Sweet Haiti Sugar
It was march 2017 in Cape Haitian, after several warning that not tourist should go out because of the latest Cholera outbreak that was lingering through the city; I left the hotel telling myself it was just gonna be a short walk.
and It was and then I met Roseline, an elegant Haitian lady with, a big smile and with shaped arms that only pilates ladies get in Roseville after devoting 6 hours a week to their bodies.
She looked at me and start speaking Spanish, “ Bueno Caminar” she said and the we started a conversation where the hand gestures and the eyes are louder than the words.
Perfectly balancing a gallon of Real Kola (Haiti's Coca-Cola) over her head. As we started talking, she asked me where I was from. I told her I was from the town between the Honduras and Nicaraguan border. Her eyes lit up as she told me she had been there; 20 years ago, she took a boat from Haiti to Venezuela. Her dream was to make it to New York. To meet with her cousin. She walked and hitchhiked across Central America with her 8-year-old daughter.
She remembered the road, described my hometown park, and the foods, city hall. We were in awe of how small the world really is.
After speaking together—a bit of Creole, a bit of English, a bit of Spanish, and a bit of French—she held my hand. Her eyes became watery, and she told me, "I have been in your country, I have known your people. When we were hungry, they fed us; when we were thirsty, they gave us something to drink; being a stranger, they invited us in. It was on that journey when I really learned to believe in God and to know in my heart that we will always be okay, and until today, my faith remains."
She then grabbed the load over her head, put it in my hands, and said, "Today, you are in my land, and I want to feed you. Please take this present; it is not much, but it is all I can do today for the many people in your country and all the countries we walked by who fed us and took care of us."
I received the bottle, and we both hugged and cried. For a moment, we both knew that we had dreamt the same dreams, eaten the same foods, walked and loved the same lands. We both knew the pain of the immigrant soul, the joy of motherhood, and we both shared the unwavering faith in the human spirit and the high hopes for a brighter and better world.
Gratitud and mutual understanding envolved us in a way that I could not Not receive her gift.
We said our goodbyes, and as we walked away in opposite directions, I found myself tenderly holding close in my arms like a newborn baby, a plastic bottle filled with the dark waters made from that grass that had brought us to this continent, that grass that also gave us all our freedom: Sugar.