Vodou afternoon

Ligba Albo is a unabashed Vodou priest. I visited him yesterday
afternoon, tape recorder in hand. He lives in a refugee camp about a
mile from Camp Trazeile. Before our conversation began he opened the
Bacardi bottle and offered libations to his ancestors at the threshold
of his tent. I did not have to pose a single question, since Ligba
already had in mind the things he wanted to say to me. I am speaking
on behalf of my ancestors, he said, for Dessalines, for Boukman,
Macandal, for those who fought with Vodou and with force to defeat
the French armies that had come to return us to slavery. His words
were thick with history. Slavery, revolution, magic. When the black
soldiers who fought against Napoleon's army grew tired, they invoked
magic that gave them new ferocity. Dessaline was chosen by the Gods to
lead Haiti to freedom, much like Barack Obama was chosen by the Gods
to lead America. These are very special men. Vodou is the roots of
the Haitian people, it is what gave them freedom, and what has stayed
with them since their ancestors were torn from Africa. Haiti is
Vodou. Yet Christians, those who share the religion of the
colonizers, attempt to suppress the expression of Vodou. Originally
the European colonists pushed Christianity on the slave population in
order to pacify them, give them a doctrine of servitude. Many
accepted. Under Francois Duvalier there was a state-led campaign
against Vodou that destroyed shrines and outlawed gatherings. While
now freedom of religion is protected by law, the reality is that more
and more Haitians are ashamed of Vodou and try to expel it from
themselves and their culture. Nowadays, practicing Christianity and
rejecting Vodou elevates you closer to the status of American and
European cultures. But according to Ligba and co., that's just a form
of false consciousness. Haitians are denying what they really are in
order to play at something that they are not. Yet the various
Christianities have deep deep root in Haiti. Many people here believe
that the earthquake was God's way of punishing Haiti for their sinful
ways, and has renewed the efforts to squash Vodou. I didn't get the
chance to ask Liga what he thought of the earthquake, why the gods
would do that. Maybe I will be lucky and there will be a next time.
But I do know that he thinks the only way Haiti can heal itself is
by returning to its roots, by reestablishing identity by seeking what
is truly Haitian and rejecting the ideologies imposed by those who
seek to oppress. There must be a returning to the roots.
What is Vodou, exactly, you may wonder. I'm not entirely sure
yet. A system of beliefs that sees gods and spirits in all things,
that believes in the feminine benevolence of the earth. In Vodou,
life and death are two truths that compose each other, and the lne
between them is smudged. Magic is very real, and exists on a daily
level. You can use magic to find a cell phone, to secure the
faithfulness of your lover, or to speak to the gods. The magic can be
either good or evil. He can cure or kill, depending. It doesn't take
very much. Even if in discourse, many Haitian are Christians, the
structure of their thoughts, their mentalite, shall we say, is
informed by Vodou. Or so I am told.
After about an hour, Ligba grew tired, and the conversation
slowed. He took the opportunity to sing a few songs of prayer for
me, that might help me remember Haiti after I am gone. They were songs
that invoked Africa, and asked his brothers to invoke it too. Before I
left he put a stone in my hand and stood over me, spraying me with the
a fine mist of scented water. My hair, my face, my shoulders. He took
the stone from me and sprayed my hands so that I might rub the water
on my arms, feet, and stomach. There was another libation poured to
the dead, the bottle passed around. The water evaporated from my
sweaty skin as I wove my way home between the merchants and the cars,
but a finely scented residue remained.
Haiti is a profoundly religious country, Hanging out in the camp,
I regularly listen to heated religious debates about the nature of
God, the meaning of the Bible, or the role of Christianity in Haiti.
People often ask me what church I go to. I stopped trying to explain
that I am not a believer, since that closes more doors than it opens.
Instead, I am Episcopalian, and I go to church on Christmas and
Easter. There are myriad sects here: Bapist, Catholic, Vodou,
Evangelical, Russian Orthodox, Jehovah's Witness. After the
earthquake even the scientologists came down here and opened up a
church. What the religion of money is going to do in Haiti is beyond
me. Yesterday I talked with a French journalist doing a piece of the
religions of Haiti. In his opinion, the scientologist are starting in
Haiti in order to get a foothold in the diaspora. He was very critical
of all the missionary groups that come down here to help, since they
ask people's souls in return. But its not just missionaries who want
something in return. There is oil here, did you know? Minerals and
precious metals too. I think that's why the US took such decisive
moves to secure control of the country after the quake. And NGOs often
led for profit operations despite themselves. Where is all that money,
people ask. The millions that people abroad assembled to help us?
Where is it? What sign has it left?