AS THE devastation of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince sank in, pervading the depth of my being, my thoughts flashed on and off to a colleague I met at the First Encounter of Caribbean Magazines in Cuba.

Khal Torabully

Jaime Darbouze is Haitian and a Professeur at Editions de L’Universite D’Etat D’Haiti. We stayed at the same hotel in Havana, sat at breakfast and dinner, and travelled together to and from the conference centre, Casa de las Americas.

Sometimes we shared tables and cabs with another delegate to the magazine encounter, Tomas Ramos of Nuevo Mexico. My son, Merlin Octobert, who acted as interpreter, was almost always present. Of course, we exchanged information about our respective countries; I was a good ambassador of Guyana.

As the devastation unfolded, I got on the Internet and emailed ‘James’, the name we used, half-heartedly (Internet may be down in Haiti) but hopefully. I waited. At morn, I checked my email… nothing. At even, nothing.

The next day, I got a response from James: He was alive and well, but sort of stranded in Canada, unable to get back home, and unable to make contact with family and friends in Haiti. James departed Haiti the day before the earthquake struck.

Since then (Friday, January 15), I’ve received nothing from James. In the meantime, however, I constantly email him with news that he may not be privy to; news of Guyana’s efforts to help; news of the hundreds of Cuban doctors and scores of Cuban- trained Haitian doctors already on the ground in Haiti contributing to the cause of recovery.

Edwidge Danticat

I sent him a song/poem written specially for the occasion by John ‘Slingshot’ Drepaul. I also sent a poem written in French by Khal Torabully, a Mauritian resident in Paris whom I met in 2007 at a University of Warwick-sponsored conference on South Asian Literature.

(As soon as I get permission, I would publish those poems.)
While waiting for a response from James, I studied Al Creighton’s article, ‘WALCOTT AND HAITI’ (Stabroek News Sunday January 17), which influenced my dusting out two novels by Haitian-born Edwidge Danticat.

I read ‘BREATH, EYES, MEMORY’, a gift from Berkley Semple, which he brought me during Carifesta X, 2008. I browsed ‘THE FARMING OF BONES’, a gift from Denise Harris when she was in the country to receive her Guyana Prize for Literature. (It is important that I acknowledge these sources of my books, because some books are out-of- print; some I could ill-afford, I do not have the wherewithal to secure any online; some never reach these shores, and the bookstore/s here would only handle a few Guyanese titles deposited on consignment.)

What attracted me to ‘Breath, Eyes, Memory’ was the dedication which read: “To the brave women of Haiti, grandmothers, mothers, aunts, sisters, cousins, daughters, and friends, on this shore and other shores. We have stumbled, but we will not fall.” That last line, “we have stumbled but we will not fall,” is most appropriate at this time of crisis; this should be the redeeming theme of Haiti.

‘Breath, Eyes, Memory’ was an intriguing read for me, especially against the backdrop of Pat Robertson’s statement that Haiti’s calamity was as a result of a pact it made with the devil.

This first novel by Danticat is the story of a young girl, aged 12, who is sent from her impoverished village to New York be to “reunited with a mother she barely remembers. “There, she discovers secrets that no child should ever know, and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti — to the women who first reared her.

“What ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural, and scarred by political violence, in a novel that bears witness to the traditions, suffering, and wisdom of an entire people” set during the reign of the Tonton Macoutes.

It was a fascinating study of Haitian culture as practised both in the Diaspora and at home. Some practices/superstitions are not dissimilar to Guyana’s — funerals (many pre-planned) were elaborate and sacred affairs. One aspect of that culture that stood out for me was called ‘doubling’, where a person takes on the persona of another (happier, stronger and more capable) in order to deal with trauma. I hope ‘doubling’ could ease some of the suffering of the Haitian people.