They Want Money

They Want Money

Haiti Family Initiative
Jamel, Haiti
2013

Thursday, July 25- We take the same route home every day from camp.  People begin to expect us and wave to us.  Other drivers on their motorcycles make comments to Jeams about me.  We stick out in the crowd and we know it and laugh about it. Jeams, a dark,young man and me, an old white woman on the back of his motorcycle are an odd couple.

Just as we are a few blocks from my house, we are stopped. Today, a group of young men are standing at a corner and they have strung a rope across the road.  As they see us approaching, they step out from behind a tree and raise the rope so that we cannot pass.  Jeams stops his motorcycle.

“What do they want,” I ask.

“Money.  Just a little money.”  His eyes dart quickly between them and us.

I begin to panic.  I am carrying $1000 in my purse, the payroll for the week.  I am not going to get hurt over this request.  I will surrender all of this money if I have to, but I am going to do what I can to protect this money.  If I lose this money, all of the translators will not get paid this week.

I jump off the motorcycle and walk towards the man making the request. I become defensive and very aggressive in my response.

“No, absolutely not”, I yell back at Jeams for all of them to hear.  My response startles them.

Meanwhile, Jeams has pulled 5G from his pocket and he is ready to hand over some money.  I intervene, “No, Jeams, they can’t bully us in to giving them money”, I say with an indignant tone. I look to the ring leader, “you cannot take advantage of us.”

With that, this man looks at me and softly asks, “No money?”

“No”, I adamantly tell him, “no money.”  With that he lifts the rope and tells us go on our way. I quickly hop back on the motorcycle.  Jeams and I zoom off. Now, I feel a need to explain my aggressiveness to Jeams, this very gentle man.

“Jeams, I had the payroll with me.  I didn’t want them to see where I had my money because I didn’t want them to take all this money.  Besides, they shouldn’t be taking advantage of us.”

“You don’t do that in your country” he asks?

“No, workers can’t just impose a fee to pass the road.”

Later that night, I talk to Max about the incident.

“Max, I think those men were waiting for us today so they could get money from us.  They must have been watching us over this past week.  They know our routine. What should I do?  Do you want to hold on to the money?  Would that be safer?”  I am now anxious to unload all of this money even if it will now burden Max.

“Jeams called me, he told me what happened.  Those men were not trying to take your money.  They were just fixing the road.  When the government can’t afford to fix a road, they let the local men fix the road and then they can ask people for a donation.  That’s how they get paid.  And then the road gets fixed.”

He assured me that these men were not watching me.  Now I am ashamed of myself and my aggression. I tell Max that I will have Jeams stop tomorrow and I will give them money.

“No, don’t worry about it.  They won’t be there tomorrow; the work is done.  And Jeams went back there after he dropped you off and explain to them that you thought they were trying to steal from you.  They felt bad. He already gave them some money.  Don’t worry about it.”