Trump Vodouisant

Trump Vodouisant

          Legend has it that in 1847 Dantor Erzulie, the Vodou goddess of beauty and love appeared on a tree in the waterfall and began to heal the sick and perform miracles. Catholic priests declared this sacrilege and ordered the tree cut down. Since then Erzulie has been “disguised or camouflaged” by locals as the Catholic Virgin of Miracles to placate the Catholic priests. It was then that the inhabitants of the poorest country of the Americas began to believe that the waters of Saut d’ Eau have metaphysical powers capable of answering prayers and exorcising evil.

The morning wind was from the East and, as always, Darlene awoke in the sweat of another sweltering 95-degree, 82% humidity Haitian morning in Cite Soleil.  Darlene needed to clean her home and then walk several miles through Port-au-Prince to get the bus north on Route Nationale #3 to Saut d’Eau Falls.  Her annual pilgrimage was important to her eternal loa, but it was more important to her ability to keep her daughter in Saint-Martial Catholic School, where she had boarded since the quake, thanks to a Missionary group from a place called Michigan.  Mwen Grangou she thinks to herself, as her empty belly rumbles again.

Five hundred kilometers to the East on the Coconut Coast of Punta Cana the same breeze comes off the water, but the windward part of Hispaniola is typically bone dry, so whatever weather crosses from West Africa overnight always feels pleasant.  Punta Cana and nearby La Romana have been playgrounds for the rich and famous for a century.  Funny thing: when Christopher Columbus first landed on Hispaniola five centuries ago, he avoided the arid Punta Cana in favor of Cap Haitian on the northwest coast of the island and left 39 men to enjoy the humidity and build the La Navidad settlement.

 Darlene’s long-gone husband Odelin claimed to be a descendant of La Navidad, but Darlene knew her family had come from the slave market in Cotonou, Benin to work in the sugar plantations.  Strangely enough their enslavement was less thanks to the Portuguese traders that crossed on those trade currents from West Africa than to the Ogiso Kings of West Africa who had no problem bartering away neighboring tribal rivals.  Those plantations were near La Romana, but the harshness of the Code Noir and particularly its ban on any religion other than Catholicism brought about the great slave revolt and joined the French and American Revolutions to create the Age of Revolution.  All good wars end and all good wars displace people before, during and after.  So, the exodus to the leeward side of the island landed Darlene’s ancestors in Port-au-Prince, as far from Dona Azucar as they could get. The ravages of mercantilism, imperialism, national corruption and just plain bad fortune landed Darlene in the hardship that is Cite Soleil.  

Darlene is vodouisant, but Catholic too.  She shows the nuns from Michigan her 100% devout Catholic side for the sake of little Marylin.  Haiti, however is said to be 80% Catholic and 100% Vodou.  And Vodou spirituality is what takes Darlene to the highway and her trek to the Virgin Erzulie’s sacred gathering place.  She may be vodouisant, but she is far too humble to strive to become a mambo…and she fears that if she did, the nuns of Saint-Martial would hear of it.  The only thing more important to Darlene than her soul is Marylin’s improving life.

The bus ride flies by in what seems like an instant and feels like a trance, a dizzying, hot, steamy, fly-buzzing and pungent bus trance.  Just as the trance reaches its crescendo, the bus arrives in Arrondissement Mirebalais and Darlene must disembark.  Had she had anything to eat or drink today (Mwen Grangou), she might have to relieve herself after the bumpy ride, but she is here on a mission and has a plan.

Every year tens of thousands of pilgrims come to cleanse themselves and make offerings at the place where they say appeared Erzulie, the goddess of love and beauty.  Their offerings are also a ritual to seek fortune in America’s poorest country… a country whose people, like Darlene, have been pummeled by every act of God and man that can be thrown at them.  Like the chaste Darlene this has thrust many of the faithful into the not so virtuous cycle of extreme poverty and thereby, in this culture, into the service of the Creole spirits that buzz around the heads of the impoverished Creoles. 

The plan is spirit possession and the venue will be the falls known as Saut-d’Eau. Tonight will be for dance, and tomorrow Darlene will throw herself into the realm of animas, gods, and spirits that choose to take control of a human body when it is in need and when it offers itself on the altar of Vodou.  The appeal of spirit possession is not just for Haitian Vodou, but exists in Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam.  The magnetic attraction, while evident in many places like Southeast Asia and Africa, is strongest in the places still of greatest poverty such as Haiti.  The Gods of all religions seem to favor women over men for spirit possession.  So, the dance begins.

It’s been a long day for Darlene and it’s time for preparation for tomorrow.  Even vodouisants must rest.  The rapture is said to be as physically demanding as it is transformative.  And Darlene has had a long day; cleaning her shared room in Port-au-Prince, stopping contentedly to watch Marylin through the school fence, walking the three miles through the lingering rubble that still plagues the capital, riding for a slow 95 miles through passes on crumbling roads…. all on a wooden seat, and then dancing enough to make a Dervish blush.  It is at this point that Vodou balances on that cusp between belief and black art.  This is when Darlene always chooses to retire for the night.

The morning is still here in the mountains.  The African wind hides in the mountain jungle whereas it bares its soul in the slums of Port-au-Prince.  The camp at Saut d’Eau during pilgrimage is constantly filled with well over 10,000 Haitians, each in search of opportunity and hopefully, enlightenment.  Right now, they are strewn all over the countryside and in the river pools.  In the pre-dawn it is impossible to tell who is dead and who is alive, who is asleep and who is possessed.  The line between these states seems somehow less relevant in this sea of humanity.   Darlene starts her day with an herbal concoction.

The Falls beckon Darlene as she has prepared body and soul and is ready for the Virgin Erzulie’s sacrament as the Virgin chooses to bestow it.  That’s the thing about Vodou rapture, you are always at the mercy of the Virgin, and she is a fickle master.

The body is the vessel and the waters are the purification rite.  The dance has sweated out the impurities and the rushing water literally blasts the lingering spirits and detritus of the psyche from the body.  Darlene cannot tell if it is the water’s high intensity, it’s mountain frigidity against the steaming jungle air or the Vodou cocktail she has ingested, but she is engulfed in the change and feels her sins and her frailties wash away with the river.  For the third time in a day, she is transported into a trance.  She inhales the water and becomes one with l’eau and Le Vodou Haitien.  She recognizes and feels the touch of the Virgin.  She knows for certain that Marylin will receive another year of instruction at Saint-Martial Catholic School, Fait accompli.

Once Darlene is spent and the Virgin has moved on to help other needy souls, the giving of thanks is the order of the day.  The Houngan gives his blessing and Darlene takes away only two tangible bits of evidence that her supplication was achieved and accepted.

Darlene takes the small candle from the Houngan and holds it like the sacred gift it’s meant to be. Is it a symbol of enlightenment?  Is it a flame for the soul?  Perhaps it is merely that one small candle we all believe can be our contribution to bringing the light of economic justice that Darlene’s world so badly craves (Mwen Grangou).  But she also is given a doll of hay and bits of cloth.  It looks like a man in a blue suit and red tie, with fluffy blonde hair.  Darlene has seen this man, it is the US President Trump.  It was meant as a gift for her daughter, but she sees more.

As Darlene boards the bus for the long and uncomfortable journey home, she feels her stomach say Mwen grangou again.  Her home that lends little physical comfort in this world to her weary body awaits.   Erzulie has given Darlene a gift of vision.  Her workshop where she will make Trump vodou dolls awaits. She hears a dog bark in the distance and feels the caravan roll on into the damp Haitian night.