Butterfly's Way: Voices From the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States (10 page)

They appeared to be badly dehydrated and said that they had not had water in three days. A colony of flies and insects buzzed around the stale vomit that floated atop the semi-flooded boat. Apparently they had been "maroons," on the run, for several months, living in caves, traveling underground by night, surviving on coconuts and wild berries. By the grace of people in the various towns, eventually they were able to escape. A
veve
of Agwe, the water god, decorated the mint-green craft. They had christened it
"Kris Kapab,"
or "Christ Can," inscribed in blood-red paint.

The father was a fisherman, his gentleness reflected in his overall demeanor. "Do you have medicine on the ship?" inquired the fiery youth, who seemed to be reconsidering the idea of coming on board. He showed me the colony of parasites, white wormlike ones that had been eating away at his brother's scalp for the past few months. I looked at the visible rise in the puddle and as the boat dipped backwards, I quickly blurted, "Yes." I was getting tired, my mouth was dry, there were eighteen of them and only one of me and I didn't know how much longer I could sustain a coherent argument. The youth, who seemed to be the head negotiator, the city-slicker type, needing one final push, began to look as if he believed me, so said his eyes and his face. I looked at his Nelson Mandela T-shirt and asked how he thought the character on his shirt would handle this particular dilemma. This was the clincher. Mandela had become a universal living icon for courage, strength, persistence, and faith.

After three hours of intense creative negotiations catalyzed by the spell of an intensely beautiful set of almond-shaped eyes belonging to an eight-year-old refugee girl, I finally convinced this mistrustful family to come on board. A conspiratorial chill raced through me as I watched their craft along with all their worldly possessions set afire, a ritual that branded a mental scar on these victims and on me. It seemed a sacrilegious act for which we all would be punished.

The ocean danced and curtsied. Once again the empty ship was filled with laughter and jokes. For many, the last forty-eight hours had been a mere incident that would forever vanish into nothingness. Its effect on me, at that point, was apparent in emotions only, like the sharp pain that registers that a finger has been burned. It is not until days later, when the wounded area darkens, that the effect actually becomes visible. Astonished by the turn of events, I could only think, "Did this really just happen? Was I partly responsible for someone's impending death?" The thought horrified me. Sitting in a corner, I reflected quietly on the faces, the stories, and the concerns, however remote, that had taken precedence over my own needs, even if only for a short time.

HAITI:
A
CIGARETTE BURNING AT BOTH ENDS

Marie Ketsia Theodore-Pharel

On August 31, 1987, the last day of summer vacation, I got up early to go to Filene's Basement to shop for school clothes with my mother. I was twelve years old. We got off the T at Park Street near the Boston State House so my mother could make a stop at the bank. As we walked out of the train station, we were stopped by fire trucks and police barricades holding onlookers at bay. Above the streets loomed the highest steps of the Boston State House, still soaked and blackened by what seemed like a badly sprayed swastika. With a closer look, I saw that it was a man, burned to a grotesque crisp so that the most visible part of him now were his scorched legs, the unbending knees raised toward the sky. We asked what had happened and were told that he was a Haitian man who had soaked himself in gasoline, lit a match, and set himself on fire. His name was Antoine Thurel and he was fifty-six years old. The only clue to why he had killed himself was a large placard on which he had written a final letter in French. Loosely translated the sign read in part, "Because of many difficulties and my family and religious responsibilities, I want to offer myself in holocaust for the complete liberation of my country. . . . May Haiti live for the new liberation."

Like the heroes of centuries past, like Boukman, Toussaint, Christophe, and Dessalines, and all the others who had given their lives fighting for the "liberation" of our country, Mr. Thurel had made the ultimate sacrifice. He had proven that not all men go to war because they are forced to, but some because they feel they must set an example, sacrifice themselves in order to incite all of us to change.
Koupe tet, boule kay,
was the war cry of our ancestors. "Cut off heads and burn houses," starting with all that is most precious to us, our houses, our temples, our bodies. In a foreign country, on foreign soil, Antoine Thurel had given his life for a never-ending quest for freedom, not only his own but all of ours.

The day Mr. Thurel died, as I watched the spot where his body burned again on the six o'clock news, I thought of one of the last sayings of an old man whom I called "Pere" who lived with my family. Pere was a quiet, reserved man who analyzed everything; he was one of the brains who fled Haiti during the Sixties' brain-drain. Before he died of old age, in exile, Pere had uttered a phrase which I would not completely understand for years.

"Haiti is a cigarette burning at both ends," he had said.

In their own way, both Pere and Antoine Thurel could have been alluding to Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem "First Fig" about living fast, dying young, and leaving a beautiful corpse.

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

but ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—

It gives a lovely light.

Still, I found Pere's metaphor troubling. Is this why Mr. Thurel had died, for a cigarette burning at both ends? The imagery of a hopeless country being destroyed was one more to add to my list of negative things that I, as a Haitian child—and now a Haitian woman and mother—had been told about Haiti, about myself, not by outsiders but by my own. Mr. Thurel's action and Pere's words made me wonder about my love for Haiti and my love for myself as a Haitian.

Haitians don't trust each other.

Haitian families, whether they know it or not, teach self-hatred. I grew up with plenty of self-denigrating idioms, proverbs that offered such advice as: Don't let any Haitian boy touch the center of your palm; he'll steal your decency and turn you into a trollop. Don't let anyone read your books; they'll find whatever blessing was there for you. Don't eat from anyone; they'll steal your
bonanj,
your good angel. Don't study with others; they'll steal your intelligence. Safeguard your underwear because people could hurt your chances of having children.
"Depi nan Ginen, neg te rayi neg,"
even in Africa, blacks hated each other. At first I thought this distrusting advice was part of my own family's proverbs, but I noticed that many of my Haitian friends also cautiously lived by these same rules.

It wasn't until I went to live in Cameroon, Africa, that I realized that blacks in Africa and elsewhere did love each other as a rule and that those who hated one another were exceptions to that rule. Only when we were paired against one another in divide-and-conquer style did that hatred begin. This love was reaffirmed for me by my host family in Cameroon. Sleeping in the same bed with my host sisters, I felt a kind of peace I had never felt before in my life. I felt like a tiger cub resting beside her mother's belly. I still feel that warmth and love when I receive a nod or an acknowledging smile from a black person or a Haitian person in the streets of Boston, New York, or Miami. But according to the proverbs and idioms that we are taught, we are all supposed to hate each other.

Haiti is a woman with two sets of children.

I have always been told and have come to realize for myself that Haiti
is
like a woman with two sets of children, the elite and the masses. The elite are the children born to luxury, in wedlock, and the masses are the children born to poverty, the bastards. The elites abuse or completely neglect the masses. This reminds me of one of Pere's favorite sayings,
"Se rat kay ki manje kay pay."
It is the house rats who eat hay houses. I saw for myself, firsthand, the devouring of these hay houses in the summer of 1997, when I returned to Haiti with a group of students on a trip sponsored by the Ministry of Haitians Living Abroad. Our group was composed of students from France, the United States, and Haiti. This trip was intended to reacquaint people like me with the country that we had left at a young age and connect us with other students our age who were just finishing school in Haiti. While traveling in Haiti with the group, I got to see most of the country. The most startling sight I saw was the number of high-priced Landcruisers and Range Rovers traveling Haiti's roads. I couldn't believe that a country so poor could have people driving such expensive cars. The reason for those cars was revealed to me one rainy day when we were trekking in an old school bus from Port-au-Prince to the southern town of Cayes. I saw young children bathing in the muddy rainwater that had collected in the craters on the road. There were heaps of trash and debris all along the road. Whatever was in this collection of trash must have been decomposing because the smell was unbearable; yet the children washed their little angelic faces, arms, and legs in this sewage. On that day, I finally understood why the rich people need Land-cruisers in Haiti: to create craters for the poor to bathe in.

Before that month was over, I got to see Haiti's prosperous sons and daughters at work. We were invited to dinner at Kinam 2, Haiti's Ritz Carlton. The purpose of this assemblage was to network and connect with the rich and powerful so that we could one day return to "rebuild" the country. Over dinner conversations, the students in the group who were living in France and the United States got job offers from the Haitian company heads, but the students living in Haiti were completely neglected and certainly not offered jobs. At that moment, I understood Pere's saying about the cigarette burning at both ends and his saying about the house rat eating the hay house.

Pray to the I was on Saturday, pray to God on Sunday.

In his final letter, Antoine Thurel stated three reasons for which he died: family, country, and religion. Religion is one of the most confusing aspects of being Haitian. Haiti's primary religion is
Vodou,
yet we are even more confused about
Vodou
than the white man who while enslaving us told us it was evil. I once heard a prominent Haitian pastor in Boston say that slavery was God's way of reaching out and saving the African continent. The Haitian parishioners echoed their assent with undiscerning shouts and praises. How long will we continue to pay for this kind salvation? How many Antoine Thurels will die to purge us from it?

I have often imagined Pere and Antoine Thurel having a conversation. Pere would list his maxims expressing his disillusionment with our people and Antoine Thurel would list his dreams for our outward and inward liberation, the dreams that had motivated him to set himself on fire that morning on August 31, 1987. Perhaps they are having this conversation now in our ancestral African home in Ginen with Boukman, Toussaint, Christophe, and Dessalines; I wish I could hear that conversation. Perhaps I would get some answers to my questions, a few replies that would calm the tormented voices in my head, heal some of my continuing grief over Antoine Thurel's death. Still these questions, like Pere's final words, continue to haunt me. Why don't we see that the things we tell ourselves and our children become part of them, and part of us? When will we realize that all of Haiti's children belong to one family, the family of humanity? Why do we teach resignation in our churches? Why do we not respect our ancestors' words and legacy? Why don't we truly honor their sacrifices by treating ourselves and our poorer neighbors more humanely? Will we one day find the answers to those questions, or will we always remain a cigarette burning at both ends?

MY SUITCASES

Maude Heurtelou

When I was nineteen years old, I left Haiti for Guatemala City to enroll in a bachelor of sciences program. To prepare me for my trip, my parents fixed me two large suitcases filled with farewell gifts: from a bookmark made out of dry banana leaves to family photographs. What I didn't know then is that my suitcases were not only physical but also cultural. These suitcases, both cultural and physical, have been essential to my survival as an immigrant in three different countries.

Upon my arrival in Guatemala City, I whispered my aunt Didine's prayers to the saints, hummed Leon Dimanche's "Nostalgie" while longingly laying out and sifting through the items that had been lovingly packed in my suitcases: the talcum powder on my nightstand, which the vendor at the Iron Market in Port-au-Prince had wanted no payment for because I was leaving for university abroad. The multicolored kite that decorated my wall was made twenty years before by the neighborhood shoeshine man, who had presented it to my mother thinking she was carrying a boy. An unknown artist had sculpted the metal sheet lantern by my window. The small wicker basket in the corner of my room had carried dried Ilan Ilan flowers from my middle school in Port-au-Prince. The embroidered pillowcase where I rested my head each night was made by hand in the mountains of Jacmel. It was embossed with my great-grandmother's initials and passed down from my grandmother, to my mother, and now myself. My rubber sandals, a gift from my friend Marie, reminded me of traveling Haitian feet, steady, firm, and purposeful in their gait. I felt as though the ground beneath me was familiar whenever I wore my sandals. So many things in my suitcases comforted me, while reminding me of home.

Soon my classmates became curious about
"la haitiana,"
the one who couldn't speak Spanish at first but was learning so fast. Little by little, I opened my suitcases, both cultural and physical, to them, sharing music, Haitian
konpa,
foods—
griyo,
plantains, rice and beans,
pikliz
—and stories of the feuding Haitian folktale characters Bouki and Malis. One day, I received a surprise visit from the national Guatemalan soccer team. The team was scheduled to compete against the Haitian national soccer team and wanted to look at me to get a sense of what Haitians would look like. Because I was taller than all the Guatemalan players, they assumed that all the Haitians would be very tall as well.

We were the only six Haitians reported to be in Guatemala City: a businessman, a female professor from the French Institute, and three other university students like myself. A few times a year, Claudette, the French professor, would invite me and the other three students to her home. During those afternoons at Claudette's, we would sit on her patio, eat Haitian food, listen to
konpa
music, and share stories from home. The oldest among us, Marijo, came from Jeremie, a southern Haitian town that had produced many famous poets. Marijo would recite verses that described the plush green landscape of the Haitian south. After her poetry recitals, Marijo would walk over to Claudette's piano and play the legendary Haitian ballads, "Haiti Cherie," and "Choucoune." One other student, Fadia, would dance while I told riddles.

Krik?

Krak!

You go here. I go there. We meet in the middle. What am I?

A belt!

Those afternoons at Claudette's always eased my longing for home, if only for a while.

After four years in Guatemala City, I moved to Quebec City, Canada, to look for work, and took my suitcases with me. I carried along my favorite comb, which I had learned in Haiti could be both a grooming tool and a musical instrument. To play the comb, all one had to do was put a strip of paper across the teeth, press one's lips against the paper, and hum to produce a harmonica-like sound. My new Canadian friends and I would have evenings of comb recitals and story telling, turning off the lights for an atmosphere that would make the stories sound scarier and the comb sound more mysterious. During cold winter nights, I would entertain my friends with descriptions of the deep earth smell and the thumping sound of Haitian rain on tin roofs. I would make them ginger root tea and peanut confections. However there were a few things I resisted sharing. I didn't tell them that at times what I missed most were the imperfections of my country: the large potholes that always forced our feet or our cars to slow down, the crowds of vendors at the markets who sometimes made it hard to move freely, but sang melodiously of the fruits and vegetables they were selling.

One day I accepted the invitation of some friends to accompany them to the carnival of Quebec. Having been part of the colorful and lively street party that was a Haitian carnival, I never imagined that the carnival of Quebec would be an outdoor procession of ice sculptures in minus-thirty-degree weather. More and more, I began to miss the gorgeous range of colors of Haitian people, from honey, to chocolate, to dark coffee. I missed the aroma of coffee, freshly ground every morning by my neighbors. I missed being greeted with a smile by people who had known me and my family for years. Back home, I had a name and a past, had a family, and a legacy. In Quebec City, I was rootless, just another immigrant.

A few years later, I made yet another move, to the United States, to Florida. At last, I felt, I could rest my suitcases for a while. Florida, home to hundreds of thousands, maybe even a million Haitians, is close to Haiti both in miles and in climate. South Florida, where I live, is full of Caribbean markets whose shelves are stacked with home-grown treasures such as mangoes, plantains, and breadfruits. There are many restaurants, large and small, that serve Haitian dishes like stewed conch and fried goat. Our voices are heard across radio air waves, singing, laughing, and arguing about politics. We have television programs that bring us news and images of home. It is somewhat easier to simulate Haitian life in Florida, but of course being in Florida is not completely like being home.

After more than two decades away from Haiti, I still reach out for my suitcases, both physical and cultural, for all of the items in them, linked as they are to memories and traditions, that have helped me, and still continue to help me survive the immigrant life. However, my suitcase has now expanded with a few more items gathered from other cultures, with the letters and photographs of the friends I have made in Guatemala, Canada, and Florida, with their stories, and languages, and traditions that have slowly merged into my own: the particular lilt of Guatemalan Spanish that I eventually mastered, the hand-made fabrics from San Andres, the
cabane a sucre
parties in Quebec City, where I indulged in maple syrup candies out on the street, along with the other residents, natives, and immigrants alike. What my own cultural isolation as an immigrant in these places has taught me is that I am part of a living culture that in no way stops being a part of me, even when I am not completely immersed in it. With everything I do and say, I am perpetuating that culture, enriching it, modifying it when necessary, but contributing to its regeneration. My suitcases, both physical and cultural, have always, and will always, make me proud of my culture. They are perhaps a microcosm of what I am missing living abroad, but will never completely lose.