Haiti

Day 6 – We returned to Dajabon by car. We had read about a huge street market that takes place on Mondays and Fridays, with mostly Haitan vendors, and we thought we might be able to find cheap souvenirs there. We parked a couple blocks away from the border, and immediately saw the market –the streets surrounding the border were PACKED, with every spare space filled, and a narrow path to walk through everything. After walking - single file, with Amy and I holding the kids' hands, the adults constantly ducking to avoid the tarps and ropes holding the tarps passing over the street, with an occasional motorcycle trying to come through, we know not why – we realized that this was merely a large collection of soaps, sneakers and handbags. Amy asked a couple people if there was art or crafts anywhere, and their responses told us they weren’t going to be found here. I also noticed that we were drawing attention – 2 or 3 guys were following us, no matter where we turned. They had backpacks, and constantly bumped us. I kept feeling my pockets, worrying about pickpockets, but nothing was missing, and I warned Amy of the same – she had a handbag over her shoulder. After one particularly crowded section – many people grouped together, a lot of jostling to get through – I found I had been picked, and from a pocket that has a velcro latch on it, which I had always thought was hard to get to. I had lost about $100 US and my bank card. I was upset, and told Amy about it. Lane and Benjamin were becoming more nervous, and this didn’t help. After discovering the robbery, I noticed a man with a red backpack following us closely, and he kept on trying to pass me. Now being paranoid, I kept on blocking him with my body, thinking he was trying to get to Amy’s handbag. I also asked Amy to change directions a few times, and he stayed right with us. Lane started yelling – someone had put their hand in Amy’s bag. We got out of the market, with Lane in full meltdown, and took inventory. Nothing had been taken from Amy’s bag. Lane was just very upset, having heard that I’d been robbed, and seeing someone try to rob Amy. I just felt stupid – of course, as among the very few obvious foreigners there, we were going to be targeted, and why hadn’t I expected and been better prepared for this? In retrospect, I feel like I / we got off cheap. It could have been much much worse.

One question: who buys all these handbags you see at markets like these?

We headed back to our hotel in Monte Christi. The guidebooks claim this area contains some of the best snorkeling in the country, so we asked a local boat guy if he knew where to go. He said yes, and he could take us there. We took a short boat ride to Isla Capri, which he said was very popular. It was litter strewn, even by Dominican standards, and wasn’t very interesting, except for some salt ponds in the middle of the small island. He then took us to a reef on the backside of the island. The water was very cloudy, and he said this was due to a river nearby that sometimes sent a lot of silt out. This happened occasionally, and today happened to be one of those days.