Edwidge Danticat - The Butterfly's Way - Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States

In the fifteen minutes before I was to board the plane, my mother, with a smug smile of victory, explained that I was actually going to be living with her sister in Haiti. Her announcement was the "Ta da!" of a magician whose craft was more entertaining to himself than to his audience. So, while she was being thrilled by her own perspicacity, I couldn't see the humor nor appreciate the genius behind the trick of changing flight destinations. Although her decision was obviously final, I was too shocked to accept the reality that she had proudly unveiled before me. I was in a state of denial. I found her reasons neither sufficient nor strong enough to justify my punishment: "It's for your own good; You're too much, too incorrigible." And the inevitable, "Children in Haiti don't disrespect their elders. You'll learn from them," she predicted, "to comport yourself as a child." Those oft-referred-to "children in Haiti" had some nerve, to keep reminding my mother of how horrible a child I was. How tired I was of hearing my mother sing the praises of these Haitian angels! But soon, whether I liked it or not, I was also going to be-if even just superficially-a child of Haiti.

When it dawned on me that I had been so cleverly deceived, that I was indeed going to Haiti, a place I imagined had no bathrooms, no refrigerators, and no English, I started to cry and then to scream out of sheer terror. Through my tear-glazed eyes, I spied a flight attendant who had a look of grave concern and pity; so, choosing fight over flight (pun intended), I grabbed the opportunity to try to save myself from banishment.

"Don't cry," she said. "What's wrong?"

Pointing to my uncle as if he were the guilty one in a criminal line-up, I sobbed: "He's not my father! He's (gasp for air and then a phlegmful sniff-sniff) not my father!" I wanted to convey the impression that I was being abducted by a complete stranger. My pointing, trembling, finger and my crying eyes combined to form a plea for help, to make me a paragon of victimization. Save me! I exuded.

You can imagine the commotion that my outburst caused. The flight attendant was as horrified as I had predicted. I knew that I could appeal to the sensibilities of an America that, at the time, wanted the children on its milk cartons found and their kidnappers prosecuted. Certainly, she was not going to stand idly by while, right before her very eyes, I became an "unsolved mystery."

To this day, I am still surprised at the desperate measures to which I lowered myself to save myself from Haiti. But this tactic only helped to stall the expulsion process. The exile must go on! My mother quickly explained the situation and after everyone was mollified, the attendant escorted me to my seat. I had been defeated.

Had I known then what I know now, I would have understood both the comedy and the import behind the situation in which I found myself, for on the plane I was surrounded by symbols that marked my situation as a potentially profound, enlightening, and extraordinary one. To my right, on the seat beside me, sat a middle-aged Haitian woman who was deeply embittered about the ruckus that I had caused. She was "familiar with my kind," and with a sort of "fire and brimstone" speech that she seemed to have saved for this moment, she accused me of being an ingrate, a child too ripe for my age, a Haitian American gone too American. Indeed, she knew me too well! As if she had been planted on the plane by my mother, she continued to torment me about the many ways in which my punishment was justified. That my plane instead of heading north was flying south seemed ironically appropriate-Haiti was to be my Hades. I knew her "kind" too, and her finding pleasure in my plight made me decide that I didn't like her too much.

To my left sat a Haitian man in his early thirties, who confessed- with a hint of pride-that he himself had been in my present predicament when he was just a young boy going through his adolescent, vagabon stage. "When I got to Haiti, I sold all of my clothes and returned to the States. Don't worry, you can do the same thing," he advised. So while Mrs. Fire and Brimstone castigated, I wondered if my mother had packed my favorite green-and-black dress. I could get a lot of money for that one, I assured myself. How symbolic was my seating arrangement-between the good on the right and the not so good on the left. This exile was a parable in the making!

When I arrived in Port-Au-Prince, I was immediately met by my uncle Yvero. "Sandee!" he called out as he rushed over to help me with my bags. "Your mother told me all about your coming." He smiled as he said this, and even though I felt miserable, I couldn't help but smile back at his genuine happiness to see me. Did he know why I had been sent? Would I be able to continue relying on his reassuring smile or would he turn against me-the ingrate, juvenile delinquent-when he discovered my reason for being here? His smile comforted me but it also renewed my sense of shame. I knew that I didn't deserve to be smiled at. I sought no comfort because I was too tired and defeated. 1 sought no comfort because I refused to believe that there was any to be found in Haiti. If I were never going to see America again, at least I could wallow in the familiar territory of self-pity. But, this was only temporary, because I had resigned myself to exile; that is, I had surrendered. I had no other choice. It was clear to me that if I wanted to survive in Haiti, I could choose to be neither arrogant nor disobedient. That I needed to acculturate myself for survival purposes necessitated that I substitute humility for impudence, respect for disrespect and acceptance for denial. I was now in a situation and a place where I could not allow my Americanness to override whatever Haitianness I possessed. I needed to tap into all the Haitian resources that I owned because I was going to be here for an undefined amount of time. My title of "American" meant nothing good in this country. My uncle knew why I was here: I was here because there was a correlation between there being something wrong with America and there being something wrong with me.

Uncle Yvero rushed me out of the airport and quickly hailed a tap-tap. He had a commanding and respectable presence. He was younger than my mother and looked it, with his thick head of black hair and well-kempt mustache that complemented it. He carried himself, and my bags, with masculine ease. I felt safe in his company. If I wasn't careful, his strength would ruin me. After all, I wasn't here to depend on someone else's Haitianness; I was here to find my own.

He offered me a Chiclet. "Ki jan ou ye?" he asked.

"M pa pi mal" -I'm fine-I answered. After an hour or so, we transferred to another tap-tap headed to our destination-Arcahaie. When we finally arrived, it was already night. I knew we were in the country somewhere because it was pitch black everywhere I looked.

"Sandee?"

"Wi," I replied. "I'm right over here."

It was my aunt, Mante Venide. I couldn't actually see her, but I immediately recognized her voice from the cassette recordings that she occasionally sent to my mother. Her greeting was always the same-your name in the form of a question. She had supper waiting for me, she explained. "I know you must be hungry. Here. Eat, child." I did. I ate and then soon after that went to sleep.

Early the very next morning, by the crow of the rooster in residence, my aunt woke me up to introduce me to the family: my cousins Alex and Tififi, my uncle Yvero, my aunt Madam Ka (Kalix) and my uncle Ka and a whole slew of other relatives. "We are your family," she concluded her introduction. "This is your home." And with that, she took my hand and told me that we were going to the market to get some things that she needed. And so began my exile.

My aunt, her brother, and her two children shared two huts in a big yard that also housed some of my other relatives. I was assigned a bed in the room where my cousins slept. Since I was so familiar with tiled floors, angular walls and ceilings, and indoor plumbing, the room seemed unfinished, makeshift. It was cozy and afforded much comfort in its rustic way. Simplicity and frugality defined life in the Haitian countryside. The cobbled floors of the room were layered with very fine dust. Every day my cousins and I took turns sweeping the floor, although I never understood the utility behind such an everlasting chore. No matter how much my cousins, my aunt, or I swept, the floor always remained slightly dusty.