Rocks in the Water, Rocks in the Sun: A Memoir from the Heart of Haiti

by Vilmond Joegodson Déralciné

  I left my aunt in the hands of the nurses at Sainte Catherine’s. Since the hospital was not far from Simon, I went to get my father who took a taptap to bring her some food. He was very fond of his little sister.

  At noon, we were still at the hospital. After my aunt had eaten and been bathed and was resting with her new baby in her arms, my uncle arrived and saw Dad with us. He asked how we were. I said that my aunt had given birth. He said he knew that. I asked how. He replied that he had returned home to pray for her after he had dropped us off. He knew that his prayers were powerful and sincere. He asked us if we had eaten. I said that Dad had brought something. That too, my uncle claimed to have known in advance. It was a performance for Dad. My dad, for his part, couldn’t see through my uncle without opening a can of worms. I was in that can and it stank.

  My uncle put his wife and new baby and me in the Volvo, working again, and drove back to Delmas 33. I went to look for some leaves. In Haitian culture, after giving birth, women bathe in water infused with certain leaves: papaya, maskriti, and several others. A few women from the neighbourhood came over to take care of my aunt as I prepared to return to the workshop. They remained with her until she was strong enough to take up her life again.

  I returned to my work in the shop at an accelerated pace. Josué and Willy were gone. I carried on for the rest of the month alone. I built a bed and night tables, a dining room table and six chairs, and repaired another set. On 31 December, I was in the shop. I waited for my uncle, because it was the day when workers traditionally receive a bonus.

  He came late in the afternoon, scratching his head. He said that, unfortunately, he was not in a position to offer me much in the way of a bonus. But he took my hand, placed some bills in it and then enclosed it inside his two hands, in a gesture of gratitude and bonhomie.

  Had he come through after all? I opened my hand and counted 150 gourdes ($3.68 US). My thoughts went to the kokorat who had saved 4,000 gourdes from washing cars with sewer water. Maybe it had taken him time to save that amount, but he was living in a different income bracket than me. My uncle’s bonus was so small that it was not even conceivable as an insult or a joke.

  The next day was New Year’s 2004, the two hundredth anniversary of Haitian independence. The glorious victory of the slaves over the French masters. My uncle came to offer me another surprise. He had bought some clothes for his two families. He included me. He offered me a shirt. But before giving it to me, he wanted to recount an inspirational story.

  “There was a mason who worked for a businessman. The businessman bought plots of land and invited the mason to design houses for them. In each case, the mason would hand the businessman a list of the materials that he would need along with their cost. The businessman gave the mason the money and, together, they constructed many homes. While the businessman became rich, he paid the mason a miserable sum for his work. But the mason continued to work. He thought that the businessman would offer him a bonus. But no. The businessman bought a nice plot of land and asked the mason, as usual, to design a beautiful house for it. But by this point, the mason had become discouraged. He decided to make the businessman pay the price for his exploitation. This time, he used inferior materials but charged the businessman for the best. When the work was finished, the businessman arranged a public celebration of this special house. In his speech, he said, ‘My mason partner and I have worked together for many years. Through thick and thin, we have persevered. I have become rich because of this man. He has always been faithful and honourable. Today, it is my turn to thank him.’ He called the mason and said, ‘For all that you have done for me, I want to thank you with this gesture.’ He handed him the keys to the house and said, ‘This house is for you.’ Everyone applauded the gesture. The young mason began to cry. Not tears of joy, but of regret and shame. He was unworthy of the praise that his boss had offered him.”

  Maybe it had occurred to my uncle that I might be discouraged as a result of his exploitation. I tried on the shirt. It was pèpè, a second-hand article of clothing sold by the street merchants at reduced rates. It was so big that there was room for another Joegodson to join me inside. The sleeves hung over my hands. I looked like a clown. But it was fitting. Only a clown would accept to be treated as I was.

  He said, “How do you like it?”

  “It’s the perfect gift. Look at how it fits me,” I replied.

  He registered satisfaction, proud of himself for his taste and his great generosity. “I never make mistakes, even when I buy things without taking measurements.”

  I folded together his gift, his story, and my entire history with him, and I put them in an envelope that I addressed Progress Toward Death. I wondered how my uncle expected people to respond to his lies. In his world of lies, what difference would the truth make?

  After he left, I stuffed the shirt under the rug on the kitchen floor where I slept. It gave it a little padding. Since it was the holiday season, I didn’t go to work. On 3 January, I went down to Delmas 19 to see some other furniture makers. They knew of my competence and asked me to help them come up with a design for the cupboards in an apartment. I agreed and, within a week, we had finished the job.

  During that one week, not only did I eat, but I made 1,500 gourdes ($36.77 US). That was more than I had made in four years with my uncle, running his shop, designing and building furniture. After one week away from him, I was able to buy a bike with thick tires built to withstand Haitian “roads.”

  My uncle noticed that I had stretched the holidays into the second week of January. There was little he could do for the moment. He was now living in his other house in Delmas 31. He came periodically to see how the shop was going. But each time he came by, the door was locked. Normally, even big party-goers eventually recover from the holidays. But weeks went by and there was no evidence that I had yet unlocked the workshop doors.

  Sometimes, he came by to meet a client, to make sure that he didn’t lose any contracts. However, some came to demand the same style of table that I had designed and built. He was not able to accept the orders without me. He told the clients that the worker who normally did that work was unreliable. He offered them something in another style. They would reply that they were making enquiries for friends who had seen the work at their homes. He had to turn them away.

  These experiences led my uncle to find out what was going on with me. He first made some enquiries in the neighbourhood to find out that I was working with other bosses. So, he came up to find me in Delmas 33 where I was living with my aunt and he was not. But I was never there when he came by. After a month, he became seriously concerned. I had rebelled before, but never for a month. He went so far as to decide to sleep at his wife’s house in order to assure himself that he would run into me.

  That night, when I returned home from church, my uncle was sitting in front of the entrance to the house. I greeted him in passing and entered the house. I went to bed. After a few minutes, he called for me. His daughter told him that I was already asleep. He told her to wake me up.

  “Are you still working in my shop or not?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He said, “For several weeks now, the shop has been closed. If you have decided to finish with your trade, then you can return to Simon. I didn’t take you out of Simon in order that you could just live here. It was to work. If you aren’t going to work, then go back to Simon.”

  I said, “Okay. Thanks for all your patience with me … and your hospitality. Since you have decided to not allow me to stay here, I will leave.”

  I went to the kitchen to put my things in my backpack. My aunt came to see me to say that I should not leave that night. She wanted me to at least wait until the morning and to have a destination in mind.

  I decided to accept her offer. I left my bag there and went out to talk to a friend from church about the situation. My friend was upset to hear the news. He knew my uncle and understood that I had been mistreated for years. He was worried about
me, thinking that I could become a vakabon, as we say in Haiti: someone who lives outside of his community, someone with no morality.

  He invited me to live with him. However, he lived with his brother who had just married. My friend didn’t live inside the rented room, but slept on the roof. He had found an old mattress whose springs had broken through the lining that he tried to make less offensive by covering with cardboard. But the springs were stronger and would pierce the cardboard. He enclosed the mattress within walls of rusty old sheets of metal. That gave him a room that was exactly the dimensions of the mattress and that rose about one metre above it. Since there were other buildings all around that rose higher than our rooftop, we were always on view from above. From their perspective, we must have looked like rats scurrying into our sordid little bedroom.

  I went to Delmas 19 to ask Jelo, who guarded the property of the old doctor, if I could leave my bag in the property while I slept on a rooftop up in Delmas 33.

  I didn’t want people in Delmas 33 to know that I had no work, so I came down to Delmas 19 to pass every day in the courtyard of Jelo’s property. But at night, I was frightened to sleep on the rooftop. It was 2004 and the country was in an uproar. President Aristide had just been forced into exile and we poor were under attack. There was much violence. At night we could hear the exchanges of gunfire all over. At any time, a stray bullet could pass through our miserable little shelter and kill us. Worse, rumours were circulating that certain groups were ripping out the hearts of living victims for their sacrifices. We would have been sitting ducks for such malfeasance.

  On top of those fears was the rain. When the tropical storms came, my friend and I looked for the least leaky spot in the shelter. We crouched with our heads up against the rusty iron ceiling, waiting for it to end. It was a life of trying to stay alive, without knowing why.

  In the village of Solidarite, Josué would sometimes find some small jobs for us, repairing furniture or building night tables. In 2005, a member of the diaspora saw me working in Solidarite. He offered me a job building doors with wood imported from abroad and repairing furniture that had been rejected for sale in the United States because of imperfections. My job was to repair this pèpè furniture so that it could be sold in Haiti. The work was difficult, because the wood was of an inferior quality to that I was used to. However, the Haitian, who lived in Miami, was satisfied with my work. He left me in charge of the shop when he returned to the United States. I soon finished all that he had left for me. He told me he would return with more work, but he never did. Instead, his son arrived and proposed a number of jobs. He showed me photographs of furniture from foreign magazines and asked if I could reproduce the designs. I succeeded. I continued to work for him for a year, reproducing all sorts of furniture. Although he wasn’t as abusive as my uncle had been, neither was he more generous. A couple of times a week, he would bring me a plate of rice and sòs pwa nwa. He paid me by giving me a cellphone that was not activated and that was, therefore, of no use to me. Finally, I gave up.

  Sometimes we had to pass through exchanges of gunfire and protests that turned violent on our way to Solidarite. To avoid the risks that surrounded me, I decided to remain in one place. Jelo accepted my request to stay in the property in Delmas 19. I would be able to use a room in a building on the property that had been built for the groundskeeper. The house had been built during the early Duvalier years when the neighbourhood was middle class. Since then, it had deteriorated and was now largely inhabited by paupers. The doctor retained possession while he lived up the mountains in the security of Thomassin. Perhaps he hoped that Haiti would come out of its descent into insecurity. Meanwhile, the large two-story house remained in the centre of the property, uninhabited.

  My room was only a short distance from my uncle’s shop. Sometimes, he would see me as I walked down the street. From time to time, I even dropped in to say hello. He would get excited and ask me if I would like some work. He proposed a number of contracts. I always said sure, that’s a good idea. Then I left and never followed up. He hadn’t changed.

  I decided to put all my energy into creating a chef d’oeuvre. I threw myself into the construction of a vanity. The design. The work. I thought about it all the time. I didn’t have enough money to buy the materials. So, it was a long process. Whenever I had a few gourdes, I would buy another plank for my vanity. I was like a bird that builds its nest one twig at a time.

  Eventually, it was finished and I was proud. It was beautiful. I left it outside of the gate by the side of the road where everyone could see it.

  On our street was a school for children of the bourgeoisie. It was surrounded by concrete walls. Armed guards protected it. Every morning and afternoon, SUVs came down from the mountain. Big, burly men in black got out to collect the children of their employers. They carried a shotgun in one hand and, in the other, they held the hand of a little child that they led back to the SUV. Their job was to protect the children from being kidnapped. But sometimes, the parents of the children came by. They would see the cabinet.

  One day, Jelo came running to me to say that a bourgeois was out in front of the property. He wanted to talk to the ebenis. I felt my heart pounding. This was my plan. The vanity was the bait. He would pay me for the true value of my skills. And, with that, I would construct another, and then another, and another. I would be recognized as a craftsman. And I would build my own business.

  I walked calmly towards the gate. I refused to run. But I could not hide the pride that I felt in my creation. I couldn’t suppress my smile.

  He stood next to his expensive SUV. He was cold. He didn’t smile like I was smiling. He asked if I was the ebenis who had made it. He said he would be interested in buying it. Then he proposed an amount that I am ashamed to repeat. It was well below the cost of the materials.

  I thought maybe he was negotiating. I didn’t want to play that game. I just told him how much it would cost. I priced it at its true value. Calmly. Honestly. My heart was beating again at its normal rhythm.

  I saw him look me up and down. I could not hide my poverty. My clothes were made to fit someone bigger than me. My pants were held around my little waist with a rope. They frayed at the bottom. My shirt was ripped.

  I could see his mind calculating. He would not pay me for what the vanity was worth, but for what he had decided I was worth.

  If I had sold it to him, it would have been like agreeing that I was worth nothing. I refused.

  From time to time, I saw one of our poor neighbours admiring the vanity. Eventually, he asked me how much it was worth. I asked how much it was worth to him. Instead, he told me how much money he could pay. Before I answered, he apologized. It was a little less than the amount that the bourgeois had offered. But it was a great sum for this man. I agreed. We took it to his tikounouk.

  Jelo was both kind-hearted and shrewd, always looking for ways to make a few gourdes. From time to time, he let people sleep on the property that was enclosed behind big concrete walls. Once, he let a group of shoeshine boys stay on the property. The boys came from Bel-Anse in the countryside to look for any kind of work in the capital. They were peasants like Jelo.

  Once they had arrived in the capital, they talked to other young peasants to find out how they made a living. The most common answer was shoeshine boy. In Haiti, they are called simply “shine.” It was an easy job to enter. They just make a little box out of wood and fill it with a brush, a powder called aniline to mix with water, another container full of soapy water, a little fabric to shine the shoes, and two kinds of wax — one for dark shoes and the other for light. The most important tool was the bell they ring constantly to advertise their presence. They know where to set up their stands to get the most business — in front of schools, churches, and businesses, for instance. There is always a line of shines in front of the airport for travellers to wipe Haitian soil off their shoes before they leave the country. Where shines don’t exist, people often carry their shoes in a bag and walk
to their destination in sandals. Otherwise, they arrive with their shoes covered in dust or mud.

  Sometimes the shines stop to pass a couple of hours in a lucrative spot and then continue on their route, following the rhythm of Port-au-Prince. They become dirty and sweaty as the day passes. In order to make their wages, they start before the sun rises and finish after it sets. Some feel humiliated to be working at the feet of their clients for a token sum. Some dislike being called “shine” and preferred to be called bòs. In Haiti, those who have mastered a vocation are called “bòs.” There are bòs mason, bòs ebenis, bòs mekanik, and bòs tayè. The problem is that there is no way to complete the bòs title for a shoeshine person. “Bòs shine” only highlights the fact that the vocation does not require much training, even while shines can be proficient.

  Often, shines have no place to stay. A number of shines can unite to rent a little tikounouk together. Sometimes, they allow more time to pass than is recommended between bathing sessions. Five or six shines, working for long hours in the heat and squalor of Port-au-Prince at people’s feet and living in a tiny room together, can emit a powerful odour.

  The shines didn’t pay Jelo rent, but they were customers for his rice business. He used to prepare rice every night and the local poor people would pay just enough so that Jelo could squeeze out a small profit. But he had a difficult time with the odour the shines left in the courtyard. He didn’t want to insult them. “Does anyone smell something funny?” he would ask them as they sat around. They would look at each other and shake their heads. Nothing smelled peculiar as far as they were concerned.

  We liked having them living on the property. They joked. They were friendly, unpretentious spirits.

  One Sunday morning, I was leaving my church in another part of Delmas when one of the shines who lived with us passed by. I was dressed in my church clothes that I had prepared carefully. He was covered in dust. Even his eyebrows were dusted white. When he saw me with my church brothers, dressed in their best clothes like me, he looked for a corner to hide himself away so that I would not have to greet him. I left the church brothers to go to talk with him. I took his hand in mine. “What are you doing here? It looks like you’re trying to avoid me,” I said.