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

by Vilmond Joegodson Déralciné

  In recounting his story, Molière thought about his response to Père Volèm. He asked me, “Why did I say plumber? I never wanted to be a plumber.”

  In fact, throughout his vocational training, he obsessed over his artistic creations. He continued to carve wood into imaginative shapes.

  The priest had offered Molière a vocational scholarship on the basis of his obvious passion for sculpture. Molière had been too timid to admit that sculpture was his passion and was all he wanted to do. It didn’t seem to be an acceptable answer and so he didn’t dare offer it. Like most people, Molière answered according to what he thought people wanted to hear. But it was a lucky thing for me and my china cabinet that he reconnected with his love of woodcarving.

  I was used to finishing my work with varnish. However, this time, I wanted to do something special, because I was secretly proud of the pieces that I had crafted. I wanted them to look special. When I received some money from another reader of our website, I went to see a friend who was an expert in decorating vehicles. For example, in Haiti, the taptaps are often beautifully painted in the most brilliant colours. I asked my friend to paint all of the pieces in a soft cream colour. He chose a durable paint.

  The furniture had been built with every type of wood I could find: oak, mahogany, plywood, and pine. There would have been no way to varnish this mishmash of second-hand woods into coherence. However, the paint that my friend applied in layers married everything behind it in harmony. Finally, after a month of work, it was all finished. I had spent that month at peace when I was working on my furniture. When the stresses of my life were multiplying and my friends and family were confronting even more serious problems, I escaped into my work and allowed my imagination to calm me. The more confusing things became around me, the more at peace was my heart, as long as I could create.

  chapter thirty-one

  AS MY MARRIAGE APPROACHED, Deland was confined to bed. I didn’t think that he would be able to participate. I continued my preparations for the marriage anyway. Deland, in bed, fought to see if he could control himself enough to attend. He went to a free clinic for help. The medicines they distribute are a gift to Haiti. They have expired or have been rejected for other reasons from the rich countries. They are fine for Haitians.

  Deland was turning into a walking pharmacy of expired medicines — except that he could barely walk. How would he survive? Sak vid pa kanpe — an empty sack cannot stand. But whether horizontal or vertical, he was getting sicker and sicker.

  When he arrived at the clinic, it was up to him to diagnose himself. “I feel hot, my head spins, my arms and legs are weak, it feels like my bones are breaking inside, and I have no appetite.” The doctors never asked if he was allergic. They just gave him medicine for each separate symptom. “No appetite — take these; a fever — take these; weak — take these.” They loaded him up with drugs. Innocently, he took them all. He didn’t know what to do, and he believed the doctors did.

  After a couple of weeks, as my marriage approached, he forced himself to sew my wedding suit. On the morning of my wedding day, 1 October, he sent my little brother Jean-Claude to deliver it to me. Jean-Claude told me that Deland wasn’t well. He said that a nurse who lived down the street had been to see him. He was too weak to stand up. She went to buy three different serums for him and injected them to see if they would help him stand long enough to attend the wedding. I called him to see how he was doing.

  “Father,” I said, “Jean-Claude says you aren’t well. Are you going to be able to come? This day is important for us.”

  He said, “My son, your old father is not well. Your soldier is in bed.” That meant he was very ill.

  “I’m taking some serums to see if I will be okay this afternoon. We’ll see.”

  I answered, “Dad, this day is really important in my life. And your presence too. If you aren’t there, it’s like it doesn’t even count for anything for me. You’re the only person who can represent my family. You are my two parents at once.”

  “Okay, my son, we’ll see. I think that maybe God will give me the strength. He will not leave me today.”

  Then I had to go to help Jelo who was also very sick. He was so unhappy that I was leaving his property — that I would no longer be living with him — that he became sick. I had to help him onto a bus so that he could go to Tiguav to recover in the mountains. Normally, he should have been helping me on my wedding day, but I understood his sadness. When he was getting on the bus, he handed me 1,500 gourdes ($37.74 US) so that I could buy some shoes. It was a miracle. Until that moment, I feared that I would be married in sandals. Now, I had the money to buy some decent pèpè shoes. Did I have the time?

  Time is innocent. It keeps going, innocent of all the deadlines that are not going to be honoured. But no one would know that I had bought shoes on the way to the ceremony. Once they were on my feet, everyone would take them for granted.

  While I was downtown, after putting Jelo on his bus, the hour was almost upon me. My cell phone wouldn’t stop. Annie told me that she was now ready. Her sisters had helped prepare her. Where was I? I told her I was downtown. Already it was late. Both she and I knew that there could be traffic jams or that I could get on a taptap that broke down. I didn’t tell her I hadn’t yet bought any shoes. She was already anxious. “Oh! Hurry up!” she chided me.

  I heard the frustration in her voice. I understood. Was I coming or not? Was this going to be a case of last-minute jitters? She wouldn’t know until the last minute.

  “Annie, I’m not going AWOL. Don’t worry.” I tried to calm her. I heard people laughing in the background. I understood that there was a team of Dieumercis waiting for me.

  In the big market downtown, the merchants sell clothing in the section called La Guérite. There was a long row of booths for new clothing; other merchants sold pèpè on the ground next to them. As I walked down the line of booths, I was aware that every merchant — man and woman — was scrutinizing me to guess what I was seeking. Some started to call out to me, “Hey! You! Jeans — you want jeans? Sandals, mister? Look at these shirts!”

  They targeted me as a potential client. I waved them off. When they became too aggressive, I had to avoid their eyes completely. If I had paid attention to everyone calling me, I would have been dizzy. I also had to be careful not to get too close to a merchant for fear of being physically pulled into a booth. These were professionals, and they were ruthless.

  But when I knew that I was passing a shoe merchant, I had to take in the entire stock with one lightning glance. If I dwelt for even an instant on their merchandise, it would be over. I would be harangued by the merchants while Annie waited at the altar. If only I had dark sunglasses, like the smoked windshields of UN vehicles!

  Finally, from afar, I saw some shoes. When I got to the merchant, I stopped, without betraying any interest. I was trying to keep out of the merchant’s grip as long as possible. He literally grabbed me and pulled me into his booth. He put me on a little bench. He started to pour words of honey all over me until I was drenched. His flattery was taking up the few precious minutes I had left.

  “Okay, okay, brother. That’s enough. I don’t have time. I want some shoes. And fast. Let me choose.”

  He said, “Okay, okay. Go ahead.” But, as if he was terminally programmed to flatter and persuade, he started up immediately, “Here, look at these. These are made in Italy. Very good quality. And here, this is a good brand that would suit you perfectly.”

  I examined a few pairs. Each time I moved from one to another, he told me that the one I was examining at that particular moment was the best choice, better than all the others, the best of all his stock. At one point, I stopped the process, “Okay, this one is of superior quality to the one I was holding earlier,” I said, summarizing his sales pitch. “So, I think I’d better go back to the inferior quality,” I said, returning to the pair that we had passed by.

  “Well, they’re the same price,” he said.

  I
chose a pair of brown shoes. In Creole, the word for “brown” is the same as for an uncivilized person. During the time of the French colony, slaves who escaped and fled to the mountains to live were said to be mawon. I waited for him to tell me that mawon was not a good colour for a wedding, given its connotations. Instead, he said, “Oh, mawon. That’s a good colour for you. Perfect!”

  They fit well. Now, for the price.

  He started to negotiate. He started high. The merchant next to him overheard us. Normally, the merchants work together, even though they are in competition with each other. Once one is making a sale, the others can present themselves to bully the client in a number of ways. Maybe they share the part of the profit that was theatre.

  “I have only 750 gourdes,” I said. “If you take it, I’ll buy them. If not, I’ll go to another merchant.”

  “You have no conscience,” said my merchant.

  “I don’t want to upset you. Maybe you’ll find someone who can pay what you ask. I’ll have to go elsewhere.”

  “Okay, okay,” he softened. “Even though I’m losing money on the deal, I’ll let you have them, but only because you’ll come back here when you need something and you can pay a proper price.”

  I handed him the 750 gourdes. Immediately, I jumped onto a taptap to take me up to the courtyard where the wedding would take place in Delmas 33. The pastor had refused to wed us in the church because of the fact that Annie was pregnant.

  I arrived with thirty minutes to spare. But I hadn’t picked up the generator for the ceremony. So, I went to visit a church brother who owned a generator with which he made blended juices that he sold in the evenings. He loaned it to me as a favour. I carried it back and installed it for the ceremony. We needed it to play the music. The problem was that the noise of the generator mostly drowned out the music from the DVD player. Haitians are used to ignoring the noise of generators that pollute the atmosphere.

  I still had twenty minutes. I bathed the parts of my body that would show: my face, hands, and hair — and also my feet that had picked up a lot of Haitian soil during the morning. For the first time, I put on the suit that my father had made me, with a coloured shirt and a cream tie. I had a brown belt and, of course, brown shoes. For socks, I had a pair without heels or toes, but only my shoes and I would know that.

  I wanted to stop the ceremony at one point to ask everyone to take off their shoes and show the state of their socks. I bet that, in the private space underneath their shoes, most would have been no better off than me.

  When I was finished dressing, I started to sweat. It was extremely hot. In a few minutes, I looked like I had been dunked under water.

  It was five minutes to four when the pastor arrived. The crowd assembled; brothers and sisters from our choir at the church, Fédrik and Franchesca, and Annie’s family. Annie arrived in a white car. My father hadn’t been able to get out of his bed and my family stayed with him. Some of the children went to borrow some chairs to fill up the courtyard. We put the four nicest ones in front of the pastor and covered them with a white sheet. They were for Annie and me and the witnesses, Mme Bolivar and the church brother who had rented me the room in Delmas 33.

  After I had taken my place with the best man and Annie had walked down the aisle, I heard a taptap outside of the courtyard. My father had arrived. He was wearing a pèpè suit that couldn’t hide the fact that there was little flesh left on his body. Some friends from Simon helped him onto a chair.

  After the ceremony, everyone wanted to embrace and congratulate us. Deland hugged me and I felt his bones through the suit. I was both sad and proud to see him. Sad to see how the world had transformed him. He had worked so hard and with compassion to make a better world. That world had reduced him, a first-class tailor, to brittle bones inside of a second-hand suit. I could feel the heat of his body through the suit. I understood the strength it had taken for him to get here. It was heroic. He patted me on the back. He said, “We have won.”

  chapter thirty-two

  IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF PCS (Plaine de cul de sac) in Simon, where my family lived, there were many victims of the earthquake. Together with the neighbouring districts, the people of PCS formed committees to represent the interests of the victims. People chose those who were literate and most capable of dealing with the world outside of the poor districts. The committee members started to scour the streets to find help.

  The victims in PCS chose my brother James as the person responsible for representing them and finding help. Choosing James, however, did not mean that they intended to submit to him. Instead, they remained aware and critical of everything that he attempted to do for them. Even inside a family, there are arguments and disagreements. Within the community of PCS, there were sometimes as many different opinions as people.

  The local people wanted to see material changes in their miserable lives. If James could convince donors to supply tents, for instance, then they would be happy and praise him. If he asked for contributions to pay for his taptap rides to visit aid organizations, however, they complained. People wanted to delegate everything except the right to complain. When the committee was forming, it was hard to find people willing to participate. The moment that someone’s name was put forward and he or she accepted the job, however, the people would start to complain. There were two positions available: critics and criticized. Almost everyone preferred the first category. Very few accepted the second.

  I think it was preferable to remain in the crowd rather than to accept the responsibility of leading. The cost of accepting a role on the committee was high and the benefits small. There was never enough aid to fulfil the needs of the earthquake victims. Even when aid organizations helped, they gave only a percentage of what was needed. For instance, the committee members might find a humanitarian agency willing to supply the needs of a tent city in Simon. If there were two hundred people in the camp, then the organization would give enough for one hundred. Consequently, every bit of aid that the committee was able to find served to divide the victims. Those who were helped praised the committee; the others railed against its incompetence, fraudulence, or injustice. But the main problem was outside of the control of the committee.

  Moreover, the changes that would have made a real difference were far beyond the competence of the committee. They would require revolutionary changes not only in Simon, but among everyone in Haiti and the rest of the world. The obstacles are overwhelming. And so people just want a free tent. That, they can understand.

  In some districts, there were committees that worked wholly against the interests of the population that they represented. If the committee members were well-chosen to impress the international aid organizations (if they could speak some English and appear middle class), then they might be able to negotiate a donation for their camps. Once the donation was secured, however, they would sell it on the black market that was flourishing. The poorest victims would then have to buy the donations at an elevated price while their leaders pocketed the profits.

  Chat boule nan dlo cho, li pè dlo fret — a cat that has been burned by hot water is then afraid of cold water.

  People came to suspect that every committee was corrupt. It was assumed that the committee members were profiting from the misery of the victims who were suffering more. And that was often the case.

  I remember one visit to Simon several months after the earthquake. There was a group of three boys whom I knew well. I had grown up with them. They called me and asked me to come and talk with them. They told me that they had devised a plot to profit from the situation. They said that many others had already tested it with success. They had invented an orphanage in Site Solèy, given it a name, an address, and a population. They had counterfeited the documents that verified its existence. They needed me to go with them to advocate for the imaginary orphans. They wanted me to present the project to an American pastor who had arrived in Delmas with a large amount of humanitarian aid: sacks of rice, beans, cooking oil, pasta, and
so on. The pastor had already fallen for this scheme. Now, my old friends thought that they could succeed as long as they had the right front man. I could speak English and make a credible presentation, they figured. They told me that when we had the merchandise, we would separate it fairly among ourselves and sell it to the street merchants for resale.

  The boys were not especially creative. If anything, they were well behind the curve. Everywhere in Port-au-Prince, the street merchants were selling the products that had come into the country as donations. The people who suffered were those who remained poor and were unable to buy it. If only the money had been put directly into their hands to buy the essentials, then the “aid” could have been sold on the market to help the street merchants in their businesses. Money would have circulated at the lowest levels of the Haitian economy. It would have remained there. When aid was given in the form of food staples and tents, the people were certain to remain poor.

  I listened to the boys’ proposition. I was surprised at their boldness. They weren’t worried about being discovered. They were taking no special precautions. They approached me without fear, but with enthusiasm for the scheme that they had hatched.

  I listened carefully. “You aren’t afraid?”

  “No way. This has already worked. Once we’ve finished with this one, we’ll help you make up another charity so you can try it out yourself.”

  “But what will you do,” I asked them, “if the donors tell you that they will visit the orphanage to see how things are going?”

  The boys replied quickly, “No, no, no. Don’t worry about that. They never follow up. The people who have already tried this have never had a visit. That’s why we put the orphanage in the centre of Site Solèy. They won’t go there. They will be afraid, not us.… We’re doing them a favour. We’re helping them get rid of their stuff quickly. Then they’ll have more contracts since they are working so effectively. They’ll be back all the sooner.”