(Excerpt # 4 completes my feelings and thoughts about voodoo as I recall my childhood memories)

To this day I remain estranged to the practice of voodoo never having attended a ceremony or consulted a voodoo priest or priestess. When I got sick, I turned to the doctor, the psychotherapist, I invoked God.  When I wanted to get money, I looked for a job.  When I wanted to influence the course of history, I turned to political activism. When I went abroad, I never felt the urge to go back to my so-called voodoo roots in Haiti and make offerings, organize a ceremony for the spirits to beg for their forgiveness. When I encountered misfortune, I did not attribute it to the powers of voodoo.

I feel however that given the importance of this cult or religion if you will, in our society, I should not be so distant or ignorant.  So when I grew up, I read some books on voodoo and God, voodoo and theater, voodoo and psychiatry, the anti-voodoo campaign under the American occupation and so on. The voodooists believe in God not just in the spirits.  It’s a syncretistic religion and not a superstition as the Haitian writer and anthropologist Jacques Roumain, the author of Masters of the Dew, wrote. I know at least that much, but on this matter, I must admit it, I remain an outsider.

So was our world: religious, magical and mystical.  And, within it, people like us who tried to sort things out and understand.  As a child, I was kept away and stayed away from what I assimilated to also be the domain of secret societies of evildoers, werewolves, poisoning, zombies, animal sacrifices, human persecution, cannibalism and cataleptic trance or possession by the spirit. I was completely alienated from this estranged world. At night time, I heard the drums from a distance; I observed from afar the “rara” bands passing by.

I remain however an unconditional fanatic of voodoo rhythms, dances and music. And the artistic part of voodoo is so much in my blood it must have been acquired at an early age.  I believe voodoo to be an intrinsic part of our culture and to influence us in one way or another whether we like it or not.  It is part of who we are as a people and an individual- although not to the same degree for everyone.

Voodoo also answers to our spiritual aspirations and needs for a world beyond, a God who is bigger than us and can protect us and can accompany us in times of trouble and difficulty. All children, including those who come from the voodoo circles, need God in their lives. The world is too big, immense and incomprehensible to little children; there is too much that they don’t know, they feel too insecure and unsafe, they are too lonely and need too much to be reassured.  The “presence” of God is to them comforting and securing so they rely on him, the almighty.

(This is excerpt #3 from Chapter 2 of My Childhood Memories on how I remember the presence of voodoo when I was a child)

Voodoo played no important part in our household. One of the town doctors was a friend of the family. (How lucky we were!) He was born in the village of Saint Louis du Sud where my father originated. He is the one who was called when we were sick. He did not charge my parents for his service. The doctor’s assistance was combined with the use of the traditional herbal medicine to care for childhood diseases. When a physician was not available, a midwife helped deliver my mother’s babies, like in my case she tells me. Periodically, we took a purgative, a beverage, made with leaves, that was so bitter we had to eat an orange after drinking it. This was to prevent us from having worms and to cleanse our body. At the time, we were vaccinated in school against some of the childhood illnesses and a mixture of starch was used to help us with diseases such as measles…
So, my mother did not resort to the ougan or mambo, voodoo priest or priestess, when her business declined. She was not involved in sorcery and never went to the “bòkòr” or sorcerer. She did not exchange our life or that of any other little child’s of the town for fortune. (As the rumors went that’s how some people became rich). She did not go to them for protection nor for any other reason people seek their help or know-how for. She kept her distance and honored God.
I remember however that she, once a year, made private offerings to the “marasa lwas” when she dressed a small table in the corner of our bedroom with mints, peanuts, cola and other candies which we could not touch or eat since it was for the lwas, the voodoo spirits: “you are forbidden to eat or even touch this or something bad will happen to you”, said my mom.
Marasa is Haitian Creole for twins. My grandmother was a twin and the twins were considered to have special powers. “The Marasas are the sacred twins of voodoo. They represent abundance, blessings, the gift of children, the sacredness of the family and the mysteries of the divine”  (internet source). They are, I read, most commonly identified with the twin saints Cosmos and Damien.
We, the children, were kept away from this activity and the meaning of all this. Offering sweets to the marasa lwas was part of my mother’s heritage; she did not want to share it with us. This ritual was, I guess, so her business could prosper and so she could always have the means to provide for us.

(This is a second excerpt from Chapter 1 of my Childhood Memories)

There were other people in my life. The servants, adults and children, played a major role. They cooked, did house chores, went to the market for food, washed and ironed our clothes. My grandmother always made sure the children were my age so they could play with me. While my mother had no hesitation about laying them off and replacing them for one reason or another, I longed they could stay forever and not have to develop new relations with new people. They knew our folklore and told us tales at night as well as guessing riddles in Haitian Creole. We sat in the dining room lighted by a kerosene lamp. There was no electricity. They did not speak French. We did. They did not know how to read or write. We did.
The conscience of the precariousness of servant life is my first awareness of social class differences. Spontaneously I understood the plight of the poor and the oppressed. I did not agree with their condition. The reprobation was obvious in my eyes, my silence. My mother did not like the fact that I was not always on her side. “You’re taking the servants’ side”, she said to me, with disapprobation in her eyes.
On the other hand I could understand that we were not rich. Although my family owned a house, was able to procure us with basic food and clothing, send some of us to private school in the capital city Port-au-Prince, there were others who had more means. “We were not poor, we were not rich”, my mother says.
My social awareness also included the consciousness of upper classes. We did not live in the same neighborhood nor go to the same church. Ours was the Sacred Heart across from the open market; theirs was the Cathedral across from the public square on the upper side of the town. We lived in wood houses; they lived in concrete houses that were bigger. My mother had a struggling commerce; they had big stores and businesses. They sold fabrics or imported products, exported coffee and the vetiver grass which was used abroad to make expensive perfume.
As for God, my relation with him was a serious one: I loved him with all my heart and believed in him; in return, he would protect me. It was a mutual understanding, a two-way pact never to be broken. My commitment to God was conditional. He was all powerful and would take me under his wings, secure me from harm and the death of my loved ones. I was a fragile child who needed to feel safe and that’s the way I could figure out my relationship with God. He was my protector in heaven. In return, I would be a good girl and would commit no sin.

It wasn’t a communion like any other. It was a “private” event orchestrated by my mother. The year before, my classmates had their first communion, but I was only six then and my mother had found me too young to make this important allegiance to God. It was to happen when I was 7, the age of reason. So she taught me the catechism and took me to the priest the following year.
I passed the test with high marks; my mother was a good teacher and the stories of the old and new testaments had captured my emotions and imagination.
On the day of this important event, I was wearing a white embroidered dress, a white hat; I was holding a white purse; my small feet were inserted in white socks and white shoes. In my left hand was what must have probably been a small bible. “You look very pretty”, said my mom as I was feeling taken by the sentiment of the uniqueness of the day.
We woke up early to get prepared to go to the cathedral. There was a lot of excitement and a feeling this day would be like no other, an exceptional one in my life. The day before I had gone to the hairdresser, for the first time, to get my hair straightened and curled with a hot comb. I remember the scent of talcum powder while passing through my mom’s bedroom that morning on my way to the living room where my attire was carefully arranged and displayed on one of the mahogany chairs.
At the church, I walked alone in the aisle… among adults it seems.
What I recall most about this period of my childhood is that I was the youngest in the class and skinny to the bone. My classmates were one or two years older than me. I was smarter than them. I was very verbal, using both Creole and French; school tasks seemed easy and I enjoyed learning. None of them became my friend. I yearned to one day have one who would love me unconditionally, whom I could confide in and who would keep me company. We would have an exclusive rapport, a one-on-one camaraderie that would last forever and never be betrayed.

(This is Chapter I of MY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES, a series of seven chapters that recount the episodes of my childhood and adolescence).

Il ne s’agira pas de “blogger” dans le sens traditionnel du terme. Je considère ce blog comme un espace personnel/partagé où seront publiés des écrits à un rythme qui ne sera déterminé que par moi-même.
Communiquer, partager avec d’autres ce qui n’est peut-être pas publiable ailleurs ou qui peut tout aussi bien l’être. Comme mes mémoires d’enfance auxquelles personne ne s’intéresse…
J’imagine que ce blog m’incitera à écrire davantage car il faudra bien poster/publier un texte de temps à autre, ne serait-ce que pour justifier l’existence du blog…