1. only 4% of dominican women exclusively breastfeed - and that numbers drops a bit after the first month or two of life. it's a bizarre thing to me, but hey.
2. the dominican republic has a long, often violent, strained political relationship with haiti. and now, with crazy migration of the haitian people onto dominican territory, the hatred and racism has blown up.
surprise.
there is a group of women in the border town of jimani, a group of dominican women, breastfeeding haitian orphans. a group of monetarily poor women who, for reasons inexplicable, wouldn't normally breastfeed their own children past one month have taken these babies who will grow up into people many dominicans despise and are giving them the life sustaining milk from their breasts.
i don't know what this means for the future. history is a hard thing to escape. but i do know that right now, in this moment, people have forgotten that they dislike each other. that people are taking their jobs. that immigration is hurting the economy.
and they are feeding each other. and loving each other. and living in solidarity.
disaster really does bring out the best in people.
2 comments:
Beautiful.
That's so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes.
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