Paralyzed in a batey

by Estefany Feliz Pérez

Estefany Feliz Pérez (1990) Batey Cuchilla, Barahona. She is single, attends university and has no children.

I am Estefany Feliz Pérez. I currently live in Batey Cuchilla with my parents and with my six brothers. I am the second of my parents’ children, I am 26 years old. I studied at Batey Cuchilla Elementary School. I was always a quiet girl, a homebody.¹ I didn’t have as much freedom as other young people did. I grew up under the watchful care of my parents. I saw how my mother was with my father, how she struggled. At the end of la zafra,² they would spend six months up in the hills and then they returned to the batey. I did not know what it was like to want to be a professional, but I always wanted to be a secretary. In the batey, I live in Batey Cuchilla, where many people are a little afraid of the vulnerability of the batey. It is not because of the batey’s name, but because people come from other places to commit crimes at the entrance: robberies; many happen because the entrance is very isolated. I live in a batey that has 140 homes, where we only have the motoconchos, where—every time it rains—the main bridge collapses… where the motoconchos of the other communities do not want to come because of the road’s condition, because the road is not paved. In a batey with very dry, sandy soil, where it rains and we can sweep the dust the next day. Where mothers work in the planting of sugarcane and, others, in the sale of coal… others making bread to sell and others holding raffles, selling oils, food, etc. all that to have a little income. Some girls get married very early, others get pregnant at an early age due to lack of knowledge about what happens. Where some young people have to leave school to migrate to the capital due to lack of decent employment and, some mothers leave their children alone or with other people to migrate to the capital in search of a better future for them.

But, despite all this, it is one of the quietest bateyes, where there are people in solidarity with each other, no matter where you are from or who you are. Where the only way to get a job is the Central Sugar Consortium,³ where you are paid a miserable salary, where some families lose their loved ones in some of those jobs they do daily, where they are killed and the crime goes unpunished because the authorities do not investigate the murders. Where the wives wait for their husbands with anticipation on pay days and, when the husband arrives at the house, he arrives with the news that he was assaulted by a pillo [thief]. Because of that, the wife cannot go to the market on Sunday (because the husband did not come home with money). In spite of everything, country life is joy… not everything is bad, you can ask a favor from anyone [ sic] no matter whether it is a child or an adult. We share things like food- salt, sugar and sandals. Where you ask the neighbor for two plantains and she gives you three.

I live in one batey where to go outside the community I have to walk out or wait for a “bola.”⁴ When the motoconchos see you waiting for a ride, they act like the ‘chivo loco’,⁵ they are tired of giving free rides and more so on a Sunday, market day, [when they know] we all have the means to pay. We do not do it to avoid paying RD $200. No. We do it because paying RD $200 pesos—round trip—for a motoconcho would cut into the household’s grocery budget. Oh no…it can’t be like that… it’s better to ask for a free ride to go to market and pay to come back… and with the 100 pesos, I buy 100 pesos worth of seasoning, ahí me rinde as we say here.⁶

When I was enrolled in primary school, they enrolled me in Batey Cuchilla Elementary School, there was only one room for all the students in first, second, third and fourth grades. We all had to sit still and be quiet. The principal was a very brutal man. I remember that one time he banged my sister Karina’s head with the head of another classmate. He banged their heads together and thought that was “the only way” to punish them.

When I finished the fourth grade, I went to study in another community called El Palmar, where I completed fifth grade and all of high school at Ana Dilcia Santana High School. When I finished high school, I studied with so much effort and commitment and with the help of my parents. In my father’s home, no one could stay there without going to school. For my parents, education was paramount. Finishing school is a very important thing, since for a young girl to finish school in a batey that requires a very big effort considering the conditions in which many people live, especially for a family of seven children.

I remember that, for us, there was no such thing as a school “snack” or that you would get RD $5.00 (allowance) as some do—for us there was no such thing. There were only delicious mangoes. All the students would eagerly wait for some mangoes to fall and only the fastest runners could pick up the mango. We would go to our house to see what our mother had for us, whether she cooked or not. When I finished high school, at age 18, I was excited to enter college (like every young person who comes from a poor family, to finish their studies, that’s the biggest thing.) I, feeling happy, left high school. I was very excited.

In 2009 my nightmare began: as a young person, as a woman and as a daughter. That is when I went to the civil registry office, “oficialía” of my province, Bahoruco, specifically in Neiba, which is where I was entered into the Dominican civil registry book. I remember one morning there were some people who were going to an activity in Neiba when my mother told me, “Estefany, take advantage and go get your birth certificate, get a ride with them.” I prepared myself and got dressed to leave with them, feeling happy because I am going to enter university (since my classmates already had their documents ready). Well, when I arrived at the office, I asked for a certified record and was given the news that they could not provide me with my certificate because it was “under investigation.” That’s when I learned that I was being affected by Resolution 12.⁷ I had no knowledge of that.

It was at that moment that my suffering began, my depression, when I was told that they cannot give me my certificate because it was “under investigation.” But, in 2009, it was a year of great pain because the days came and went, going to appointments to know when it would be that they were going to give me my birth certificate. With the court ruling process, I thought we no longer had hope: I no longer had hope. I said to myself: “I am no longer hopeful, what am I going to do, my God? What will happen to everything I have done?” I was paralyzed in a batey without being able to work, without going to college.

In 2013 I got my birth certificate (thanks to the struggles made by us who were directly impacted, and with the help of national and international organizations and allies). Even when I got my documents (my birth certificate, my national identity card), even so, I felt the same way. I was happy because I already had [the documents], but I didn’t know what to do with my life, since six years had passed since I finished high school and I couldn’t go to college. I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t know where to start. I thought: “Do I go out to look for work or enter university? I felt that I was not clear about what I wanted. But, thank God that I had people who were interested in my well-being, who at all times sent us links about when there was enrollment in the university, [one of those] people is Ana María Belique.

Well, I looked up all my documents, I enrolled in the university. I spent a four-month period, then left university for a year because I couldn’t pay, since it was a private university. I went to study at the state university, the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, but- every time I went—the teacher did not come… and that discouraged me until I left the university again. I only studied for four months…and, in 2016, I went back to university.

I am currently studying law and, in two years, I will finish my law degree. Then, I will do a master’s degree in Social Sciences because, despite everything, I like history. I want to be a history teacher, to work with young people who are not clear about our history because today there are many historians who have distorted history. I also want to be a Civil Officer to work in the Civil Registry Office, since I have been doing accompaniment work through the Reconoci.do Movement. And that is what I most enjoy.