Tangible duality

Duality is what shapes Haiti. Duality of the rich and the poor, of the white expat community and the black local community, found in what’s public and private, in the plains and the mountains, in people who are suffering and people who are providing relief., the literates and the illiterates, in the spiced meals and the oversweet juices.

The most tangible duality to me is the coexistence of  life and death. They are alongside each other and not in continuity of the other.

In people’s eyes, in their well chosen words, in their demeanour, in their believes, in their experience.

Driving to a paradise like beach, you take a turn and you find a coffin maker, working on a Sunday afternoon with children around, upbeat music being played on the radio and drinking beer…

Through town when struggling to find signs and landmarks, some of the best kept buildings are morgues, with big bright letters painted on the perfectly straight walls, spelling out a word “morgue”…

Going out to celebrate someone’s return, the only lights in the streets will be the ones of the funeral chamber where a white coffin is layed out under the lights for people to show their last respect…

Visiting schools, surrounded by joyful children, armed with a smile and with cheeky eyes a young boy says his father’s house is nearby, only that his father is dead and the house is down…

Relaxing after work and chatting with a colleague with laughter all around, a colleague asks if my father is dead, he is asking and saying his father passed away and a few seconds later laughs about a silly joke mentioned on the other side of the table…

Voodoo celebrations  are the scene for warm hearting songs and togetherness when they celebrate dead spirits…

A duality we are too well aware of but that my culture hides and makes its mention awkward and scary. A reality we like to forget or ignore through artifices, superficial activities or pleasures. A reality that you can touch at any given moment here, drip fed into your consciousness in all its ugliness and in all your moments of happiness artificial, superficial or pleasurable.

A duality at times too tangible.

Love and tangible hugs to all.