28139: Craig (news) The Country Between Us (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig


> From /The New York Times/ Magazine Section
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Lives
The Country Between Us
By KATHIE KLARREICH

There was no earthly explanation, when I first went to Haiti as a tourist in 
1986, why it felt like home. The maze of market women and the taxis, like 
mobile artwork that moved through piles of rotting garbage — it was nothing 
like the tree-lined, manicured streets of the Cleveland suburb where I grew up. 
But I smiled back at the people who smiled at me, a white woman walking and 
sweating just like them.

Two years later, I returned to buy handicrafts to sell at my store in San 
Francisco, but instead of wooden trays and papier-mâché, the Haitians were 
dealing in bullets and machine guns. I had inadvertently arrived during a coup 
d'état, and my plans changed. Instead of staying for three months, I ended up 
staying for 10 years, eventually becoming a journalist.

My Haitian community began with the street kids, skinny, intrepid boys with 
unusual names: Wawa, Fatil, Eril, Ayiti, Ti David. I didn't have children, and 
they didn't have parents, so we became a family of sorts. I bought them 
mattresses and shoes, and they taught me Haitian street smarts and Creole. On 
the days that I felt homesick, they made me laugh, though I was the one with a 
roof over my head. They were living in the charred courtyard of St. Jean Bosco 
Church, best known for Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the bespectacled priest who 
embodied the hope that one day they could know a life better than the leftovers 
they survived on. But the priest let them down, and the kids scattered.

Soon I fell in love with a Haitian musician and Vodou drummer, Jean Raymond. We 
married and had a son, although not in that order. Kadja, who is named for a 
Vodou chant, considers himself black. When he was young, his Haitian 
grandmother made him breakfasts of fried spaghetti with ketchup or bread dunked 
in a syrupy coffee diluted with milk and sugar. When he wanted to get my 
attention, he said, "Mom-mom-mom-mom," like the rat-a-tat-tat of the gunfire 
that I was worried would wake him in the middle of the night, or worse. Now, 
when he has something important to say, he just calls me Kati, the way the 
Haitians do.

The year that Kadja turned 7 and that I had a gun held to my head for the third 
time, we moved to safety in Miami. But Kadja, now 14, respects his roots. On 
Haitian Flag Day, he wears a Haitian bandanna to remind people that he is not 
as white as he appears. He speaks Creole when he wants to say something private 
in front of his Hispanic friends and French if he must. If he doesn't do his 
homework, he says, "Se pa fot mwen," a Creole expression for "It's not my 
fault," as if this has been done to him rather than something he should take 
responsibility for. He unconsciously taps out Vodou rhythms at the dinner 
table, an inherent gift from his father.

We still maintain a home in Port-au-Prince, where Jean Raymond's band and music 
school are based. Jean Raymond comes and goes; I go and come — I've been there 
three times in the last 12 weeks to cover the unstable political scene. But 
Kadja hasn't been there, hasn't seen his Haitian grandmother in more than a 
year and a half. Before a trip last month, Kadja wrapped his strong arms around 
me and said, "It's O.K. that you go, Kati, because you love Haiti, and it's 
your job, but if you don't mind, I want to wait for the kidnappings to stop 
before I go back."

I nodded, afraid that I would start to cry. It breaks my heart to agree with 
him, but he knows how volatile Port-au-Prince continues to be. And I am 
thankful that he doesn't face the challenges — the poverty, drugs and political 
violence — that young men his age in Haiti have to face.

I had a very difficult reminder of this on another recent trip: I ran into 
Wawa, one of the boys I helped and who helped me nearly 18 years ago. He is now 
a strapping man with a son of his own. When he saw me, his beefy arms lifted me 
up and twirled me around. "Kati, Kati," he smiled. He is making his living as a 
pickpocket; his deft hands defy his bulk. "Se pa fot mwen," he said. The news 
about the other boys wasn't good. Eril was dying of tuberculosis. Ti David, 
Fatil and Ayiti were already dead.

I don't know what will happen in Haiti. I don't know when Kadja will go back or 
exactly how his connection to his roots will grow. It's better for now to 
protect him from the potential danger in the country that is his birthright, 
but I dream about returning with him to the place I love. It's beyond my 
control, se pa fot mwen, but I have to hope.

Kathie Klarreich is the author of "Madame Dread: A Tale of Love, Vodou and 
Civil Strife in Haiti." She has reported on Haiti for Time, The Nation, The 
Christian Science Monitor, NPR and NBC.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/magazine/319lives.html