$1 US a ton
tired_boy said:
What about the people who work in the sugar cane plantations, one year i heard that Haitians might only earn enough in one day to buy a loaf of bread (and that was better pay than in Haiti). Then again, I have heard many things that aren't completely correct!
I visited a batey near San Ysidro and met Haitian cane cutters - they were paid then, a year or so ago, US$1 a ton of raw cane cut.
( I met one guy, maybe 70, looked 70 anyway, selling cane for RD$5 for a 6 or 8 foot length. When I said no thanks since I couldn't imagine what I'd do with 8 feet of cane, he cut about 8 inches, took the wood off the outside and gave it to me and would NOT take money for it, since I HAD to try it and they all watched me)
Interesting thing, me and my US buddy who used to live in PAP and speaks fluent Creole were the only white people in the batey and the other people there paid no notice of us at all. I asked an English speaking resident why we were ignored, so to speak, and he told me they really didn't have the concept of skin color per se and they are too polite to stare anyway, as we were guests.