And my best friend came to town. I must have been 8 or 9. She was the daughter of my mother’s friend, so our mothers introduced us to each other. Her father, a judge, had been assigned to work at another part of the country; but he died so the family of 7 children, 4 boys and three girls, returned to live in their native town, Aux Cayes. She fulfilled a long yearning on my part for a best friend. She was my age and very smart; we disputed each other the head of the class. So we competed a little bit but it was okay: she wasn’t my rival; she was my dearest friend, as intelligent as I was.
In and out of school we spent a lot of time together. We wrote each other letters, sharing all our little secrets and dreams. For a long time I kept our correspondence, but finally lost the letters preserved in a plastic bag on my last stay in Haiti in my forties. In my mind, ours was a permanent bond, a mutual pact of love, fidelity and responsibility. Nobody could take me away from her so nobody would be able to take her away from me. I would not betray her and she would not betray me. I had no doubts her feelings for me were identical to my feelings for her. She came in my life when every one else failed me and bullied me, she comforted me, rescued me and stood by me and I would comfort her and stand by her forever. In her, I found a second self, we were a single soul dwelling in two bodies (Aristotle) and although we would grow separately we would never grow apart.
There were signs that showed we were developing independently, but,I refused to acknowledge them. First, her family’s economic condition was more precarious than mine, her mother being a widow with seven children. This situation made them more vulnerable than we were. Second, I was a skinny girl slow to physically and psychologically mature, she was not and thus, early, captured the attention of males. Third, she had an independent mind and grew to disagree with my (immature?) views on several occasions.
My best friend faced early with the realities of life came out of her childhood earlier than I did. She did not have a responsibility to me; she had one to herself and her family, so our lives went their own path and destiny. Twice I influenced reality to be close to her, so we could have a similar fate, first by becoming her friend through my mother and two by going to the same Catholic school after we completed our primary school. But I did not have the power or the means to continually intervene when she was older. So we went our separate ways.
On my side too there were signs of separateness. I took piano and guitar lessons. I became the only young girl playing the guitar in town-although as a beginner. My family took the path of emigration. In effect, in the early sixties, my uncle Louis and my aunt Carmen went to Chicago and from there my aunt went to New York. It was the beginning of the Haitian middle class departure to a better life in the U.S.A. And from there they were able to help us financially and send for us. My girlfriend and her family emigrated to the capital Port-au-Prince where she went to the public Lyceum while I went to a private secondary school.
But prior to that time, while we were still in Aux Cayes, and I was about 13-14, my beloved father became sick and he died when I was fifteen. He had tuberculosis and heart complications. It was for our family a very painful experience. My best friend did not show up at the funeral. Only a distant friend came. I did not understand why she could not have seen her presence was an absolute necessity in this time of grief. I remember walking to the cemetery and when we arrived there watching putting my father’s coffin down the ground and swearing I would never forget him.
I was angry too. I was angry at God who did not keep his promise to protect my loved ones. He broke our pact. From now on I concluded I was alone on this earth, no God would come to my rescue. My sentiments for God were profoundly affected. It was a turning point in my life and my somewhat innocent childhood was gone.

Twelve Lives in Queens County: A Collaborative Zine
Opening Reception on Saturday August 21 from 6:00 until 10:00 PM.

August 21 Through September 4 2010.

Paul Lambermont and Local Project are pleased to announce “ Twelve Lives in Queens County: A Collaborative Zine.” This project has been funded by a Queens Community Arts Fund Grant, from the Queens Council on the Arts.

“Twelve Lives in Queens County : A Collaborative Zine” is a project coordinated, edited and curated by Queens visual artist Paul Lambermont. It features writing and visual art by Amanda Perlmutter, Aurore Maximin, Beatriz Olivetti, Robert Trabold, Teli Sapokolos, Maryse Nöel Roumain, Dena Perlmutter, Juan Ramirez, Nathalia Tello, Joey Kilrain, Sandra Arias and Juanita Lara, all Queens County residents. Through writing, visual art and photography, each participant tells a story of his or her life. Through collaboration, each participant connects his or her life story to the story of a larger, diverse community.

The project will culminate with the publication of an edition of 1000 zines and an exhibition of visual art, photography and writing. The Zine will be available for sale at the gallery for $5.00.

Local Project is located at
45-10 Davis St.
Long Island City, Queens, NY, 11101Gallery hours are everyday from 2:30 until 7:00 or by appointment by calling 347 612 7452

Of the history of Les Cayes, I retain the passage of Simon Bolivar who eleven years after Haiti’s independence came to gather arms and munitions to free the countries of South America. There is a bust of him on the seaport of our hometown. We passed it every time we went to the boardwalk for a promenade. The hero of South American independence, supplied by the then president of Haiti, Alexandre Pétion, sailed two times from our coastal town to successfully conclude his struggle for freedom from Spanish colonialism.
We were proud of the peasants who dared to protest at a near location called Marchaterre against the American occupation which occurred from 1915 to 1934. There used to be a cross standing there to recall and honor their memories.
Of the presidents, there were Nicolas Geffrard, and Antoine Simon (among others) who came from the region although the last was turned into ridicule because of his simple mindedness and lack of education.
The African American woman writer Zora Neale Hurston tells the story of Antoine Simon. She writes there are countless tales of this crude soldier’s stumbling and blunders in the palace where most considered he had no right to be; his not knowing what to do in matters of state, what to say to foreign diplomats and how to behave among the luxuries of the palace. “Some politicians engineered General Simon, then the governor of the South, to the presidency, hoping to manipulate him. What they had to reckon with instead was his daughter Celestine, a voodoo priestess, and his mystical pet, the goat Simalo… There are tales of the services to the voodoo spirits when his army marched from Aux Cayes to Port-au-Prince; especially the ceremonies to Ogoun Feray, the voodoo god of war, to make the soldiers impervious to bullet and blade.”
When Antoine Simon and his daughter Celestine came to power, Hurston writes, voodoo ceremonies were regularly held at the basement chambers of the palace causing fear among upper class Haitians.
Antoine Simon remained president for three years. He was like many other presidents exiled to Jamaica when President Cincinatus Leconte replaced him in 1911 prior to the American occupation which occurred from 1915 to 1934.
The more recent political figure of which Aux Cayes was most proud of is Louis Déjoie a presidential candidate in 1956-1957 against Francois Duvalier, Clément Jumelle and Daniel Fignolé.
I was 8 years old when these historical events unfolded having been born in 1949. This election was to be the first one by universal suffrage so everyone had their say. (Prior to that, the chambers nominated the president or he seized power at the head of his army). During the electoral campaign, mass meetings were held mostly by the candidate Déjoie who visited Aux Cayes coming from Port-au-Prince where he resided. I attended one of them perched on the shoulders of my uncle T. Every one wore straw hats which said: Vive Déjoie or Long Life to Déjoie!
He was a rich landowner and industrialist who promised to give the people work if he was elected: voter Déjoie, c’est voter travail, to vote for Déjoie is to vote for work, said his slogan. He was a mulatto and had the support of most of the bourgeoisie but also of the middle class and the peasants in aux Cayes and its surrounding region. The army was on the side of Duvalier and that’s how he got to win through fraudulent, manipulated elections.
According to my father, we should stay away from politics because in Haiti it is dangerous and treacherous but my oldest sister who just turned twenty one and attended medical school in Port-au-Prince wanted to participate. She was all excited and proud. Women, for the first time, were exercising their right to vote.
After Duvalier won the election, there was a price to pay for having been on the side of Déjoie. And so the richer families were constantly ransomed and harassed; their daughters became the sexual prey of the tontons macoutes. This historical epoch is best described in Raoul Peck’s movie: ‘The Man by the Shore’ which in fact depicts the story of my godmother, her daughter and grand children in Aux Cayes, after Duvalier became president.
As I recall it, my godmother’s daughter had married an army officer who was on the side of the candidate Déjoie. He was forced to flee into exile when Duvalier was elected leaving behind his wife, his three daughters and his mother-in-law (my godmother) to look after them. The movie tells the story as seen in the eyes of the youngest granddaughter of their stay in Aux Cayes where they waited until they were rejoined with their mother and father abroad. And that’s how I recall it. The kids were more or less my age and I used to go spend time with them in the big concrete house with an attic and a piano. This episode caused my godmother a lot of sadness and persecution.
After that period, we never saw elections again since Duvalier proclaimed himself president for life and his nineteen year old son succeeded him, both of them ruling for close to thirty years. It was the reign of the tontons macoutes, or boogey men, as the new militia was called. As many voodoo worshipers entered the Tontons Macoutes, Duvalier installed a psychosis of fear through superstitious beliefs and the flag became again black and red rather than blue and red with a guinea hen in its middle for an emblem rather than the arms of the republic; and every morning in school we stood in ranks singing the national anthem and swearing to be the guardians of the “revolution”.

My native town ‘Aux Cayes’ which has been renamed ‘Les Cayes’ is located southwest of the capital Port-au-Prince. The name comes from the French quay or in English shore, a land along the edge of the sea.
Les Cayes is the third most important town after the capital Port-au-Prince and Cap Haïtien in the north. It is a city, or better a province, the chef-lieu of six municipalities or villages considered to be rural and rustic, referred to as ‘La campagne’ (the country side in English) or in Haitian Creole ‘andéyò’, ‘nan mòn’, meaning those mountainous regions that are on the outskirts of the city and are inhabited by the peasants, pejoratively referred to as “big shoes”, meaning unrefined and lacking in good manners and urban sophistication.
Our town borders on the Caribbean Sea and was a major port, exporting coffee, sugar cane and other agricultural products abroad. It’s built in the Plain of Cayes, is flat and easily flooded when the river, the Ravine du Sud, would overflow during the hurricane season, carrying muddy waters and rocks that invaded in the streets and homes. And so it suffered from the winds and fury of several violent storms and hurricanes such as Hazel in October 1954, Flora in October 1963, Cleo in August 1964 and others. I remember my uncle T who lived by the ocean coming to take refuge at our home which was on the other side of town and thus better protected from the flooding waters. In the eighteen century, during the colonial period, two hurricanes destroyed the town of Aux Cayes which was later rebuilt.
There were public, catholic and private schools up to the secondary level, two catholic churches, two police stations, a public square, a public market, government administration houses, an army barrack with military personnel, big and small stores… The town had its poor, its middle class and its bourgeois class. It had its Middle Eastern community coming from Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, all referred to as Syrians. They came with nothing but soon ended up selling fabric by the public market and mostly marrying each other exclusively. The province had its Monsignor. When I was a child it was a Monsignor who came from Quebec so he spoke French; later, when Papa Doc Duvalier nationalized the church, it was a Haitian bishop. He resided in a big solid house by the cathedral near the public square.
It took a whole day by truck or van to go from Aux Cayes to Port-au-Prince only 196 kilometers away. Then, the roads were not covered with asphalt. They were rocky and muddy when it rained and the van could get stuck for several hours. Everybody would come out and the men would push it out of the deep and large potholes. There were mountainous roads to pass through. Haiti is an Indian word for mountainous land and as the proverb say: dèyè mòn gen mòn, behind mountains there are mountains. In the vehicle, the passengers sat in close proximity to each other; on top of it were the goods brought to the capital city’s market including the live poultry that was for long hours exposed to the sun. I sometimes accompanied my mother who went to the capital city to buy products for her commerce.
Aux Cayes had its beaches, the most famous being Gelée, where the river met with the ocean and Boury sur Mer, further down. The town had its waterfall called La Perle or the Pearl. Its vacation places where a privileged few owned second homes in Camp-Perrin and Pont Salomon. It had its Patron Saint Our Lady of Assumption celebrated on the fifteenth of August. It had its political history too and its natives who became presidents and otherwise famous.