Zahra Gordon

In a few days, I’ll be en route to Port-au-Prince to present some of my poetry at  the 41st Annual Caribbean Studies Association (CSA) conference, which is being held in Haiti for the first time. It was an honour to be selected and I’m looking forward to this Diasporic gathering of artists, activists, scholars, writers and Caribbeanists. I’m also looking forward to touching ground in the capital of the first black republic in the Western Hemisphere; to experiencing this amazing, complicated space where Caribbean resistance continues to find strength despite neo-imperialist machinations.

Apart from writing, I’m also preparing for Haiti by reading. My understanding of the importance of Haiti is not new. In 8th Grade, I did my final presentation for French class on Toussaint Louverture. Perhaps my Haitian crush at the time influenced this. Even so, I’m glad I learned about Haiti sooner than later. In college, I studied Negritude and fell deeply in love with Jacques Roumain’s sensual portrait of Haitian life and land, Masters of the Dew. Still, I felt like this trip warranted a refresher.

I began by devouring Edwidge Danticat’s Create Dangerously. Then, I made a gluttonous trip to the library leaving with Mariam Chancy’s A Spirit of Haiti, the bicentennial anthology, Haiti: a Slave Revolution and more Danticat titles such as Breath, Eyes Memory and The Farming of Bones. I wanted a contemporary picture of the country, but also to ensure that I got the revolution right. 

As I started telling people about my trip, It became clearer than ever that reading up on Haiti’s true history was the right approach to traveling there. I got mostly positive, congratulatory responses, but those stereotypes certainly raised their ugly heads. I was warned about Haitian obeah and developing love interests. “Careful. Somebody might make a doll out of you and stick pins in it. Then we’ll never see you again.” I was advised to cover my head, to say my (Christian) prayers. On the other hand, one person responded to the news with, “Oh, so you’re involved in charity work?” There was quite a bit of, “Haiti? What? Why?” Although the 2010 earthquake severely damaged the country’s already fragile infrastructure, the disaster capitalists have been at work and there are hotels and pavilions for exactly this type of event. Seems like most people don’t remember more than the earthquake and the obeah. I didn’t want to go to Haiti with that mindset. 

I’m happy and excited that the CSA made Haiti possible this year and that I’m part of this moment. Moreover, I’m hoping to come back home like Frederick Douglass. In the late 1800s, Douglass was appointed Minister to Haiti by the US government. In 1893, he gave a lecture on Haiti at the opening of the World Fair. The speech’s purpose was to aussuage fear of the Haitian population and dispell misconceptions; one of which was that witchcraft (obeah) and evil – seen as mutually exclusive – abounded in Haiti making it unsafe for outsiders and locals alike. What did Douglass say to that? 

“Let it be remembered that superstition and idolatry in one form or another have not been in the past, nor are they in the present, confined to any particular place or locality, and that, even in our enlightened age, we need not travel far from our own country… to find considerable traces of gross superstition.” 

I second that notion. And I’m sure the woman I heard in a taxi the other day going into detail on the phone about the obeah man she paid to help her trap another woman’s husband would second it as well. 

As I travel to Haiti next week, follow me here, as well as on Facebook and Twitter to see Port-au-Prince the way I do and get live updates from the conference.