Day 7: La Zona Franca y La Comunidad de Cien Fuegos

DAY 7: We started off the day early and headed into Santiago where we wound through the very crowded streets until we reached the outskirts of town. There we had the unique opportunity to drive through the Zona Franca, which is the industrial part of town where all of the sweatshops are located. The Zona Franca is heavily guarded and you must have a special permit to get in. We were not allowed to get out of the van at any time, but we still were able to see inside a few of the sweatshops through the windows. Big name brands, like GAP for example (which happens to be my favorite store), have shops here in Santiago where Dominicans and Haitians are employed to produce clothes in less than ideal conditions. In one particular building, I could see rows upon rows of sewing machines with people hunched over them. I had read about these types of places before, but this was my first experience seeing it in person and it was incredibly disturbing and powerful.

Here is one of the sweatshops that we could see from the street. I tried taking pictures of the people inside on the sewing machines, but my camera just couldn't capture it.

After visiting the Zona Franca, we made our way to the community of Cien Fuegos. There we spoke with a man who worked in the sweatshops for many years and he told us his stories of the working conditions and labor laws. It definitely makes you think twice about where and how your clothes are produced. After that, we spoke with Tomas again (the Dominican man who also spoke to us in Franco Bido), and he relayed to us the history of Cien Fuegos. Cien Fuegos means "100 Fires" in English. The town got that name because 100 families were displaced due to fires, and all of them decided to come together and settle in this community, naming it Cien Fuegos. Unfortunately, the community became extremely corrupt and it became known across the entire country for its brothels and prostitution. Tomas told us that if he told someone he was from Cien Fuegos, they would immediately stop associating with him because of the town's horrible reputation. The government knew what was going on in this community, but the corruption of power made it so the people in charge just looked the other way. Tomas was one of the men in the 1970s who stood up to the government and fought to make his community a safe place for women and children. At one point, the owners of the brothels were holding a gun up to his head because Tomas was threatening their livelihood. Today, Cien Fuegos is no longer captive to Satan's schemes and is slowly working to rebuild itself.

Two little girls on the streets of Cien Fuegos. Just thirty years ago these girls would probably be selling themselves on street corners.

Many homes are made out of any material available, often times just sheets of metal.

Some homes in Cien Fuegos

There is trash EVERYWHERE!

We climbed up this little mountain overlooking Cien Fuegos. Over 300,000 people live in this small valley on the outskirts of Santiago.



From the mountain we could see all the way to downtown Santiago. In the distance is the monument that we visited on our very first day in the Dominican Republic.

Although Cien Fuegos is no longer battling prostitution, it is facing another tremendous problem. Right next to their community is a garbage dump that is constantly burning, 24 hours a day. When the wind blows a certain direction, Tomas told us that he can hardly breathe and that the smoke effects everyone in the community. As you can see, come families live just a few yards from the dump. I can't even imagine what kind of long term effects this air has on people's lungs.

As we made our way back to the retreat center in the afternoon, we stopped at a candle shop that is run by an organization called One Respe, which is Creole for "Honor Respect." This organization feels that all people in this world deserve honor and respect, and work to integrate people with AIDS and tuberculosis back into their communities. They also have community schools, a health program, and a research program about racism. For more information, you can visit www.onerespe.com. We visited their arts and crafts workshop where the proceeds from our purchases go directly to their organization. I bought quite a few candles (we even got to pick out the scents that we wanted and they would paint them on!), as well as a t-shirt with a powerful message. It says:

EL RACISMO MATA EL AMOR
DIVIDE EL PUEBLO
DESTRUYE LA DEMOCRACIA

In English, this translates to:

RACISM KILLS LOVE
DIVIDES THE CITY
DESTROYS DEMOCRACY


The candle shop knew we were coming so they made special WSU candles just for us! It was truly a surprise to walk into a shop in the Dominican Republic and see your school emblem!