12923: The "Elite" of Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Racine125@aol.com

Dorce wrote to Nadal, "Of course there is an elite....not in the true sense of course... they are less than elite... in fact less than average, in my book... You never experienced the disdain and revulsion of those well off, towards their less fortunate countrymen?"

I'd like to comment, and I would like to begin by relating an experience I had in 1991 while working at Union School, the "American" school in Juvenat, Petionville.  At that time the coup had just taken place, and most American embassy and businessmen's kids had been sent home - it was the children of the Haitian "elite" who remained.

At lunch one day, the female teachers, mostly Haitian women from upper middle class families, fell to complaining about their "bonnes", their maids.  The bonnes were lazy, they were thievish, they were disrespectful, they were untrustworthy, and so on.

At that point I was fortunate enough to be able to say, "Gosh, I guess I am lucky!  I have a nice girl helping me, she keeps my house shining clean, I am not missing anything yet, and she can COOK!  Man, in my house when we eat, we really eat well."

The teachers, knowing I lived alone, said, "We?  We who?"

"Me and the maid," I innocently replied.  My maid didn't sit at the table with me, but we ate from the same pot - what was I supposed to do, have her cook twice, once for her and once for me?  Twice the work and twice the cookware?

Apparently that is exactly what I was supposed to do, according to my colleagues!

"OH!", these foreign-educated, cultured, English-speaking teachers cried, "you are spoiling the girl!  When you eat cabrit, you give her the same thing? No!  She is supposed to cook for you, serve you, clean up, and then she can go cook her cornmeal and beans.  Ou ap fe l konprann se moun li ye!  (You are making her think she is a person!)"

I swear I am not making this up.

When I realized the remarkable wealth amassed by some of Haiti's richer families, I was surprised by the comparative lack of cultural activity.  Surely an educated group of people with plenty of leisure time would have produced artists and playwrights, authors and musicians, newspaper columnists and critics, political theorists and historians.  But NO!  Instead, a class of parasitical, scornful, agressive, arrogant, sexually promiscuous, heavy-drinking do-nothings was what I found, with a few notably delightful exceptions.

Most of the "elite" I met had no real manners, merely a veneer of "hauteur" - they defined themselves more by who they could look down on and sneer at than by what they produced or what they contributed to their own society.  They had no facility for the diplomatic handling of disagreement, instead they would swear and shout and curse at the slightest provocation.  They were rude rubes with money who spoke French, that's all.

Again I repeat that this was not true of each and every person I met.  But when Christmas came, not one of these so-called "elite" families bothered to invite me or any of the other foreign single women teachers to their homes for dinner or even holiday cocktails.  That honor was left to my maid's common-law husband, whose family received me with more politeness than was shown to me by most of my students' parents.

I hope that with the development of democracy and civil society (no pun intended), the elite class of Haiti will also blossom into a social class which uses it's many gifts to contribute to the social and cultural life of Haiti.

Peace and love,

Bon Mambo Racine Sans Bout Sa Te La Daginen

"Se bon ki ra" - Good is rare
     Haitian proverb

The VODOU Page - http://members.aol.com/racine125/index.html

(Posting from Jacmel, Haiti)