Does History Matter in Haiti?

May 22, 2013 by

Does History Matter in Haiti?

In the June 6, 2013 issue of The New York Review of Books, there is a review of two of my books, The Rainy Season, and Farewell, Fred Voodoo, as well as of Haiti: The Aftershocks of History, by Laurent Dubois, the great chronicler of Haiti’s tragic and grandiose history.

The review was written by Mischa Berlinski, the award-winning novelist who has written almost all of the post- earthquake pieces on Haiti for NYRB. Berlinski lived in Haiti from 2007 through 2011 as the husband of an official of the UN Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti (MINUSTAH), a 10,000-strong multinational peacekeeping force that arrived in the country in the wake of a coup against elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and that has been the sole serious force of order there since.

read more

Petit Pierre’s Ascent

Apr 22, 2013 by

Petit Pierre’s Ascent

When Graham Greene went to Haiti, one of the many fascinating characters he met there was Aubelin Jolicoeur, above, a gossip columnist for Le Nouvelliste. It was an unusually rough time in a country accustomed to rough times. The brutal François (Papa Doc) Duvalier was in power, and his secret police, the Tontons Macoute, combed the cities, towns, and villages, hunting down enemies of the regime.

Here’s how Greene describes Jolicoeur, to whom he gives a fictional name, in Chapter Two of The Comedians, upon the narrator’s return to Haiti, by ship:

read more

Little Sugar Train

Apr 19, 2013 by

Little Sugar Train

A few photos of a model-train diorama made by a doctor named Tom who often works in Haiti. These dioramas are based on historical and on-the-ground research on the Haitian American Sugar Company in Léogâne (HASCO) and its railroad. I don’t know the doctor’s full name but if I did I would gladly credit him here: he’s an artist.

I found these online back in 2009 when I was researching an essay on Haitian foods. If you have never chawed and sucked on a woody, juicy piece of sugar cane, you have missed one of the few ecstatic experiences available to humankind (you name the others). Best part: when you’ve finished with a bite of cane, you get to spit the white pulp out onto the ground like a man.

read more

Urban Botox in Haiti

Apr 15, 2013 by

Urban Botox in Haiti

Both of the photos above are of the Jalousie shantytown, arguably the most photographed shantytown in Port-au-Prince. They are before and after photos of the recent government paint-over of Jalousie (after and before, actually, in order of appearance).

Why is Jalousie so photographed, one might wonder. Jalousie is not the biggest, or even necessarily the poorest, of Haiti’s sprawling slums. But the tumbledown, terraced shantytown looks dramatic and also happens to face one of the two major roads that connects downtown Port-au-Prince with the wealthier suburbs of Petionville, Bourdon, Montagne Noire, and others even higher up the hill.

read more

Guess Who Is A White Supremacist?

Mar 28, 2013 by

Guess Who Is A White Supremacist?

Amy Wilentz, “Racist Suspect,” learned something new on the radio yesterday. Actually, a few new things.

One:

Don’t trust people who say they want “the truth,” especially when they are posing as journalists! Real reporters are never so arrogant. Also never trust a radio show that airs for two hours consecutively.

Two:

There are people who believe I am a white supremacist, a spy, and a sexual imperialist.

read more

Fixing One Thing

Mar 20, 2013 by

Fixing One Thing

After the 2010 Haitian earthquake, I visited the Physicians Without Borders emergency clinic in Léogâne. Patients with varying degrees of injuries were waiting for attention on the long driveway there. The doctor I talked to that day was full of posturing and foolishness, unlike most of the doctors I’d met who work with this group. In the long line of patients was one boy who’d lost both arms when his house fell on him, and of course both his hands, as well. He was three years old.

He was waiting and waiting — for hours.

Eventually, late that afternoon, I brought him and his mother to Port-au-Prince to get more pain medicine and to make sure his wounds had been properly dressed and fixed.

read more