Many mornings around four a.m. this Vodun priest would be up and chanting over a tent city that contained the entire worldly existence of tens of thousands of human beings in an area the size of two city blocks. The chant was clearly one that was a prayer for healing. The sound was exotic and resonated with mourning and supplication.
Once I got accustomed to the sounds and smells around me, I realized I was waking into a clearly African culture. It was not an Americanized African culture in any way. Haiti is comprised of a people who have remained distinctly African but who have not been able to, or have chosen not to, disassociate themselves from the cultural scars that western slavery has imposed upon them. That is a core tenet of the Vodun religion. The parallels between Vodun and Catholicism are striking and numerous.
When I got home, the first 'news' piece I saw about Haiti was Fox News playing a short tape showing 'unrest' in Haiti. It was not good journalism. It was subtle racism. 'Look at the negroes behaving badly.' They could not have been more off-the-mark. It was not representative of what I saw day-in and day-out in Haiti. I saw thousands and thousands of people too busy everyday doing what it takes to survive. They were cleaning up and salvaging from the rubble. They were setting up meager kiosks on the side of the same street they were sleeping in the night before, trying to make an honest buck to try and buy something they needed desperately: a tarp or tent, food, shoes...The raggedy appearance of this man belies the fact that perhaps and probably his finer ceremonial garb was buried underneath a pile of rubble he simply could not move. But one thing is clear. He was practicing 'white' Vodun. He was trying to lift up his people. He was determined to maintain his faith and heritage in the face of an event that is incomprehensible to someone who has not been there. He was asking for healing upon a whole nation of people who have fought for and won their independence in exactly the same way that America had.
I have nothing but respect for these people.
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