t-shirts marked by cruel irony;
The sight of doubled over humans weighed down by cargo, assuming roles traditionally designated for mules and donkeys;
Upright women bearing hundreds of pounds atop their heads as if their load were a jeweled crown.
The scene: An unregulated, informal, and burgeoning market along the Dominican-Haitian border that moves approximately $22 million Dominican pesos each day, making it and similar markets the third most important factor in the economy after remittance checks and tourism.
Just as Sisyphus was condemned to the perpetual task of rolling a rock up a hill only to have it fall again, the Dajabon market goers, whose only offense is being born in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country, are constantly transporting endless amounts of plantains, ice, multicolored popcorn, and yams only to slide back into vertiginous poverty.
