Happy New Year’s Eve! Welcome to the latest edition of Woy Magazine’s weekly newsletter, providing you with must-know news and commentary on Haiti and our Diaspora.
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COVID-2021
While COVID continues to bring Western nations to their knees and then some, Haiti remains to have very few cases — especially compared to some of its neighboring countries. However, with the holiday season at its peak and travel to the country at an all time-high, Haiti is witnessing a rise in cases once more. Now, there’s a new call for those back home to practice great caution in their day-to-day interactions for fear that 2021 may be the year COVID is truly seen and felt on our side of the island. Frantz Duval of the Le Nouvelliste writes:
En 2020, le pays, pour des raisons que les scientifiques cherchent à comprendre, a été épargné de la Covid-19.
En 2021, cela risque de changer.
Pour la première fois, après des dizaines de festivités populaires tenues sans distanciation ni masque, avec la présence de milliers de compatriotes revenus de l’étranger pour passer les fêtes de Noël, de fin d’année et du nouvel An au bercail, les cas de contamination recensés ont augmenté. Des malades emblématiques sont répertoriés.
Earlier this week, we learned former president and konpa singer Michel Martelly has the coronavirus, as well as some other popular musicians who’ve recently played shows. These recent developments and an increase in infection rates has local experts concerned:
Est-il trop tard aujourd’hui pour freiner le mécanisme de transmission du coronavirus qui est déjà en place ? Les médecins ne se prononcent pas, mais disent tous craindre le pire dans les semaines et mois à venir.
Haïti doit revenir aux gestes barrières, au lavage des mains, au port du masque, aux précautions élémentaires. On doit se protéger dans les familles comme dans les lieux festifs, là où l'on oublie que la maladie existe encore.
The Cost of Insecurity
This year, probably more than any other in recent memory, Haiti’s insecurity concerns have posed a unique challenge to the stability of the country. It has affected all societal groups and institutions, including most recently the National Laboratory where COVID tests are processed.
On Tuesday, Le Nouvelliste reported that employees of the National Laboratory ceased to work in response to the kidnapping of their colleague Berthony Sylvar who was taken three days before Christmas just as his wife was about to undergo a medical procedure. This act of protest practically paralyzes any COVID-19 testing in the country:
« Il n’y aura pas de test de coronavirus au Laboratoire national avant la libération de notre collègue kidnappé », ont lancé des employés du Laboratoire national qui manifestaient lundi pour exiger la libération de Berthony Sylvar et son beau-frère Jean Reynold St-Hilaire, enlevés dans la nuit du 22 décembre dernier.
« A cause du mouvement de protestation de certains employés au Laboratoire national, il est extrêmement compliqué pour nous de travailler. Nous sommes donc à 10% de notre capacité de fonctionnement. Il y a des spécimens de coronavirus qui sont en train de périmer », a confié notre source, un cadre important au Laboratoire national.
Notre contact a souligné qu’en raison de cette situation, des gens qui devaient avoir le résultat de leur test Covid-19 avant de voyager sont en difficulté. « Nous ne pouvons pas non plus donner les résultats des examens à la population », a indiqué notre contact.
Kidnappers are asking for a whopping $400,000 to release Sylvar along with his brother-in-law, Jean Reynold St-Hilaire, who was also kidnapped.
New Read Alert
We’re always on the hunt for new, interesting books, and if you’re using this time to put together your 2021 to-read list, be sure to add Jean Casimir’s “The Haitians: A Decolonial History” to the top of your collection. The New Book Network summarizes the work’s premise as:
…leading Haitian intellectual Jean Casimir argues that the story of Haiti should not begin with the usual image of Saint-Domingue as the richest colony of the eighteenth century. Rather, it begins with a reconstruction of how individuals from Africa, in the midst of the golden age of imperialism, created a sovereign society based on political imagination and a radical rejection of the colonial order, persisting even through the U.S. occupation in 1915. The Haitians (UNC Press, 2020) also critically retheorizes the very nature of slavery, colonialism, and sovereignty. Here, Casimir centers the perspectives of Haiti's moun andeyo--the largely African-descended rural peasantry. Asking how these systematically marginalized and silenced people survived in the face of almost complete political disenfranchisement, Casimir identifies what he calls a counter-plantation system.
Fill Up Your Bowl
If you’re anything like us, your ingredients to make soup joumou are sitting either on a counter or in your fridge waiting to be turned into a delicious, large pot of tradition. However, before you get to chopping and cooking, here are some new articles to check out on our national dish.
First up, the New York Times continues with their joumou love train with a new piece looking at how Haitian-Americans are keeping this meal alive:
The soup has sustained Ms. Michel beyond Independence Day. Her family ate it on any special occasion, from christenings to Christmas, and it was served at both of her parents’ funerals. When she lived in a homeless shelter at age 28, she made the soup for her peers, “to brighten up their days.”
Soup joumou “helped save my life,” she said.
Then there’s the new article from Grub Street on the “extraordinary power of soup joumou:”
What most people don’t know about the soup joumou tradition is that it’s not only about consuming an unimaginable amount of habanero-perfumed magic; it is really about the custom of sharing with the community. We send our soup to neighbors, friends, and family with positive energy and well wishes. Soup joumou is about coming together as one, as our foremothers imagined. Empress Félicité cemented the tradition of having soup on New Year’s Day, as she personally served it every year from January 1 to 7, throughout the nation, until she died. Sharing soup was a symbol of solidarity: When one person eats, we all eat. It’s no mistake that our flag reads, “L’union Fait La Force”: Unity makes strength.
On the Matter of Independence
Despite the upheavals Haiti was experienced this year, one fact remains that there is much in our history to be proud of. As we prepare to honor the feat committed by our ancestors over two hundred years ago, check out Dr. Marlene Daut’s collaborative twitter thread on what the Haitian Revolution means to different people, and feel free to tweet her your answer!
Have a Laugh Or Three
As we know there will be many of you spending this holiday in self-isolation, we’re going to leave you with some throwback Jesifra skits to give you a laugh or three this week. Happy New Year and we’ll see you next week!
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