Wopa. So I wrote a speech? IDK if its too long i'll remove it but maybe some of you will be intrested?(Its only like 700 words so its Up There for long things I've written.)
Christopher Columbus discovered the island Quisqueya on December 6th, 1492. He then promptly colonized it for Spain and renamed it Hispaniola. The settlers (who stayed mostly on the western side of the island) enslaved the native population, and mined all the gold they could, until there was none left. I am seriously wondering what they did with all that gold.
Sometime in the mid-16th century, the French started settling on the western side of the island. By the late 1600s the Spanish are sick and tired of having Hispaniola under their domain, so in 1697, the Treaty of Rijswijk gave the Spanish-owned western side to France, who named it Saint-Domingue.
In 1789, Saint-Domingue had a population of about five hundred fifty-six thousand, with about five hundred thousand slaves, twenty-four thousand mulattoes (people of African and European ancestry) and thirty-two thousand European colonists. Being largely outnumbered by the people your oppressing is a great idea. It definitely won’t get your butt kicked in a very embarrassing fashion. Some slaves escaped into the mountains and became maroons, which is Spanish for wild. Whatever they were doing, it certainly wasn’t a wild party. Maroons would often fight guerrilla battles with the colonial militia.
This was when Voodoo began. It was a blend of the various religions of the slaves and Christianity. I don’t know much about Voodoo. I’ve only ever seen one ceremony. Key word: seen. I was on top of my uncle’s house, and all I remember that they sung and danced, and that a bull was killed.
Fast forward. Saint-Domingue has gained its independence and is now called Haiti (which means mountainous), been recognized as an independent nation (even though France made them pay twenty-one billion for it) been occupied and subsequently messed with by America, and oh, let’s not forget the brutal regimes. Now it’s 2010. Shake, shake, shake.
I was not there at the earth quake, but I was there to see the aftermath. A few days before the earthquake my mom had booked a flight to Haiti. I was pretty excited. The earthquake happens. I’m still excited. If you asked me today if I was excited to go the Haiti the answer would be no. When I first came to Haiti it was all new to me. Two weeks staying solely in Jacmel does not do much for adventuring, so next year, when my mom said we were staying three weeks, I was still excited. Then next year, it was four weeks, the year after that, five. So yeah, not that excited.
I don’t have much a positive viewpoint on Haiti. To be fair, it’s a disaster zone. Before the earthquake, it wasn’t all that great. It was politically unstable, corrupt, and very poor. After the earthquake, it gets worse. The capital, Port-au-Prince, is densely packed, with too much people and too much rubble. (Today, most of the rubble is cleared, but if you visited there you’d understand what I meant.) Laigone, which is basically the countryside, was completely destroyed. If you went there, what you would see is shacks covered with tarps and some houses.
I don’t have many positive things to say about Haiti, but one thing I cannot deny about it is the people living there. They are lively, hard-working, kind, and proud. Most people have a job or two, just to keep their family afloat. The first impression that you get of Haiti is that it is a very dirty country. This is only right in one way. You will find garbage on the streets and sewage in the gutters, but for those who have the money for it, you can hire someone to bring water for you to bathe and clean. For those who do not have the money, they will collect it themselves. Clothes will be washed and kept clean, and you will take a bath, even if it is pouring water over yourself and rubbing yourself with soap.
The aftermath. Right. When I first came to Haiti, there were people walking around on crutches or missing an arm or a leg. Driving to Jacmel, we were accosted by people-usually children begging us for money. In Jacmel, we stayed at my uncle’s house, which was being rebuilt. In Port-au-Prince, my father’s childhood home was still standing, but my mom tore it down and paid for a new house. Sometimes someone will hobble past without a leg, or beg us for money. So no, things are not good. But they are getting better.
