¡Feliz Navidad!

El Ayuntamiento (City Hall), Higüey, Dominican Republic.

Museo de Las Casas Reales, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Plaza de la Hispanidad, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

El Ayuntamiento (City Hall), Higüey, Dominican Republic.

I Like Ike

"I like Ike" might have been a spiffy sounding campaign slogan during the U.S. presidential elections of the 1950s. But mention the name "Ike" today and you’re more likely to invoke images of Haitian peasants carrying their meager belongings on their heads while wading through waist deep flood waters, residents of the Florida Keys anxiously boarding up their homes and businesses while evacuation buses make their rounds, or Dr. Steve Lyons giving the latest hurricane update on the Weather Channel.

It’s hard to believe that less than a week ago the Bahamas was threatened by three major storms lining up to take aim at us: Hanna, Ike, and Josephine. Compared to Ike—a very dangerous category 4 storm—Hanna and Josephine were child’s play and so the prospect of Ike’s imminent arrival quickly became our main focus of concern as we began our hurricane preparations.

By Thursday afternoon, most folks were prepared for the worst. But the worst would have to wait. Hanna—a "mere" tropical storm—was first in queue and, as it turned out, it made its northward journey just to the east of the Bahamian archipelago, leaving us with only a smattering of light rain and occasional gusty winds. When we woke up to clear skies and sunshine the next morning, we also learned that Tropical Storm Josephine—which had been trailing along behind Ike—had fizzled out midway across the Atlantic. So far so good. Two down, one more to go.

Then we waited. And we waited some more. For three days we meticulously studied the incoming hurricane updates while the sweltering tropical sun baked us inside our boarded up apartment building. But due to a high pressure system, Ike continued on a steady westward trajectory, totally bypassing the central and northern Bahamian islands and leaving us with not so much as a single drop of rain and only an occasional minor gust of wind.

Our neighbors to the south were not so lucky.

Early Sunday morning, Ike made its first landfall on the British owned Turks and Caicos Islands, destroying over eighty percent of the homes, leveling trees and utility poles, leaving the local hospital without a roof, and inflicting severe damage on the already overcrowded prison. Inagua, the southernmost island of the Bahamas, was next in line where, amongst other things, Ike ripped the hurricane shutters off two local storm shelters and caused the roof to collapse on another. Nearly two days later there are still, unbelievably, no reported fatalities from either locale.

Yesterday, the Cuban mountains put the brakes on Ike, slowing it down to category 1 hurricane. Though, that may be of little comfort to those in western Cuba who were left homeless following Hurricane Gustav’s visit just a little over a week ago. Of course, we can’t forget the Dominican Republic and, especially, Haiti, both of whom were already saturated with flood waters from Hurricanes Fay, Gustav, and Hanna and didn’t really need to experience their fourth major storm in just three weeks.

As hard as it may be to believe, we are both very disappointed and greatly relieved that Ike never made it to Nassau. Given all the hard work that goes into preparing for a hurricane and, then, all of the sitting around and waiting that comes after that, how could one possibly not be disappointed? Yet as we look at the destruction that has followed in the wake of Ike and recognize the inadequacy of even our best preparations in the face of such a powerful storm, we are greatly relieved that we did not have to live through such a terrifying experience, let alone its aftermath.

But with relief also comes guilt as we struggle with our own version of the age old question, "Why does God allow the innocent to suffer?" Why was our island spared while other islands (or entire countries) with greater poverty and fewer resources continue to be hit over and over and over again? Even a cursory glance at the map makes it clear that if a hurricane misses us, it’s almost impossible for it to slip through without striking elsewhere. Thus, our salvation comes at the expense of someone else.

But spared we were, at least for now. Meteorologists predict that there will be seven more named storms during this year’s Atlantic hurricane season. Three of those storms will be hurricanes and one of those three will be a category 3 storm or higher. Since hurricane season is not over until November 30th, there’s still a good possibility that Nassau may be hit. And if it doesn’t happen this year, there’s always next year or even the year after that. The hurricane calculus is really quite simple. It’s not a question of if we’ll be hit but when. So for us, Hurricane Ike was a sobering wake up call—a call to be better prepared the next time around.

This article originally appeared in News from Daniel and Estela Schweissing on 9 September 2008.

The Bahamas' Hispanic Community

The 2001 (and most recent) edition of Operation World reports that are approximately 2000 Hispanics in the Bahamas. Though, I suspect that's increased a bit in the past seven years or so. These figures, of course, are not in reference to the growing number of Spanish-speaking tourists that one increasingly hears in and around the Bahamas' large resort hotels but, rather, the numerous persons from various Latin American countries that come to the Bahamas to work for upper and upper-middle class Bahamians in a variety of domestic service jobs.

Given the Bahamas' overwhelming Haitian immigrant population, which numbers in the tens of thousands, it is really no surprise that scant attention is often paid to much smaller immigrant groups such as the Hispanics. And unlike the Haitians, the Bahamas' Hispanic community is much more heterogeneous, hailing principally from the Dominican Republic and Cuba but also including folks from as far afield as Mexico, Columbia, and Peru. Two weeks ago, my wife (pictured below) and I had the opportunity to celebrate this diversity by participating in the Annual Hispanic Fair, hosted at the Hotel Training College at C.O.B. While fairly small compared to similar ethnic and cultural festivals held in the Bahamas, this event was important not only in highlighting the diversity of the local Hispanic community (which included booths by the Dominicans (pictured above), Cubans, and Peruvians) but also in bringing public attention to the fact that a small but vibrant Hispanic community even exists at all.


As a missiologist, I have been particularly interested in the emergence and growth of Hispanic churches here in Nassau over the past few years. When my wife and I first arrived in the Bahamas in 2000, there were no Spanish-speaking churches nor ministries specifically serving the Hispanic community. As we became acquainted with a number of Hispanics--mostly Dominicans--during our first several years here, we learned that many of them were regularly attending English-speaking services at Evangelistic Temple on Collins Avenue (affiliated with the Assemblies of God). This was not so much due to an intentional outreach to Hispanics on the part of this congregation but due to (1) many of the Hispanics who were drawn there were members of Assemblies of God or similar Pentecostal churches in their home countries and (2) Evangelistic Temple itself is conveniently located on a major bus route making it readily accessible to live-in domestic servants residing in Nassau's eastern districts. It was during this time that we recognized that their was a clear need for some sort of Spanish-language ministry geared specifically towards Hispanics, though probably more along the lines of a weekly Bible study or prayer group rather than a full-fledged church. But at the time, our ministry responsibilities didn't allow us to pursue this opportunity and no one else seemed prepared to rise to the challenge either. Or so we thought.

While we were back in the States for our home assignment during 2005, things began to progress rapidly in terms of Hispanic ministry development back in Nassau. A small Hispanic congregation was formed and began meeting in a home off JFK Drive near Lake Cunningham. Within a year or so thereafter, two more Hispanic congregations emerged as well. One, which is affiliated with Bahamas Faith Ministries, is located downtown on Market Street and the second is a Spanish-speaking worship service offered by Evangelistic Temple, where a number of Hispanics were already attending English-speaking services anyway. So within the span of about a year--or maybe a year-and-a-half--three Hispanic congregations emerged in a city where there were previously none. But are the demographics of the local Hispanic community sufficient to support three separate churches? That remains to be seen. The last I heard, the congregation out on JFK was struggling and, in fact, may no longer exist. The other two congregations--being more centrally located--have greater potential for long term growth. The important thing is that God has raised these ministries up to meet a need that was not being met by churches or ministries already existing on the island. May he continue to raise up and work through those who would minister to the Bahamas' Hispanic community!

On Soup Joumou, Stollen, and Junkanoo: Celebrating the Holidays Away from Home

For most of the world--at least those of us on the Gregorian calendar--today is New Year's Day. But for those of us who are Haitian, married to Haitians, or otherwise living in Haiti or its Diaspora, today is also important because it is Haitian Independence Day. While of special significance to Haitians, today is important for all Caribbean peoples and, indeed, all of us who are--in some fashion or another--descendants of the Atlantic slave trade and its legacy. You see, the Haitian Revolution was the first--and only--successful slave revolt in the New World, making Haiti the the oldest Black Republic in the world and (after the U.S.) the second independent country in the Western Hemisphere. So in typical Haitian Protestant fashion, we observed this dual holiday by attending New Year's Eve services last night at Emmaus Baptist Church here in Nassau and then ushering in the new year by wishing each other Bon Ane! and eating soup joumou and pain Haïtien.

As an expatriate American living in the Bahamas (and married to a Dominican of Haitian descent), you can imagine that our holiday celebrations reflect a number of cultural traditions that have shaped us over the years, making for a truly cross-cultural celebration. I've already mentioned, of course, our tradition of eating soup joumou and pain Haïtien for New Year's/Haitian Independence Day. But when we are in the U.S. and the Bahamas, we also eat more traditional American holiday foods such as turkey and stuffing or baked ham. When celebrating the holidays with Estela's family in the Dominican Republic, however, American-style foods are replaced with Dominican foods such as cassava fritters, beef empanadillas, spaghetti, and fried chicken. And while I'm a couple of generations removed from my German ancestry, we still bake an Americanized version of stollen, made from a recipe handed down from my great-grandfather who was a German baker.

Here in the Bahamas, the Junkanoo parades are an essential part of the holiday festivities, beginning with Junior Junkanoo in mid-December and, then, the two big Junkanoo parades held in the wee-hours of the morning (or, as we say in Spanish, por la madrugada) on Boxing Day and New Year's Day. Dating back to the days of slavery, Junkanoo is perhaps one of the best known (though hardly the only) and most popular forms of Afro-Bahamian culture.

As I generally tend to avoid places where large crowds congregate, we've never attended Junkanoo before. But this year, Estela and I took advantage of the opportunity to join Stephen Aranha, president of the Bahamas Historical Society, and his family to watch the Boxing Day parade from the excellent vantage point of the Bahamas Historical Society Museum. I'm glad we went as it was well worth the experience.

While much of what takes place in Junkanoo (especially the numerous, smaller activities throughout the year) is packaged for the consumption of foreign tourists, Junkanoo is actually a very profound and complex expression of Bahamian culture. The Bahamian anthropologist Nicolette Bethel has written a number of helpful blog posts (see here and here) that have helped my artistically-challenged mind to get a better grasp on Junkanoo's deeper meaning.

But perhaps the best way to understand Junkanoo is simply to observe it first hand. To that end, I've posted a couple of video clips below. (Thanks, again, to Nicolette Bethel for pointing these out.) The first is a scrap group, which is basically an informal--and usually small--group of friends who get together to rush. Back in the old days, all Junkanoo groups were scrap groups and today's groups continue in that tradition. The second video is of the Valley Boys, one of the large A-Groups that competes for prizes. Since Estela and I live near and work in Mason's Addition, we chose to root for the Saxons and One Family, both of which hail from our neighborhood.

Independence Day Reflections

On this date in 1844, the Dominican Republic obtained its independence from Haiti. So today our neighbors in the D.R. are celebrating their 163rd anniversary.

Because antihaitianismo in Dominican culture traces its roots back to the Haitian occupation of the D.R. (1821-1844), this holiday is a mixed legacy for the estimated 630,000 Dominicans of Haitian descent.

In his book, Race and Politics in the Dominican Republic, political scientist Ernesto Sagás defines antihaitianismo as:

a set of racist and xenophobic attitudes prevalent today in the Dominican Republic that broadly portray Dominican people as white Catholics, while Haitians are viewed as spirit-worshipping black Africans. More than just a ploy to generate patriotism and rally against a neighboring country, the ideology also is used by Dominican leaders to divide their own lower classes.

Of course, antihaitianismo is not limited to the Dominican Republic. Haitians living in the United States and the Bahamas also face similar racist and xenophobic attitudes that are expressed both as individual prejudices as well as public policy. While the particular details of these expressions may differ from place to place, the underlying issues of racism and ethnocentrism are the same.