The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States

What's wrong? someone asks.

What's wrong, Jeanne? I ask.

More tears. Silence. She rocks herself gently, back and forth.

I can't stand it anymore, she says, I want to go back home.

But they will kill you if you go back, someone says.

I don't care. I want to die in my country like a moun, like a person, not here like a dog.

More silence. I hand her a tissue. Are they all thinking the same thing?

Now, I say, surprised at the authority of my voice, this is what they want. They want to wear you down, so that you will go back and tell the others and they will be afraid to come.

More silence. What is Jeanne thinking? What are they all thinking?

Then, from the back of the room, a small still voice.

Not me.

It is Philocia of the red dress. Mwen mem. I will never go back. I don't care what they do to me. I spent two days in the water holding on to a piece of wood from the boat. There were dead people all around me. I'm not going back.

I look at her and she has not moved. I realize that she has never left the water and that I have understood nothing.

Now I want to find her a dress in every possible shade of red… for roses… for hearts… red for the blood of Toussaint and Des-salines flowing in her veins.

SOMETHING IN THE WATER… REFLECTIONS OF A PEOPLE'S JOURNEY by Nikol Payen

The windowed door of my hospital room framed scurrying white uniforms. Inside, the silence of isolation left plenty of time for interior monologues. The medication and its lingering scent made my head fuzzy and paralyzed my tongue. My spirit seemed to be having difficulty catching up with my body, like the distorted windshield view of a rainstormed road. I anxiously waited to see whether or not this physician would corroborate my overseas diagnosis of bronchial asthma, which was beginning to seem mild now that I was up against possible heavy hitters like tuberculosis, PCP pneumonia, and HIV.

Lying there, I could almost see my dad's concerned face, his eyes widening as his deep, stern voice prepared me with Haitian proverbs, tales about our clan, warnings and cautions for my work at Guantanamo Bay. Most important, however, was his promise of ancestral protection. So off I went, surrounded by my invisible army.

The IV stand was beginning to feel like an awkward extension of my anatomy, contributing to my claustrophobia. As I lay there, I struggled to pinpoint exactly when and why my body broke down. Was it the night- and-day contrast in temperature? Days with temperatures that sometimes sent boa constrictors, iguanas, and banana rats looking for shelter under my cot, then onto the clothes that dangled from my partially open dufflebag. At times the leftover wind from the Windward Passage would stir up the baked sand, lashing my face or filling my nose and mouth with grit. Or perhaps it was the cobalt-blue, diamond-lit evening sky that would seduce me into rolling up the sides of the tent, allowing the night's chilling vapors to invade my lungs.

Time was strangely distorted on that mound of land-days long, nights short, and mornings difficult to embrace. I could always set my watch, though, by the chants of exercising soldiers that began with the 5 a.m. dosage of pesticide the military used to wage the war against bugs. When it was kind, the fumes tickled inside your nostrils. Otherwise, you went into a choking cough that could rage for twenty minutes.

Before three days could come and go, my life had undergone a complete metamorphosis. Kreyol, the language whose purpose in my life up until now had been to pain and confuse me, would prove an asset. It became my passport to the American-occupied naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Justice Department would use me as a medium-or, as my contract stipulated, an interpreter-to execute its mission. Haitians fleeing political persecution-unleashed by a coup d'etat that had overthrown Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide-were being detained while they awaited interviews for political asylum.

I was one of sixteen language specialists. We worked in a defunct airplane hangar, freshly painted white, which held about fourteen thousand people when full. The scent of sweaty bodies thickened the already damp air. Their united sound of confused chatter echoed from the hollow interior, creating a dense hum of marketplace conversation. Bodies lay in rows on olive-green cots, all their worldly possessions on the concrete floor beside them-clothes, shoes, personal documents, in black plastic garbage bags or homemade straw sacks.

I rode the yellow school bus that transported service people through the camp. It was my means of getting to work as well. On the days when I arrived at the bus stop early, I would sit on a wooden park bench while an awakening sun pierced my sunglasses. All too often, the bath I had taken in insect repellent proved fruitless as last night's rainfall summoned what seemed like the island's entire mosquito population to feast on my exposed arms and legs. Waiting impatiently, I waved off a buzzing bee that had grown tired of a sugar-coated bottle neck from a nearby steel-grid garbage can. In the distance, a topless green army truck appeared, hauling soldiers to work. The overcrowded vehicle screeched at the red light, burying us in a fog of dust.

While I hadn't any preconceived notions about the architectural layout of a military base, never had I imagined it to be so elaborate- an actual replication of a city, a setup I suspect to be crucial in setting the underlining tone for the severity and intensity of the military training process. Like any other American town, it had a post office, a bank, a church, a gas station, credit union, firehouse, schools, hospital, restaurants, a 7-Eleven, a mall, and even a McDonald's. The neighborhoods seemed lifted directly from a suburban blueprint onto the desert landscape, the houses bearing prefabricated faces reminiscent of small towns in upstate New York. But even with the skeletal details of everyday life surrounding them, Guantanamo remained a wall-less prison.

I had committed to memory the entire bus route, which was easy to do. We would ride past Treasures & Trivia, a thrift store operated by civilian wives to occupy their day while their husbands worked. Up the hill brought us to the Jamaican Club, an after-hours spot where contracted Jamaican workers earning below minimum wage convened to bond and essentially keep sane amidst the sterility. We careened around the corner to a port and picked up a few more sailors who seemed anxious to get to their destination.

As usual, the day seemed innocent until we pulled into the ferry landing-the stop before mine. Like clockwork my stomach knotted and my heart pounded against my chest, asking to be let out. Winding around the final hill, we passed the grandest edifice on the island- the Pink Palace, the military's administrative headquarters, strategically planted on top of the hill overlooking the entire camp. This was where most of the important meetings were held by high-ranking military officials to plan and strategize with their Washington counterparts. The bus gave a final jerk indicating the end of its route.

Each day found me unprepared to digest the misery and despair that awaited me at the gate. Going back in there day after day seemed pointless, attempting to nurse physical and emotional wounds that I could not yet fully comprehend, let alone heal.

'A boat of forty-five was intercepted last night near the Windward Passage,' was my substitute morning greeting from my supervisor. This tidbit was sure to structure much of the day's work. The voyage almost always promised an illness of some sort, followed by the culture shock of camp conditions. Sometimes the newcomers' eyes were weary, hazed by dehydration and seasickness. Some were badly sunburned, some wore big grins, usually a sign of relief at having been spared the swallow of the ocean. Others were generally happy about the possibilities that awaited them. After exchanging greetings and tips from familiar faces from the same or neighboring towns, the newcomers awaited the formal unveiling of their new reality. Sometimes the camp provided a ground for family reunification. When they arrived-some barefoot and meagerly attired, others clad in church-wear of sequined, taffeta dresses-they were taken to Camp Alpha, where the processing began. Hours would pass before they could all be photographed, fingerprinted, and given identification cards.

Fighting the fierce sunrays, children hopped about, alternating feet to keep their soles from burning on the cooked tar. Colonies of flies comfortably rested on their choice of heads and faces of those awaiting the final step: acquisition of an ID bracelet, marked with a bar code similar to those found on the side of household products. Some days, this long ritual-the stamping of the refugees with the marks of ownership-accounted for an entire