Arthur Fournier - Vodou Saints: Lessons on Life, Death and Resurrection from Haiti

Diversion Books

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New York, New York 10011

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Copyright 2011 by Arthur M. Fournier, M.D.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For more information, email info@diversionbooks.com.

First Diversion Books edition January 2011.

ISBN: 978-0-9829050-8-1 (ebook)

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To the victims of the AIDS epidemic, particularly Regis

Nou pap bliye'w - We'll not forget you

To Janet

My reluctant Mary/Athena/Erzilie/Earth Mother/Vodou Saint

You'll always be with us.

To the victims of the January 12th earthquake

Nou toujou ak nou You are always with us.

To the survivors of the quake

Kenbe fem Stay the course.

I'd like to acknowledge my best friend from college, Dan Herlihy, for honing my writing skills and Jefferson Morley for editing this manuscript, as well as Mary Moore, the Director of the Miller School's Calder Library for her insightful and incisive critique. I must also acknowledge the love, support, patience, and guidance of my daughters, Adrienne and Suzanne, who helped me purge the demons haunting me.

Finally, I wish to acknowledge the sacrifice and hard work of the more than 4,000 volunteers doctors, nurses, medical students, mental health professionals and more who have worked for Medishare or given to Medishare. If you are one of them, perhaps you'll find yourself in these pages!

Vodou Saints is the English transliteration of the kreyol work Vodouisant. You'll find true Vodouisaints in this book, from the Haitians persecuted for having AIDS, to the courageous survivors of Haiti's infamous earthquake. For Haitians, the word is shorthand for the unique Haitian worldview, for which vodou is an integral part. There are other Vodou Saints as the title of this work captured in these pages also the idea of Vodou Saints started as a metaphor for people who aspired to a virtuous life, even if they did not adhere to a formal religion. As the story unfolded, however the metaphor evolved also, to include all those, Haitians and non-Haitians, who search for meaning in everything a principle tenet of Vodou, and all those who came forward to help and learn from Haitians in the country's hour of greatest need.

Vodou Saints is a memoir in three parts focusing on lessons I have learned from Haiti and its people.

Part 1, Destiny's Child begins the story of the earthquake of January 12th, 2010 and how it affected my life as a doctor and a person, particularly in the extraordinary chain of events that lead to the rescue of the Baby Jenny.

Part II, Secrets of the Zombie Curse, chronicles the stigmatization Haitian-Americans in Miami during the early days of the AIDS epidemic and what I learned from Haitians about the root causes of this modern plague. Those lessons on life and death took on deeper, personal meaning when my wife succumbed to Lou Gehrig's disease in 2007.

Part III, Lespwa Fe Viv, deals with lessons of life and death on a much granderscale--how the resilience, fortitude and spirituality of Haiti's people emerged in the wake of the earthquake; how a country came back from the brink of death.

N adine struggled to her feet, but the shaking threw her once again to the floor. She rose to cross the living room of her family's fifth floor apartment struggling to reach the bedroom where her infant daughter Jenny and her babysitter, Marie Ange, were trapped. Just prior to the violent shaking Nadine would later learn was an earthquake, Marie Ange was singing a lullaby to Jenny, as she drifted off to sleep for a nap. Nadine's husband, Junior, was out interviewing for a singing job at a local nightclub. Nadine, just returned from a doctor's visit and visit to the pharmacy, had been preparing supper in the kitchen. As the floor wobbled underneath her feet, Nadine stumbled toward the door and went sprawling again. She could not see behind the closed door of the bedroom where Marie-Ange, a thirtysomething woman, lay on the floor, covering the infant from the plaster and concrete already falling from the ceiling. It was January 12, 2010 at 5:24 pm.

Haiti's earthquake did not give its victims any warning in the form of a preliminary trembler or a growing crescendo of noise. No, it started in full-intensity from its first instant a violent roar of upheaval lasting thirty five seconds. The fifth floor of Nadine's apartment overlooking Rue Canape Vert in Por-au Prince filled with the roar of what sounded like a thousand pile-drivers smashing rock. Nadine rose again and stumbled toward the door. Suddenly, like the trap door of a gallows, the floor gave way and Nadine plunged into a vortex of collapsing walls, plaster, and concrete, screaming her baby's name as she fell.

Nadine's landing knocked the wind out of her and falling chunks of ceiling knocked her unconscious. Debris from her now destroyed apartment landed on top of her and buried her. Dust and aerosolized concrete choked her breathing. Immersed in total darkness and pinned, she was almost crushed by the weight of debris above her. As the hours passed after the quake, Nadine lapsed in and out of consciousness. She had no idea of what happened. In spite of her confusion, she thought of Jenny. Haitians believe that a prayer that's sung is twice the prayer. In spite of the dust that was choking her and the darkness and debris that entombed her, Nadine willed a hymn from her lungs and her heart a hymn to Erzilie, the protectress of all things maternal. Tanpri, Erzilie, (please Erzilie), sove bebe mwen (save my child).

In the rubble nearby Marie Ange was dead. We don't know exactly what killed Jenny's babysitter--a blow to the head, a broken neck or the crushing weight of debris on top of her. Nor do we know how long she clung to life after the quake. We do know that Marie-Ange curled herself in a ball as the floor gave way, doing all she could to protect the infant in her arms. And as she lay dying, she did what she could to protect the child in whose care she had been entrusted. In this regard, she was only partially successful- some piece of debris had fractured Jenny's skull. Either the weight of Marie-Ange's body or the pile of rubble on top of them had also broken several of her ribs, on each side of her sternum. But her embrace was a key to Jenny's survival when Jenny was found five days later, she was still wrapped in Marie-Ange's arms.

I was driving north on N.W. 7th Avenue in Miami. I had left my office at The University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital Medical Center, heading for my condo in Aventura. Vigilant in avoiding Miami's rush hour kamikaze drivers, I did not care to be distracted by the ringing of my cell phone. It was Larry Pierre a physician with whom I had collaborated in establishing a medical clinic in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood. Larry, who had been the first Haitian-American doctor in Miami willing to confront the AIDS epidemic, is a man driven to serve his community. Since usually his calls concerned politics, I couldn't imagine why he needed to talk during rush hour. I was about to ask if this couldn't this wait until morning.

There's been an earthquake in Haiti, he whispered, almost as if sharing a secret. Have you heard?