Achieving a Dream

by Liliana Nuel

Liliana Nuel (1994) Sabana Larga de Gonzalo, province of Monte Plata. She studied until 12th grade and married at the age of fourteen. She currently has three children. She has her national identity and electoral card. She is not employed and is not studying.

I come from a very poor family, my dad is a farmer. Since my childhood I have been able to observe how he worked in the sugarcane fields, where he gave it his all so that my brothers and I wouldn’t miss a meal. I grew up in Sabana Larga de Gonzalo, I still live there, in a poor batey where work opportunities are scarce, where families go hungry.

When Hurricane George hit,¹ the batey Sabana Larga was left completely destroyed, without any work opportunities, and it still remains that way. In that batey, in order to survive, men have to do day labor and women do not have access to work. What there is most of in the batey Sabana Larga are five colmadones (convenience stores); of those, only two stores sell food (and also sell beer and rum). The other three only sell [alcoholic] drinks. That’s where most people go to spend their money, buying drinks. There are three Christian churches and an elementary [school] that goes from first to fifth grade. Whoever wants to continue their education has to walk 5 km to the other school.

In order to give my children a better life, I had to put up with everything my children’s father said to me, until one day I made up my mind and separated from him. I went to work for the company Induspalma Dominicana² where (every day) I had to collect 25 bags of fruit and I had to transfer those bags 1 km away so that the truck could pick them up when it passed. When I got home I couldn’t stand the pain, because it was a very strenuous job.

When I found myself in that situation, I thought about leaving that job, but my friends told me to hold on a bit longer because I had no husband to help me provide for my children. I withstood that job for nine months and managed – through a lot of effort - to build a house in which I now live with my three children. Now I rely on the support of my parents because I am not working.

When my dad worked, he took us with him. My dad cut sugarcane, and my brothers and I helped him bring it to the cart. Years later, the cane was running out and the [Dominican] government wanted to get rid of Haitian immigrants. One day they sent the “migra”³ to the batey Sabana Larga. Children, teenagers, young people, adults and the elderly started running away, and we were afraid they would deport our father. And my dad got under the bed and told us “mete cochon su nu.”⁴ My brothers and I lifted the mattress and put it on them (without thinking that they could suffocate) because we didn’t want them to take our parents. Hours later after we didn’t hear any more commotion in the yard, we took our parents out from under the mattress.

When my father was unemployed for good, it was a month of suffering, during that time my brothers and I had no food. Days later, my dad struggled and struggled until he found a solution.

We watched him leave the house every day, until one day he took us to kilometer 2. The “21” is where my dad had the conuco (small plot), where we had to travel 5 km on foot until we reached the conuco he had set up, where he planted all kinds of things. From then on we walked to the conuco every day. We didn’t want to keep going back to that conuco because it was too far to go on foot, but I had no choice but to go because I had been chosen as the cook. Then I demanded that my dad buy a horse and he did: he bought two horses.

Days later my dad planned a convite (a convite is when several people go to work with you and you have to cook lots of food). He invited four men. We left the house at about 4:00 a.m., my parents were on foot and my brothers and I rode the two horses. That day we had to sleep in the cave that was in the conuco.__ My dad discovered that cave while cleaning up weeds when he was going to prepare the _conuco.__ He cleaned it and considered it like a house. That day my mother brought a mattress and two sheets so that we could sleep there, they made a fire inside the cave to keep the mosquitoes away. My dad took two gas bottles and prepared two lamps with a denim cloth. My brothers and I were terrified that a snake might pop out or that there might be another type of animal inside that cave that could hurt us. The next day the workers that my dad had invited to the _convite arrived and I started cooking. My father, along with the workers and my brothers got to work. My mother began to sow beans.

Hours later, when we were already collecting everything to leave the conuco, helicopters arrived and my brothers and I were excited, but what we didn’t know was that they were coming for my father. When they landed in the mountains, guards with guns and ropes came out. My dad was getting the horses ready. They tied up my dad, and my brothers and I started to cry. They took the workers. My father was not taken that day, but he was forbidden from returning to the conuco again because it was in a government-protected area.⁵ My dad worked those lands because there was no sugarcane and there were no more sources of employment for feeding his children.

Days later the workers returned, I don’t know if they paid [to be released], but they finally returned. Then they left the batey but my father stayed to live in the batey. However, my dad never stopped going to his conuco until one day he reaped everything and we were able to sustain ourselves.

For me to be a math teacher I would have to leave the batey where I live and thus be able to look for a decent job (in order to continue my studies and so that my three children do not go through what I went through at the time). For that reason, I want to be a great math teacher, so that I can give a better life to my three children who are my reason to continue fighting. Someday I will achieve my dream.