Voodoo In Haiti 2002
The ticket taker at Lynx Aviation in Florida took my airline ticket for Haiti and called out my name, prompting me to stand on the luggage rack to be weighed as a passenger, for the aircraft.
“1#$ lbs, female” the man called down the line to his female comrade at the end of the counter who logged the record in a large black ledger, for the Captain of the aircraft. Eeeek! Weights and balances I understood, but to be so indiscreet!
Next to Donatella’s ninety–nine pound weight, whose weigh-in preceded mine, I felt like an elephant as we were herded down the jet way.
“Oh darling, don’t worry it took a month of dieting to get under 100 pounds.” she quipped in her alluring Italian accent. I glanced at Kiki my other traveling companion, as she smirked to control her laughter. Another well shaped “skinny” woman, I muttered to myself.
Soon we were aboard the small aircraft and high in the clouds on our way to Haiti. The sky was a brilliant blue and with the promise of a week in the sun we were jubilant.
Donatella was fidgety,” I can not wait to see Jean Bernard, I miss him so, I love him,” she lamented for the fifth time. “He is such a sweetheart.”
As the Captain lowered the Fairchild Metroliner III, I could see the beach and a narrow strip of concrete gleaming like a bike trail out from the mass of green foliage surrounding the landing strip for Cap Haitian, Haiti’s most northern city. The amazing white sand of the beach had not a body on it and my heart raced to hear the sound of waves, the smell of salt air, and solitude. I heard the landing gear disengage and shortly we were on the runway. All nineteen passengers cheered.
Pungent body odor, carried by the trade winds and a hint of frangipani whirled in my nostrils as we deplaned and ran for the makeshift hangar to clear customs and find the ladies room since our three hour flight from Florida was in an aircraft without a “facility.”
“What, no bottled water and no food, What would we do in a bathroom “emergency?”
On a whim Kiki had called me, asking,” didn’t you tell me once that you longed to go to Haiti? Well I am going; do you want to join me and Donatella?
“Yes,” I shrieked, when?
Sun, friends, beach, swimming and lying in a hammock with no phone, no TV, no e-mail and no work, I could not resist the invitation to stay at the Hotel Cormier Plage situated on a cove facing the sea.
Jean Claude, Kathy, and her son Jean Bernard were each uniquely different and amazing hosts. French by origin they had been in Haiti for almost twenty years and still seemed to possess that unique French flair from their fabulous cooking to their colorful tropical style.
The Land Rover made its way from the main town through the roads with potholes that rivaled our nation’s Capital. All the unrest I had read about was nowhere to be found. Tin corrugated shacks lined the roadside mixed with buildings once beautiful but now crumbling with the architecture of a colonial past. The aggression I had read about associated with the poverty and violence of Haiti was nowhere to be found. Instead, everywhere I looked I felt serenity, peacefulness and the happiness of acceptance in smiling faces.
Wide eyed black-skinned children waived at us and called out to Jean-Bernard who came to the airport to collect us. Donatella thrilled to see him sat in the front and gushed sweet lovers talk the entire way to the hotel.
We headed south toward the cove and as we climbed inward from the sea and through the mountains we passed villages where woman knelt in dresses or skirts to scrub their family’s cloths in the springs that traveled down the mountainside and out to sea. Bright, yellow, blue and orange colored cotton dresses and boy’s shorts and shirts in hues of green and blue sizes big to small were spread on the banana leaves covering the dark green jungle leaves like spotted leopards.
Brown eyed children carried stained containers of plastic Clorox bottles and milk cartons from the springs to retrieve their family water supply for the day. Some of the children still toddlers stumbled spilling the water on the way.
We settled in at Cormier Plage Hotel on the beach amidst lush tropical gardens of bougainvillea and vegetation with bursts of yellow and red on the plants that were mostly variants of green.
My room was just a few feet from the sand facing the sea. My balcony held two large wicker chairs and a rectangular wooden coffee table barely large enough to hold a book, my evening tea, (or wine) and bare feet.
After a delightful lunch of fresh grilled red snapper cooked to perfection served under a bamboo roofed dining room in the open air facing the ocean, I knew I was in the right place. Lobster, sea urchins, sauces and desserts prepared only the way the French know how, were the order of the day. The conversation drifted from French, to Italian and then English for me.
Daily, I sat in the comfy wicker chair or snuggled in the hammock listening to the ocean sounds that lapped the shore a few yards from my balcony. I swam with the tides careening the surf and slept with the trade winds cooing me to sleep. No need for air conditioning, or ceiling fans to dissuade the mosquitoes. Small green lizards, geckos, climbed the wall by day and winged insects fluttered about at night. I felt secure in the still of the dark as the night sounds lulled me to sleep.
But I was soon to be challenged from my hammock. Jean- Bernard at my coaxing had been working with the locals from Cap to see if we could do what I had only dreamed. I had always longed to attend an authentic voodoo ceremony in a real village with real people, no tourists, as the only invited guests. After a few days of negotiations and our agreement to make a payment for the rum to be consumed by the Voodoo Priest, and four chickens to feed the crowd, and a few incidentals paid to the right folks, we were set for the ceremony. The day arrived and we were apprehensive.
Donatella suggested, “maybe we should forget the whole idea, what if something happens and we can’t control it, I am getting nervous.” I was determined to attend.
Only a few stars glittered in the inky sky. We traveled for miles past Cap bumping along on rutted dirt roads, in the Land Rover with Jean-Bernard, Donatella, myself, Kiki and our local guide, a leftover member of the ton ton macoute, from Duvalier’s regime (Papa Doc) whose name escaped me in the translated introduction. Jean Bernard trusted him and he had arranged the logistics of our night into the most fascinating of all Haitian traditions the Voodoo Ceremony.
Kiki, Donatella and I were disoriented after we left Cap and could not tell what direction we were headed. We could hear distant drumming and as it grew steadily louder the guide asked Jean-Bernard to stop the car, The two of them left us sitting in the land Rover. Jean Bernard cautioned us only once. “Stay in the car .No matter what, do not get out of the car. Understood. No matter what happens, someone will come for you, remain in the car if I do not return.” We stayed glued to our seats.
Kiki took my hand and began in a frail voice,
“Hail Mary full of grace
The Lord is with Thee. . .”
What’s going on in there? Are you chanting? Get out of the car.” Jean-Bernard was pounding on the window trying to open the door which we had locked. “We are three scared former Catholic school girls reciting our prayers,” Donatella murmured.
“For God’s sake get a grip. You all agreed to do this.” Jean Bernard could see that we were holding hands and truly frightened. We were surrounded by blackness, no lights in the distance, no lights or houses or at least none with electricity as Jean Bernard helped us from the car.
“Remember what we talked about this afternoon. Do not engage yourself into the ceremony. Even if you are taken up to dance, come back to your place and sit in the plastic chairs I have insisted they bring for us. We are the only guests and the only non Haitians here. We are privileged. Be respectful but do not and I mean do not, start swaying to the music and do not get up to follow in the dancing. I mean it. Stay seated at all times.”
We did not say a word, but followed him across the road running into clucking chickens, a small goat and two children holding hands as we broke through into a large meadow overgrown with spiky grass. We walked further into a clearing and I could see a camp fire burning in the middle of the area. A majestic tree that looked like an oak bordered the clearing and to the front of the space was a lean-to shack open along the front with a dirt porch. The drummers were lined up length wise in front of the entire porch and the sound was slow and steady. Haitian villagers stood or squatted around the periphery of the space and directly across from the porch on the other side of the fire were four plastic chairs seated facing the ceremonial site. The ton ton macoute character motioned for us to sit.
There seemed to be about thirty to thirty-five people milling around the circumference and no children in the dirt courtyard. I counted everyone around the campfire to control my anxiety.
An older man came forward and with exact precision began to draw the “veve” a ceremonial drawing to invoke the Loa Guine, on the dirt floor that backed up to the low rise structure.
The man held in his hand what I thought was a candle and I wondered if our money had purchased them. Later I asked Jean Bernard about it and he said, “No, it was an oxen tendon, twisted and dried then lit as a candle.”
Soon the man began speaking softly in Haitian Creole, and it became evident that he was the priest or houngan who be the gatekeeper to the Spirit world. The houngan incorporated traditional elements of design I had seen in books but he also reflected his own creative skills.
He walked the perimeter of the open sided building, the porch or peristyle adjacent to the dirt altar chamber, the hounfor, and took his time and drew in the dirt with a branch using a bit of powder like substance, maybe cornmeal or wood ash, to illuminate the crevices in the dirt. He prayed the Catholic “Our Father,” in Creole or a patois of sorts and it had all the incantations of a Latin mass.
The fire burned higher and brighter as he stood watching over each symbol he created preparing the ceremonial space. Two inner circles were made with star points added to them making them look like pentacles with another set of symbols along the edge of the area in front of the drummers. A poto mitan or large pole, a tree branch which represents the spiritual center and supports the spirit house was thrust into the ground to the left of the two veve drawings.
The chickens were squabbling like they knew their fate when the houngan suddenly stooped to pick up one skinny chicken pecking at his foot and with a quick twist broke its neck. The chicken’s head plopped to one side and blood splattered over the priest and onto his flabbergasted audience. The priest put his mouth to the chicken’s neck and the blood smeared his face which he wiped before he drank again from his rum bottle. “We have the best seats in the house and now I know why,” Kiki whispered.
The priest downed another shot of rum and the drummers increased their syncopated rhythm stirring the quiet group of Haitians. Several women stepped around the symbols within the veve and began to swish their skirts to and fro gracefully moving with the beat of the music. A few men joined moving their hips and thrust their bodies forward in a provocative manner. The bottle of rum stayed with the priest, the tempo increased and unseen entities stirred around the campfire waiting to possess a wanting soul.
After much movement, maybe an hour or so later the swaying dancers began to jerk and move erratically like puppets on a string, sweat poured down the faces of several of the men and the woman who were no longer graceful in their handmade dresses and colorful skirts. It was apparent the Loa had begun to “ride” the heads of the dancers. The person is regarded as a horse, in French, cheval, the Loa rides the horse or person. The houngan chanted, and prayed in sounds of French Creole, mostly unintelligible until another chicken lost it life.
Donatella gasped, “how many chickens is he going to kill?”
The shock in the front row was the same as though we had not seen it before and we sat spellbound splattered with blood, watching the flames of the fire, the dancing, the Loa possession; all in the black humid night air.
I leaned toward Kiki, “don’t you want to dance,” Jean Bernard heard me and gave me a stern look.
Donatella began to sway with the music and Jean Bernard poked her to stay still. Kiki and I dared not look at one another, for fear of giggling hysterically and being carted off doomed to be possessed, or worse, sacrificed into the fire.
I noticed feathers floating about us, the chickens must have been plucked by invisible hands that cut them ready for the coals, one by one, two more chicken necks cracked in front of us until there were four dead fowl.
One woman dancer fell to the ground sputtering and when she rose up she appeared completely different, grinding her hips in an overtly sexual manner until a handsome man came from the shadows to engage her with matching movements.
As I was watching a large woman with flowing hair came to me and I heard a gruff voice, “come dance with me,’ or at that is what I gleaned from the pantomime.
Her voice was like a man’s and she pulled my hand. “No, no.” I shook my head and held the seat of the chair so he/she could not get me off the chair. I knew that if a male mounts a female she is called he during the ceremony. He/she kept chiding me to dance and I wanted to stand up and dance but Jean Bernard spoke out in French and he/she let me go.
During my encounter Donatella had joined the circle of women swaying to the music as if in a trance, Kiki and I were frozen in place. Donatella moved with the group with first the woman, then a man who took her small frame in his arms and pulled him to her. Jean Bernard called out to her. “Come here and sit down now!” She ignored him and he stood up and pulled her from the circle. Donatella plunked into her chair and muttered to Jean Bernard, “let me dance, I am having fun.” He held her arm so she could not move from her chair and we all sat for a long time without moving an eyelash.
I felt woozy as the dancers continued their frenzy no longer a dance but a sea of bodies being “ridden” by the Loa.The smoke from the open fire along with the pithy body odor and strong smell of rum made it difficult to discern who was connected to whom as they moved in a circle around the veve.
The houngan called out to individuals and in return they called out their requests of the Spirits, Calling to Loa Guine, ne asked,” please cure my baby,” and other called to the Loa, heal my husband he is dying and what will become of me.” Some were clear petitions and others I could not understand in the mix of French Creole they used.
The disembodied spirits according to custom become tired and worn down from the hard task of running the universe and rely on humans to “feed” them with periodic rituals and the killing of animals as sacrifice. Goats and pigs are also sacrificed but in this small village that night we saw only chickens. A clear testament to the dire poverty in Cap Haitian.That night wore on and the music continued with the villagers dancing and drummers increasing the tempo. Long before midnight the energy turned explicitly sexual and though the voyeur in me wanted to stay, I felt emotionally drained.The others too grew weary and we exchanged nods and in quiet agreement noted that it was time to leave. The guide took the three of us women to the car and locked the door with us inside while he stood by the road.
Jean Bernard stayed a moment to thank our host and convey how much we appreciated being invited to the ceremony. He soon returned and we started home leaving the drumming in our ears and visions of the Loa in our heads.