Meeting Haiti from racial Guyana...

I am walking in Georgetown. Two women and a child are walking in front of me. I keep my ears open sometimes to listen to conversations, because I am often bored. I like  to hear  different languages, to pick up the language. I recognise some French, and what I imagine is Kwéyòl

Ça va? I say and the women turn back and laugh.. Ça va bien.. they say. Pahlez Francais? one asks and I dig deep to find French words. I ask if they are from Haiti and they say yes, and they ask me if I am from Haiti and I laugh and I say no no ..

Ne pas pahlez Kwéyòl I say, and they laugh as they ask me about how I know to speak French.

I feel happy as I walk away that I could find use for the French I learned in school. I know, nuff people are coming to Guyana. My father in the private hospital draws smiles from the Nurses who he mumbles Hindi words to and from the doctors and one nurse who like him talking Spanish.

A woman smiles and tells me Hola as I walk into a Chinese store and I wonder if she thinks I am Cuban or Venezuelan ..

  Two newspapers carry articles about Haitians who travel to Guyana. The articles reflect the nasty anti-Haitian stereotypes carried in other media.  Anti-immigrant sentiments in a country could flourish in a country with the black/coolie racial split and the anxiety that we would all get rich from the oil.

This of course in a country getting a lot of awards for Tourism and wanting to promote 'Guyanese are a hospitable people' while other reports talk of police having to work with GECOM staff who are getting cuss out and attacked as part of the hospitality.. ?

Ton ton macoute and voudou
"Burnham wants to bring Haitians to build up the numbers of black people' I heard as a child when also hearing stories of the ton ton macoute, the brutal enforcers of Duvalier dictatorship.  I thought Burnham did not want to offend his fellow dictator Duvalier by hosting Haitian refugees and that is why the Haitians could not come.  I heard about the Haitian revolution, but wondered if we did not study it too much because we might get ideas against Burnham or if Duvalier did not want Haitians to promote the revolution.

So my impressions of Haiti were of a poor , violent place where one set of people oppressed another set. And Haitians as possibly scary people.

The media landscape changed and there were different stories coming out of Haiti. Baby Doc Duvalier went into exile. 

Information and Communications Technology for Development
In 2002, I became involved in a Caribbean ICT community - the Caribbean including Haiti. I met Haitians who were working on different projects involving ICT.  One man,  Stéphane Bruno, became a collaborator on a project. Stéphane talked about policy, technology, opportunities.  We disagreed on a few things but in cordial ways. I dared not tell him that I was imagining Haiti differently. We did not talk about voudou or ton ton macoute or about Haitains coming to Guyana to vote for the PNC.

We lost touch after the project ended.

In 2010, Stéphane and his family had to deal with the earthquake, and rescuing and in one case losing a relative.  I heard he dug a grave for one body. His communications after the earthquake remained pragmatic, talking about how he used ICT post-earthquake. He had some privileges other Haitians did not have.

2008 with Stéphane Bruno

On 15 June, 2016 , bandits killed Stéphane not far from his home in Port-au-Prince. They wanted his vehicle. They could have knocked him out or something, but they didn't.


Guyanese in Haiti
Mark Jacobs lived in Haiti and wrote a collection of vignettes in What a Friend we have in Jesus. 
The stories are different from what I read from Edwidge Danticat, but that is how life is.. multiple stories.

Two other people I know visited but did not write.
In 2015, Carifesta was held in Haiti. I hoped the Guyanese writers who attended would go walk on the road, have different interactions. However, it seems that the security was tight so the Guyanese did not really get to experience different aspects of Haitian life, and there was chaos at the closing ceremony.


A friend visited Haiti twice, the tourist spots.  He enjoyed the visit , though understanding that the tourist spots were just that, the tourist spots even though they were beautiful. A colleague who visited on official business was kept by security in the official venues for the visit.

A man who was getting fed up of Guyanese not turning up to work even though he was paying them well said he wanted to go Haiti to look for labour. I don't know if he ever was able to recruit workers.



The young Haitian man in the ambulance in Georgetown
I am relieved that the Georgetown Hospital ambulance is available. The rates are the cheapest. The driver , and two porters, one young man and one woman. The young man smiles but isn't saying much. I guess the accent. We talk in the French/English /Kwéyòl mix up.  The ambulance is noisy so I don't hear everything and I can't pick up all the words.

 He tells me he is working and he hopes to continue his studies here. He has his phone in one hand, and the other hand,  he is touching the patient and fixing the bag which is being used as the pillow.  I could imagine that he might be a good caregiver or nurse. He likes Guyana, but the food is too spicy. 

Some leave Guyana, some come here.


Refugees, migrants, travelers, tourists, expats, illegals
Guyanese have fled Guyana, some have sought asylum abroad and been granted the asylum. It is a human condition to move. There is a lot of support for the people leaving Venezuela to come here. I learned from Edwidge Danticat's 'Brother, I'm dying' about how Cuban boat people are treated differently from Haitian boat people.

What is the difference in the money from the tourist buying cane juice and eggball, from someone who wants to stay and work in Guyana buying the cane juice and eggball?

I remember this article about the use of the word 'expat' . And we stupidly inherit this language, and ideas and cannot feel consistent.

I am tired in a minibus and the normally nice driver is talking nonsense about the Chinese passenger. I want to cuss him, to ask him if the money is not the same.  But black people and coolie people can Unite sometimes in the stupid way in which they are racial towards Chinese migrants to Guyana.

For some reason, the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you does not apply when it comes to dealing with people coming here to seek better, or who are passing through here to seek better. 

And oil is only making things worse.