VoicesfromHaïti ~ Nou bèl. E Nou La.
VoicesfromHaiti is silent. For now.
When every thought shows up dressed exclusively in Haitian Creole, I say, Wèlkòm!
Honor and Respect.
I even had a little fun with the language today. If you know Kreyòl, you know playing with the words isn’t hard to do.
Here’s the new post on Kreyòl Pale.
An-two-kah, kenbe la. Hold on. Sipòte travay la. Support the work. Pataje Mesaj la. Share the message. “Nou Bèl. Nou La!” We Are Beautiful. We are Here!
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Expect great things from a publishing company built with the children of the world mind!
One Moore Book is dedicated to providing literature that educates and entertains children who live in marginalized countries. These books are filled with characters who are much like the children who read them. The plots follow the lives of ordinary school-aged children thriving under extraordinarily harsh conditions. Children love these books, because they see themselves in the characters; they are represented.
OMB’s debut series, written for and dedicated to the children of Liberia, continues to receive praise. More importantly, however, the Liberia Series is currently in the hands of children who remain out of school due to the Ebola outbreak. While we work and pray for a resolution for afflicted Liberia and neighboring regions, there is a dot of comfort in knowing that One Moore Book had the vision to supply the world’s most desperate children with a means of escaping bleak realities–if only for brief moments. The illustrations are attractive and vivid, contributing to raising comprehension levels by beginning readers, fluent ones, and non-readers alike.
One Moore Book’s Haiti Series features native born writers, as well as Haitian-Americans: Ibi Zoboi, Michele Jessica Fievre, Maureen Boyer, Edwidge Danticat, Sybill St. Aude, and Katia D. Ulysse each contributed one book: These six amazing books have brought priceless smiles to countless adults and children in Haiti and in the Diaspora. The books are for everyone who wants to learn a little more about Haitian culture. I have heard from people as far as Scotland who value these books for the lessons they teach in fun ways.
This Holiday season, One Moore Book has partnered with an education foundation–Free the Slaves –to give copies of “Fabiola Can Count” to all children who not only deserve to see themselves validated in literature, but need to know they are not alone in their plight. (Fabiola Can Count is about a little stay-with girl who learns to count, using the few resources available to an indentured servant).
Stay-with children, as benign as the term sounds, is a long-established condition that too often translates to enslavement of powerless children–some as young as five years old. Although there are those who prefer to deny the existence of Stay-with children, finding evidence is easy and well-documented. To be sure, this phenomenon is present in most cultures throughout the known world. Children are made to care for entire households of adults and other children much older than the servants. This phenomenon is slowly declining in Haiti. Those would might have waved dismissive hands are now willing to hold conversations on the subject. The fact that modern day slavery persists anywhere in the world is tragic.
Fabiola Can Count, written in Haitian Creole and in English, provides children with beautiful illustrations and an engaging story that promote first language literacy and English language learning. This holiday season, One Moore Book is ready to give Fabiola to every Stay-with child in Haiti. We need your help.
Here is the message from One Moore Book. I hope you will support this effort. It is heartwarming and necessary. What a super opportunity to bring joy into an unsuspecting child’s heart! This offer will end 1/30.
Happy Holidays!
YOU BUY, WE GIVE. HOLIDAY 1-FOR-1
Christmas is an incredible time of year for many children around the world, but not all. In Haiti, a child who is a modern-day slave is called a restavek–a term which means “stay with.” This season, every time you buy Katia D. Ulysse’s incredible book, “Fabiola Konn Konte”, a counting book about a young restavek girl from the OMB Haiti Series, we will match this and donate a copy to a restavek child through a partnership with the Free the Slaves organization and Fondasyon Limyé Lavi in Haiti.
This giving program will end on January 31st.
Pictured: Children read One Moore Book’s Fabiola Can Count by Katia D. Ulysse at the Innovation Hub in Port-au-Prince,
It’s dark. Fireworks have begun to streak the sky with glorious reds, whites, and blues. America celebrates its independence again. We are proud. We are also proud of the fact that Haiti–only Haiti–fought for and declared herself independent just a few years later after 1776. Haiti remains the only nation whose slaves fought and won a revolution. The year was 1804. Who wouldn’t be proud of that?
1804. Haiti declared herself free. No more slavery. But it’s now 2013, and a child sleeps under a table tonight. Someone forgot to tell her she is, indeed, free. No one has told her. Not yet.
While the sky stretched over the United States explodes with color tonight, a child tumbles into a colorless dream. She is a rèstavèk–a “stay-with” child, a modern-day slave. The little spot under the table has been her bed for many years. There are no dreams under the table. No hope. No future. She does not know the meaning of independence. Perhaps, she will never know. No one has told her. Not yet.
Read Patricia Philippe’s offering on the subject of Rèstavèks below. Happy Independence Day from VoicesfromHaiti.com
Rèstavèk ~ by Patricia Philippe
Haitian Kreyòl is the language of we, the people, including those among us born on American soil; including the children of rèstavèks.
Who is this Gede they keep talking about? Black man in a suit with baby powder all over his face standing at the intersection of life and death, ready to help fools cross over?
Burn purple and while candles for him? Not today. It is Damballa I favor to make an opening in the sky for my heavy thighs to keep doing warrior poses.
My white candle burns on the ancestors table to pay homage to the wise spirits who penetrate my thoughts while I sleep. They teach me through my dreams.
What color candle does Madame Renaud burn? To whom does her rèstavèk pray? She had one at the house in Port-Au-Prince, don’t you know. Madame Renaud referred to the rèstavèk as her little girl: “The little girl I take care of . . .”
We all knew the little girl didn’t get much care at all. Madame Renaud wouldn’t have said it loud enough for anyone to hear. There were her pride and conscience to protect. We all knew the truth.
What crime did the child commit? Was it an offense to be born to parents who could neither nurture nor educate her?
The child was sent to live in a city with wolves: Was that some sort of punishment? It’s supposed to be a secret, you know. They don’t like it when I tell you this. They don’t want me to tell. But I can’t keep my mouth shut. Like the fireworks in the sky, I will not be silent. Not anymore.
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Patricia Philippe is a writer and Managing Editor of Kalyani Magazine. She lives in New York, and started Ann Pale Kreyòl: a “meet-up” group that supports Haitian-Americans who wish to learn Kreyòl and improve fluency.
Si moun lakay pa vann ou, moun deyò paka achte-w. If someone inside your house does not sell you, someone from outside cannot buy you. ~Haitian Proverb/Pwòvèb Ayisyen
Texas. 1865. The Union Army’s Major General had to remind an assembled crowd that President Lincoln had, in fact, written a proclamation two years prior which freed all slaves. Some folk had not heard. Granger, the Union Army guy, explained: “In accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”
Port-au-Prince. 2013. There are a few hundred thousand children in Haiti right this minute who would benefit from such a proclamation. They are known as rèstavèks. “All slaves are free.” What nice words! Should we put our voices together and proclaim Haiti’s rèstavèks free? Would they believe us? Libere tout rèstavèk jodiya. Isn’t it time for this deplorable practice to end?
Rèstavèk-ism is a difficult subject to talk and write about, but there’s information about it. Start with Robert Cadet’s Rèstavèk. And don’t forget to run to your favorite bookstore, and ask for your very own copy of Fabiola Can Count: a harmless little book about a rèstavèk girl. Fabiola Can Count, written by Katia D. Ulysse and illustrated by Kula Moore, is part of a six-book series published by One Moore Book. Other authors in the series include Michele Jessica Fievre, Ibi Zoboi, Edwidge Danticat, and Maureen Boyer.
Below is another harmless little story about a five year-old slave. The title is Don’t Count Me. Happy Reading!
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Don’t Count Me
written by
KDU
Several years ago a lady with very white teeth came to count all the rèstavèks in Haiti. Everywhere the lady went, she carried a thick notebook and a blue pen with a golden point. The words on the notebook’s cover read: Rèstavèks/Haiti’s Modern-Day Slaves.
The lady woke up early each morning to count the slave children, the rèstavèks. She counted, and counted, and counted. There were almost four hundred thousand. These rèstavèks — some as young as five years old — woke up before the roosters; they built fires for cooking, made breakfast, and served sweetened coffee to their grownup owners. They traveled to distant streams to fetch water for their keepers’ baths. Since they were not permitted to attend school, there was plenty of time for sweeping, washing and ironing clothes. At night, the rèstavèks slept on porches with the dogs and the shadows. One of the children the lady counted was a girl named Sophia.
The lady with the white teeth noted how perfectly balanced the heavy bucket was on Sophia’s head. “I can spin around without spilling a drop. Watch me,” Sophia boasted, twirling. She held the bucket in place with one hand. The other was cocked on her bony hip.
“Why are you carrying this bucket of water on your head?” the lady wanted to know.
“Because I cannot carry it on my feet,” Sophia retorted, laughing. But the lady with the white teeth could not bring herself to laugh. She’d seen thousands of children like Sophia. She’d seen them balance things on their heads that would break an army general’s neck.
Sophia’s threadbare clothes would make useless cleaning rags, the lady also noted. The child’s hair looked as if it had not seen a comb in months. The whites of her eyes were burnt-orange. Her clavicle protruded through thin skin. There were a number of welts crisscrossed on her arms, back, and legs.
When the lady asked Sophia her age, the child replied: “If I was five years old one minute ago, I am five years old now.” Sophia did not look at the lady when she answered her questions.
“Are you a rèstavèk?” the lady asked the same question she’d asked several thousand times before.
“If you think I am a rèstavèk, then maybe I am.” Sophia hunched her shoulders.
The lady put a check in the YES column, adding one more to her list.
“Why are you counting rèstavèks?” Sophia asked.
“It’s for a special report that will help children like you.”
“Don’t count me,” Sophia said. “If my owners catch me talking to you, I will have a lot more of these.” She indicated the welts on her arms.
“It’s my job to count you,” the lady with the white teeth explained.
Sophia ran as far and fast as she could, but did not spill a single drop of water from the five-gallon bucket on her head.
(Excerpt from kdu’s Rubble Stories)
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I found this piece on YouTube with Oprah & Jean Robert Cadet.
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Hey. . .Friends of VoicesfromHaiti, check back soon for a nice piece by Patricia Philippe.
While we’re at it, get a copy of Juneteeth by the inimitable Mr. Ralph Ellison.
VoicesfromHaiti: Things are not always pretty like hibiscus and sweet like raw sugar rapadou. We’re still beautiful. And we’re still here. Nou bèl. E nou la.
Peace!