Haïti for the Uninitiated ~ Written by Ibi Zoboi

There is a saying in Kreyòl: Sa w ap chache an, w ap jwen ni.  “This thing you are searching for, you will find.” These are not words of encouragement. This is a warning.  As in, if you go meddling in things you don’t understand, you will regret it. The wise comedian Kevin Hart put it best: “You gonna learn today!”  And if you try to refuse whatever it is you had looked for and found, you will be even more disappointed. Your find now belongs to you—good or evil. And you belong to it. Forever.

I use “uninitiated” here in every sense of the word. Call me a naïve dyaspora, going to Haiti for the second time of my adult life. I was blind to the spiritual ways of the world; I was a neophyte. What follows is the real-life tale of how I, this initiated, (an untrained vodouizan, so to speak), found just “what I was looking for.” CLICK THIS TO READ IBI’s recent Experience in Haïti.