Dreams dashed as reality hits home for Haitians in Brazil

Many fled their devastated homeland on promises of big salaries in a booming economy

FOR THE dozens of Haitian immigrants hanging around São Geraldo’s spartan parish hall in the jungle city of Manaus, the reality behind their Brazilian dream has come as a cruel shock.

“We though Brazil was going to be wonderful and that we could earn lots of money here,” says Elius Gilbert. “But it has been a heavy disappointment. Even after eight months I am still adapting to the reality of it.”

The 30-year old school worker, his wife and two-year old daughter are among an estimated 5,000 Haitians who have made their way here to the heart of the Amazon rainforest by plane, bus and boat since their country was wrecked by the January 2010 earthquake. With the US and France – traditional destinations for Haitian emigrants – still suffering from the global economic crisis, they have sought an alternative in Brazil which is enjoying its strongest growth spurt in decades.

Desperate to flee the misery and chaos of their homeland, they thought a booming country preparing to host the World Cup and Olympics would provide them with opportunities no longer available elsewhere. It was a belief encouraged by the “coyotes” – the human traffickers to whom they paid more than €2,750 each to get them here.

But the reality that greeted them was altogether different.

The problem is not a lack of jobs. There is work available, and around Manaus it is easy to spot Haitians at work on petrol station forecourts. But behind the glowing headlines Brazil’s rising economic profile has won it in recent years is the harsh economic reality of a country where unskilled workers still earn desperately low wages.

“All the propaganda about a new Brazil caught the attention of Haitians, something the traffickers were keen to encourage so they could make money out of it,” says Fr Gelmiro Costa, the priest at São Geraldo who has led the local effort in Manaus to help the new arrivals.

“But when I told them that in Brazil the minimum wage was €250 they asked if that was per day. When I said it was for a month it was a huge disillusionment for them.” Now despite the fact that Brazil has relaxed entry requirements to give the Haitians the right to stay and work here, many nonetheless feel trapped.

“Here salaries are low, the dollar is weak and the cost of living is very high,” says Jean Ronald Destima, who lost two brothers in the earthquake when the family home was destroyed. “We knew Brazil was not the US but you can barely survive on these salaries here, so there is no chance of helping our families back there like we thought.”

To make matters worse, many borrowed money to pay for the journey which saw most fly from Port-au-Prince to Ecuador and from there by bus on to Peru, where they caught boats down the Amazon’s tributaries to the frontier with Brazil.

“It was horrible and by the end we had no money left,” says Gilbert, who borrowed part of the cost of his family’s trip and says he is now being pressured to pay up.

A promise of better-paid work led him to take his family on a five-day boat journey down the Amazon to the city of Belém. But after six weeks they returned to Manaus. “The man who hired us did not fulfil his promises. After we got there he said he would only pay us €200 a month. It was not even the minimum wage. The whole thing was a nightmare.”

Of the estimated 5,000 Haitians who have already arrived in Manaus in the last two years, about 1,500 have found jobs elsewhere in Brazil.

Nearly all those still in Manaus are now in rented accommodation and, like the Gilberts, adapting to the circumscribed opportunities Brazil offers them. Despite their disappointment the most recent arrivals in São Geraldo say locals have been welcoming. “We have had a good reception. Most people have treated us well,” says Diddy Galmel, whose rudimentary Spanish makes him a translator for his creole-speaking companions.

Most of his group say they plan on staying in Brazil, though the economics of the local labour market mean some hint of travelling on to French Guiana. They hope that if they can make it into France’s South American colony they will eventually be given permission to travel to Europe. In São Geraldo some even ask about employment prospects in Ireland.

But such is the calamity at home that all say the number of those giving up on Brazil and returning can be counted on one hand. “If you want to have any future you have to get out of Haiti,” says Galmel.