Maria

I am only, just now, fifteen.   I cannot have a baby; a baby without a husband.  A world of poverty and shame, living in my mother’s house where there is not even room for me in the bed. 

My mother sends me to cook for a rich man. I cook and wash his clothes and sleep beside the cookhouse next to piles of wood and charcoal, on piles of rags.  She says he is an important man and it is an honor to work for him.   It is an honor to leave school and send money home to my mother.  

The man begins to watch me, with his dark eyes, and to ask me to cut his hair and shave his face.   He reaches for me as I work.  I try to wiggle free and move away from him but he laughs and pulls me to him.   I am afraid.  He is old and they say, has many wives.

I run home and tell my mother I won’t go back but he gives her money and she needs it to care for the family.  She slaps me and tells me to be grateful for a place to sleep and food to eat.  I notice she has bought new things with the money I have earned.   

When my monthly bleeding stops, I try to ask what it means and everyone laughs.  “Stupid girl.”   I go to the Bokor who says I am having a baby, but if I do not want it he will sell me a pill and the baby will leave.

When I can, I find the man’s money and take it and run away.  He has gone to  Miami so I have a little time.  I go to the Bokar and buy the pill that he puts in wine and gives to me to drink. 

“If you bleed too much, go to the hospital and they will help you,” he warns.

Quickly, I begin to walk to another town far away. As I walk, the pains begin. The bleeding begins.

When I get to the river, I stop and swim  into a clear, hidden pool and wait.  It is afternoon, when the baby comes- small and perfect and not breathing. She floats away, getting caught on fallen branches; breaking free and swimming further from me.  I watch until I can no longer see her. 

I stand, then, and warm myself in the last sun until I am dry and can put my clothes back on.   I put leaves in my underwear to catch the blood. I let myself sleep beside the river and my baby.

 When the sun rises, I walk from behind the trees and make my way to the road where the river is shallow and people are crossing.  It’s market day.   The crossing is crowded with donkeys loaded with plantains and men leading goats and carrying chickens. 

 I, too, wade across the stream in the shallow place, with the other people, who are traveling to town.  I take some of the man’s money, from my pocket, and pay for the first moto ride of my life.  The air, the wind, the wheels carry me.  I smell the driver’s sweat mixed with aftershave. I hold on to his waist, lean into his back and cry.; blood trickling down my leg.    

I will start a small market stall in a city far away and on Sunday, when I wash my clothes, in the river, I will see my baby, swimming towards me, always swimming towards me.    I hold on. The road is bumpy; the dust mixing with my sweat and the smell of the river. 

Many Rivers To Cross

Many Rivers To Cross

Stories of Birth, Loss and Resurrection

Haiti’s Central Plateau

These stories are based on the stories shared with me by mothers, midwives and students in Haiti.  I write them so these stories and the women are not forgotten.  This is the first of four.

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Rosa

After the fifth baby, the midwives said I must be careful.  My pressure was high and there could be problems.  I walked every three months to see them, lying to my husband.   Telling him I was pregnant.  Not telling him I was going for the shot that would keep me from another pregnancy.

“This is up to God,” he would say when I said I wanted family planning.  “It is not our choice.”

I rose in the dark, with the other women who walked all night to see the midwives.   Perhaps he knew of my lie and perhaps he did not.   I never knew.  I left my baby with my sister and walked.  My husband lived in another woman’s house most of the time and so he never knew.  Coming home to pay the children’s school fees and to eat my food.   The market women say he has a new wife.   He can take a new wife, but he cannot take my house or my gardens.  They are mine forever.   He tries to tell me he does not love her.  She is the bosses sister and he cannot afford to loose this job.

As we walk, other women join us and we share the gossip of our villages, laughing and sometimes singing as we go.  Sometimes we lay down in an abandoned house or field and rest until the first light.  Then we set, out and walk again.  The sky turns soft and pink and we hear the sounds of the rooster and the pig on the way to market.   I do not tell anyone I am not pregnant.  I shrug and say, “Who knows? Only God.”

This time, when we get there, the midwives in their pink truck, have not come.  

“The river is too high.  They can not cross.” A man tells us.

We rest and wait for several hours before heading back home, without my precious injection. 

I think of this now, as I lie beside the same river and think of how they could not cross and how I could not get my family planning and how I tried to avoid my husband but could not.   The sting of his fist when I denied him and he took me, the children crying outdoors. 

.  

I walked then, with the other women, to see the pink truck and the midwives but it was too late for the injection.  They said there was a pill in the city but even that was too much expense.

The midwives and the blan cared for me.  They took my pressure and looked alarmed and worried and gave me pills and said I should go to the hospital.  

But I went to the local healer instead, who put bread in water and said the baby was strong and beautiful and would be a girl.  He looked at how the bread swelled in the water and saw these things.  He tied a string around my growing belly and gave me tea.  I could not go to the hospital. 

My children only ate the cassava and sweet potatoes I dug for them.  I made tea to keep them from crying with hunger.

My bleeding started yesterday, when I was working in the garden.   Bright red blotches against the dirt.    I watched it drip from me, like the rain from the roof during a storm.  Like our roof, I too am leaking.   The rains had been warm and welcomed but it also meant we could not cross the river.

I knew I had to get to the hospital.  Make my way to a road and pray for a moto or even a truck, heavy with our mangoes; the ones we sell to pay the priest the school fees.  

I tell my sister. She says she will come with me but I beg her to care for my children; only to care for them.  She finds the matron who tells me to hurry before the river gets too high. To get across and find a moto.   They will send someone to the hospital soon. 

I walk the path, I walled every day as a girl to gather water for my family.   The path where my husband first noticed me when I was   young and strong.   He even carried my water so he could talk and flirt with me and beg to meet me in a place he knew, where the flowers grew sweet and we would be alone.  

But my parents watched me and in time, he built me a house and took me there and for many years, we were happy.  He held me with each birth and prayed when each one made their first cry.   Unlike the other fathers, he carried the babies and sang to them and promised them the moon. 

One day, they built a road and he got a job for a company that gathered a rock from the mountains and took it far away.   “They are taking our mother,” he would cry.   “It was not enough to take our trees and our food, now they take our land.”   And he was ashamed.   I held him then and cried too.   They said they built the road for us but who of us has a moto, let alone a car or truck.   “No, he said.  “They built the rods for themselves; so they could carry our land away.” 

He built us a metal roof and a cook house made of cement.   He paid the school fees early and bought me a new dress.   We had four plastic chairs and he had a cell phone with a solar charger.   I missed him but see he would say.  “All the fine things we have now.”  I cried but he said, “One day I will save enough for a small business and we will be free again.”

When one day, in the market, the women whispered and said he had started sleeping at another women’s house.  I swayed and cried out but then my face became a rock and I did not cry again.   When he returned, he knew I knew because I put the babies in bed with us and did not make his favorite meal.  When he reached for m, I turned away.  My sister said, “Who cares as long as he pays for school and buys you nice things.”

“I care.”  I whisper.  “I care.”

He tries to explain.   He says, “You are my only true wife” but I won’t listen. 

I walk the path and feel his body warm beside me as he takes the water and puts it on his own head.  Laughing.   The best man in all of Haiti.

I am dizzy with the memory of that warmth; that laughter.   The stars from the first night we lay together return.  It is a long walk to the river and there are no boats, no men helping with the crossing.  I lie then in the grass to wait.   The river will go down and the rocks will appear.  It will be shallow enough to cross and get to the road and a moto to the hospital.  I lie in the tall grasses and wait. I lie beneath a tree and look up at the sky between her branches.  It seems they reach for me. 

And then I sleep and I feel my baby sing to me.  The baby I had ignored reaches for me; my water and blood pouring down into the river. Her voice sweeter than any I had ever known.   The midwives, in the pink jeep, sing a song to us.  They tell us when we must get to the hospital, but they do not sing of the rivers, of the long roads and a husband working so far away.

It is light when they come. I hear them calling me but they are far away.  A baby cries.  The midwife holds her up and I look in her deep, dark eyes and hear the river.   They try to carry me but the river  it is still too high.   They start to pray and scream, as they do for the dead.  Have I died?

My sister says, “You must try.”  She begs the men who try to navigate the river but by the time they reach for me again, I have floated to the sky and am like a leaf being blown by the last breeze of evening.   I try to hear what they are saying. I try to kiss my baby’s head but I am gone.   The river is easy to cross now but my body lies limp and empty on the other side.    I wait for my body on the other side until everyone carries my body and my baby back to the village.   At first I follow.  I want to see my baby one time but then I go back to the river and rest.

When the river could be crossed again, the women walked to see the midwives and when they called my name they yelled, “She died by the river, giving birth.  The river was too high to cross. “   My file is put back in the box.

“You were born by the river.”  My sister whispers to her.  “It was the rainy season and the river ran high.  When we came to the river, you were lying there, looking up at the sky.   The rain had stopped and the river gave you to me to be your mama forever.  “  My sister holds her close. Her curls smelling of nutmeg and peppers and soap.  

It’s New Year’s Day. They had picked the greatest pumpkin of all and soon many guests would arrive for the traditional Soup d’ Jour.    

A tall, handsome man brings her money for school and ribbons for her hair.  Her older brothers and sisters live with him now in the city, where they go to school. She wipes his tears from her face.   

“Beautiful, like her mother.”  He cries.

“But my mother was a river.” She protests and wiggles out of his arms.

He puts her down and laughs.  “Your mother was the most beautiful river of all.” 

Resistance

Haiti’s Caves

Haiti's many caves, were spiritual centers for the Taino people.  Later they served as places of resistance for people fighting against the many oppressors in Hatien history.

When the Spanish arrived in what is now Haiti, the people who greeted them said, “Taino” This was the word for peace.  Christopher Columbus would go on to name the people the Taino’s.    The “Taino” were the indigenous people of present day Haiti, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.
 The Taino saw their beautiful islands as sacred, living things.   In a short time, disease, slavery and murder would reduce their numbers to near extinction.  An agricultural society with permanent villages, an ordered government and a great love for their spirits or zemis, were nearly destroyed. I like to say almost because I believe that the spirit and wisdom lives on in the mountains and the people.  Haiti is mostly composed of metamorphic rock; soft, coral Caribbean limestone made over millions of years from decaying sea animals.  This geological past created thousands of small caves, waterfalls and sinkholes.  These caves became spiritual retreats, burial places and the home to Haiti’s beautiful petroglyphs that offer us a window into the Taino’s magical past. 

Sacred water in Haiti

 They were places of resistance.   For the Taino and then for the Africans who escaped slavery and fought a revolution.  The caves served as places for the Taino and Africans to share their knowledge of survival and resistance.  Deep in the mountains and forests were the caves that hid the dedicated resisters of the world’s first successful slave rebellion.

These are in Spanish because the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico were also home of the Taino.
How sweet is the baby?

But my favorite Haitien cave resister is Hinche’s local hero, Charlemagne Peralte who created a resistance to the US occupation in 1915.  An educated farmer, the US marines burned down his house and killed his brothers and put him in prison.  After his escape, he organized bands of resistance.   The US trapped him in a cave outside of Hinche but his bravery lives on. Eventually the US left Haiti but only after it further stripped the country of even more natural resources. 

 The Taino believe that human beings, after creation, emerged from Haiti’s caves.   They are places of fresh water, fertility and childbirth.
 These days, in my country, we look for ways to resist, even as we look for caves of comfort and support.   I am humbled by my country’s goodness, in the midst of a conquering enemy on our shores.  The people of my country, boycott, march, and use art and persuasion to resist.  They gather in prayer and song and dance.
 The Spanish came to Haiti for gold.  The French to make fortunes on sugar with slave labor.  The United States came to take natural resources and make it an economic colony. The elite of Haiti, created vast swaths of inequality leading to death and devastation.  In my own country people sacrifice the spirit of earth and community and constitution, for a hoped for wealth and superiority that can never bring lasting happiness.    The Republican Party, as it stands now, seeks to colonize its own country.
 Haiti offers me the image of the cave with its delightful drawings of what can be.  It offers me images of clean beautiful waterfalls as well as a people who knew the meaning of resistance.  I see them sitting by a small fire at the mouth of a cave with the water, clean and bright by the moonlight.  I hear their songs and their drums and smell the food of the forest.   I see women sneaking from plantations with news and supplies, risking everything for freedom.  I see Charlemagne who gave up his good life to resist.  I see his capture and his death and all it inspired.
 On the radio, they count the days of the new administration and all the things it does to attack and dismantle democracy.
But like Haiti, the drums, which is our freedom of press is not quiet.   We meet in churches and homes and meeting halls and walk the streets in a unified message.
 And sometimes we feel so broken, we must find the cave within us; that place that is so deeply connected to earth and water and spirit.
 I think of the ordinary day that the first people of Haiti stood on the shores and said “Taino” to the new guests to their island.   We are never fully prepared for cruelty and discrimination; for a worldview that believes some are intended to be master and some slave.
 We too, were unprepared and so we shrink and suffer and search for the place of resistance and strength within our selves and our families and our communities.   We all have people and places that offer us strength and one of those people are the Taino who greeted their enemies with “Peace”.
The Taino, who did not die but live on in the caves and waterfalls of a spirit that offers all people peace and abundance,
  

 Women, Resistance and the Power of Song “The ability to use song as a weapon of social control is a valued skill in Haiti, as it is in several other Afro-American settings. Where the social norms emphasize the avoidance of direct confrontation, singing, typically under the transparent veil of nondirected, objectified discourse, serves asa vehicle for venting hostilities and exercising power.  ( Richamn, 1987)

Singing and dancing as a means of resistance and self identity in Haiti

 From the book, Where Hands are Many
This community song, speaks to my country, as well.
 Home Folks Where Are You? Home folks where are you?Let us join together to advance the struggleThe struggle is hard, we must move forwardLet’s get together and see if we can do it. We’re living in a country torn by animosityPeople are betraying their friends for moneyThey’re assassinating a population for seeking after libertyHome folks where are you? Women, where are you? You must say where you stand!The struggle has room for all,And women have a role at the helmTighten your headscarves, hold hands and let’s forward.Where are you women?
   In Haiti, everything of importance begins and ends with a song.   Mothers are taught the warning signs in pregnancy through song.  The matrones are taught sterile technique through song.  Singing is woven into the fabric of life. Once I was helping to support a protest of cutting old growth forests in Oregon.  It went on for many days and nights.   When we decided to sing, a person stopped us and said, “Singing is for the 60”s.   We don’t sing anymore.” I considered the possibility of resistance without song; of all the civil rights songs and labor songs.   I think of how song united generations to oppose unjust wars and oppression. 
 “We don’t sing anymore.”    That moment has stayed with me.  In a protest; one person telling another that they cannot sing.
 My country loves singers but not necessarily singing.   Our Grammy winning singers make statements for us but, we, as a culture, don’t sing.  We listen to singers.  We have famous singers at our rallies and protests but singing is difficult.
 Singing is related to talent in the US.  We have popular television shows about talent- not the joy of singing.  In Haiti, singing is part of being human, a part of the community, of being Haitien.
 I once started a school, in which we agreed that we would start each day with a song.  This was back when we were dreaming up a perfect school day.  When we tried to think about the importance of the flow of a day and not just what was taught. 
 At first, everyone loved to sing.  It was a powerful part of the school day and the teachers all 100% sang too.  The songs taught cultural norms of kindness and respect as well as concepts of ecology and history.  Being a “good “singer was not important.   We sang with love and joy.  It was a form of joyful resistance to mainstream education.   Back then; we had many partnerships with Native American groups who reinforced the belief that singing was a vital part of any day.   It was a means of offering gratitude. Overtime, the singing was cut back.  Teachers rarely sang with their classes.   A specialist was required to lead singing.  It became a subject and not a core part of the human experience.   The children, learning from the adults, also stopped believing.   It no longer was a core identity. It was a tradition without belief. 
 Some people believe we are all born with a song that will take us through life; a note, a phrase, a sound that stays with us.  We only have to find it and bring it into the world. In these post- inauguration days, I wonder who will write and sing our collective songs of common identity and resistance?  
 At night, in Cabestore, I listen to drumming and singing that goes on all night long.   People walk many miles to places I cannot see and sing in unison for hours.  Someone says, “Are you afraid?”   But I am not afraid.  I am in awe. My generation sang their way through the Civil Right movement and Vietnam.  But at some point, the collective song gave way to entertainment and rock icons and millionaire. I was at Woodstock.   This was later called a defining moment of my generation.  The Woodstock generation is in the white house now and in congress and it is anything but a “Summer of Love.”   We stopped singing, sat back and bought more and more technology to listen to music; not to be the music.  We became iPods and iTunes but rarely “we sing. “   We karaoke but even that is competitive.
 At Woodstock, Country Joe and the Fish screams,  “There are thousands of you out there and I can’t hear you sing.” and he tried again. “One, two, three, four, what are we fighting for.”   But neither the song nor the movement lasted for long.
  Pete Seeger kept saying, “You need to learn to sing together. I will sing with you but not for you.” For over twenty years, I hosted a Family Sing but over time, the guitar players left to become performers and the singers felt too lost without them.
 And so in my lessons learned on resistance from Haiti, I offer the suggestion of song.    When Haitien women sing, I can see that they have transcended poverty to a place of power and self-identity.