Knocking Next Door

What’s a home without neighbors? Always there to keep an eye out for trespassers, a friend to share lunch with, to take long walks around the neighborhood, to gossip, exchange family stories, and so forth. In good neighborly conduct, a basket of home baked cookies or a sweet pie is offered when new families move next door. Sugar is shared, maybe a cup of flower or a bit of milk. It’s not much different here in Las Terrenas. We share the things we don’t need, the free gifts we receive (occasionally) in excess, books we have already read, and anything else appropriate. But never did we assume our friendly Haitian neighbors would suppress their pride long enough to request financial assistance. It took all of five minutes for the doe-eyed young woman we’ve been sharing gifts with to tell her story. In halted Spanish she explained, “We do not all work, I do not work. Do you have a job? We have to pay for house, can you help? Do you need me to work for you? Will you help us?” She batted her eyes once, twice, fiddled with the fencing, and waited for my response.

I’ll admit she hit me dead-on with that sympathy card. Though I’m skilled at confrontation, it is difficult to say no to anyone with less than I have. Here, Matteson and I have very little to share, but what’s $5 to us is $50 to our neighbors. So I hesitated. And you should have seen her perfected pout. Then I realized, ‘If You Give a Mouse a Cookie…’ Remember that book? After $5, will they believe when we say we don’t have more to spare? Will they see what we have through the windows, assume it is unnecessary, and try their luck at crawling inside and getting it for themselves?

Over and over it’s been explained to us: Las Terrenas is a safe place with wonderful, beautiful, kind people. But a bad economy hits this town hard, and a few years of hunger makes stealing more and more tempting – even to the kindest of locals.

So I said no. We’ll give them our extra fruit, the pans we don’t use, the leftover food that may go to waste, and a book here and there. We’ll offer them our free English lessons at the library and anything else we can. Even a cup of sugar - if we had any. We will keep saying hello, making small talk. But for however I can justify not giving up any extra money we have for them, the guilt isn’t going anywhere and no extra amount of bananas is going to make it disappear.