In Las Salinas, the sun conspicuously shines as the southern breeze always blows one way, the view from the bay, topped by a wall of windmills, is an everyday scene, a whistle far away makes itself heard, as a dozen men rush in-between the salt deposits towards a source — The meaning of this whistle is purely contextual, “the wagon is off the rails!”, “let’s go” and “here” can be some of those meanings.
Some 518 years ago in what is today The Dominican Republic, Christopher Columbus, while trying to protect himself from the weather, found Las Salinas by accident near Puerto Hermoso village, situated around Las Calderas Bay, near the city of Baní — Attempting to protect it from others, it ended up turned into a salt business that was, and still is, one of the most important salt mine in the Caribbean at that time.
Ginal remembers his past very well, as one of the many Haitians working in the salt mine they share a common past; Born in Port-au-Prince, he was raised in Haiti’s gaze, his interests, friends, love affairs and life were shaped by this part of the island, however, he was also shaped by his motherland’s convoluted history. After years and years of conflict, corruption and, more notably, the earthquake of 2012 he decided to leave the country in order to live a better life in the Dominican Republic; having been working at the salt mine for 4 months now his upbringing keeps him from ever looking back, he’s aware his current life is not the best but, in contrast with where he comes from, how could he ever? “We were not okay, we never were” he replies, when asked about why he left. Being passionate about business and driving, he says he’s lucky to be here, but when he feels weak he prays to keep his head “above the water”.
Haiti itself used to be a french colony, at a time when affairs were more of a matter of possession between European powers than anything else, France and Spain ended up splitting the island of Hispaniola in two, those two parts being the Dominican Republic and Haiti. However, the two powers, while treating their respective islands in an equally bad fashion, managed their own differently. The way France treated Haiti had a lingering effect on its economy that still has nefarious consequences to this day; One of the first problems was the way the European power overused the land’s soil and resources for quick profit, which made the land dry and hardly usable. From a bird’s eye view, it can be (in)famously seen by the stark contrast between the Haitian and Dominican side of the border. Second important event was whenever France put Haiti in a 21 billion dollars debt and participating to the country’s economical collapse. Those two events are one of the many events leading to Haitians ultimately fleeing the country’s poverty, like Ginal, who ended up working at the salt mine.
As early as 8, when the sun rays give us no excuse to remain in bed, the first workers show up; Often tired, often groggy, as their bodies are still far asleep and dreaming in different ways, first, they hang their bags — each one has his own preferred place, a habit that writes itself in the details, as a tradition that needs to be respected. Then, when enough workers are present, they randomly pick a number from a baseball cap that will determine their occupation for the day.
There is a profound sense of luck and serendipity as some cheer and dance at having been chosen for a less tedious task than others, who will then have to take on the more dangerous and hard ones. While this might seem whimsical of some to find such enjoyment out of it, it can only be a testimony of the tediousness of the day to come. Later, as everybody is in their place, they will then repeat the same routine, over and over, until night falls — Some will pick the salt up from the pink hued flats to bring it to land in wooden boats, some will shovel it into the same old rusty wagons — As one brings them to the top of the main structure, others will then pour the precious ore into entire mountains of whites until dusk where they all gather to share followed by their departure in the same solitary white truck going back to the city.
And yet, no matter how much this space excites our most basic senses: the sunlight, the wind, the crackling noises, the working conditions of these men are harsh and difficult — This harshness comes from many sides, but is mostly physical as collecting salt is physical by nature. The thing is, all the tools these men use date to as far back as before the 2000, from the tracks to the wagons, the wooden infrastructure, the smell of salt and rust fills the nose, while the screech of the struggling rails becomes the sound of difficulty. Every inch of this place is ancient and represents a factor to take into account as it makes simple tasks more or less tedious — for example, in order to bring back the wagons of salt they need to be pulled by a machine, however, because of the rails and the wheels are rusty, the wagons will often leave the tracks, then the workers need to gather together in a difficult act of lifting the heavy wagon full of the precious commodity using a wooden stick as levis. The wagon going off track is a recurring scene and it can happen an average of 3 times before getting to the top. Yet, nothing is done about it even though it is a dangerous practice that has left some wounded in the past, says Tano.
There’s also the fact that these workers work with salt, and there’s a general rule saying that you cannot come back to work if you got injured, even if it means having a small cut, says Tano. But a lot of these men require work in order to sustain themselves in what amounts to an incredibly brittle livelihood, and cannot afford not to come everyday and work from dawn to dusk. Despite all of these restrictions they still push their bodies and tools to their own respective limits — Under the 35 degrees sun, or in the middle of a storm, these men work tirelessly, day by day, for a quota that needs to be met no matter what.
The reality is, they have no choice because of how easy they are to replace. In the Dominican Republic, if what you’re looking for is cheap manpower you will have plenty, the men working these jobs do not do it because they want to but because that kind of work is at the very bottom of what you can get. “Human Rights Watch estimated that 70,000 documented Haitian immigrants and 1,930,000 undocumented immigrants were living in the Dominican Republic” meaning there’s an abundance of people who left Haiti to flee from the poverty and in need of work, but two thirds of the jobs are not in formal workplaces and lack the necessary regulation. Some want to leave, but ultimately they can’t, “I’ve been working here for so long I can’t remember — more than 20 years.”, says Bienvenido, worker and elder of the salt mine. As he talks about the harshness of the job he adds “Even if I wanted to leave I can’t, I’m poor”, and it’s not as if they would have any one from the government to protect their rights either — The government is well aware the vast majority of these workers are haitians, and shrouded in anti-haitian resentment, the country itself lacks concern when it comes to regulation of those “jobs from the bottom”, knowing fully well it mostly impacts them.
The very omnipresent sense of community of the workers there is an important factor of resilience to be taken into account if we’re talking about how these workers have been able to stay here for so long. Whenever they gather, they share about their daily lives, women, they joke around, talk about the news, their friends and can remember their upbringing and cheer their existence there as an accomplishment, but can also freely talk about the intricacies of said upbringing, their worries and advice each other on various issues.
The Dominican Republic benefits from a very important expansion you can witness in everyday places, like the sight of people entering a mall who recently just opened, the sound of cars stopping in a brand new hotel nearby, the music from this new restaurant by the beach you would always go to. By comparison the salt mine is an exception, it’s a place where time doesn’t exist, it never expands, it always stays the same, and days look alike, everything has been more or less the same for centuries, and workers feel it, where many of them cannot even remember how long they’ve been working there.
We tend to think, hardly rewarded labor, or something close to an elusive definition of slavery wouldn’t have passed the test of time, that such a system would be dismantled due to never being able to find people willing to do such a dangerous and unrewarding job. And yet, being an haitian in the Dominican Republic makes you complementary to such workplaces, your life and such places become intricately connected by the circumstances of history. This place is not bad, in itself, and one underlying reason why people would turn a blind eye about the conditions of this salt mine is because, most of these people have a history of fleeing their country; In some ways, they are refugees, and in that aspect, the salt mine of Las Salinas is a place that represents the baseline of the life they sought, a place of in-betweens for those between befores and afters; Living in the Dominican Republic, the food is always affordable, there are always new houses being built where older ones will become even more affordable, new jobs are often created due the ever expanding economy, and from there, they can only go up, and while some haven’t left this place for years, what matters is to have opportunities waiting for them. The mine is one of the many limbos between what they had and the standard we often take for granted.