I know I said part 7 was going to be “leaving Haiti” but I forgot the months spent at my mother’s apartment in hiding (sort of).
There were 3 reasons we moved to my mother’s apt, which was a tiny apartment under my sister in law’s house. 1) to get away from the gas and try to mitigate the asthma attacks. 2) I was getting threats, and everyone knew where I lived. 3) the owner wanted it back.
One could say I’m semi famous in Haiti, as I spent years writing about social issues and political issues just as I do for the US. So it was not surprising that I started receiving threats, just surprising it took so long to manifest. I even once received a picture of Nate at school (when he was still going). That was scary and luckily soon after I pulled him out of school. Anyways when I decided to leave Haiti, I moved into my mother’s place until I could leave.
We had to leave most of our stuff, I gave away my library (books and dvd collections), Nate even gave away most of his toys, as we were planning to go to the states, we couldn’t bring a lot of things with us. I gave away most things and sold a few cause I needed the money.
The time at my mother’s was not happy to say the least (see part 2), over the years she had only grown more.. I can’t even find a word, the woman was after all in her 70’s she wasn’t about to change now. To make matters worse my sister in law’s family is fairly well off, they all live on top of this beautiful hill and are like a close knit cult. But it was secluded, had security and electricity 24 hours a day. I knew it wouldn’t be a picnic but ouf! The kids didn’t hesitate to tell Nate right away that he was not a real “name of family” and thus shunned him. Nate’s friends from our neighborhood came to visit at the beginning but after the first visit I was told they didn’t want “that kind of kids there”. Nate’s friends were not of the same social class far from it.
The worse of it was how my mother treated Nate, me I was used to her not caring about me, I mean the woman didn’t visit me once in the hospital where I spent close to 4 months afterwards saying I hadn’t invited her. Nate however at 9 (almost 10), only saw her occasionally before the move, and thus hadn’t met the “real” her. My mother is the most selfish, greedy, superficial person I’ve ever known. She would eat ice cream or candy in front of Nate taunting him “None for you hahaha”. This scene actually happened, that’s why I say she got worse.
She never called him by his name, it was the boy, kid, you etc… when she did talk to him it was to criticize him, Nate ended up staying in our small room day and night, only stepping out if she wasn’t there. He broke a glass once, I heard her yelling at him calling him names I read her the riot act, this is rare for me, I rarely confronted her for she had her own health issues. We bought a glass just for Nate, she took it went in front of our room and dropped the glass on the floor breaking it, all the time looking him straight in the eye. We had to buy ice cube trays, because we couldn’t use “her ice”. We had our our food and even our own toilet paper and napkins in a box next to a table.
My father died while we were there, and as I was making posters for him I remarked on how much my brother looked like my father when he was young… she turned to me in a rage and said “NO Max is mine, he’s always been mine, you’re the one that’s of your father’s side”… reminder I didn’t grow up with either of them. My brother and I are close, we both after all went through the same childhood, but my brother is almost white, in fact he could pass just like her, me I can’t pass, people may not realize I’m Black but they know I’m not white.
I had nowhere else to go and no money but it was 9 months of pure hell (twitter friends kept us fed, it took longer to organize the trip that I had planned). This is my biggest regret to date concerning Nate, sometimes I think we would have been better off with the gas and asthma attacks. At night though when we were alone in our little tiny room, Nate and I talked and laughed and grew even closer. Once he told me he hated her, I told him he shouldn’t hate people even if he disliked them, he told me no, she hurt you made you cry, I hate her.
I started asking for help on twitter, after my illness I my contract hadn’t been renewed and I was out of a job, and wasn’t well enough to get another, I did translations but those didn’t pay enough… there is a lot wrong with twitter but there are angels on twitter also, people stepped up for me at first I was trying to get back to the states, but I soon realized I would not be able to afford it, so I set my sights on DR. If it wasn’t for one particular Angel… I would still be in Haiti. I can’t ever repay this debt to any of them.
Muriel Vieux
#TheAmericanHaitianPoet
November 3rd, 2023
#Woke #SocialPoetry
paypal.me/murielvieux to help Haitians families 10$ x donors can go a long way.
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