Pedro Dominguez Brito, a lawyer and younger brother of the Attorney General, writes a weekly column in El Caribe that usually touches on the idiosyncrasies of the Dominican people. Today’s column is a good example. Called the “Culture of the ‘gift'”, the column tells the tale of a young woman, Angelita, who had a fairly good job in a free zone factory, earning over RD$240.00 for her 7 to 5 day. With a little effort, the woman would probably be able to purchase a television set and maybe an electric stovetop in December, unless the temptations of the lottery or beer got the better of her. But, since we are now in an election period, in the woman’s barrio one of the political parties announced that it would be handing out food parcels come Tuesday and Wednesday. The activity promised to be successful. The excitement was huge. The woman was not an exception to the furor. On Tuesday she got up at six and half an hour later she was in line with hundreds of other people. Enduring the pushing and shoving, hunger and cold, four hours later she was still waiting. Just a few had received the food baskets, especially the buddies of the party leaders that were not in the line. The packages ran out before midday, but they said that the candidate would return with more the following day.
On Wednesday, the woman, Angelita, got up even earlier, and by 5:00am she was in the line with all the other people. She was ready for everything and she was not going to leave empty-handed. Dominguez Brito tells how her empty stomach rumbled, how she nearly fainted, but she got close and at almost 2:00 in the afternoon, Angelita got her little food package. Inside were, among other things, three pounds of rice, a small bottle of cooking oil, some wine, possibly cooking wine, a box of oatmeal, and two cans of the ever-popular “pica-pica” (canned herring in hot sauce). Angelita had won.
On Thursday she returned to her job in the free zone. But she was not allowed in. She was justly fired for missing two straight days of work.
This really happened to Angelita: she lost her job and lost two day’s pay (RD$480.00), but she was happy because she was given something… something that was worth, at most, RD$150.00. Pedro Dominguez Brito is a labor lawyer.