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

by Vilmond Joegodson Déralciné

  That week, I received a call from the director of the hospital to say that my health had improved and that I could return home. I was a graduate of Lakou Trankilite. He gave me a card that allowed me to get the medicine I needed in a hospital in Site Solèy, and 250 gourdes ($6.30 US) to buy it.

  I folded my clothes and said good-bye to my friends, promising that I would always return to see them. I returned home to Dad’s house in Simon.

  chapter fourteen

  ZAKARI’S FAMILY WAS HIT HARD by losing him after he had been struck by a MINUSTAH sniper’s bullet. They came to visit him in the hospital often.

  Zakari had a talent for understanding what made people tick, including the Catholic brothers who administered the hospital. One of the Brothers came from an Arab country. He was weak in the Creole language. Although Zakari couldn’t understand this brother, they found a way to communicate through hand gestures and such. He understood that this brother was a womanizer who especially liked young Haitian women. Zakari obliged him by inviting some young women from Sitey Solèy into the hospital to introduce.

  The brother also understood both poverty and human nature. It was therefore easy for him to seduce the poor Haitian women that Zakari invited. The brother had access to the gifts that foreigners sent to the hospital for the benefit of the patients. He could choose the most attractive items to offer to the most attractive Haitians. Some pretty young women, both single and married, allowed themselves to be bought by the latest phone technology or other material things. Sometimes, they managed to get enough money out of the brother to start a business as a street merchant.

  It was a precarious game for the young women. The brother had no interest in forming a relationship. He could be seduced as much as he was a seducer. But if the young woman made herself too available, appeared too loose, the brother rejected her immediately. She would need to play the brother along until she had succeeded in negotiating a fair exchange. She needed to assure herself that he traded fairly before sexual relations put an end to the affair. The brother was insatiable, but he never drank from the same cup twice.

  Zakari profited more than the young women from his new business. The brother took a special liking to him. Zakari too understood that the brother was fond of him and would make sure that his needs were met. In this way Zakari could provide for his family from his hospital bed. The brother quietly passed Zakari not only some of the gifts that the hospital received, but enough money to make up for his absence from the family home.

  The business was visible to all the other patients. Neither Zakari nor the brother worried about hiding it. Some became jealous of Zakari. They had never believed that they could be anything but victims in the hospital. But they saw that Zakari was controlling not only his own life from his wheelchair, but that he was providing for his family and initiating a number of commercial enterprises for young Haitian women. Some patients began to look for how they might repeat Zakari’s success. Did the brother have another Achilles’ heel besides women?

  One patient discovered that the brother had a weakness for gossip. This handicapped man hoped that this weakness might be strong enough to replace Zakari’s business. Unfortunately, gossip was a secondary pleasure for the brother and could in no way take the place of his main interest, which was sex. In that area, Zakari had the market cornered. Moreover, this other patient’s entrepreneurial initiative turned against him. As the other patients learned that he was speaking maliciously about them, he became detested by everyone. He had indeed found a weakness in the brother, but it was one that profited no one and harmed many. Zakari’s pre-eminence was never in danger. The poor patient wound up loathing Zakari out of jealousy as much as he himself was loathed by the other patients for his petty scheme.

  Twòp magi gate sòs — too much seasoning ruins the sauce. Too much success can lead to failure. Zakari became contemptuous of the other patients. He was a little guy confined to a wheelchair, but the others were afraid of him. No other patient had managed to wield such power. He could make life difficult for the other patients by complaining to his friend among the Catholic brothers.

  Zakari did not behave like a patient, but like a director of the establishment. He thought himself above the rules and regulations of the hospital. He refused to follow his own treatment program. For instance, the hospital had a certain schedule for changing bandages, twice weekly. If Zakari brought himself to accept one application, he would refuse the second. He had attained an elevated status among the patients. To allow himself to be treated like them would bring him to their level. He became the victim of his own pride.

  Sometimes, the other patients who liked him tried to convince Zakari that it was for his own good. Rodriguèz and Rènel would say, “Come on, Zakari. In this case, you need the doctor more than he needs you. You are acting as though you are not handicapped like us. But we all need to accept this about ourselves.”

  Zakari would have none of it. “Leave me alone. I’m almost cured. I don’t need any help.”

  In fact, Zakari had open sores from spending all day in a wheelchair. Only in his mind was he healing.

  No human power is eternal. And Zakari’s was fleeting.

  All of the Catholic brothers who worked in the hospital were foreigners. Eventually, their time would come to an end and the congregation would send them to another posting in a different country. And so, the time came for the Arab brother who had entered into business with Zakari.

  When Zakari got the news that his special friend was leaving, he became visibly sad. He stopped eating for days on end. He stopped his daily travels around the hospital. He confined himself to his bed until the day the brother left. The sadness intensified his illness. He refused treatment and allowed himself to sink into deep despair.

  Zakari’s health deteriorated. The loss of his brother made him see that he was not in charge, but sad, sick, and powerless. He thought of the good times he had known, and saw no possibility in succeeding again. He could never help his family again. Against all odds, they had come to rely on their handicapped son for their survival just as he had provided for them when he was a healthy ten-year-old. Without the brother, his business shut down. The girls stopped coming. He came to see himself as a patient, the victim of a bullet to his spinal column.

  A couple of months after his friend left, Zakari died.

  chapter fifteen

  FRANCHESCA WAS NOT WELL RECEIVED by Fédrik’s family. Fédrik’s cousin, Mme Bolivar, was Franchesca’s boss. When Franchesca entered the family, it had been as a poorly paid maid newly arrived from Verettes. Mme Bolivar was trying to separate her family from the peasantry and the urban pauper class. When she learned that her cousin Fédrik was seriously courting her domestic servant, she was upset that her family, with one foot on the first rung of the ladder, would fall back onto Haitian soil.

  Franchesca and Fédrik, too, both understood the problem. Franchesca knew that she could be either maid or fiancée. Fédrik encouraged Franchesca to find any other work in order to protect her reputation within the family. If she was seen as a maid, their union would never be accepted.

  So Franchesca resigned from her new job and returned to her aunt. Her cousin, Monique, who had studied pharmacology, was working in a sweatshop. She advised Franchesca to take a course in operating the industrial sewing machines. The course, called degoche, took a week and cost 500 gourdes ($12.57 US).

  When Franchesca had finished the course, Monique went with her to the Industrial Park, SONAPI, close to the airport. When she entered the Park, Franchesca saw a large sprawling complex of many factory buildings. In front of each was a crowd of about forty Haitians milling around.

  Franchesca stayed apart from the crowds while Monique went into one of the factories to speak to a supervisor. After a few minutes, she returned with a middle-aged Haitian man. The crowd came to a standstill immediately. All eyes turned toward the man who passed through the crowd as if it was made up of ghosts. He went directly to Franchesca. Moniqu
e introduced them and the supervisor brought Franchesca into the factory, once again passing obliviously through the crowd. Slowly, the unemployed returned to their aimless rambling and small talk.

  Inside the factory, the supervisor took Franchesca to a kind of sewing machine that she had not seen before. It was larger, more powerful, and more complicated than the ones she had seen in her course. She focused all her attention on the machine with its threads moving in complicated and incomprehensible geometries. She had seen the aimless crowds outside and knew what it meant. If she failed, she would find herself among them. For some reason that she would never know, the supervisor was beholden to Monique and was doing her the favour of accepting Franchesca. The dynamics that ordered the sweatshops’ human resources were complex. Supervisors had something that people wanted: a job as poorly paid as it was demanding, but a job nevertheless. They used that to their personal advantage. Depending upon their characters and priorities, the criteria could change from helping people in real difficulty, to favouring members of a religious sect, to seeking bribes, to gratifying sexual desires, and so on.

  She glanced from side to side at the other workers to see how they had threaded their machines and how they operated them. Never had she focused her attention with such concentration and intensity. But she managed to keep her place.

  At break time, Monique led Franchesca out of the factory to a street merchant selling rice and juice. Monique addressed her, “Client, I’m here.”

  The merchant replied, “That’s ten,” while handing Monique a plate of rice and a cup of juice.

  Franchesca did not understand what was happening. Was this woman employed by the factory to feed the employees? She followed Monique and said, “Client, I’m here.”

  The merchant frowned and said, “Who are you? This is the first time I’ve ever seen you and you address me like you know me! … What if you take my food and then never come back. Who do you suggest I go to for my money?”

  Monique took up Franchesca’s cause. “This is my cousin who has just begun to work in The Well Best building. She will be able to pay you on payday. I’ll take responsibility for her. If anything goes wrong, I’ll pay you.” Payday was every two weeks.

  The merchant did not exactly welcome Franchesca. “I know your type! You take my food and then when payday comes, you take flight. You’d better not disappoint me,” she warned, thrusting a plate of rice at Franchesca.

  Franchesca stood for a moment without accepting the plate. Obviously, she was paying the price for employees who had deceived this merchant in the past. Chat brule nan dlo cho, le li wè dlo frèt, li pè — a cat that burns itself in hot water fears the sight of cool water too. Cautiously, she accepted the plate and begrudgingly entered into a contract with the nasty merchant. She ate it standing next to Monique. It was insufficient and, served with humiliation, it had a bitter taste. Each morning, she went to the same grouchy merchant for either spaghetti or bread before beginning work. At break time, eleven-thirty in the morning, she would have a plate of rice and a cup of juice.

  Payday came. When the workers exited the administrative building where they received their pay, Franchesca saw the street merchants who served them their lunches all waiting with their little account books in their hands. They formed a formidable flank and workers could evade their trap only with a predetermined escape plan. Franchesca’s merchant wasted no time. She charged up, showed her the page where her purchases had been documented and took most of Franchesca’s pay for two weeks of ten-hour days. Other workers got away from their merchants, refusing to arrive home with nothing.

  Franchesca had to decide how to carry on. What did the other workers do? What was the point in eating if you made no money? What was the point of working so hard to simply remain alive? If she tried to stiff the merchants, then she would earn their contempt and harm her reputation. So, she decided that she would not eat so that she could retain her salary. Some of the other employees entered into different agreements with the supervisors who covered the cost of the food. But these arrangements usually cost dignity and self-respect. She would try to go hungry.

  Franchesca kept up her resolution for several weeks. She resisted the desire to eat each morning and at each midday break. She tried to avoid hanging around where the merchants cooked and the employees ate so as to not provoke an appetite. But she weakened. Her body reacted badly to her paltry diet. She started to fear that she would fall seriously ill, in which case she would have to see a doctor. That would cost even more than the price of food. She would have to go into debt in order to pay for medical treatment. She was surrounded by vultures that would, one way or another, separate her from her paycheck.

  The company deducted from each employee a certain sum for ONA, national insurance. It was supposed to cover medical costs and life insurance. When Franchesca started suffering from headaches and muscle cramps, she went to the administrative building and asked for medical help. She assumed that since she was paying for health insurance, they would send her to a hospital for proper care. Instead, the clerk reached absentmindedly into a little cardboard box, handed her a pill, and sent her back to work.

  She suspected that she was suffering from malnutrition. Also, she worked under intense lights that added to the stifling heat of Port-au-Prince. Franchesca’s physical troubles did not subside. Each time that she went to the office, she received the same pill. It was prescribed for all maladies that affected the workers at SONAPI. Sometimes, she felt too weak to work. Once, she stayed at her aunt’s home and slept for a couple of days. When she returned to SONAPI, she found that her place had been taken by one of the people who had waited outside of the factory door. She, in turn, took the place of her replacement in the crowds. She chose another factory and joined one of the other crowds, knowing that it was unlikely that she would be rehired by the same supervisor who had replaced her. That, of course, was common practice among the workers who, for reasons similar to Franchesca’s, found themselves unable to continue.

  The other factories assembled other items for the foreign market: luggage, bags, and all sorts of clothing. But the working conditions and salaries were consistent. They were controlled by the Haitian bourgeoisie that subcontracts all of the assembly work from the international corporate class. Their role is to assure that their foreign partners pay Haitian workers as little as conceivably possible. Also, they assure that the workers do not eat into their windfall profits. Once you know one factory, you know them all. There is no competition between factories, or companies, for employees. The workers have very little choice.

  Sometimes, on Sundays, when Fédrik visited Franchesca at her aunt’s, she would complain about her life at SONAPI. But Fédrik felt powerless in the face of Franchesca’s complaints. Even though they were not yet married, Fédrik was supposed to support her, according to tradition. But Fédrik could not think of how to help himself, let alone anyone else. His problem was of a different order than Franchesca’s. While she was overworked and underpaid, Fédrik couldn’t even get to that point. There were no factories for martial artists, and that was his only skill.

  But Franchesca’s complaints pushed him to speed up his plans to go to the Dominican Republic. He found some friends who were used to crossing the Dominican border without passports. They would show him how to get to Santo Domingo. Crossing the border was always risky, but they advised him on how to minimize those risks. In 2009, he made his final plans. He tried to encourage Franchesca to do her best in his absence. Since she saw that he was sacrificing for their future together, she was encouraged. She knew that foreign countries had the one thing that barely existed in Haiti but that Haitians needed to exist in Port-au-Prince: money. Fédrik was going to the Dominican Republic to come back with a sack of money. That was a noble and brave adventure. She would wait.

  chapter sixteen

  WHEN I LEFT LAKOU TRANKILITE, I returned to church for the first time on 25 December 2008. The choir had organized a concert. I was kind of the star
of the concert just because I was still alive.

  I started to resume my activities in the church, in the choir, and in the coeur d’adoration, whose job was to inspire the congregation to participate in singing the hymns, like cheerleaders. The choir rehearsals began. I joked with my friends as before. We used to talk about all kinds of subjects, including our romantic lives. One of the other members was named Annie. Sometimes, she would discuss with me the problems that she was having with her boyfriend. I encouraged her to remain faithful to him. We became intimate friends. Since she had confided in me about her relationship, one day she came to tell me that she had broken with her boyfriend. He was a policeman who had a roving eye. She knew that he had girlfriends all over and wanted to keep them all. Annie decided that she could not continue with him.

  Now our close friendship changed. Up to this moment, one of the intimate subjects that we discussed was Annie’s romantic problems with her unfaithful policeman. Now, she had taken him out of the equation. That meant that things shifted between us. For the first time, I went to the house in Delmas 33 where she lived with her elder sister, Mme Bolivar, the wife of another policeman. The house was large. I thought about my poor miserable father and my family in Simon and I felt intimidated. I came and went without saying anything. Each time I visited, it was the same. Never could I bring myself to talk with Annie’s family.

  I was so numb that I even started to spook Annie’s three-year-old niece, Lucy. Every time she saw me she started to cry, saying, “Go back home.” I tried to smile to comfort her, but she would reply by hitting me. If my presence was eliciting such a reaction from a three-year-old, I despaired to think what the adults were thinking about me. Moreover, I couldn’t blame them.