Pieces of the Past week

Sunday, March 21, 2010

I haven't had time to really write much, but I thought I'd post some things that I either sent to one or two of you or began writing, but was interrupted. You won't find anything uplifting in this post so don't read if that's what you're looking for. That said, these are very small portions of my day, the little or big disappointments that you live with, ignore, avoid, etc.


Making Friends - March 18th
I was in a tap tap heading to a site yesterday when this guy started talking about Vodou. He said that people get to choose their own devils, whatever devil they wanted to talk to. Someone asked if he wanted to go to a ceremony and he said "No, I don't want to talk to any devils." at which point I said "There is no devil." He said, "yeah, you get to choose whichever one you want to talk to." I elaborated, saying there is no such thing in Haitian Vodou. He said, "There is, this guy on the street told me." I told him he was talking to a Christian, in which case there is a devil, but not in Vodou. He said "Well, I guess we'll agree to disagree." I said, "I'm not agreeing to anything because you're wrong."

I don't think we'll be friends.

Mental Health Breaks - March 16th

A Haitian-American woman here in Leogane just returned from a 4 day mental health break. We're required to take them after being here 30 days (we work 6/week, have Sundays off). She went up to see her family in the mountains. Beforehand they went to Petionville where she witnessed a body being pulled from the rubble. She thought it was a dog because it was so small and shriveled, but it was a man. A short while later a woman was shot in the back of the head, her body laid on the ground twitching as her killer robbed her. My friend sat in her car in traffic next to this scene.

She told me this at a rubble site in Leogane today as we were working to remove large sections of rebar, smashing through the strong ceiling of a collapsed home. So much for mental health breaks.

Mapous - March 12th

I asked one of the HODR interpreters if there were any mapous around Leogane. He said "no" and added: "Everywhere there is a mapou there is a devil."

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