2011 La Romana Impression

     "Can you take my baby to the United States?" a teenage mother in Batey G asked me in simple Spanish since her native language is Creole, the Haitian language. I used my very limited Spanish to explain that I cannot do that and left. As a Taiwanese student living in the United States, I look very different from her, but I see similarities between us. We both try hard to study foreign languages which can help us get more opportunities in the era of globalization. We both hope that our next generation can enjoy a life better than ourselves. I might not have a chance to see her again in my life, but from now on, whenever I see news about the Dominican Republic, I will think of her and will consider her rights and benefits when hearing international policies related to her country.

     I spent my Spring break of 2011 in La Romana, the Dominican Republic. As a volunteer at the Good Samaritan Hospital (Hospital El Buen Samaritano), I participated in their projects in bateyes. Bateyes are villages around sugarcane fields that were built by Central Romana Corporation, the largest sugar producer in the Dominican Republic, for their workers. Most bateyes have poor housing conditions. Take Batey G as an example, every two houses share one toilet, and four hundred people share only four sinks. Besides, many batey residents are undocumented Haitians without basic legal and medical rights in the Dominican Republic. I helped patients in the hospital and went to bateyes to assist de-worming treatments for children and to help maintain water filters in households.

     In fact, I was not always a person with passion to get out of my comfort zone to help people. I was born and raised in Taiwan and witnessed the rapid economic growth and improvements in many aspects of living. I have also travelled to many Asian countries, from the less developed to the more advanced, since I was young. However, from these experiences, I did not become a compassionate person who cares about people from a poorer social class or from poorer countries. Actually, I became aware of poverty and inequality issues after I went to the United States for studies.

     The first city I lived in the United States was New Haven, Connecticut. Although Connecticut is one of the richest states in the United States and New Haven is the home of a world-known university, Yale University, New Haven is a severely race-segregated city with a big population of low-income African Americans. I was quite scared the first time I went to a homeless shelter crowded with hundreds of black men, but when I served dinner for them with a smile, they received my service with a smile as well. I started to see the same human nature among us and to think about why they cannot enjoy a life as comfortable as mine and how their lives might be improved. At the same time, I learned about various domestic and international development works from courses and seminars at Yale and decided to continue studies in development economics.

     Before starting my Ph.D., I worked for one year in New York City, and in addition to my full-time job, the City taught me a lesson of urbanization and the drastic income inequality. I regularly served AIDS patients, unemployed women, low-income children, the poor and the homeless in Manhattan and the Bronx through different organizations. I cooked and served meals to people who are quite different from me and listened to their stories. Sometimes, I really had difficulty switching my mind from socializing with the richest and the most powerful during my daytime work to chatting with the poorest and the weakest during volunteer work. Although this lifestyle helped me understand the co-existence of the poor and the rich, it did not make me feel used to it.

     After the one year in New York, I went to graduate school again with a quite different view of the world but the same passion. After completing the coursework and qualification exams in the first two years of the Ph.D. program, I went to the Dominican Republic with the hope to gain some first-hand experience in the field. Indeed, I see that international development work not only provides help to people in need but also connects different people together and develops relationships which can last. I suddenly realized that I did not have any compassion for people when I travelled in Southeast Asia as a kid because all relationships back then were business transactions, ignoring real people.
    
     Besides, seeing some air and water pollutions in the Dominican Republic reminded me of what I saw in historical pictures of Taiwan. Different countries are just in different stages of the development process, and people in advanced countries shall never take what we have for granted. I also realized that for the teenage mom in Batey G, although today I could give her medicine to cure her baby’s sickness or give her a lesson for birth control, the poverty and health problems in her batey require more fundamental changes in government or international policies. The experience in the Dominican Republic confirmed my long-lasting enthusiasm for works aiming to reduce poverty and improve the quality of life of people in developing countries. As an economist, I hope one day I can utilize my quantitative and analytical skills to make a bigger impact through research and policies.

     Many foreign volunteers told friends in La Romana that they will go back to La Romana again. I did not say that because I do not want to make a promise which I am not sure if I can keep. What I know for sure is that I deeply appreciate this chance of being in La Romana. I am indebted to Fred, Alice, Moises, Kristy and other friends, who helped me in various ways during the trip, and I have to give special thanks to Timothy, who helped me make this trip possible. I still do not know whether God will bring me back to La Romana or not, but I know I will not forget the valuable lessons I learned from this trip. I wrote down these words in memory of not only the incredibly blue sky but also the lovely kids in La Romana who were kind to me and tried very hard to communicate with a person who did not even speak Spanish.

*This article has also been modified by Timothy as Not just a tourist.