Caribbean Threads

07/09/2017 When I mention that I am hoping to meet women sellers of pèpè, or secondhand clothing, the workers in the hotel where I’m staying in Cap-Haïtien assume I want to sell the clothes they’ve seen hung up and draped in piles around my bunkbed. I feel embarrassed that a) I may have overpacked for the trip and b) as a blan (foreigner) that which I discard is perceived to have value in Haiti. When I explain to traders in a depot oKap that I am writing a book about pèpè they laugh as if to say why bother. Yet, there is a lot to untangle within this industry. One trader shows me videos of pèpè’s itinerary from being deposited in charity bins in Miami to arriving in Cap-Haitien’s port. Another trader explains how she makes the trip from Orlando 3-4 times a year to ensure the safe arrival of her shipment. In Orlando she fills a container with 35-40 large bales of pèpè. The container takes 8 days to arrive oKap and the goods can then take over two weeks to get through customs before they are sold to women traders in the centre of Haiti’s second city.

Customers browse a new bale of pepe in Cap-Haitien’s market

At the pèpè market down near the port, the arrival of a new bale of clothing always attracts a decent-sized crowd. A fresh choice of clothing causes excitement and customers are quick to identify the best pieces to sell or wear later that evening. Along the edge of the market seamstresses and tailors bring their treadle machines out of their ateliers and nearer to potential customers, setting up each day under makeshift pèpè canopies. Once a garment has been bought at the market, customers can then take it directly to the sewers to be altered or mended for a small fee.

Touring the depots in the centre of town I am told that tou se pèpè/everything is pèpè or pre-used. Sewing machines, crockery, school shoes…tou se pèpè. Shops selling new clothing in Cap-Haïtien are few and far between. Local factories, even those owned by Haitian families, supply the North American market which means that small retailers must import new clothing mainly from the U.S.. Customs charges are cripplingly high for these smaller businesses. As a strategy to overcome the fees, some are forced to transport new clothing hidden within bales of secondhand pèpè in order to keep prices down.

5/9/2017

Every Monday and Friday the border that separates the twin towns of Ouanaminthe in Haiti and Dajabón in the Dominican Republic opens to allow Haitian traders to sell their goods at the binational market situated on the Dajabón side. The border opens at 8am but the traffic through Ouanaminthe begins much earlier, with some travelling from as far as Cap-Haïtien in order to buy and sell on lot bo a (the other side). On the 5am tap tap minibus ride from Cap to Ouanaminthe, women pay extra to load bales of secondhand clothing from Miami or Atlanta on the roof. In Ouanaminthe they stock up on spaghetti, vermicelli and other food items, which they take back and can easily sell on the streets of Cap-Haïtien.

During August I spend market days with three sisters from the border town of Ouanaminthe who work as secondhand clothing komesan with their mother, who has passed down this trade to them, and their auntie who sells in the space next to theirs. The family sell used baby clothes – babygrows, bibs, t-shirts, leggings and dresses – in the indoor market. As I help fold the clothing into piles I read the labels of each piece trying to calculate its point of departure and imagine its previous owners. The clothes are laid on flattened rice sacks and customers bend over to sift through the different piles. Regular Dominican clients are offered a small wooden stool to sit and inspect the wares. Additionally, those who have developed a long-term business relationship (referred to as pratik) are able to buy on credit. There is a steady stream of mobile sellers of water sachets, cola, chanm chanm (a snack of ground corn and peanut dust sold in squares of plastic), socks and sanitary towels as we shift between sitting, squatting, kneeling and lying behind, on and within the colourful piles of pèpè that are destroyed with each new customer.

Avanse avanse! The market is noisy and knotted with hurried and industrious traders, wheelbarrows piled high achieving the impossible against the tide, bundles balanced on shoulders or heads, motos (who weave through both outside and inside (!!) spaces). As I walk through the mêlée, clashing and complementary sounds of Dominican merengue and Haitian konpa are overlaid with the Kreyòl-tinged Spanish and Spanish-tinged Kreyòl of the market buyers and sellers.

On my first visit, I am surprised at the number of women traders selling garlic in the market. The garlic is from Haiti and a quick look through the El Nacional and Listin Diario newspaper archives reveals numerous reports from the last 10 years of Dominican authorities seizing large shipments of contraband garlic (not cocaine!) at the border and Haitian traders photoed in front of garlic-crammed minibuses.

The solar eclipse on Monday 21st August means a slow trading day. People are not buying and the market is relatively quiet. Between 1-2pm in the afternoon, many traders, perhaps scared of the unknown, are heading back over the border bridge back into Haiti. A huge bottleneck of trucks, SUVs, motorbikes and people pressed into the gaps between these vehicles occurs. As men jump over the side of the bridge to avoid the crush, opting to take an alternative path across the border, one Haitian woman turns to me and declares nou pa ka mouri (we’re not going to die), confidently steering me into a side depot before we reach the bridge. The caring woman instructs me to wait until she deems it safe to cross the bridge. Before leaving our safe spot we help another trader load the food goods she is selling on her head before filing across the bridge. As we cross, the women occasionally shout back in my direction to check I am still with them and safely returning to lot bo a.

4/9/2017

At the end of the Route Nationale 6 in North Eastern Haiti is the border town of Ouanaminthe (Wanament in Kreyòl). The route turns into Rue espagnole and runs past the Place publique which is scattered with a few traders selling used books laid out on the road, seasonal used school shoes, bags and exercise books (at this time of year); and a small shop and home where local peanut products are on display in the porch. The focal point of the square is the blue and white Notre Dame Catholic Cathedral, the interior of which is decorated with blue and white ribbons, balloons and dried flowers to celebrate a recent marriage. A rum shop across the road plays everything from Vybz Kartel to Ed Sheeran, turning up the volume for the Fugees. Following the Rue espagnole to its end, past Ouanaminthe’s large Baptist church built with Digicel money and the Collège Malcolm X on the left and a series of painted health murals warning people about malaria, HIV and fits of ‘rage’ on the right, you eventually reach a right turn to the border with the Dominican Republic. The road that leads to the bridge across the Massacre River which acts as a natural border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic is noisy and congested with motos, 4x4s and lorries that skim past. I am constantly having to look over my shoulder to check that it is safe to advance further on foot. Before the border, the road is lined with money-changers, phone credit sellers in sun-faded tabards and other informal traders. The money changers hold big bundles of Haitian Gourdes, Dominican Pesos and U.S. dollars and when I stop to get some pesos from one, he uses a handheld calculator and a reasonably favourable exchange rate to do business under a red Digicel umbrella that shields our transaction. Only on my first crossing do I get beckoned over by a Dominican official sat on a plastic chair by the Haitian immigration post. This is the only day when I am asked to show my passport and get it stamped. During any subsequent toing and froing across the divide, despite my attempts to queue behind the traffic of Haitian workers, many of whom must cross the border regularly to trade, I am waved through and must merely suffer the catcalls and suggestive leers of the Dominican border police. The moral and physical violence endured by Haitian workers was visible on each and every one of my crossings between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Haitians waiting to cross to lot bo a (the other side) are shoved, abused and treated like dogs by uniformed border officials. On the binational market days of Monday and Friday when the border is officially open to Haitian traders who come to sell in Dajabón market, the Dominican border police wave wooden truncheons. Crowd control is chaotic and men and women with heavy loads balanced precariously on their heads weave swiftly through the gates and across the bridge to avoid confrontation. To avoid customs checks and military violations, many traders choose instead to wade through the Massacre river at its shallowest points, risking their goods and their lives to avoid this humiliation.