(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
A true Portrayal of Haitians [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-05-07
A true portrayal of Haitians...
For years now most of the stories you hear out of Haiti, are of chaos, riots, despair and destruction. This is not one of those stories.
In a typical Haitian household, and by typical I mean families earning between 150-300 US $ a month, you have a whole family that lives there, from grandparents to cousins, to kids and grandkids.
In the morning, you hear the matriarch or patriarch of the family rising everyone up to get ready, for school, for work, you hear the laughter as they get ready, mothers yelling not in anger, just Haitians talk loudly, after kids, come eat, get your homework, don’t forget this… you smell the aroma of Haitian coffee and breakfast. Then you see the kids filing out in their uniforms to either walk to school or grab a tap tap (a sort of taxi).
A Haitian neighborhood is never quiet, all day long you hear your neighbor’s conversations everyone knows everyone’s business and problems, and everyone helps everyone.
In the afternoons the kids come back, and you hear them with their rhythmic chant learning their lessons, you see older ones helping younger ones sitting on some broken bench or a rock under whatever can shed some light on their used schoolbooks. Because no matter what you’ve heard, Haitians will sell their souls to send their kids to school. They believe in education.
Haitians rent their houses (such as they are) by the year, every month a group of Haitians pool part of their earnings that pool goes to one person and for that month the person with the pool either pays their rent or their kid's school debts, each month a different person gets the pool of money. Small shops in the neighborhood give those inside credit because they know eventually, they will make do on their payment once it’s their turn to get the pool of money.
If a phone is out of charge, you walk until you find who still has electricity and while you gossip you charge your phone. Street food vendors pass every day offering everything from cooked foods, fruits, veggies, meat all up to hygienic products.
A typical neighborhood is as tightly knit as if they were all of the same family, they look out for each other, they protect each other, they help each other.
Unlike those images you see of “Haitians”, most Haitians walk around with a smile, a laugh and a greeting on their lips. They are always quick to help. They rarely complain about their circumstances, they talk about what they wish they had or could do, but not in complaints, just like daydreaming.
Almost every Haitian seems to have an artistic soul, they sing like angels, paint with ease, dance, play instruments, write or sculpt with innate instinct. They can fix almost anything, nothing is ever “broken” until it literally falls apart. Nothing is thrown away, it’s given to someone else.
Those are the Haitians I know and help. Those others in the news, yes they are Haitians but in the grand scheme of things they are really not that many, they just have guns.
#TheAmericanHaitianPoet
Paypal.me/murielvieux (I help haitian families one at a time)
Muriel Vieux – May 7th, 2024 - ©AllRightsReserved
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/5/7/2321127/-A-true-Portrayal-of-Haitians?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
