CAP-HAITIEN,
lulling 17-year-old Douna Marcellus and two dozen others to sleep as
tight balls of mosquitoes hover overhead. Cicadas serenade them from
the reeds on one bank and, on the other, black pigs root through
smoldering trash.
Like the others in the boat, Douna is a refugee from
and the unspeakable horrors of the earthquake and its aftermath. Her
parents and sister were crushed in their home, just seconds after Douna
walked out the front door to run an errand for her mother. The
government offered free bus tickets out of town and Douna took one.
But this city on
northern coast is just a way station. When builders finish the boat in
a few days, it will set sail with the teenager and at least 40 others
for
If they survive the 600-mile crossing, and aren’t intercepted by the
U.S. Coast Guard, they’ll soon be walking the streets of opportunity.
“America is a place where everybody can become
someone,” Douna says before bedding down for the night, an expression
of certainty on her pretty young face. “It’s where everyone lives like
human beings.”
And besides, she says, “I have nowhere else to go.”
The
of a U.S. administration newly sympathetic to undocumented Haitians,
has meant opportunity for the shady world of Cap-Haitien boat builders
who promise to make the dream of life in
In the early 1990s, when a junta drove President
After the earthquake, the Obama administration
quickly announced that it was granting “temporary protected status” to
the more than 100,000 undocumented Haitians estimated to be living in
The move was generally welcomed by politicians on
both sides of the aisle as a fitting humanitarian gesture in the wake
of the tragedy. But some expressed concern that it might trigger
renewed efforts by Haitians to attempt to enter
recorded radio messages discouraging his countrymen from trying to make
the risky journey, and the Coast Guard increased its patrols.
“It’s clearly something people here have thought of,” said
To qualify for temporary protected status, Haitians have to prove that they were in
on or before the quake. But for people in the country illegally, that
could be difficult to verify, and the would-be immigrants in
Cap-Haitien are counting on that.
Dorcilien Louis, a taciturn man of 40, is the
captain of Douna’s 42-foot boat. Late last week, he was overseeing the
final stages of construction: Workmen with long saws were building the
cabin, and he had a crew out looking for material for a sail and a
second motor. (“Our first engine has a little problem.”)
It took three months to build the boat, at a cost of about
During his 15 years as a captain, Louis has made a
dozen journeys to the islands with passengers hoping to start new lives
and, perhaps, eventually find a way to
(When the authorities on those islands intercept boats from
they sink them, jail the passengers and put them on the next airplane
flight home. The U.S. Coast Guard sinks boats it intercepts as well,
but usually transports the passengers back to
Louis changed his itinerary, though, and stepped up
the ship construction after the quake, when thousands of people began
arriving from
“We’ve got a lot of demand, and these people from
He said 40 passengers had signed up for the journey
and he was expecting 20 new arrivals from the capital. The boat is
built for 40 people, “but it can hold 60,” he said. And if a few more
paying customers show up at the last minute, he added, “we’ll squeeze
them on too.”
The boat is being built on a narrow, secluded
waterway that feeds into the bay, out of sight of Haitian coast guard
patrols and U.S. ships that Louis said he’s spotted on the shimmering
blue sea just outside the bay.
“The U.S. Coast Guard is giving us a lot of worries,” said
cap in the sweltering sun. “They’ve heard we are going. But we’re
watching them, and as soon as we get a chance, we think we can make it.”
The fare for the journey is flexible. For those who can pay, Louis charges
“But people who don’t have money can bring wood for
the ship,” he said. “And people who don’t have wood, we put them to
work as builders.” (As a teenager who lost her family in the quake,
Douna is being allowed to go for free, he said.)
Louis has never made the journey to the U.S., and
navigation has been a problem for the boats, which often spend two
weeks at sea on a trip that, even in the rickety boats, should take
less than a week. But this time he is bringing along two navigators
who’ve made the trip, though both were on boats that were stopped by
the Coast Guard.
If he makes it to
“I’m not coming back to
The time was right
Among Louis’ passengers is
24, who lives on the ground floor of a pastel-pink French Creole house
a short walk from the water. Jean has twice attempted the journey, once
a year ago and again in July. Those journeys depleted her resources,
which she collected as a beautician, and her stamina.
“It’s a lot of suffering,” she said. “People
throwing up on you, you can’t take a shower, there’s little food, and
the boat is always shaking back and forth.” One of her journeys lasted
14 days because the captain got lost, and three people became ill and
died.
Until last month, Jean had been resigned to waiting
longer before trying again. But she began reconsidering two weeks ago,
when she got word that her boyfriend, who lived in
Then, she heard from a friend in
The friend, alone among those on the boat, had been allowed to stay
because she was eight months pregnant. The baby was born and the friend
was being held for deportation.
“She called to tell me that she got her papers,” Jean said. “Just like that. All the Haitians in
So, Jean decided the time was right. On both of her previous trips, Jean got within sight of
“We saw a lot of beautiful lights and a lot of cars,” she said. “But we never touched the ground.”
If she can just reach
she said, “I won’t have a problem. I know people everywhere there.”
Leaving her family makes her sad, “but I’m not all that sad, because
I’m going to look for a better life.”
Douna, though, feels that she’s leaving nothing behind.
“I saw the house go down on my mother,” she said. “No one is left for me.”
—
(c) 2010, Los Angeles Times.
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