koute
Here I will post documentations of my first trip to Haiti. I have been studying Haitian Folkloric dance for about 4 years now and finally I had the chance to visit the country from which these movements, drums, songs and culture have originated.
Postings begin April 1st, 1st page of the blog.
Souvenance, pictures
The grounds were beautiful. We made a many of friends everywhere we went. The children were beautiful and instantly our friends. Everywhere we walked we would feel a hand grab ours and always have a trail of children. Again, verbal communications was limited to Hello, How are you? What is your name? and from there we danced, laughed and played together.
Ann gave us a quick tour. She showed us where the row of food and water was, the poo houses, the showers with running water, the stations for ceremonies, the peristyle, the mapou tree, etc.
A beautiful woman walking to the Mapou tree.
A little boy holding the door for his mama
Selena and I near the Mapou tree
The Mapou tree
I asked Neg Mawon if he knew how old the Mapou tree, (please note that the people above are sitting on the roots of the tree!) He then asks someone in kreyol and all i hear is pa pa pa pa…Neg Mawon comes back to me and the man said to him, “Even his great great great grandfather couldn’t tell you how old this tree is.”
Carine and Dominique: Picture taken by Selena Rhine.
Joey in his kay
Hugues and I
The procession representing the crossing of the ocean from Africa to Haiti
The ceremonies of drums and dancing were amazing and overwhelming with energy. We only stayed until Tuesday morning ( 2 nights). We spent the evenings in the peristyle or hanging with friends in their kay, or trying our darndest to speak Kreyol with our new friends. I had about a 2 hour conversation (in kreyol) with Hugues about how I want to learn more Kreyol. The points we got across to one another within this time: Kreyol is more than a language, you need to be Haitian to fully communicate/understand Kreyol, and then I tried hard to say to him…”Maybe I was Haitian in a previous life”… and how I ended up having to say it was “before I was born.” Best to simplify when you don’t know so many words, point made, point taken.
