When the place you come from is in turmoil, what’s the best way to maintain cultural ties?
Illustration by Carolina Nino.
Source photos: Adobe Stock, Getty Images, and Cori Murray
My first trip to Haiti was magical.
Friends and family whispered, Be careful, but during our six-day stay, my anxieties were erased.
I was so taken by Haitis charm that we went back seven months later.
Our daughter, Jillian, was born in January 2010.
Within days, Haiti suffered one of the most devastating earthquakes in its history.
Nearly 220,000 people lost their lives and more than a million were displaced.
Our commitment to deepen our new daughters roots grew even stronger.
In October 2012, I took her on her first trip to Haiti.
She was not yet two, so I carried her in my lap.
Max drove us to Wahoo Bay Beach Club, 70-minutes northwest of the city.
From there we drove to Les Arcadins, on the western coast of the country.
Both trips had to be planned surreptitiously.
They held on to every negative news story they heard in their tight-knitBrooklyn community.
I finally asked Max why his mother and aunts were so disdainful.
He said, They miss the Haiti they knew growing up.
Up first: hes insisted that she must learn to properly eat a mango.
One day I came home with a Whole Foods container full of sliced mangoes.
Okay mesye (sir or gentleman in Haitian Creole), how do you eat a mango?
Shes supposed to tear into the flesh at the top and suck out the juice.
Credit:Illustration by Carolina Nino. Source photos: Adobe Stock, Getty Images, and Cori Murray
Then peel back the skin and eat the fruit around the seed.
Wow or mezanmi, as the Haitians say.
(Soup joumou is saved forChristmas morningand January 1, Haitis Independence Day.)
Dancehall was blasting from the speakers.
She walked confidently to the front of the bus guiding me on our island adventure.
When I relayed the moment to her father that evening, he smiled with pride.
Shes becoming a Caribbean girl.
