:


1) Amnesty International report on human rights abuses by DR authorities
2) "As Refugees From Haiti Linger, Dominicans’ Good Will Fades"
     Note: The article misapplies the term 'refugee' by referring to earthquake victims who fled. In fact, by international law definition a refugee is someone who has fled persecution for one of a number of specific reasons.
3) "Dominican Republic: Haitians Detained"
     Note: Mass detentions of Haitians are regular. Most times refugees and asylum-seekers are able to avoid deportation, but not always.