Land of the Free

New Year's is when Haitians traditionally celebrate their independence. What that means around here is pumpkin soup, and lots of it. More like stew, actually, with the big chunks of bone and meat, potato, taro, onions, cabbage and other good things. Experienced MCCers in Haiti can usually finagle at least three separate servings of pumkin soup between New Years and Jan. 2. My landlady showed up with an enormous bowl of the stuff yesterday, and I didn't finish it until this morning.

Also yesterday, I got together with a friend of a friend. A woman I used to go to church with, Joanne Sprunger, was excited when she found out I was coming to live in Haiti. She did a homestay here in the early 80s (if I remember right) and stayed with a family that she remains in contact with. I got in touch with Madame Madeleine Boncy a few days ago and she invited me to spend Independence Day with her family. It was my first time hanging out at home with the Haitian upper class. Madame Boncy's two sons, Pierre and Jacque, are both doctors - one is the head of neurology at the Haitian University Hospital.

As is often the case among upper class families in Haiti, there was a variety of skin tones present. I hope it won't seem crude or inappropriate to talk about skin color so openly, but I've become used to these kinds of conversations. Haitians are expert at recognizing and comparing skin tones. Walking around on the streets, most of the Haitians you see are quite dark. But if you start looking into windows of the SUVs flying past, it's a different world. That's where you're likely to see many more white people as well as Haitians with much lighter skin than those sharing the sidewalk with you. Haiti has always been stratified in this way. The country's wealth is concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite, which is largely mulatto. Oh, and "mulatto" is not an offensive word here, it's used all the time. The elite has been a target of public resentment at different points because those with wealth are obviously benefiting somehow from a situation that can only be described as miserable to most Haitians. And indeed it's true that much of the wealth in Haiti is ill-gotten.

But there are also people like the Boncy family. They used their relative wealth to send their boys to school in the states and return to Haiti as doctors. Pierre and Jacque were both very interesting men to talk to. Jacque, who studied at the University of Illinois, informed me that it was a native Haitian who founded Chicago. I looked it up, and what do you know? Both of the doctors had a Colin Powell kind of complexion. Their father, who was also a doctor, died twenty years ago. The family clearly loves Haiti and chooses to live here, though they are part of that tiny group who has the ability to leave.

Madeleine Boncy will go down in memory as one of the most elegant women I've ever met. She was incredibly gracious, funny and welcoming, and spoke with a slight Barbara Walters rasp. Agewise, I would have guessed she was in her 60s, and very well preserved. Truth is she's in her 80s and very very well preserved.

Sitting out in the leafy courtyard of the Boncy house, the conversation would flow easily from English to French to Creole and back to French. The food was phenomenal. An older woman was there, a friend of the family who lost her husband some years ago. Her skin, if this is even possible, was lighter than mine, though she clearly had some African ancestry. She was telling about a friend of hers from the states who came to visit and was shocked by the organized chaos of Port-au-Prince traffic. "You really are free here in Haiti, aren't you," the friend said. A good joke for Independence Day.

While I'm talking about race and classy women, I should also mention my landlady. Her name is Madame Assali. She is very dark and her face bursts with expression. She certainly understands Creole, but her own speech is about 90% French. Her husband is either totally or mostly French in ancestry, though he uses Creole more than she does. Her house is immaculate and she runs a little boutique out of her front room selling fancy French perfume and stuff like that. As soon as I'm done writing this I'll head home for dinner with Madame and Monsieur Assali.

Speaking of, I should probably wrap up. But first I want to answer a couple questions. It's hard for me to know what are the big holes in your picture of Haiti if you are reading this and you've never been here. If you can put them into words, e-mail me. Here's some questions I got from my friend Almarie:

Does the air there have a smell, a distinctive smell? More than the difference between Port-au-Prince and andeyo? Did you bring three backpacks full of books to read over the next three years (or three months), and are there places to buy or borrow new and used books/reading material there? If so, what's the selection like? Are men and/or women more likely to be wearing a hat, footwear, or both? Or neither? What, so far, is your favorite sound in Haiti? Is there new year celebration?

Most of the smells are like anywhere in the third world - exhaust fumes, burning garbage, rotting plant matter in the gutter. But there's also the flowers and other plants that grow in abundance and seem to deflect a lot of the badness. Overall I don't mind it a bit. I hate that I'm breathing so much particulate matter in the air, but it's a smell I've grown to love. It's a smell that says: adventure awaits. The one unique addition in Haiti is the charcoal. Sometimes it's nice and it smells like a barbecue everywhere you go. Sometimes it smells more like too-green wood being burned, which is unpleasant. I think that's more when the wood is being burned to make charcoal, and not when the charcoal itself is being used.

Ack! The time! I'll have to answer the other questions later. Happy New Year to everyone! Out with the old, in with the new!