Tamayo

 

Tamayo and Vincente Noble are in the Neyba valley in the southwest of the DR. They are somewhat inland and drier, and removed from what tourists would normally see. Not an easy place to earn a living. The average Dominican family household lives on about $500 USD income per month. On average less here. Over recent years the number of Dominicans from this area that have emigrated to Spain and become domestics and lower working class number in the thousands. The DR is a middle-class nation by Latin American standards. Haiti, the border being nearby the Neyba valley, occupies the western third of Hispaniola and is hopelessly poor by comparison.

The Neyba valley is basically agricultural. The most abundant crop is a type of banana. There is a river running through the valley, Yaque del Sur, that provides water for irrigation. The management of the dam upstream is variable; in sustained rain those in the center of town must head for higher ground to get away from the perpetual flooding. Other crops bringing good money are generally delivered to small boats on coastal beaches in the middle of the night.

If one keeps driving up the highway one passes through the area that includes Lake Enriquillo. The lake is saltwater and has no outlet. It is about 12 miles across and is the lowest point in the Caribbean at 148 feet below sea level. It is in fact the lowest point on an ocean island anywhere in the world. It lies in a "rift" valley caused by a geological fault line that starts at the east end of Cuba, skirts Jamaica and runs through the southwest of Hispaniola going right down down the valley containing Tamayo and Vincente Noble. It is the same fault that caused the catastrophic earthquake in 2010 that destroyed much of Port au Prince, capital of Haiti. (Port Royal, of Pirates of the Caribbean fame and at the mouth of the bay in Kingston, Jamaica's harbor, was also destroyed by this fault in 1692. Tortuga, the place of pirates and villainy, is a real place as well. The small island was home to French buccaneers, it is off the northwest corner of Hispaniola, and is part of Haiti.) Lake Enriquillo is one of a few saltwater lakes in the world inhabited by crocodiles. There are also lizards that grow to 2 feet and it has a very large number of Flamingos. Nearby there is a protected reserve that is highly sensitive ecologically and contains unique species of iguanas under study by biologists.

Even further up the road is a main border crossing into Haiti and has been and has been used as a staging point for relief to refugees of the 2010 earthquake. It has been proven that the terrible outbreak of Cholera after the earthquake was caused by UN workers from Nepal and poor sanitary practices on a UN base. This introduced a virulent Asian strain in a region that had never seen the disease before. As of the beginning of 2014 it has cost the lives of close to 8000 people and hospitalized hundreds of thousands. The UN continues to deny any responsibility, but in early 2014 it invoked the legal immunity from lawsuits written into its charter. As Tamayo and Vicente Noble are on this road, some in the towns became infected. Tamayo's hospital, while basic, is adequate to provide the IV fluids and antibiotics that keep the disease from being deadly. In the 1800's Haiti militarily seized a large part of the DR and was quite brutal in its occupation. (Vicente Noble is named after a key Dominican general from this period.) As a result and because the DR is Catholic and Haiti very different in culture including being home to the Voodoo "religion", there is no love lost between the two. Illegal Haitians are immediately deported. I personally watched soldiers board the guagua (smaller "milk run" buses) I was on and conduct a passenger search.  They were looking at ID's for only those that appeared Haitian. They reduced a woman with a flimsy paper "permit" to hysterical sobbing, and finally took her into custody. As a result of the Cholera outbreak still going on 3 years later, and the even more desperate hopes for a better life in the DR in the aftermath of the earthquake, military checkpoints looking for illegal Haitians are common in this part of the country.

 

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