Friday, December 25, 1998

Jwaye Nowèl! Merry Christmas!

Last night we went to the midnight service and came home after one and ate the réveillon, the Christmas Eve meal, at two in the morning like in Haiti: griyo, the fried pork, and bannann peze, the flattened fried plantains, and pikliz, and the twins asleep with their heads on the table before the rice was finished.

About the Furby. Manno wanted a Furby, the little owl thing that talks, more than anything in the world. Every store in Miami was empty. I stood in line at six in the morning at the toy store last Saturday, and the man opened the door and said, "No Furbies." Twenty mothers said "Ohhh" at the same time, like a choir. So this morning Manno got a remote-control car instead. I was afraid. He opened it, looked at it, and said, "Manman, this is better. A Furby can't go fast." Then he drove it into the Christmas tree.

Naïka got a diary with a lock and a little key. She says she will write her own journal like me, but on paper, "because on paper nobody can read it." She is right, and I am a little proud and a little hurt.

Frantz called at noon. The money arrived in October and they put new tin on the roof, and the rain doesn't come in anymore. The barrel arrived too, in November, the rice, the soap, the purple dress. Widline wore it to church. The school is open again in the church hall while they fix the classroom. On the phone Widline said, "Mèsi, Tant Fabi," thank you, Aunt Fabi, in a very small voice. That was my Christmas.

Thursday, November 26, 1998

Thanksgiving, Haitian style. Turkey, yes, but marinated two days in epis (garlic, peppers, parsley, scallion, all blended), with lime and sour orange, so it tastes like something. Diri djon djon, the black mushroom rice, which my American coworkers think is burned until they taste it. Macaroni au gratin. Pikliz. And sweet potato pie from Miss Loretta at work, who is from Georgia and taught me how to make it, and now I make it better than her, but I don't tell her.

The twins told us the story of the Pilgrims from school, with the Indians and the corn. Naïka said the Pilgrims came on a boat because they wanted to be free. Jean-Robert said, "Like your cousin Ti-Paul." Ti-Paul came on a boat too, in 1991, a very different boat. Naïka thought about it and said, "So Ti-Paul is a Pilgrim." Ti-Paul, who was at the table, laughed until he had to go outside.

What I am thankful for, this year, I wrote on a paper at church: Frantz and Papa alive. The children healthy. The job. The class. The English certificate, which I will get in December if I pass the Level 5 final.

And that there is enough. Not a lot. Enough.

(Later: I passed! 91! The certificate is on the refrigerator. -- Dec. 10)

Thursday, October 29, 1998

Now another storm, Mitch, and this one sits on Honduras and doesn't move. Days of rain on the mountains. On the Spanish channels they show the rivers, brown, taking everything. The Honduran lady in my English class has not come for two weeks. I pray for her family.

Also today the old astronaut went back to space, John Glenn, seventy-seven years old. At the nursing home we put the launch on the TV in the day room, and Mr. Sam, who is eighty-one and has not said one word since August, pointed at the screen and said, "Good for him." Three words. The nurses all came running to see. I think Mr. Sam will talk again now. He only needed a good reason.

At church we are collecting clothes and rice for Honduras and for Haiti both. Men anpil, chay pa lou. Many hands, the load is not heavy.

Friday, October 2, 1998

THEY ARE ALIVE. Frantz and Papa and Widline and Marie-Ange, Frantz's wife, all alive. Bondye bon. God is good.

My cousin Rose in Brooklyn called me at work at eleven this morning. She finally got a call through to her husband's brother in Port-au-Prince, who went across the city to Frantz's house, and they sent word back. Everybody is alive. The roof is half gone. The kitchen is gone. The school where Frantz teaches had water up to the windows and all the books are finished. Widline has a fever but it is going down. Papa sat through the whole storm in his chair, Frantz says, holding his Bible, and refused to move to the neighbor's.

I was in the break room when they called me to the phone. I sat down on the floor. I don't remember sitting down. Miss Loretta held me, and the director came in, and I was crying and saying "yo la, yo la," they're there, they're there, and nobody understood the words, but everybody understood.

Ten days. Ten days I did not know if I had a brother.

Tonight I went to the transfer office on 54th Street and sent everything in the savings account. Jean-Robert said yes before I finished asking. The twins made a card for Widline with a rainbow and a house with a roof. Manno drew the roof very thick, "so it doesn't go away again."

Saturday, September 26, 1998

Georges passed over Key West yesterday and went into the Gulf. In Miami we had wind all night and rain sideways, and our power went out for five hours. We put the mattress in the hallway and the four of us slept there with the flashlight and the radio. Manno said it was like camping. Naïka said she hates camping.

Still no news from Haiti. Nothing. The phone lines are down. The Haitian radio station reads the names of towns all day, the towns where the water came, and people call in from Miami and New York and Montreal to ask if anybody has heard from this street, that street. I listen until I can't, and then I turn it off, and then I turn it on again.

Tonight at church we had a prayer vigil. Everybody with somebody in Haiti. That is everybody. Pastor Désir read the psalm: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Psalm 46. I have said it maybe two hundred times this week. I say it in English and in Kreyòl, to be sure He hears.

Thursday, September 24, 1998

The hurricane went over Haiti yesterday. Georges. I have not slept.

I call and call. The phone says the lines are busy, then nothing, then a woman speaking French saying the call cannot be completed. The TV shows the Dominican Republic, the water, the trees down, and then a little bit of Haiti at the end, very little, as always.

And now it is coming here. Tomorrow the Keys, they say, and maybe Miami. People are buying water and plywood, and there is a line at the gas station down the block. Jean-Robert put up the shutters this afternoon, and the house is dark inside like a cave. I went to work anyway. At the nursing home they are moving the beds away from the windows.

Two storms. One on my house, one on my brother's house. I can only do something about one. I put the kids' shoes by the door, and the Bible and the papers in a plastic bag, and I call Haiti again. Busy. Busy.

Tuesday, September 22, 1998

Georges hit Puerto Rico yesterday, and today the Dominican Republic, and tomorrow it will be in Haiti. It is a big one.

I called Frantz tonight. He sounded calm. He always sounds calm; he is a teacher. They have covered the windows and tied down the roof with rope and rocks, filled every bucket with water, bought charcoal. He said, "Fabi, don't worry, we have been through storms." I said, "Not this one." He said, "Every one is not this one until it comes."

Papa got on the phone. He said, "Priye pou nou," pray for us. I said I am always praying for you, Papa. He said, "Priye plis." Pray more.

Then the line cut.

Tuesday, September 1, 1998

Third grade! One week in, and the new shoes are already not new. New backpacks too, and new pencils with their names written on the side in Jean-Robert's taxi-driver handwriting. For the first time Naïka has a Haitian teacher, Madame Laguerre, who spoke Kreyòl to her at the door, and Naïka came home floating. Manno's teacher is from Ohio and very tall, and he says she is "nice but loud."

Titanic came out on video today. Naïka has been counting the days since July. I said it is too long and too sad and some parts are not for eight-year-olds. Jean-Robert came home at seven with the tape. Two tapes, it is so long. He says a passenger told him it is a love story, and he cannot resist a love story. So tomorrow night we watch the first tape, and I am in charge of the fast-forward button.

The barrel left Saturday on the truck to the ship. It will be in Port-au-Prince in some weeks. I imagine it on the ocean, blue, full of soap and rice and a purple dress.