Miracle on Voodoo Mountain

by Megan Boudreaux

  I stood in front of the gate. I can’t believe I’m finally here.

  Although I wasn’t certain of much, I was sure God had been calling me to move to Gressier, a suburb of Port-au-Prince and the town I had visited five months earlier. On that trip I’d met a Haitian friend named Bernard, who acted as my translator. Bernard searched for months to find a house I could rent, but houses were hard to find because almost one year before—January 12, 2010—most of the buildings in Gressier had crumbled to the ground in the giant earthquake that destroyed much of the country. The epicenter was just west of where I stood.

  The earthquake had measured 7.0 on the Richter magnitude scale. This was not as strong as some of the most destructive earthquakes in other places, but the Haiti earthquake occurred very close to the surface. Because of poor building-construction practices and other problems, more than 250,000 people were killed and 1.5 million people displaced. Nearly every person in Haiti lost a family member or friend, and while most of the bodies had been removed, the destroyed houses were still there, sad piles of gray rubble. Ninety percent of the rubble had yet to be cleared, and some 800,000 people were still living in a thousand camps around the capital.2

  Bernard kept sending me e-mail updates on the fruitless search for a rental. No luck. Sorry.

  Finally Bernard called, distress in his voice. “I just visited the last place I know of in Gressier,” he said. “Nothing.”

  I didn’t understand. “I’m sure God wants me in Gressier,” I said slowly. I thought of the tree from my dream and the tugging on my heart. “Maybe you can try the next town over?”

  Bernard agreed to continue the search, and we hung up. I dropped to my knees, scared and unsure. I was twenty-four years old, I’d just quit my job and sold almost everything, and I felt I’d been listening to God’s voice as I never had before. I was being obedient. So why isn’t there a place for me to live?

  God’s gentle reminder came, a whisper deep in my heart. Trust. Just one word. Trust. I took a deep breath and let it out in a deep sigh. A few minutes later my phone rang again, Bernard’s name flashing on the screen. I hit Talk, and his voice burst out of the phone, excited.

  “Hey, Megan. The same lady I just visited called back and said you can stay at her house. She’s not using the inside of her house.” He explained that the woman and her family camped out in the front yard. So many people died in the earthquake that, like many others, they were afraid to sleep inside and felt safer in a makeshift tent, often just a plastic tarp or a sheet of rusty tin held up by sticks.

  As Moliere drove away, I pushed open the black metal gate to my new front yard and whispered to myself, “This is my new home,” although I couldn’t quite believe it yet. I was greeted by a few chickens wandering around pecking at the dirt, a boiling pot of something over a little charcoal fire, and many kisses on my cheek from a mother and her two grown children who lived in the front yard. Bernard had told me that a nineteen-year-old boy named David lived upstairs on the flat roof, but the inside of the house was empty. Before I arrived, the tent family had asked if they should leave, but I told Bernard to tell them it was okay to stay. I didn’t want them not to have anywhere to go.

  My new house was made out of rough, gray concrete blocks, the walls painted a sickly green inside. As the family led me through the heavy metal front door, I got a few instructions in broken English and many hand gestures. I put my bags down in my bedroom while they motioned for me to come into the bathroom. I followed and, out of habit, flipped on the light switch. Nothing. My new friends chuckled. I get it. No electricity.

  One of the women, named Say Say, motioned to an empty paint bucket and then took my hand, pulling me gently outside to a private cistern where I would have to fetch water. Okay, no electricity and no running water. I smiled a bit. This is going to be interesting.

  “Mesi!” I thanked them with one of the few Haitian Creole words I knew. They smiled and left me inside, alone.

  It was getting dark, so I figured I should take a shower before I had no light at all. I grabbed the five-gallon paint bucket from the bathroom and carried it outside. Next to the cistern was a smaller bucket tied to a rope. I threw it in, dragged it sideways to let it sink and fill with water, then pulled it up and dumped the water in my paint bucket. I hauled the little bucket up several times until mine was full, then picked it up. Who knew water could be so heavy? I listened to the precious water slosh around inside the bucket as I awkwardly carried my bathwater back inside, stopping several times from the weight.

  Inside the bathroom I propped up the tiny flashlight I’d brought, and as I splashed the first plastic cup of water on my skin, the freezing cold shock of it took my breath away. I let out a small yelp. I’m actually going to have a heart attack from this water, and someone will find me naked and dead from cold water shock in this bathroom.

  As I shivered, I laughed, and after splashing a second cup full, I prayed out loud. “God, thanks for not bringing me to Gressier just to die of shock during a freezing cold bath.” This began the first of many freezing flashlight showers. I remembered how heavy the bucket was and tried to use as few cups as possible.

  Exhausted, I gobbled down an energy bar and finally fell asleep, my Bible on my chest inside the mosquito net. Every so often a rooster crowed, and in the background the voodoo drums vibrated through the night in the thick, heavy darkness.

  It seemed as if it were just a few minutes later when I heard goats bleating, chickens cackling, pigs grunting, and people talking. I looked at my watch: 4:57 a.m. Ridiculously early. I turned over and tried to ignore the noise outside, but it didn’t work. I was going to have to face the day. I gave up on sleep and climbed out of bed. I wanted to see where the noise was coming from, so I climbed the stairs to the roof.

  The roof was flat, gray concrete with rusted metal bars sticking up randomly throughout. Right outside the door to the stairs was David’s red-and-gray camping tent where he slept every night. I walked to the middle of the roof. Behind me was a hill covered with bushes and vines. Right next to the house, overhanging part of the roof, was a beautiful green mango tree with big, luxurious leaves. On the other side was a smaller tree full of big bunches of curvy green bananas, all growing upward. I knew they were actually plantains; on a previous trip I had eaten some tasty little cakes made with the starchy fruit. The lush green vegetation all around me contrasted sharply with the gray concrete blockhouses and the dusty brown dirt road in front of the house that slouched down toward the highway below.

  I stood and watched as the neighborhood woke up. A line of small children filled their buckets at a community water pump right outside my new front gate. Women worked on their houses or swept around their tents. A man across the street chopped at some bushes with a big machete. A small corner store was selling what looked like soap, oil, and rice. I didn’t have a plan, and since I was unsure what to do next, I went downstairs to the front-yard tent and smiled at my new, and only, friends.

  “Bonjou,” I offered.

  They smiled back. Realizing I couldn’t say a word of Haitian Creole or understand a word other than hello or thank you, I waved and went back inside.

  I need to do something. I have never been good at relaxing or sitting still, so I unpacked my things, organized my bedroom, and went back up to the roof. The air was fresher up there. I gazed beyond the houses to the right, to the mysterious dark-green mountains behind. I saw threads of gray smoke curling upward from dozens of cooking fires where people lived, tucked away in the valleys and hollows. Is that where the drumming came from?

  My eyes wandered back, following a ridge down to a flat green mountain above the neighborhood and directly across from the spot where I was standing. Is that Bellevue Mountain? I heard a rustling sound and looked down. A little girl was sorting through some dry beans next to a small charcoal stove in the yard next door; I smiled and waved and she waved back. I felt restless and had nothing else to do, so I walked downstairs again and prayed.


  “Okay, God, I’m here. What do I do?” Crickets. I got nothing.

  Okay, God. But I can’t just sit here and eat energy bars forever. I know I’m here for a reason, right? Please show me why.

  TWO

  Throwing Rocks at Birds

  Dèyè mòn gen mòn.

  Behind the mountain, there are mountains.

  —A Haitian proverb

  The next day, whenever I was quiet, my fear rose up again as it had during the previous night when I’d heard the voodoo drums in the dark. So I tried to stay busy: I prayed and wrote in my journal, and I kept watching the neighborhood from the roof. I felt as though I was waiting, but for what?

  As I sat on the roof and watched the sun go down on my second day in Haiti, I ate another energy bar for dinner. I felt so very alone. Am I crazy? My friends are right. I must be crazy to leave such a great life in the States for a place like this. I don’t even know why I’m here. Oh Lord. Did I make a mistake? Should I just go back home?

  I needed to hear a familiar voice that night, so I made a quick decision to splurge on an expensive two-minute cell phone call to my mom. As soon as I heard her voice, the tears began to well up in my eyes.

  “I’m fine, Mom.” I tried hard to keep my voice steady and to sound sure of myself even though I wasn’t. “It’s beautiful here.” As I got off the phone I repeated the same routine as the night before, except this time my sobs and sniffles drowned out the beating drums in the distance as I cried myself to sleep.

  I awoke the next day to the same goat-chicken-pig-people sounds and knew if I stayed around the house again all day, I would implode with fear and anxiety. I ate my breakfast energy bar, dried up my tears, and looked at David, the roof boy. We traded smiles, and I asked, “Bellevue Mountain?”

  He said something in Creole and looked at me, eyes wide. Okay, he doesn’t understand.

  I pointed to myself, then moved two fingers like legs walking uphill and pointed toward the front of the house to show him I wanted to walk to Bellevue Mountain. It was the only place I had a name for in Gressier, and since I had holed myself up in the house for two days, I thought it would be refreshing to get out.

  “Okay,” David said with a smile. He got it! I smiled, too, with a little jolt of happiness at having a plan, if only a small one. I ran down the stairs ahead of David and waved at Say Say and her family on the way out. David wrenched open the gate, and we pushed through a herd of goats nibbling on weeds by the side of the road.

  Tons of children waited for their turn at the community water pump right outside of my gate. I looked at my feet as we walked, avoiding the gaze of dozens of dark brown eyes on me. As we strolled down the street, people yelled at me in Creole, and children ran up and grabbed my hands and clothes. David answered them back, his voice firm. Whatever he said made them laugh and stop touching me.

  I followed close behind as he led me down the uneven brown road. We stepped onto a narrow footpath with clumps of weeds and bushes dotting the sides. We walked through a group of long-horned cows with tiny ropes around their necks, grazing peacefully. The path wound between a few decrepit houses and down into a small valley through a leafy green mango grove where the soil was rich and dark. As the path began to curve upward, we climbed a steep hill and came through some bushes to the top. It was flat and green, and my eyes followed the path that cut through the grass until I saw it. There, just as I remembered, stood the tamarind tree. It was a rich dark green, about twenty feet tall, with a single sturdy trunk and strong, supple branches that curved gracefully down at the ends.

  I waved toward the tree and the land around it and asked, “Bellevue Mountain?”

  “Wi.”

  I had chills. It was the same tree I’d stood under five months ago, the tree that kept appearing in my dreams. I was actually here, standing in the same place where I’d first heard the sweet whisper of my Father.

  The top of Bellevue Mountain is a beautiful place. A cow relaxed nearby on the lush green grass, and I could see beyond the edge of the mountain all the way out to the turquoise sea. I smiled and took a deep breath, staring off into the distance.

  A movement caught my eye, and that’s when I first saw her—a little girl, maybe six or seven years old. She was wearing a raggedy, soiled, yellow tank top that was too big, hanging off one shoulder down to her thin elbow. It must have been a woman’s shirt, and she wore it as a dress.

  She was barefoot with matted orange hair, and her bony figure screamed of malnutrition. I watched as she threw a rock at a blackbird.

  I felt drawn to her. She was so little. What is she doing out here all alone? I remembered the girls I’d seen earlier that morning, walking to school. They each wore a uniform with their hair neatly braided and tied with bright ribbons. Why isn’t she in school?

  The bird jumped up and flew a few feet away, and the little girl followed. She threw another rock.

  I got close enough to call out, “What are you doing?” I was sure she didn’t understand me, so I glanced at David, and he repeated my question in Creole. His English wasn’t great, and I hoped he could figure out what I was saying.

  The little girl answered back in Creole. “There are two blackbirds.” David turned toward me to translate, then turned back around and pointed to the birds in the sky overhead to make sure I understood.

  “Yes, I see them. But what are you doing?” I asked again.

  As she rocketed off in Creole, I received another loose translation from David. “Throwing rocks at birds.”

  “Yes, I see. But why?”

  Her beautiful brown eyes widened as she looked up at me. “To eat!” She turned around and threw more rocks. A little boy I hadn’t noticed before approached and tugged on my arm. He looked up at me and whispered with a grin as David translated. “It’s true. She eats birds.”

  All of a sudden I got it: she was hungry, so she was trying to kill a bird.

  She kept throwing rocks at the birds, and when she finally got tired, she came closer. I tried to find out her name, her age, and where she lived, but David’s translation skills weren’t quite enough. We all laughed a little.

  Bernard arrived shortly after to help with translation; David had called him when we left the house. Bernard was fluent in Haitian Creole and English, which he’d learned from a group of deportees from Brooklyn.

  A few moments later I saw an older woman walking up the mountain toward us. She spoke broken English and told me the little girl’s name was Michaëlle (Mick-kay-ell). Then, in an emotionless voice, she explained, “Mother dead. No father. Nobody wants her.” She looked at me, then turned to Bernard and began explaining in Creole that no one wanted Michaëlle, so she had taken her in. She called herself Michaëlle’s aunt, even though they weren’t related.

  In that moment my heart broke. I wanted to press my hands over Michaëlle’s ears so she couldn’t hear what this woman said. I wanted to tell her, “It’s not true! You are loved and wanted and special!” But I noticed that Michaëlle didn’t even flinch at the harsh words. She must have heard them before. Tears came to my eyes, and my chest grew tight as the reality hit me that this little raggedy girl was all alone in the world. I can’t even imagine what you have been through, I wanted to tell her. But I couldn’t.

  The woman continued, telling Bernard her house had been destroyed in the earthquake and she’d moved from outside of Port-au-Prince to Gressier several months ago. “No one wanted Michaëlle, so I brought her here although I can hardly afford to feed her.” Bernard looked at me, his eyes sad as he translated.

  “Does Michaëlle go to school?” I asked.

  “No, she can’t go to school. No money,” she said.

  I remembered hearing about Haitian schools. Private schools were available, but only the wealthier children could go there. Public schools cost money, too, for registration, books, paper and pencils, and uniforms. For many people, struggling just to get enough food to stay alive, $150 a year for school was far out of their reach. />
  Then the woman said something that surprised me. “I have four other children staying with me. They go to school, and that’s all I can afford.”

  My chest tightened as I pictured everyone in Michaëlle’s house waking up for the day, getting ready to go to school, and only Michaëlle left behind. I could imagine her sitting alone, believing no one wanted her and that she wasn’t worthy to go to school. Impulsively I looked straight at Michaëlle, tuning out the old woman, and asked in a loud, clear voice, “Do you want to go to school?” Her eyes got big and shot over to Bernard. She could tell I was asking her a serious, yet exciting, question. In a quietly intense voice Bernard repeated my question to her in Creole.

  “Yes! I would love to,” she said and quickly hugged us both. With Bernard’s help I made arrangements with the woman to meet again the next day to get the little girl’s information. Then I looked back at Michaëlle with a big smile.

  “Okay. Let’s go tomorrow to enroll you in school.” Michaëlle began jumping up and down. I was excited too. I’d been waiting for something to happen, and now I had a clear task before me.

  I went to sleep that night and again heard the voodoo drums. Putting my earplugs deep inside my ears, I lay still, looking up at the ceiling.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  I squirmed in my bed, trying to drown out the sound.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  As I stilled my body, it felt as if my heart began beating to the drums. Anxious, scared, and unsure, I began praying out loud and eventually dozed off to sleep.

  Early the next day I found the path and climbed Bellevue Mountain again, following the woman’s instructions to find Michaëlle in a big blue tent on the side of the mountain with the older woman, four other children, and several adults. The relationship this mishmash family shared was unclear and unsettling.