Back of Beyond (8 page)

I had seen all I needed to see in a few minutes and was preparing to move on when I noticed a long line of people approaching down the street. They were all dressed smartly in gray-and-black suits and were walking very slowly to the beat of a drum. At the front of the line was a covered casket on wheels. Obviously it was a funeral.

Great, I thought. Bits of local color in this otherwise dull place, and I pulled off to the side in the shadow of the church to watch.

The procession moved closer, very somber, very stately, very silent, very Catholic. The drum droned on. It was hot even in the shade, and the flies were beginning to irritate. I thought I might move on. I’d seen plenty of funerals in my travels and this seemed to be pretty standard fare.

Then, without any warning, all hell broke loose. A rather large woman who had been walking well behind the casket, head bowed beneath a broad black hat, suddenly let out a horrifying scream, followed by a howling screech that stiffened the hairs on the nape of my neck. It was an inhuman sound, far too loud and full of sorrow for one person. She hurled herself sideways from the procession, flung her arms high, and began swirling and yelling and kicking wildly in the air. Others joined her. An elderly man, dignified and starch-stiff, suddenly collapsed in the street as if he’d been shot, then rose immediately in a leap that sent him skidding back into the mourners behind him, then half-cartwheeling into the line in front. At the same time three women were seized with convulsions, shaking and shrieking and throwing their fists furiously in the air. Some of the mourners tried to hold them but their strength seemed—again—inhuman. Bodies fell, others rushed in. It took eight people to hold down the woman who’d started it all and who was carried off to a patch of scrubby ground and sat on until her spasms began to subside.

The procession had halted, but not in disarray. Those at the front near the casket never turned, never moved. They just waited as they might for a sudden violent storm to pass, while the screaming and shrieking continued and bodies tumbled all around them.

Onlookers also stood silently in doorways, showing no shock or surprise. Gradually, the cries grew fainter, becoming garbled mumbles and quivers. People picked themselves up and dusted off each other, replaced hats and, in one case, shoes. Jackets were rebuttoned. The line re-formed slowly. The drummer began his mournful drone again and gradually the procession moved on, closer and closer to the church door. By the time they arrived at the steps where the priest waited for them, it seemed as though nothing had happened. Heads were bowed, nods exchanged with the priest, and the mourners entered the church with the same dignified and quiet grief one would expect at a traditional funeral back home.

I seemed to be the only one still shocked and stunned. People in the street had resumed their conversations as if nothing had occurred; as I drove off, I could hear the first Catholic psalm being sung slowly and reverently from inside the church with the mold-blue walls and rusty tin roof. I was left with the heat and the flies and a sense of wonder at what lay below the seemingly placid Haitian exterior.

The second event was equally curious and alarming. I was driving over the magnificent mountain road from Gonaïves to Cap Haitien, one of the scenic wonders of Haiti. On all sides were vistas of mountain ranges, layer upon layer, cut by deep shadowy valleys. Clusters of African-looking villages perched on steep green slopes surrounded by tiny fields of corn and millet and brimming gardens of mangoes, bananas, and palms. In the far distance the ranges turned purple and disappeared into their own cloud caps. The breeze was cool and refreshing after the heat of the plains. I sat for a long time by the side of the road, lost in the richness and beauty of it all.

At the next roadside village, near the head of the pass, I noticed a crowd gathered around a lopsided cockpit about twenty feet square with a palm frond roof and two tiers of very wobbly-looking benches. Almost every community in Haiti, no matter how small, has its own cockpit, and Sunday cockfights are one of the most popular recreations for the men (the women stay well away or sit at the side selling plantain fritters and pork strips fried to stringy, but actually very tasty, crisps).

The fight had been going on for quite a while by the look of the two tired cocks, leaping half-heartedly at one another with extended talons (they don’t use all the spurs and fancy accoutrements of European cockfights in Haiti). They were bloodied and half blind but gamely hacking away at each other for the delight of the noisy but good-natured crowd. Someone told me the fight had been going on for twenty minutes, and it could take another half hour before it was over, either by a kill or by one of the cocks making a run for it over the foot-high boards surrounding the square patch of earth.

But then something went wrong. The two cocks seemed to lose all interest in fighting and began nuzzling one another in an almost affectionate manner, cheek to bloodied cheek, like a couple of over-the-hill boxers. The mood of the crowd changed fast as a switchblade knife. Fifty or so smiling village males, out for a bit of Sunday afternoon fun, suddenly became a maddened wild-eyed mob, shrieking at the cocks, at the cocks’ owners, at each other, and even at me (I was trying to be very inconspicuous, standing in the shadows, nibbling my pork crisps). The two owners stormed into the pit, each grabbing his bird and smashing their broken beaks and featherless faces together to rekindle the fighting spirit. The crowd had turned crazy for blood—and death. Money—lots of it—had been bet on this fight. Pride and reputations were at stake. The fight had to go on—and now!

Spitting and cursing, their faces the epitome of crazed anger, the owners hurled their birds at each other. I stepped back. I couldn’t watch them anymore. My stomach churned. I wanted to get away, but the crowd had sealed me in, pressing me from behind in a furious need to witness the final death agonies.

I saw their faces—the incredible anger, the frustration, the lines of weariness and sorrow from soul-tearing work, day after day in a blistering sun, the tedium of life, all the petty squabbles and vendettas of close-knit family and village life—it was all there, tangible as knives and spears, aimed purportedly at the poor cocks but, if the cocks gave up, at themselves and one another. And I was in the middle of it all, and the cocks still showed no interest in fighting and the whole damned cockpit was about to explode in a whelter of blood, guts, and fury…. I had to get out of it.

I lashed out and felt my elbow hit soft flesh. The line behind me gave a little, and I pushed backward, hearing screams and curses in my ears. I pushed some more and finally tumbled out into the dust as the crowd closed in again to fill the place where I’d stood.

The woman cooking fritters gave me a long look and then smiled. I stood up shakily and dusted myself. Some children were laughing.

The woman brought a hot fritter over from her pan of boiling oil. She looked very closely at me—into me. Then she nodded, smiled, gave me the fritter, and went back to her cooking.

The din never ceased. It seemed even louder now that I was out of it. I felt less nervous, and part of me wanted to stay to see the outcome. But another part—the part I must learn to listen to more—told me it was time to leave. I’d peered partway into the soul of Haiti, and it was very different from the pleasantly mellow rhythms and pace of life I’d seen so often on the surface.

But that was only the beginning. The soul of the Haitian is ancient and deep and full of mystery. “Nothing is what it appears to be.” Aubelin Jolicoeur’s words still floated around in the back of my head, and as I was to see later on in my journeys, he was more right than I could have ever imagined.

But enough of the lazy ramblings. It was time for the big adventure.

“The northwest peninsula! Now why in the world would you go there when there’s Jacmel, Cap Haitien, La Citadelle, Sant d’Eau—that’s the waterfall where you get all those Catholic-voodoo ceremonies. Then all those beaches down south. It’s fabulous down there! You’re missing all the best spots.”

The American owner of one of the largest Pétionville hotels seemed quite confused by my plans. He sprawled in his swivel chair behind a desk littered with my maps, whirling a cocktail stick between his fingers like a miniature baton.

I tried to explain my decision. “Everyone who comes to Haiti visits those places—it’s the national ‘grand tour.’ I want to go where the blans don’t go.”

“Well—you’ve picked the right part. Definitely! I’ll bet you the northwest hasn’t seen more than a hundred blans in the last century. I haven’t even been there! And I’ve covered most of Haiti. That’s wild country, David—I mean, it’s really wild.”

“That’s what I’ve been told.”

“Well—best of luck. You’re going to need it. Better get yourself a tough truck.” Then there was hesitation. “Y’know…Shoot. I wish I was going with you.”

Bingo! I’d made the right decision.

About thirty miles out of Gonaïves, heading west on the coast road to Anse-Rouge, I knew this journey would be special.

To the north the ranges rise abruptly out of the scrub and cactus forests—the Chaine de St. Nicolas, the Chaine des Trois Pitons, the Montagnes de Terre. Buckling ridges above the creamy whiteness of the coastal hills and beaches that would excite the most demanding connoisseurs of world-class suntanning locales. A sense of exhilarating emptiness. It’s unlike the rest of Haiti where, even in the most rugged places, you’re always aware of the presence of people and villages. Here on the northwest peninsula you find a different kind of Haiti. A place that belongs to you and you alone. Beaches that are yours to roam alone all day. Of course there’s nowhere to stay unless you bring your own equipment—but that’s why the adventure-travelers still love Haiti. Adventure is guaranteed.

And fantasy too. Imagine a string of bamboo and palm-frond shanties sprinkled along a perfect white-sand strand and separated by mini-mountains of pearly pink conch shells, millions and millions of them. The people were friendly. I was invited to join two families (highly extended families, everyone from nipple-sucking newborns to great grandparents) and share a lunch of
djon-djon
(a rich rice dish cooked with dried mushrooms, which turn the whole concoction an alluring shade of black) and a wonderful seafood stew thick with strips of marinated conch or
lambi
, as they call it. I’d discovered the lambi capital of Haiti.

Although Haitians are not great lovers of the ocean, and fishing is still undertaken in primitive boats, sometimes little more than hollowed logs, they often seem to possess a Frenchlike sensitivity when it comes to cooking the fruits of the ocean. The conch sauce prepared by these villagers and liberally served with black rice, was the purest essence of sea and seafood. One of the older women told me in singsong Creole how she would pound the bones and heads of fish and all the leftover bits and broken shells from the cleaned conch and then simmer them slowly for hours in charcoal embers with brine, lemon, pepper, nutmeg, and cumin until the mixture was reduced to creamy stock. As the stock was needed for soups and sauces she would ladle it out and then add more ingredients and brine to keep the pot slowly bubbling for the next meal.

The aroma of that superb stock, the flavor of the djon-djon, the warmth of the people, the pink mountains of conch shells, the brilliant blue of the ocean, and the headiness of Haiti’s excellent Prestige beer…I was soon dozing in the shade with the other men while the women washed and played with the children and chatted quietly, using the gentle patois of the countryside. It was hard to leave this lovely place and move on.

Half an hour later I was convinced I should have stayed where I was. Beyond the great salt pans of Anse Rouge and the straggly shacks of the salt gatherers, the previously benign dust road suddenly decided to get nasty. My lunchtime euphoria was replaced by wide-eyed vigilance as I bounced over boulders, sank into eroded gulleys, and generally gave my four-wheel-drive Jeep the road trial of its life.

Ironically the worse the road became (I use the term “road” euphemistically. I called it many other names during the next few hours), the more magnificent was the scenery. Petit Paradis was as lovely as its name—a tiny clustered village shaded by palms on an arc of white sand, and a few fishing boats (one with a graceful
dhow
sail), all against a backdrop of soaring mountains. The only things spoiling the picture were the vultures following me since Anse Rouge. They knew what was ahead….

A few miles on I saw what this road could do to even the toughest of vehicles. A long-wheelbase Land-Rover lay partially on its side at the edge of a deep gulley. Its front passenger-side wheel sat in the dust a few feet away. Four black women were huddled in the shade of thorn bushes; a tall scraggly white man with an Abraham Lincoln beard stood off to the side, shaded only by his broad straw hat.

“What a place to get stuck!” I smiled to disguise my surprise. I hadn’t expected to meet anyone on this road, least of all someone white. After all, I’d been told, I was only “one of a hundred in the last hundred years” to venture into the northwest. I was rather proud of that image. Now I had to share the honor with this strange-looking character resembling a combination of Amish farmer and eccentric professor out of some Agatha Christie mystery.

“Good day, sir.” No smile and no extended hand. The accent was hard to place.

Maybe Dutch or German.

“Can I help at all?”

“No. The boy has gone for help, thank-you.”

“I didn’t see anyone on the road.”

“No. He has gone another way.”

Another way, to where? According to my map there wasn’t any other place around except Petit Paradis, and that was ten miles back. And what could anyone in a tiny fishing village like Petit Paradis do with a wrecked wheel ripped off an axle? I mean Haitians are fabulous innovators in a “make-do” culture but fixing a Land-Rover out here in this condition…