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Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter from Haiti
An account of a long, painful, ecstatic—& unreciprocated—affair with a country that has long fascinated the world. The Rainy Season, Amy Wilentz’s award-winning 1989 portrait of Haiti after the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier, was praised in the NY Times Book Review as “a remarkable account of a journalist’s transformation by her subject.” In her relationship with the country since then, she's witnessed more than one magical transformation. Now, with Farewell, Fred Voodoo, she portrays the extraordinary people living in this stark place. She traces the country’s history from its slave plantations thru its turbulent revolutionary history, its kick-up-the-dirt guerrilla movements, its totalitarian dynasty that ruled for decades & its long, troubled relationship with the USA. Yet thru a history of hardship shines Haiti’s creative culture—its African traditions, French inheritance & uncanny resilience, a strength often confused with resignation. Haiti emerged from the 2010 earthquake like a powerful spirit. This book describes the country’s day-to-day struggle & its relationship to outsiders who come to help out. There are human-rights reporters gone awry, movie stars turned aid workers, priests & musicians running for president, doctors turned diplomats. A former US president works as a house builder & voodoo priests try to control elections. A foreign correspondent on a simple story becomes over time a lover of Haiti, pursuing the essence of this beautiful, confounding land into its darkest & brightest corners. Farewell, Fred Voodoo is a spiritual journey into the heart of the human soul. Haiti has found an author of astonishing wit, sympathy & eloquence.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
43 people are currently reading
1305 people want to read
About the author
Amy Wilentz
14 books53 followersAmy Wilentz is the award-winning author of The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier; Martyrs’ Crossing, a novel about Jerusalem, and I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen: Coming to California in the Age of Schwarzenegger.
From 1995 through 1999, she was The New Yorker’s Jerusalem correspondent. She’s a contributing editor at The Nation magazine and teaches in the Literary Journalism program at the University of California at Irvine. She has worked as a monitor for Americas Watch, and was a board member of the National Coalition for Haitian Refugees.
Wilentz is a frequent contributor to Conde Nast Traveler, More magazine, and the Los Angeles Times. She is currently working on a novel about money, love, and family.
From 1995 through 1999, she was The New Yorker’s Jerusalem correspondent. She’s a contributing editor at The Nation magazine and teaches in the Literary Journalism program at the University of California at Irvine. She has worked as a monitor for Americas Watch, and was a board member of the National Coalition for Haitian Refugees.
Wilentz is a frequent contributor to Conde Nast Traveler, More magazine, and the Los Angeles Times. She is currently working on a novel about money, love, and family.
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August 22, 2018
A week after the Haitian earthquake of 2010, I came across this American guy setting up relief packs on a little folding table, by what used to be a street corner in a levelled part of Port-au-Prince. He'd come on behalf of some church group back in I think Murfreesboro, TN, and he was putting together these little packs made up of bottled water, pasta, iodine tablets, dried fruit. Laying them out on the table. A line of Haitians was starting to form in front of him, waiting for the packs to be distributed.
As I stood there watching, a huge USAID truck suddenly drove up and parked just over the street from him. From the back of the truck, a man in uniform started throwing these enormous aid sacks out to the crowd, full of rice and fruit concentrates and painkillers and chocolate bars. And all the Haitians that had been queueing in front of the little folding table now all crossed the street to the truck instead. And I watched this guy from Tennessee look down at his little relief packs, and then look over at the big USAID sacks. And he just looked utterly crestfallen.
And I thought, who the fuck is organising this?
Of course no one was organising anything, as soon became very obvious. Amy Wilentz had already been travelling in and writing about Haiti for some twenty-five years when the earthquake happened; she was, therefore, unusually qualified among outsiders to talk about how Haiti reacted, and to contextualise the gigantic but inefficient response from the international community of journalists, aid groups and political leaders.
She was not impressed, but nor was she surprised in the way that I constantly was during my time there. Indeed one way of describing this book is to say that it's an explanation of why all the other outsiders who talk about Haiti or try to help Haiti can fuck right off. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, one of the leaders of the Haitian Revolution, is supposed to have said, Blan bon lè li san tet – roughly, ‘the only good foreigner is a headless foreigner’ – and at times Wilentz seems broadly to share this view. ‘You can feel their résumés growing,’ she says, surveying the reporters and cameramen swarming around the rubble of Port-au-Prince, ‘against the backdrop of the earthquake's destruction.’
Yes, I suppose the experience didn't do my CV any harm. I take her sarcasm in the spirit in which it's meant, which is to say I share many of her concerns. That said, not all of us were Christiane Amanpour in her vast suite at the Plaza, with a balcony overlooking the remains of the presidential palace. In my experience, most correspondents – believe it or not – are thoughtful and empathetic and care about what they're trying to explain, and they live and work in shitty, unsafe conditions which they do not talk about because to do so, given the context of their visit, would be grossly distasteful and unprofessional.
Wilentz is quick to stress that individual reporters and aid workers she knows are intelligent and sensitive and so forth – but as an aggregate group, their work in Haiti is nevertheless rooted in ‘the objectification of the Haitians' victimization’. (Yes, I suppose it is, though this does raise the question of whether the alternative to objectivising it would be to ignore it.) She is equally disparaging of the public reading or watching at home. She imagines a young guy in the US leafing through portraits of survivors in a photojournalist picture-book, a ‘safe and unembarrassing’ experience for him, and concludes that overall, ‘he's enjoying their misfortune’. I sympathise with Wilentz's cynicism over disaster response, but this does seem a little unfair, particularly since she's made the guy up.
She is critical, and I understand why, of the kind of video material that I was getting at the time.
Rather as though all the cameramen are jocky adrenaline junkies, chewing gum and muttering ‘fuck yeah’ under their breath as they watch another injured local bleed out.
Two hundred and fifty pages later, though, her own descriptions of the scene are not exactly a model of sober understatement:
I can't help thinking that she's trying to have her cake and eat it. More to the point – and with the greatest respect to Amy Wilentz, who knows Haiti infinitely better than I ever will – what she says here is just not true. Port-au-Prince was nothing like a concentration camp or a mass grave. In those places, what you feel is not just the suffering, but an overwhelming sense of evil, of man's inhumanity to man. That was not the case in Haiti; quite the reverse. There was a lot of suffering, but everyone was in it together. No one had done this to them. The desire to overcome it was shared by all races, religions and social classes within the country and without. It was not the result of some idiotic conflict whose divisions would continue to fester. There was no sense of evil. And instead of man's inhumanity to man, it was rather man's humanity to man that was in evidence, most obviously and, yes, brashly, with those clumsy convoys from Wilentz's hated NGOs.
Part of the problem – and despite my argumentative tone, this is one of the book’s strengths, not a weakness – is that she can’t really make up her mind what the appropriate response should be. She criticises those groups who simply throw money and resources at short-term problems, arguing that a more considered and sustainable approach is necessary which involves the Haitians themselves. Fair enough. But the next moment, she is deriding a project that specifically tries to involve all levels of Haitian society in a ‘national conversation’ about relief, because, she says angrily, ‘what [Haitians] want is not a national conversation—which is an outsider idea—but simply, please, to get their damn problem fixed’.
All of her objections are valid – more than that, they’re convincing – but after chapter upon chapter of them, you do start to feel that there is no possible response from any group that could satisfy Amy Wilentz. What this comes down to, of course, is the awareness floating under the skin of the whole book that she herself is not very different from any of the outsiders she is writing about, and a good deal less helpful than many. She’s probably made more money by capitalising on Haitians than most of the journalists or volunteers that responded to the earthquake, after all. ‘This very book that you have in your hands is one example,’ she says. ‘No share of its proceeds will directly benefit Haitian relief efforts.’
Farewell, Fred Voodoo is a fascinating study in sublimated guilt, which is the emotion that gives Wilentz’s writing its particular power and bite here. She’s a great writer, and her unsentimental, clear-eyed assessments are absolutely necessary in an area too often dominated by histrionics or wishful thinking. And many of her targets deserve everything they get (it was a particular pleasure to read the calm, chapter-long demolition of Mac Mclelland’s grotesque article about how she got PTSD from covering the anniversary of the quake, which she solved by some rape roleplay with her boyfriend, an article that outraged me at the time and still does). Despite my instinctive, perhaps over-defensive, problems with her arguments, I would heartily recommend this to anyone trying to understand what happens after a natural disaster in general, and to understand Haiti in particular.
Still, I do wish she could have found a little more room to acknowledge the extraordinary things that were done, however clumsily or unsustainably, in those early days. ‘The victims of a disaster like the Haitian quake become a moneymaking tool for these groups,’ she says, talking about the big NGOs. (Certainly, on the ground a lot of the money seemed to be going on branded clothing and vehicles.)
She offers this up as though it's a rhetorical question, but it isn't. The answer's a clear No.
As I stood there watching, a huge USAID truck suddenly drove up and parked just over the street from him. From the back of the truck, a man in uniform started throwing these enormous aid sacks out to the crowd, full of rice and fruit concentrates and painkillers and chocolate bars. And all the Haitians that had been queueing in front of the little folding table now all crossed the street to the truck instead. And I watched this guy from Tennessee look down at his little relief packs, and then look over at the big USAID sacks. And he just looked utterly crestfallen.
And I thought, who the fuck is organising this?
Of course no one was organising anything, as soon became very obvious. Amy Wilentz had already been travelling in and writing about Haiti for some twenty-five years when the earthquake happened; she was, therefore, unusually qualified among outsiders to talk about how Haiti reacted, and to contextualise the gigantic but inefficient response from the international community of journalists, aid groups and political leaders.
She was not impressed, but nor was she surprised in the way that I constantly was during my time there. Indeed one way of describing this book is to say that it's an explanation of why all the other outsiders who talk about Haiti or try to help Haiti can fuck right off. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, one of the leaders of the Haitian Revolution, is supposed to have said, Blan bon lè li san tet – roughly, ‘the only good foreigner is a headless foreigner’ – and at times Wilentz seems broadly to share this view. ‘You can feel their résumés growing,’ she says, surveying the reporters and cameramen swarming around the rubble of Port-au-Prince, ‘against the backdrop of the earthquake's destruction.’
Yes, I suppose the experience didn't do my CV any harm. I take her sarcasm in the spirit in which it's meant, which is to say I share many of her concerns. That said, not all of us were Christiane Amanpour in her vast suite at the Plaza, with a balcony overlooking the remains of the presidential palace. In my experience, most correspondents – believe it or not – are thoughtful and empathetic and care about what they're trying to explain, and they live and work in shitty, unsafe conditions which they do not talk about because to do so, given the context of their visit, would be grossly distasteful and unprofessional.
Wilentz is quick to stress that individual reporters and aid workers she knows are intelligent and sensitive and so forth – but as an aggregate group, their work in Haiti is nevertheless rooted in ‘the objectification of the Haitians' victimization’. (Yes, I suppose it is, though this does raise the question of whether the alternative to objectivising it would be to ignore it.) She is equally disparaging of the public reading or watching at home. She imagines a young guy in the US leafing through portraits of survivors in a photojournalist picture-book, a ‘safe and unembarrassing’ experience for him, and concludes that overall, ‘he's enjoying their misfortune’. I sympathise with Wilentz's cynicism over disaster response, but this does seem a little unfair, particularly since she's made the guy up.
She is critical, and I understand why, of the kind of video material that I was getting at the time.
Look at this! the footage shouted. Yo, the morgue is just a scene of damnation! it went on. Look how bad this is over here! it said.
Rather as though all the cameramen are jocky adrenaline junkies, chewing gum and muttering ‘fuck yeah’ under their breath as they watch another injured local bleed out.
Two hundred and fifty pages later, though, her own descriptions of the scene are not exactly a model of sober understatement:
Try walking through the concentration camps of the Balkans, the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, the excavated mass graves of El Mozote, downtown Dresden, the outer circles of Hiroshima. That's what it was like in Port-au-Prince in those days.
I can't help thinking that she's trying to have her cake and eat it. More to the point – and with the greatest respect to Amy Wilentz, who knows Haiti infinitely better than I ever will – what she says here is just not true. Port-au-Prince was nothing like a concentration camp or a mass grave. In those places, what you feel is not just the suffering, but an overwhelming sense of evil, of man's inhumanity to man. That was not the case in Haiti; quite the reverse. There was a lot of suffering, but everyone was in it together. No one had done this to them. The desire to overcome it was shared by all races, religions and social classes within the country and without. It was not the result of some idiotic conflict whose divisions would continue to fester. There was no sense of evil. And instead of man's inhumanity to man, it was rather man's humanity to man that was in evidence, most obviously and, yes, brashly, with those clumsy convoys from Wilentz's hated NGOs.
Part of the problem – and despite my argumentative tone, this is one of the book’s strengths, not a weakness – is that she can’t really make up her mind what the appropriate response should be. She criticises those groups who simply throw money and resources at short-term problems, arguing that a more considered and sustainable approach is necessary which involves the Haitians themselves. Fair enough. But the next moment, she is deriding a project that specifically tries to involve all levels of Haitian society in a ‘national conversation’ about relief, because, she says angrily, ‘what [Haitians] want is not a national conversation—which is an outsider idea—but simply, please, to get their damn problem fixed’.
All of her objections are valid – more than that, they’re convincing – but after chapter upon chapter of them, you do start to feel that there is no possible response from any group that could satisfy Amy Wilentz. What this comes down to, of course, is the awareness floating under the skin of the whole book that she herself is not very different from any of the outsiders she is writing about, and a good deal less helpful than many. She’s probably made more money by capitalising on Haitians than most of the journalists or volunteers that responded to the earthquake, after all. ‘This very book that you have in your hands is one example,’ she says. ‘No share of its proceeds will directly benefit Haitian relief efforts.’
Farewell, Fred Voodoo is a fascinating study in sublimated guilt, which is the emotion that gives Wilentz’s writing its particular power and bite here. She’s a great writer, and her unsentimental, clear-eyed assessments are absolutely necessary in an area too often dominated by histrionics or wishful thinking. And many of her targets deserve everything they get (it was a particular pleasure to read the calm, chapter-long demolition of Mac Mclelland’s grotesque article about how she got PTSD from covering the anniversary of the quake, which she solved by some rape roleplay with her boyfriend, an article that outraged me at the time and still does). Despite my instinctive, perhaps over-defensive, problems with her arguments, I would heartily recommend this to anyone trying to understand what happens after a natural disaster in general, and to understand Haiti in particular.
Still, I do wish she could have found a little more room to acknowledge the extraordinary things that were done, however clumsily or unsustainably, in those early days. ‘The victims of a disaster like the Haitian quake become a moneymaking tool for these groups,’ she says, talking about the big NGOs. (Certainly, on the ground a lot of the money seemed to be going on branded clothing and vehicles.)
However, without those donations and whatever filtered down to them from those monies, would Haitians have survived the initial days and weeks after the earthquake?
She offers this up as though it's a rhetorical question, but it isn't. The answer's a clear No.
March 23, 2013
Although I eagerly devoured Amy Wilentz’s new book Farewell, Fred Voodoo, it sometimes seemed antithetical. One chapter espoused a certain tenet and then just a few chapters later she stated just the opposite.
For example, much of the book is spent detailing the “miraculous” work of Dr. Megan Coffee, who flew to Haiti after the earthquake and practices medicine on a volunteer basis with a TB ward in Port au Prince. Yet towards the end of the book Wilentz admits that some of the best private hospitals in Haiti went bankrupt because they were put out of business by the free health care that became available as American doctors flooded the country after the earthquake and volunteered their free medical services. Is this a matter of good intentions that did not consider the local impact or does it underscore the weakness of the Government of Haiti (GOH) in providing health care?
It did remind me when subsidized American rice flooded the market and put Haitian rice farmers out of business. Although the flooding of medical help was in response to an emergency, the importation of cheap rice proceeded in the face of irrefutable evidence that it was harming Haitian rice farmers and eroding national production. Former President Bill Clinton has since apologized for forcing Haiti to drop tariffs on cheap, imported rice and admitted it was a mistake – a badly construed policy that seriously damaged Haiti’s ability to be self-sufficient. Perhaps well-intentioned but without consideration of the impact on local Haitians.
The book felt like a celebrity pop culture magazine at times. Much of the book focused on Sean Penn, the Clintons and other celebrities with obligatory references to voodoo and zombies, presumably to sell books. Wilentz even says the "mélange of celebrity, tragedy and charity are what sells developing-world stories to the entertainment consumers of our day.” She admits that these celebrities were given access to privileges and funding that local Haitian organizations with more stellar track records could not get. Yes, Penn’s organization has accomplished a lot but it got megabucks from day one.
Despite a few criticisms, there are several values worth stating again and again. Wilentz describes Haiti as a “feel-good” tourist destination. After the earthquake, this accelerated into a “crisis caravan” with thousands of missionaries, engineers, heath care workers, architects, and disaster professionals thundering to Haiti with “salvation” fantasies. They believed they could generate solutions to Haiti’s problems. In a country with 70% unemployment, there are many Haitian professionals who could provide these services and were, indeed, hungry for work in a city that was virtually demolished.
But these newbies mistook themselves as part of a grand solution when in fact they were part of Haiti’s ongoing problem. Who better to build back Haiti but Haitians themselves? Wilentz agrees and says it’s even better when “Haitian things are built by Haitians themselves, with their own investment and planning. Then those things reflect Haitian character, culture and imagination”.
BINGOs (Big International NGOs, you know who I am talking about) also flocked to Haiti with their SUVs and highly paid consultants, many of whom were out of touch with the everyday people. It reminds me of a time I was sitting on the veranda of the Hotel Oloffson in Port au Prince, recounting a story to a USAID official about a recent meeting with peasants in the Artibonite province to discuss building a training center for growing plantains. The USAID employee, who was restricted to only State Department approved sites and usually spent all his time in front of a computer instead of people, asked “How did you know to do that?”
“We asked the people”, I blithely replied.
Many NGOs, American aid, and foreign volunteers forget to ask the people what they want.
As the former Executive Director of the Lambi Fund of Haiti, I learned this is the basic premise for success in Haiti. Haiti has a lot of problems but Haitians must be part of the solution. Sure, some skills training may be needed but Haitians themselves have a wealth of ideas, creative solutions and a desire to build their own. Dambisa Moyo, author of Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way, and Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize winning author of Development as Freedom ask: Does development aid ever work? Might donations be better spent investing in local enterprises? Can programs conceived by foreigners achieve results in differing cultures and practices than their own? Or are they trying to replicate themselves cookie-cutter style in a developing country? Should donors decide how aid is to be used (or not)?
This leads to the question “How do donors learn about local Haitian-led solutions that work?” Until there is a tool that informs us of effective, transparent, transformational efforts that are developed by the local people, donors will continue to be drawn to the BINGOs and celebrities who garner more than their fair share of publicity and may actually incur unintended consequences.
Perhaps there should be a data base with rigorous criteria of exemplary Haitian-led programs that could help guide donors through the maze of helpful and not so helpful groups working in Haiti. Then we might see lasting, positive impact.
For example, much of the book is spent detailing the “miraculous” work of Dr. Megan Coffee, who flew to Haiti after the earthquake and practices medicine on a volunteer basis with a TB ward in Port au Prince. Yet towards the end of the book Wilentz admits that some of the best private hospitals in Haiti went bankrupt because they were put out of business by the free health care that became available as American doctors flooded the country after the earthquake and volunteered their free medical services. Is this a matter of good intentions that did not consider the local impact or does it underscore the weakness of the Government of Haiti (GOH) in providing health care?
It did remind me when subsidized American rice flooded the market and put Haitian rice farmers out of business. Although the flooding of medical help was in response to an emergency, the importation of cheap rice proceeded in the face of irrefutable evidence that it was harming Haitian rice farmers and eroding national production. Former President Bill Clinton has since apologized for forcing Haiti to drop tariffs on cheap, imported rice and admitted it was a mistake – a badly construed policy that seriously damaged Haiti’s ability to be self-sufficient. Perhaps well-intentioned but without consideration of the impact on local Haitians.
The book felt like a celebrity pop culture magazine at times. Much of the book focused on Sean Penn, the Clintons and other celebrities with obligatory references to voodoo and zombies, presumably to sell books. Wilentz even says the "mélange of celebrity, tragedy and charity are what sells developing-world stories to the entertainment consumers of our day.” She admits that these celebrities were given access to privileges and funding that local Haitian organizations with more stellar track records could not get. Yes, Penn’s organization has accomplished a lot but it got megabucks from day one.
Despite a few criticisms, there are several values worth stating again and again. Wilentz describes Haiti as a “feel-good” tourist destination. After the earthquake, this accelerated into a “crisis caravan” with thousands of missionaries, engineers, heath care workers, architects, and disaster professionals thundering to Haiti with “salvation” fantasies. They believed they could generate solutions to Haiti’s problems. In a country with 70% unemployment, there are many Haitian professionals who could provide these services and were, indeed, hungry for work in a city that was virtually demolished.
But these newbies mistook themselves as part of a grand solution when in fact they were part of Haiti’s ongoing problem. Who better to build back Haiti but Haitians themselves? Wilentz agrees and says it’s even better when “Haitian things are built by Haitians themselves, with their own investment and planning. Then those things reflect Haitian character, culture and imagination”.
BINGOs (Big International NGOs, you know who I am talking about) also flocked to Haiti with their SUVs and highly paid consultants, many of whom were out of touch with the everyday people. It reminds me of a time I was sitting on the veranda of the Hotel Oloffson in Port au Prince, recounting a story to a USAID official about a recent meeting with peasants in the Artibonite province to discuss building a training center for growing plantains. The USAID employee, who was restricted to only State Department approved sites and usually spent all his time in front of a computer instead of people, asked “How did you know to do that?”
“We asked the people”, I blithely replied.
Many NGOs, American aid, and foreign volunteers forget to ask the people what they want.
As the former Executive Director of the Lambi Fund of Haiti, I learned this is the basic premise for success in Haiti. Haiti has a lot of problems but Haitians must be part of the solution. Sure, some skills training may be needed but Haitians themselves have a wealth of ideas, creative solutions and a desire to build their own. Dambisa Moyo, author of Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way, and Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize winning author of Development as Freedom ask: Does development aid ever work? Might donations be better spent investing in local enterprises? Can programs conceived by foreigners achieve results in differing cultures and practices than their own? Or are they trying to replicate themselves cookie-cutter style in a developing country? Should donors decide how aid is to be used (or not)?
This leads to the question “How do donors learn about local Haitian-led solutions that work?” Until there is a tool that informs us of effective, transparent, transformational efforts that are developed by the local people, donors will continue to be drawn to the BINGOs and celebrities who garner more than their fair share of publicity and may actually incur unintended consequences.
Perhaps there should be a data base with rigorous criteria of exemplary Haitian-led programs that could help guide donors through the maze of helpful and not so helpful groups working in Haiti. Then we might see lasting, positive impact.
January 21, 2013
As always seems to be the case, I received this book courtesy of a GoodReads giveaway. Despite that kind consideration my candid thoughts reside comfortably below.
The first thing to make absolutely clear about this book is that I was rather surprised to find it in the 'Travel Guides' section of Amazon. I imagine a travel guide as a book that suggests "you absolutely MUST see X but don't go to Y or you won't come back" but that's clearly not the focus of this book. There are no lavish photographs of tourist attractions or lists of grand local restaurants. This is a book about the heart, soul and sometimes viscera of a country in turmoil from the viewpoint of someone who has spent quite a bit of time there. The author's view of the nation of Haiti is one you get after years there, not the one you see in a two-week vacation.
Through our author's eyes we see the nuts and bolts history of the country, some of its people and a peek into its future. The writing is superb and enthralling and paints a wonderfully vivid picture. Highly recommended for those who want to know more about a little-known part of the world. Expertly and eruditely constructed it's a biography of the country written around the memoir of the author.
The first thing to make absolutely clear about this book is that I was rather surprised to find it in the 'Travel Guides' section of Amazon. I imagine a travel guide as a book that suggests "you absolutely MUST see X but don't go to Y or you won't come back" but that's clearly not the focus of this book. There are no lavish photographs of tourist attractions or lists of grand local restaurants. This is a book about the heart, soul and sometimes viscera of a country in turmoil from the viewpoint of someone who has spent quite a bit of time there. The author's view of the nation of Haiti is one you get after years there, not the one you see in a two-week vacation.
Through our author's eyes we see the nuts and bolts history of the country, some of its people and a peek into its future. The writing is superb and enthralling and paints a wonderfully vivid picture. Highly recommended for those who want to know more about a little-known part of the world. Expertly and eruditely constructed it's a biography of the country written around the memoir of the author.
March 2, 2016
Not as impressive as her previous The Rainy Season, a survey of Haitian history and politics after the fall of Baby Doc, this "Letter" is a rather scattershot, impressionistic view of the country after the earthquake and subsequent cholera epidemic. Insofar as it has a point--other than giving a sense of the place and its people--the book touches upon broader themes of third world underdevelopment and first world exploitation of same, often in the guise of 'aid'.
Personally, my stepbrother being one of those aid workers and me having made some study of the country and having met a number of his colleagues, Haitian and American, over the years, I found this book interesting on several counts--tantalizing like little canapes presaging a meal which never comes. Thus she talks a lot about Aristide and her relations with him and his family and friends, but gives very little detail about his presidencies and his manipulation by the United States.
Personally, my stepbrother being one of those aid workers and me having made some study of the country and having met a number of his colleagues, Haitian and American, over the years, I found this book interesting on several counts--tantalizing like little canapes presaging a meal which never comes. Thus she talks a lot about Aristide and her relations with him and his family and friends, but gives very little detail about his presidencies and his manipulation by the United States.
June 8, 2014
Don't waste your money on this book full of cliches while hypocritically claiming that it wants to depart from them. This is a clever glorification of the White Savior Industrial complex. Refer to Karen's review under Community Review for the summary of all the things wrong with this book.
June 14, 2013
I am, either the best, or perhaps the worst sort of reader for this book, knowing virtually nothing about Haiti and her history, but my interest was piqued by Pooja Bhatia's review here. Amy Wilentz is a journalist with an extensive background covering Haiti and the author of a well-received previous work ably reviewed with an illuminating thread here.
If reality, as Nabokov writes somewhere, can only be constructed through a series of approaches (my math background cries out: to infinity?), Wilentz's book is a series of conscious steps--free of blinders (amazingly, given her past engagement and naivety about Aristide) and without any attempt to be definitive--towards the portrayal of the post-quake Haitian reality, and the role of Western interventionists past and present.
Wilentz can be disarmingly honest:
"Since the earthquake, I've made about an eighth of my income writing about Haiti and the earthquake. Without all those Haitian victims, I would not have made that money--and, in fact, all my writing about Haiti has been about a continuing human tragedy that is happening to others while I profit from it."
as well as counter-intuitive:
"...Haiti is a beachy island, but most of its people are not swimmers and water isn't something they adore. They're mountain people or city people. Perhaps because of its long initial isolation from the rest of the world after slavery was defeated, Haiti feels like an island turned on itself, the mountainous contryside removed from access to the sea and the long streches of beach looking up to the mountains rather than out over the water to lot bo dlo."
The book is a series of letters, each prefaced by a Creole proverb (which, to anyone with a French background can be intriguingly parsed), detailing variously, the lives of ordinary and extraordinary Haitians, aid workers, and her own experiences. There is no rogue's list per se, but Wilentz deftly parses the contradictions and hypocrisies of doing aid work on the island: "[Sean] Penn says that he's in Haiti in part because of a sense of "duty," and that this sense of duty is coupled with a kind of narcissism." Penn rounds out a cast of characters--ordinary Haitians, former members of the elite circle from the Aristide days, oddball expats (Penn, par excellence) who seem to find their way to Haiti, and a selfless doctor or two who figure out how to work the system and actually make a small difference.
And for those of us more or less in the dark as regards the entanglements of the United States and Haiti over the last two hundred years, Wilentz intersperses succinct historical primers. Rather than dwell on the dysfunctions in Haitian society--the traditional narrative espoused in Western media--of which there are plenty, Wilentz elegantly accumulates evidence by example of a grand narrative of Haitian history, the corrupter and the corruptee. Showing that there has never been a time in Haitian history when outsiders did not meddle, Wilentz lays bare this odd dance that has gone on for so long. Why have we needed Haiti? And does Haiti need us? At what cost?
If reality, as Nabokov writes somewhere, can only be constructed through a series of approaches (my math background cries out: to infinity?), Wilentz's book is a series of conscious steps--free of blinders (amazingly, given her past engagement and naivety about Aristide) and without any attempt to be definitive--towards the portrayal of the post-quake Haitian reality, and the role of Western interventionists past and present.
Wilentz can be disarmingly honest:
"Since the earthquake, I've made about an eighth of my income writing about Haiti and the earthquake. Without all those Haitian victims, I would not have made that money--and, in fact, all my writing about Haiti has been about a continuing human tragedy that is happening to others while I profit from it."
as well as counter-intuitive:
"...Haiti is a beachy island, but most of its people are not swimmers and water isn't something they adore. They're mountain people or city people. Perhaps because of its long initial isolation from the rest of the world after slavery was defeated, Haiti feels like an island turned on itself, the mountainous contryside removed from access to the sea and the long streches of beach looking up to the mountains rather than out over the water to lot bo dlo."
The book is a series of letters, each prefaced by a Creole proverb (which, to anyone with a French background can be intriguingly parsed), detailing variously, the lives of ordinary and extraordinary Haitians, aid workers, and her own experiences. There is no rogue's list per se, but Wilentz deftly parses the contradictions and hypocrisies of doing aid work on the island: "[Sean] Penn says that he's in Haiti in part because of a sense of "duty," and that this sense of duty is coupled with a kind of narcissism." Penn rounds out a cast of characters--ordinary Haitians, former members of the elite circle from the Aristide days, oddball expats (Penn, par excellence) who seem to find their way to Haiti, and a selfless doctor or two who figure out how to work the system and actually make a small difference.
And for those of us more or less in the dark as regards the entanglements of the United States and Haiti over the last two hundred years, Wilentz intersperses succinct historical primers. Rather than dwell on the dysfunctions in Haitian society--the traditional narrative espoused in Western media--of which there are plenty, Wilentz elegantly accumulates evidence by example of a grand narrative of Haitian history, the corrupter and the corruptee. Showing that there has never been a time in Haitian history when outsiders did not meddle, Wilentz lays bare this odd dance that has gone on for so long. Why have we needed Haiti? And does Haiti need us? At what cost?
March 3, 2018
This is the second book by Amy Wilentz that I read before my trip to Haiti. This one has more of a personal/memoir with less of a journalistic flavor. Amy also seems more pessimistic and jaded in this write up than in 'The Rainy Season', and who can blame her? After 20+ years of traveling to and writing about Haiti, it's no wonder she's critical. In a way I found it refreshing.
This is predominately focused on Haiti after the 2010 earthquake that devastated the country. It's almost written like a collection of short stories/essays that are all strung together to complete the overall picture. There's the good (Megan Coffee--Tuberculosis Doctor extraordinaire), the bad (Mac McClellund--claims to have suffered PTSD from her journalistic stint in Haiti and her 'healing process'), and even the celebrity (Sean Penn--overcame his own ignorance to become one of the more efficient aid advocates). I would definitely recommend this book, especially if you're planning on traveling or working in Haiti. My review is no where near the quality of some of the others, so I'm going to link a few of my favorites below, as well as a few quotes from the book:
Reviews:
(3 stars) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
(4 stars) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
(5 stars) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
(5 stars) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Quotes:
""The Haitian Revolution was one of three defining revolutions of the 1700s, and as much as the American and French Revolutions, it has shaped the world we live in. It destroyed the era's economy of slave capitalism; it wrecked the global ruling powers' [desires] of eternal colonialism. The Haitian Revolution, outcome of the fervor and intelligence of so many unlettered and enslaved Fred Voodoos, anonymous but valiant warriors, also extended the ideas of the Rights of Man to all men and women; and it suggested the concept of labor rights that was later expanded on in Europe and, eventually, the whole world. It distracted Napoleon and forced him to sell the Louisiana Territory to the Americans, thereby turning the United States into a continental power. In addition, the slaves triumph in Haiti limited France's future economic power and ironically made an opening in the global economy for the rising United States, which was still the beneficiary of its own unpaid slave labor force. " pg. 91
"Ignorance is a virtue, for Penn, at least insofar as he gets himself portrayed. His success at getting things done in a place he initially knew nothing about, and the failure of many aid groups with expertise to do the same, reminds me that often it is actually those who do remember history who are doomed to repeat it, while those who have no idea or who've forgotten can sometimes escape a reprise. Sometimes it's better to know less, even though people who know more, and have ore invested in that knowledge, and who think they can predict a failure from the typical indicators (people like me, that is), will always look down on you, and will always tell you it cannot be done. Often, the experts will be right, but sometimes they'll be wrong, especially in extraordinary circumstances. The earthquake, combined with the fame and energy of Sean Penn, was just such an extraordinary circumstance. He's a peculiar and unexpected person, in an unexpected situation, and all those who predicted failure, fuck-up, and combat fatigue for him were wrong." pg. 142
"One American teenager I know went down to Haiti before the earthquake to work in a clinic in a remote village. One hot morning, he and some other foreign volunteers were digging and lifting small boulders out of the clinic's future garden space. A small knot of Haitian teenagers were watching, leaning up against a fence, hooting and laughing. Finally, the volunteers turned and asked them what it was that they found so absolutely hilarious. The Haitian kids answered, "You came here to do that for free?" The Haitians just couldn't get over it. To them these Americans were suckers, pure and simple." pg. 154
"No one should co-opt someone else's pain. My rule is, don't be full of pity and charity. Don't feel sorry for them, rule number one. Be glad you're not in their situation, but don't pity. Their pain is theirs, and, in disasters and destroyed places, their pain and their survival are sometimes even important aspects of their identity. Don't pretend it's your story. Don't bee an occupier of their narrative; don't be an imperialist in their lives; don't colonize their victimization. " pg. 210
"Haiti is incredibly raw, blunt, and in some ways vulnerable. If you are comparing life in Haiti with life in the States, life in Haiti is more real in some strange way, more vibrant and raw. More colors. Very little is hidden here. People bathe in the street, they beat their kids in the street, they march in the street, they sell plantains in the street. If you're fat, people call you fat. If you're skinny, people call you skinny. If you're missing a tooth people call you toothless. it is what it is. Lavi-a bel, lavi-a dwol. Life is beautiful and funny.
I suppose for Americans, who are brought up with the idea that the U.S. is the land of the free but who somehow end up as slaves to the paycheck and their own social class, Haiti, or their experience of it, represents true freedom, with all its positives and negatives. My Haitian friend was beaten up in te street with no justice to follow; a friend of mine said, "This country is free, so free that someone is free to beat up someone else just like that. If you like freedom, you swallow all of it. The good and the bad."
But also, Haiti is functioning chaos. There is order in Haitian disorder. Haiti functions not despite but because of its chaos, including the earthquake. So I would say that Haiti is the perfect intersection between chaos and order--where this crazy system somehow works everyday--the tap-taps, the mabi merchants, the kids going to school, the gangsters, the papadep men, the Papa Docs, the whole of it somehow works. People make it work. Even cholera and an earthquake didn't knock this country too off track. haiti is the most organized disorder you can find.
In other words, Haiti needs to be understood in Haitian terms." pg. 211-212
This is predominately focused on Haiti after the 2010 earthquake that devastated the country. It's almost written like a collection of short stories/essays that are all strung together to complete the overall picture. There's the good (Megan Coffee--Tuberculosis Doctor extraordinaire), the bad (Mac McClellund--claims to have suffered PTSD from her journalistic stint in Haiti and her 'healing process'), and even the celebrity (Sean Penn--overcame his own ignorance to become one of the more efficient aid advocates). I would definitely recommend this book, especially if you're planning on traveling or working in Haiti. My review is no where near the quality of some of the others, so I'm going to link a few of my favorites below, as well as a few quotes from the book:
Reviews:
(3 stars) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
(4 stars) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
(5 stars) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
(5 stars) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Quotes:
""The Haitian Revolution was one of three defining revolutions of the 1700s, and as much as the American and French Revolutions, it has shaped the world we live in. It destroyed the era's economy of slave capitalism; it wrecked the global ruling powers' [desires] of eternal colonialism. The Haitian Revolution, outcome of the fervor and intelligence of so many unlettered and enslaved Fred Voodoos, anonymous but valiant warriors, also extended the ideas of the Rights of Man to all men and women; and it suggested the concept of labor rights that was later expanded on in Europe and, eventually, the whole world. It distracted Napoleon and forced him to sell the Louisiana Territory to the Americans, thereby turning the United States into a continental power. In addition, the slaves triumph in Haiti limited France's future economic power and ironically made an opening in the global economy for the rising United States, which was still the beneficiary of its own unpaid slave labor force. " pg. 91
"Ignorance is a virtue, for Penn, at least insofar as he gets himself portrayed. His success at getting things done in a place he initially knew nothing about, and the failure of many aid groups with expertise to do the same, reminds me that often it is actually those who do remember history who are doomed to repeat it, while those who have no idea or who've forgotten can sometimes escape a reprise. Sometimes it's better to know less, even though people who know more, and have ore invested in that knowledge, and who think they can predict a failure from the typical indicators (people like me, that is), will always look down on you, and will always tell you it cannot be done. Often, the experts will be right, but sometimes they'll be wrong, especially in extraordinary circumstances. The earthquake, combined with the fame and energy of Sean Penn, was just such an extraordinary circumstance. He's a peculiar and unexpected person, in an unexpected situation, and all those who predicted failure, fuck-up, and combat fatigue for him were wrong." pg. 142
"One American teenager I know went down to Haiti before the earthquake to work in a clinic in a remote village. One hot morning, he and some other foreign volunteers were digging and lifting small boulders out of the clinic's future garden space. A small knot of Haitian teenagers were watching, leaning up against a fence, hooting and laughing. Finally, the volunteers turned and asked them what it was that they found so absolutely hilarious. The Haitian kids answered, "You came here to do that for free?" The Haitians just couldn't get over it. To them these Americans were suckers, pure and simple." pg. 154
"No one should co-opt someone else's pain. My rule is, don't be full of pity and charity. Don't feel sorry for them, rule number one. Be glad you're not in their situation, but don't pity. Their pain is theirs, and, in disasters and destroyed places, their pain and their survival are sometimes even important aspects of their identity. Don't pretend it's your story. Don't bee an occupier of their narrative; don't be an imperialist in their lives; don't colonize their victimization. " pg. 210
"Haiti is incredibly raw, blunt, and in some ways vulnerable. If you are comparing life in Haiti with life in the States, life in Haiti is more real in some strange way, more vibrant and raw. More colors. Very little is hidden here. People bathe in the street, they beat their kids in the street, they march in the street, they sell plantains in the street. If you're fat, people call you fat. If you're skinny, people call you skinny. If you're missing a tooth people call you toothless. it is what it is. Lavi-a bel, lavi-a dwol. Life is beautiful and funny.
I suppose for Americans, who are brought up with the idea that the U.S. is the land of the free but who somehow end up as slaves to the paycheck and their own social class, Haiti, or their experience of it, represents true freedom, with all its positives and negatives. My Haitian friend was beaten up in te street with no justice to follow; a friend of mine said, "This country is free, so free that someone is free to beat up someone else just like that. If you like freedom, you swallow all of it. The good and the bad."
But also, Haiti is functioning chaos. There is order in Haitian disorder. Haiti functions not despite but because of its chaos, including the earthquake. So I would say that Haiti is the perfect intersection between chaos and order--where this crazy system somehow works everyday--the tap-taps, the mabi merchants, the kids going to school, the gangsters, the papadep men, the Papa Docs, the whole of it somehow works. People make it work. Even cholera and an earthquake didn't knock this country too off track. haiti is the most organized disorder you can find.
In other words, Haiti needs to be understood in Haitian terms." pg. 211-212
September 29, 2013
Who is Fred Voodoo? Fred Voodoo is a term invented by foreign journalists to mean “the (Haitian) man (woman) on the street”. It reflects a condescending view of Haitians. But Haitians know that, and they almost always beat foreigners at their own game, which the author Wilentz describes repeatedly in the book. In Haiti, every Haitian looks for his/her own “white man” (who can be a women) as a matter of survival. But the author contends that foreigners are equally dependent on Haitians to make them into do-gooders, and that the “white man” can be any foreigner, regardless of race.
Should Haiti be called a “developing country”? The substitution of the more politically correct “developing country” for “third world” may obscure the myriad ways in which countries like Haiti are underdeveloped. I am not an expert in international development. Despite this, I have been exposed to the theories, been in meetings at The World Bank, the Organization of American States, and the International Development Bank. More than anything, I have been struck by the huge contradictions at play – the grandness of these international institutions in Washington DC that exist to help the Global South grow their economies. What a contrast between these centers of power and the extreme neediness of the poorest nations on earth, and the most disenfranchised citizens on our planet. Less than a decade before I moved to the Washington DC area, I lived in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where there were frequent strikes and riots against the latest imposed price increases ordered by the International Monetary Fund. I saw it through the eyes of my ex-husband and his extended family and in how these manipulations were making life harder for all of them, working class and poor people. In 1999, I lived in southern Brazil, and although I worked in education, the talk of the impact of neo-liberalism was part of daily discourse. So my perception of “development” work has certainly been shaped by observing the other side of it, and first learning about it from the recipients rather than the "do gooders".
Many residents of the Global North – Americans, Europeans, Canadians – genuinely want to “make the world a better place”. What could be wrong with that? Wilentz’s book is an excoriating account of the impact of foreign do-gooders on Haiti. She describes how much harm is done, and how the condition of Haiti and its people deteriorate while huge amounts of money and profits are involved. One example she gives is the story of an American woman and her Haitian husband who try to build housing in a rural area after the earthquake. They end up buying the land they are building on three or four separate times, due to the lack of clear ownership. After two years, trying to build, they give up. After the earthquake, many worthless parcels of land owned by wealthy Haitians were sold for many times what they were worth. Disaster became a huge economic opportunity for "the haves". The Haitian have-nots already knew how it would all shake out.
Wilentz is also critical of herself, questioning her own involvement in Haiti for decades. She is fluent in Kreyol and has a deep affection for the people. She tells an account of a day spent with Haitian friends during her early days in Haiti, when she declared she loved Haiti. One of her friends then said that then she would gladly trade passports with Wilentz and leave Haiti to live in the US, and Wilentz could stay in Haiti. Wilentz does praise some genuinely good efforts – Dr. Paul Farmer and Partners in Health, and a Massachusetts doctor names Megan Coffee who has spent a couple of years in Haiti caring for TB patients for no pay, depending on the charity of others for food, shelter, wifi and an iPhone. She describes a business, Digitel, a cell phone provider, which has actually managed to change life in Haiti for the better, as Haitians, for the first time, have cheap access to phones and everything that access brings. She gives Sean Penn mixed reviews but by the end of the book seems to have decided he is genuine, though she is still not quite sure why he is in Haiti.
One of the most telling segments in the book was the following:
"The fault (for instability in Haiti) is not with the ignorant many, but with the educated and ambitious few. Too proud to work, and not disposed to go into commerce, they make politics a business of their country. Governed neither by love or mercy for their country, they care not into what depths she may be plunged. No president, however virtuous, wise and patriotic, ever suits them …."
From a lecture in Chicago in 1893 by Frederick Douglass, Ambassador to Haiti. One hundred and twenty years later, the haves still prevent Haiti from being what she could be, and Haiti remains one of the poorest countries in the world.
Should Haiti be called a “developing country”? The substitution of the more politically correct “developing country” for “third world” may obscure the myriad ways in which countries like Haiti are underdeveloped. I am not an expert in international development. Despite this, I have been exposed to the theories, been in meetings at The World Bank, the Organization of American States, and the International Development Bank. More than anything, I have been struck by the huge contradictions at play – the grandness of these international institutions in Washington DC that exist to help the Global South grow their economies. What a contrast between these centers of power and the extreme neediness of the poorest nations on earth, and the most disenfranchised citizens on our planet. Less than a decade before I moved to the Washington DC area, I lived in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where there were frequent strikes and riots against the latest imposed price increases ordered by the International Monetary Fund. I saw it through the eyes of my ex-husband and his extended family and in how these manipulations were making life harder for all of them, working class and poor people. In 1999, I lived in southern Brazil, and although I worked in education, the talk of the impact of neo-liberalism was part of daily discourse. So my perception of “development” work has certainly been shaped by observing the other side of it, and first learning about it from the recipients rather than the "do gooders".
Many residents of the Global North – Americans, Europeans, Canadians – genuinely want to “make the world a better place”. What could be wrong with that? Wilentz’s book is an excoriating account of the impact of foreign do-gooders on Haiti. She describes how much harm is done, and how the condition of Haiti and its people deteriorate while huge amounts of money and profits are involved. One example she gives is the story of an American woman and her Haitian husband who try to build housing in a rural area after the earthquake. They end up buying the land they are building on three or four separate times, due to the lack of clear ownership. After two years, trying to build, they give up. After the earthquake, many worthless parcels of land owned by wealthy Haitians were sold for many times what they were worth. Disaster became a huge economic opportunity for "the haves". The Haitian have-nots already knew how it would all shake out.
Wilentz is also critical of herself, questioning her own involvement in Haiti for decades. She is fluent in Kreyol and has a deep affection for the people. She tells an account of a day spent with Haitian friends during her early days in Haiti, when she declared she loved Haiti. One of her friends then said that then she would gladly trade passports with Wilentz and leave Haiti to live in the US, and Wilentz could stay in Haiti. Wilentz does praise some genuinely good efforts – Dr. Paul Farmer and Partners in Health, and a Massachusetts doctor names Megan Coffee who has spent a couple of years in Haiti caring for TB patients for no pay, depending on the charity of others for food, shelter, wifi and an iPhone. She describes a business, Digitel, a cell phone provider, which has actually managed to change life in Haiti for the better, as Haitians, for the first time, have cheap access to phones and everything that access brings. She gives Sean Penn mixed reviews but by the end of the book seems to have decided he is genuine, though she is still not quite sure why he is in Haiti.
One of the most telling segments in the book was the following:
"The fault (for instability in Haiti) is not with the ignorant many, but with the educated and ambitious few. Too proud to work, and not disposed to go into commerce, they make politics a business of their country. Governed neither by love or mercy for their country, they care not into what depths she may be plunged. No president, however virtuous, wise and patriotic, ever suits them …."
From a lecture in Chicago in 1893 by Frederick Douglass, Ambassador to Haiti. One hundred and twenty years later, the haves still prevent Haiti from being what she could be, and Haiti remains one of the poorest countries in the world.
January 22, 2024
I can decide what to think of this book. It was interesting throughout and I finished it. It gave a good glimpse of Haiti after the earthquake and it discussed the different ways outsiders wrote about and acted in. It was critical of all outsiders and also self critical. I was often frustrated because I think it is easier to point out problems and harder to offer solutions which the book does rarely. It also ended up pointing out the flaws of straw men, that is outsiders (or their arguments) that I already knew were deeply flawed. But the book did make me think a lot and ask tough questions about my own work.
December 24, 2014
The longer I sit after reading this book, the more inclined I am to give it five stars. "Farewell, Fred Voodoo" is not perfectly written, organized, or executed, and the author Amy Wilentz is inclined to be harsh and judgmental towards those she disapproves of. Still, it resonated with me, and since this is a subjective rating system, I'll do just that. Interpreted as fictional literature might be, "Farewell, Fred Voodoo" is a book about human imperfection on a global scale, so it fits that it's not a perfect work itself. Caustic, opinionated, romantic (in a Rimbaud-ian sort of way) , and sparing no one, including herself, Amy Wilentz' portrait of post-earthquake Haiti is a call for self-examination from all those who would give foreign aid in any capacity and romanticize the developing world.
Why are we well-heeled "first world" white people drawn to developing countries? Me ten years ago, as I prepared to fly off to Kyrgyzstan as part of the Peace Corps, would have told you that I felt like I had something to give back to the world from having been so lucky to have so much. In reality, it was probably a hazy mixture of first world guilt, a sense of adventure, and a want to escape my problems. Neither is "giving back" or "helping" a developing country as simple as a 21 year old college graduate might see it.
As Amy Wilentz points out, in a post-colonial world, the very concept of foreign aid and how a person from a developed country relates to those from developing ones is charged. Coming from the "first world", it's hard to get out of the paradigm of paternalism and romanticism that surrounds any concept of "helping a developing country". While there are a few who can do it well, immersing themselves in their adopted community, learning the language, loving the culture, and teaching or contributing viable skills that will help the community long after they're gone, most of us are clueless and out of touch with the places we go to serve. As my K-12 host country national Peace Corps trainer Akylbek taught me in a very vivid and memorable way using the emerald colored glasses of the Emerald City of Oz as an example, your culture serves as the green colored glasses that you never take off. When you go to a different country, you might put on a different colored pair of glasses, but you will still have the green ones on underneath.
Amy Wilentz thoroughly explores this paradox, especially applies to herself. Her view of Haiti, a country she professes to love, is simultaneously romantic and cynical. She realizes that there are some boundaries that she as a white person from the USA will never escape in the eyes of Haitians. After visiting and living in Haiti off and on for over a decade, she is not quite an outsider, but definitely not an insider either. Hanging out with some Haitians one night early in her career, she gets dewey-eyed and says to them "I love Haiti!". "Then why don't you give me your passport and keys to your house" one of the Haitians quips. Wilentz wants to be the exception, but knows better. She has no qualms about ripping herself and her relationship to the country apart, and she applies this same standard of examination to everyone from Haitian government officials to foreigners who came to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. As well she should, as the aid that was given has done very little to actually help the Haitian people.
Is all foreign aid misguided? Is there actually anything we can do to help rebuild a country? No doubt good medical help and assistance in removing debris after such a disaster is needed, but when you move on from there and try to rebuild the infrastructure of a community that's not your own, is that going to far? Does it remove the much needed sense of autonomy that a country needs if it is going to pick itself up by its bootstraps and shape its own vision of the future? Yes and yes. What should one do, then, if a country can't get its shit together? In the end, it seem to me like watching a good friend of yours who is a wreck. Sure, you can see all too clearly the things that they could do to help themselves, but you can't do it for them, and you have to be ok if they don't take your advice. You can be there to support them when it looks like they're taking some steps in the right direction, but otherwise they are probably served best by figuring it out themselves. But then, what do I know?
Why are we well-heeled "first world" white people drawn to developing countries? Me ten years ago, as I prepared to fly off to Kyrgyzstan as part of the Peace Corps, would have told you that I felt like I had something to give back to the world from having been so lucky to have so much. In reality, it was probably a hazy mixture of first world guilt, a sense of adventure, and a want to escape my problems. Neither is "giving back" or "helping" a developing country as simple as a 21 year old college graduate might see it.
As Amy Wilentz points out, in a post-colonial world, the very concept of foreign aid and how a person from a developed country relates to those from developing ones is charged. Coming from the "first world", it's hard to get out of the paradigm of paternalism and romanticism that surrounds any concept of "helping a developing country". While there are a few who can do it well, immersing themselves in their adopted community, learning the language, loving the culture, and teaching or contributing viable skills that will help the community long after they're gone, most of us are clueless and out of touch with the places we go to serve. As my K-12 host country national Peace Corps trainer Akylbek taught me in a very vivid and memorable way using the emerald colored glasses of the Emerald City of Oz as an example, your culture serves as the green colored glasses that you never take off. When you go to a different country, you might put on a different colored pair of glasses, but you will still have the green ones on underneath.
Amy Wilentz thoroughly explores this paradox, especially applies to herself. Her view of Haiti, a country she professes to love, is simultaneously romantic and cynical. She realizes that there are some boundaries that she as a white person from the USA will never escape in the eyes of Haitians. After visiting and living in Haiti off and on for over a decade, she is not quite an outsider, but definitely not an insider either. Hanging out with some Haitians one night early in her career, she gets dewey-eyed and says to them "I love Haiti!". "Then why don't you give me your passport and keys to your house" one of the Haitians quips. Wilentz wants to be the exception, but knows better. She has no qualms about ripping herself and her relationship to the country apart, and she applies this same standard of examination to everyone from Haitian government officials to foreigners who came to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. As well she should, as the aid that was given has done very little to actually help the Haitian people.
Is all foreign aid misguided? Is there actually anything we can do to help rebuild a country? No doubt good medical help and assistance in removing debris after such a disaster is needed, but when you move on from there and try to rebuild the infrastructure of a community that's not your own, is that going to far? Does it remove the much needed sense of autonomy that a country needs if it is going to pick itself up by its bootstraps and shape its own vision of the future? Yes and yes. What should one do, then, if a country can't get its shit together? In the end, it seem to me like watching a good friend of yours who is a wreck. Sure, you can see all too clearly the things that they could do to help themselves, but you can't do it for them, and you have to be ok if they don't take your advice. You can be there to support them when it looks like they're taking some steps in the right direction, but otherwise they are probably served best by figuring it out themselves. But then, what do I know?
August 31, 2014
This is a series of essays -- anecdotes, reflections, pensees -- about Haiti. The writer has been visiting Haiti for 20 years and has written about it extensively in a voice, from a perspective that is thoughtful and self-consciously ignorant. She is an outsider.
Haiti is utterly fascinating. It's not African. It's not Caribbean. It's not European. It's certainly not American. It's all of these, but none of them, either. It's a life unique unto itself, intimately involved with death and destruction of incomprehensible proportions.
And she is befuddled. Why is this place so utterly fascinating? Why does it continue to suffer? What can be done? It is a place where terrible things happen: AIDS, earthquakes, invasions of foreigners, starvation, illiteracy, cholera, pollution, deforestation, tb…just to name the most obvious. It's a place that draws aid workers like a magnet, and many are passionate and hardworking, but somehow Haiti just keeps being the place where bad things happen. Why does nothing change? How can it be that such a place floats out there in the Caribbean just so close to the toe of one of the most powerful countries on earth?
Does prolixity matter at all? Maybe not.
and Walentz has no answers. She knows that most outsiders (including herself) fundamentally misunderstand Haiti and its people and she knows that what's been done so far hasn't worked. She knows that some people -- Paul Farmer, Sean Penn, and Megan Coffee -- are helping. She knows that cellphones are changing everything. She knows that millions of dollars have not cleared the rubble or solved health problems or given people security.
Her questions are apt: is Haiti riveting because it defies our expectations and assumptions? Is it riveting because it's so awful? is it because it's so exotic? what draws us…and who's benefiting from our fascination?
Wilenz will continue to visit and write about Haiti. I will continue to read everything I can find about Haiti. Like Wilenz, I'm not entirely sure why, but I know that this fascination is part of my soul.
Haiti is utterly fascinating. It's not African. It's not Caribbean. It's not European. It's certainly not American. It's all of these, but none of them, either. It's a life unique unto itself, intimately involved with death and destruction of incomprehensible proportions.
And she is befuddled. Why is this place so utterly fascinating? Why does it continue to suffer? What can be done? It is a place where terrible things happen: AIDS, earthquakes, invasions of foreigners, starvation, illiteracy, cholera, pollution, deforestation, tb…just to name the most obvious. It's a place that draws aid workers like a magnet, and many are passionate and hardworking, but somehow Haiti just keeps being the place where bad things happen. Why does nothing change? How can it be that such a place floats out there in the Caribbean just so close to the toe of one of the most powerful countries on earth?
Does prolixity matter at all? Maybe not.
and Walentz has no answers. She knows that most outsiders (including herself) fundamentally misunderstand Haiti and its people and she knows that what's been done so far hasn't worked. She knows that some people -- Paul Farmer, Sean Penn, and Megan Coffee -- are helping. She knows that cellphones are changing everything. She knows that millions of dollars have not cleared the rubble or solved health problems or given people security.
Her questions are apt: is Haiti riveting because it defies our expectations and assumptions? Is it riveting because it's so awful? is it because it's so exotic? what draws us…and who's benefiting from our fascination?
Wilenz will continue to visit and write about Haiti. I will continue to read everything I can find about Haiti. Like Wilenz, I'm not entirely sure why, but I know that this fascination is part of my soul.
December 10, 2012
Upon winning a copy of Farewell, Fred Voodoo and reading it's summary, my first thought was, “Oy, more White people writing about POC instead of letting them tell their own stories.” I don't regret that reaction because, frankly, I'm positive Ms Wilentz would have thought it as well.
In addition to Haitian history (specifically the slave revolt), Farewell focuses on the recent and destructive earthquake and the ways in which foreign aid organizations have swarmed in and, in many cases, made the situation worse. By knowing nothing about Haiti's population, geography, government... so many individuals and organizations have lined the pockets of the already wealthy at the severe detriment to the people in need. It calls so many out on their liberal guilt and patronizing, condescending words and actions.
I'd share more quotes but we'd be here all day considering how many I marked...
I wish this book was required reading for those who think themselves the Great White Savior. Who use the pain and suffering of others to prove their own sainthood.
In addition to Haitian history (specifically the slave revolt), Farewell focuses on the recent and destructive earthquake and the ways in which foreign aid organizations have swarmed in and, in many cases, made the situation worse. By knowing nothing about Haiti's population, geography, government... so many individuals and organizations have lined the pockets of the already wealthy at the severe detriment to the people in need. It calls so many out on their liberal guilt and patronizing, condescending words and actions.
“No one should co-opt someone else's pain. My rule is, don't be full of pity and charity. Don't feel sorry for them, rule number one. Be glad you're not in their situation, but don't pity. Their pain is theirs and, in disasters and destroyed places, their pain and their survival are sometimes even important aspects of their identity. Don't pretend it's YOUR story. Don't be an occupier of their narrative; don't be an imperialist in their lives; don't colonize their victimization.”
I'd share more quotes but we'd be here all day considering how many I marked...
I wish this book was required reading for those who think themselves the Great White Savior. Who use the pain and suffering of others to prove their own sainthood.
May 12, 2013
Great insight and empathy and from a writer who knows and loves Haiti, not just despite Haiti's issues but because of them. Some things were so bitingly truthful that it was almost hard to read and have it put into black and white terms, others were so glaringly cynical and ironic I wanted to scream.
I appreciate her being able to authoritatively call out Mac McClelland, a narcissistic writer for Mother Jones, who's highly publicized white girls problems made the rounds on the internet after the Haitian earthquake. (Mac was said to have gotten PTSD after witnessing a Haitian woman have a traumatic breakdown after seeing one of her attackers from a brutal gang rape in the street. Mac was so traumatized she came home and asked an ex boyfriend to simulate a violent rape during sex.)
Regardless though, her chapters on the problem with foreign aid and outside intervention in Haiti were powerful and thoughtful. The chapter on the loup garou was culturally eye opening. There was a history lesson on every page. And there was the great introduction of modern day heros like Dr. Megan Coffee, and the musings on the ambivalence of Sean Penn's presence there.
For anyone who loves Haiti, it's a must read.
I appreciate her being able to authoritatively call out Mac McClelland, a narcissistic writer for Mother Jones, who's highly publicized white girls problems made the rounds on the internet after the Haitian earthquake. (Mac was said to have gotten PTSD after witnessing a Haitian woman have a traumatic breakdown after seeing one of her attackers from a brutal gang rape in the street. Mac was so traumatized she came home and asked an ex boyfriend to simulate a violent rape during sex.)
Regardless though, her chapters on the problem with foreign aid and outside intervention in Haiti were powerful and thoughtful. The chapter on the loup garou was culturally eye opening. There was a history lesson on every page. And there was the great introduction of modern day heros like Dr. Megan Coffee, and the musings on the ambivalence of Sean Penn's presence there.
For anyone who loves Haiti, it's a must read.
October 28, 2019
The excellent Farewell, Fred Voodoo takes time to reveal its true nature, and the extent to which it’s such a personal book—perhaps more about both the author herself and also about how the nature of one’s perception of, for example, concepts such as “culture”, “revolutionary thought”, or “hope” changes over time and with age. The reason for this is that Wilentz, to set the stage for this, must describe with intimate detail the level of immiseration Haitians were living in post-earthquake (2011 and onward), and at the same time describe the scene as it actually is—as people trying to survive day to day, regardless of their circumstances, and not personally perhaps uniformly miserable. So, we have the extent to which housing springs up in camps that eventually will have to be cleared but at some point become permanent structures; people living five or six to a single room on one meal a day; the nonexistent (for most) above-ground economy, with 80% to 90% of the population living in the informal, unregulated economy; the varying effectiveness of those who try to make a difference, including many names we’ll all be familiar with (Sean Penn and Paul Farmer fare reasonably well in the book; Bill Clinton, not so much). Wilentz describes going through the Cite Soleil and other slums in the dark, being assisted and treated with generosity by many, and one begins to wonder what the fascination it (it has to do with her earlier life, when she became friends with Aristide and helped translate some of his writings for publication in English, namely “From the Parish of the Poor”). Not surprisingly, she must cope with this herself in the book: why does she love Haiti?
After setting the scene of the daily living conditions and the struggles to bring lasting changes, she starts to explore and debunk many of the concepts that informed, on the face of it, the ideas of both “neocolonialism” and perhaps (to a lesser extent) even “neoliberalism” (the Clintons, figuring prominently in the book, are sort of the neoliberalism “canaries in the mine”… when one thinks of what they helped bring about in America, a friendly business environment less concerned with labor or income distribution combined with the extension of global interconnection that later became, consciously in the second case or half-consciously in the first, the core practice of neoliberalism as a governing philosophy). Colonialism, for instance, always attempted to place upon itself the paternalistic scepter of “doing good”, “bringing populations to the right path”, or whatever, after it was done killing them or sending them to the mines (a particularly bracing passage in Farewell, Fred Voodoo details the genocide of portions of the Haitian population on the part of Christopher Columbus). The “good” face of “colonialism”, such as it is, however, doesn’t bring any lasting standard of living increase to the average Haitian. The wealthy disaster traveling set doesn’t get involved on the ground with conceiving realistic and bought-into ideas concerning housing renovation or economic development, but rather tries to impose by fiat from a safe remove.
Wilentz’s writing is both self-interrogating and warm, generous-minded and arch. It does not attempt to answer questions that cannot be answered.
Highly recommended.
After setting the scene of the daily living conditions and the struggles to bring lasting changes, she starts to explore and debunk many of the concepts that informed, on the face of it, the ideas of both “neocolonialism” and perhaps (to a lesser extent) even “neoliberalism” (the Clintons, figuring prominently in the book, are sort of the neoliberalism “canaries in the mine”… when one thinks of what they helped bring about in America, a friendly business environment less concerned with labor or income distribution combined with the extension of global interconnection that later became, consciously in the second case or half-consciously in the first, the core practice of neoliberalism as a governing philosophy). Colonialism, for instance, always attempted to place upon itself the paternalistic scepter of “doing good”, “bringing populations to the right path”, or whatever, after it was done killing them or sending them to the mines (a particularly bracing passage in Farewell, Fred Voodoo details the genocide of portions of the Haitian population on the part of Christopher Columbus). The “good” face of “colonialism”, such as it is, however, doesn’t bring any lasting standard of living increase to the average Haitian. The wealthy disaster traveling set doesn’t get involved on the ground with conceiving realistic and bought-into ideas concerning housing renovation or economic development, but rather tries to impose by fiat from a safe remove.
Wilentz’s writing is both self-interrogating and warm, generous-minded and arch. It does not attempt to answer questions that cannot be answered.
Highly recommended.
February 9, 2014
I had started Farewell, Fred Voodoo before the trip, so it was the only book I took with me in physical book format.
I finished it shortly after we landed, despite having watched a stupid Hollywood film on the plane, a long-standing flight policy of mine that goes something like this: I will never pay to watch this horrendous film that has nothing to do with reality and has molded some "true" story under the iron hammer of Hollywood formula into a hollow nothing, unless I am on a plane and it is right there and it's free. Clearly, it is a policy that I need to quit, but, alas, not this time.
The flight, being a February flight taking off in the middle of a snow storm at JFK to the Caribbean, was full of well-to-do white people, except, of course, one of the flight attendants, who had an accent that placed her somewhere in the Caribbean, but not exactly our destination. So there we were, on an almost-all-white flight with a super-large carbon footprint (the de-icing took an hour, and I do not even want to try to calculate the amount of environment we murdered during that time, let alone the flight, the stay, and the flight back) headed for a tropical paradise with a poor, mostly black population, of whom over 80% depend on tourism for their livelihood... A very good time to read Amy Wilentz's masochistic farewell to Fred Voodoo.
Incidentally, the film I chose to watch on our way to the islands was Captain Philips, whose commercial ship gets taken hostage by Somalian pirates, and who is eventually rescued by the brave US Navy. But, Captain Philips is a conscientious man, and he lets us understand some things during his painful stay with the Somalian criminals. (I will paraphrase the dialog based on notes I took on the plane, on the cardboard box of the Beef Up meal JetBlue was offering at a price equal to what a villager would earn in a month in the islands, I wager):
Philips: We're taking food to starving people in Africa... including some Somalians.
(an "Ah!" moment)
Inevitably, I am thinking of the Crisis Caravan and the foreign aid groups and religious missions...
Later, we learn something about why the pirates might be doing what they are doing:
Somalian pirate: I'm a fisherman. They came and took all our fish. What is left for us to fish?
(an "Aha!" moment)
Inevitably, I am thinking of Miami rice that flooded the Haitian market, and inadvertently took away the income of rice farmers in Haiti.
The crew of the captured vessel lay out a trap for one of the pirates, who cuts his foot on the glass shards they had hoped he would step on. Later, good Captain Philips bandages the pirate's foot. A bandaid solution, but a well intentioned one nevertheless, for a wound caused by the ship's crew, though one can easily argue the pirate brought it upon himself.
Meanwhile, the Somalian Pirate keep reassuring Captain Philips: "Everything will be OK." He smiles. I think, this would make a good shot for the photojournalists.
And he reveals his dream, of going to America, to New York.
Inevitably, I am thinking of Amy Wilentz's acquaintances, the Aristide boys, who now and then describe their dreams for the future, of which the most incredulous one is going to America.
And the semi-naive Captain Philips, like the missionaries and do-gooders in Wilentz's book, eventually realizes, and allows himself to pass a judgement on his captors: "You're not just a fisherman." He repeats this twice, unable to process, perhaps, how he had missed this fact in the beginning. He understands, truly understands, that he was their "white man." And the Captain seems to arrive at the conclusion that there is something wrong with the Somali pirate, something wrong beyond the fact that the is a jobless fisherman, rendered impotent by the colonial powers that be.
Inevitably, I am thinking of the foreign aid that is promised to Haiti, none of which is directly trusted in the hands of the Haitian government or Haitians, because, well, there is something wrong with them, isn't there? We want to help them, but all they want is to take take take and waste and never improve. This is, I presume, is how Captain Philips must be feeling.
Before Philips is rescued, he tries to understand and reason: "There's gotta be a better way than being a fisherman or kidnapping people."
Somalian pirate: "Maybe in America."
And the Somalian pirate does, in the end, go to America. He is told he will go to jail in America. And we now understand that the only way for him to really have gone to America was like this. What other way could there be for this unskilled ex-fisherman, who wasn't really a well-trained fisherman to begin with? We are left shaking our heads and feeling sorry for Captain Philips, and maybe, a little for the pirate, though rationally, we do not think he deserves much of our sympathy.
When we landed in our tropical paradise, we are very white. And everyone who is servicing us, cabbies, restaurant people, policemen... are black locals. The hotel owners are white, though they grew up on the islands, we are told. And we hire local businessmen for our excursions, all of whom were born and grew up on the very island we are vacationing away from the annoying crowds on the main island. For the most part, the locals we deal with are well educated. Some have worked in the US before. We do not feel out of place much, because we know, as racial as the divide seems, it is very much a class divide, the same class divide that we find vacationing in Turkey, where everyone is Caucasian to some degree, but those who serve and those who vacation clearly belong to different socioeconomic classes.
There is one incident that puts me right back into Amy Wilentz's book: I usually over-tip when on vacation in places like this, aware that this is very much appreciated by the people who work there. I tip the local guide who takes us around the caves more than 50%. I know, he is also getting 66% of the tour price to himself, the remaining portion goes to the island, presumably, for the maintenance of the protected area. But this is not enough; he asks me to pay the cab driver, too. Our hotel owners are very detailed in their directions and they have never mentioned this fee, and I know, I just know because I have been in similar situations before, that I am now officially the tour guide's "white man." I pay and smile. I sincerely hope he enjoys his earnings. But I can easily see how this can become a source of resentment very quickly.
When we are flying back, I count the number of non-white people in the airport (not just our flight, but a good 8 flights!): Four. We are at the airport for over 4 hours, and a total of four black people are among the ocean of white people with pink children are flying today.
In Farewell, Fred Voodoo Amy Wilentz reports not only the state of Haiti and its people, but on the complicated and often contradictory state of foreignness in this seemingly cursed, yet beautiful land. Wilentz's observations and experiences, which she dissects with relentless self-criticism and journalistic vigor, are very much the blueprint of the experiences of the privileged and lucky in the world, who may intend to help struggling nations and peoples, who may vacation in places that suffer from chronic poverty, who may do business in such developing countries.
Wilentz sets out to answer many questions, but one is very difficult to pin down an answer for: Why does she keep coming to Haiti? Why is she still there? What is she doing there? And the answer seems to be: to be useful. But even this is unsatisfactory, as she questions just how useful she is, or her book is, or how selfless, as she will put it on her resume, and earn something from the book sales, just like the doctors who rush to disaster areas and become celebrities based on their sacrifices, and the religious missions, who are, undoubtedly, doing good to be good in their God's eyes.
We met a couple during vacation. I told them about the book. The woman said she had been to Haiti several years ago. On a mission trip. I recommended she read Farewell, Fred Voodoo. I tried not to smile too widely.
I finished it shortly after we landed, despite having watched a stupid Hollywood film on the plane, a long-standing flight policy of mine that goes something like this: I will never pay to watch this horrendous film that has nothing to do with reality and has molded some "true" story under the iron hammer of Hollywood formula into a hollow nothing, unless I am on a plane and it is right there and it's free. Clearly, it is a policy that I need to quit, but, alas, not this time.
The flight, being a February flight taking off in the middle of a snow storm at JFK to the Caribbean, was full of well-to-do white people, except, of course, one of the flight attendants, who had an accent that placed her somewhere in the Caribbean, but not exactly our destination. So there we were, on an almost-all-white flight with a super-large carbon footprint (the de-icing took an hour, and I do not even want to try to calculate the amount of environment we murdered during that time, let alone the flight, the stay, and the flight back) headed for a tropical paradise with a poor, mostly black population, of whom over 80% depend on tourism for their livelihood... A very good time to read Amy Wilentz's masochistic farewell to Fred Voodoo.
Incidentally, the film I chose to watch on our way to the islands was Captain Philips, whose commercial ship gets taken hostage by Somalian pirates, and who is eventually rescued by the brave US Navy. But, Captain Philips is a conscientious man, and he lets us understand some things during his painful stay with the Somalian criminals. (I will paraphrase the dialog based on notes I took on the plane, on the cardboard box of the Beef Up meal JetBlue was offering at a price equal to what a villager would earn in a month in the islands, I wager):
Philips: We're taking food to starving people in Africa... including some Somalians.
(an "Ah!" moment)
Inevitably, I am thinking of the Crisis Caravan and the foreign aid groups and religious missions...
Later, we learn something about why the pirates might be doing what they are doing:
Somalian pirate: I'm a fisherman. They came and took all our fish. What is left for us to fish?
(an "Aha!" moment)
Inevitably, I am thinking of Miami rice that flooded the Haitian market, and inadvertently took away the income of rice farmers in Haiti.
The crew of the captured vessel lay out a trap for one of the pirates, who cuts his foot on the glass shards they had hoped he would step on. Later, good Captain Philips bandages the pirate's foot. A bandaid solution, but a well intentioned one nevertheless, for a wound caused by the ship's crew, though one can easily argue the pirate brought it upon himself.
Meanwhile, the Somalian Pirate keep reassuring Captain Philips: "Everything will be OK." He smiles. I think, this would make a good shot for the photojournalists.
And he reveals his dream, of going to America, to New York.
Inevitably, I am thinking of Amy Wilentz's acquaintances, the Aristide boys, who now and then describe their dreams for the future, of which the most incredulous one is going to America.
And the semi-naive Captain Philips, like the missionaries and do-gooders in Wilentz's book, eventually realizes, and allows himself to pass a judgement on his captors: "You're not just a fisherman." He repeats this twice, unable to process, perhaps, how he had missed this fact in the beginning. He understands, truly understands, that he was their "white man." And the Captain seems to arrive at the conclusion that there is something wrong with the Somali pirate, something wrong beyond the fact that the is a jobless fisherman, rendered impotent by the colonial powers that be.
Inevitably, I am thinking of the foreign aid that is promised to Haiti, none of which is directly trusted in the hands of the Haitian government or Haitians, because, well, there is something wrong with them, isn't there? We want to help them, but all they want is to take take take and waste and never improve. This is, I presume, is how Captain Philips must be feeling.
Before Philips is rescued, he tries to understand and reason: "There's gotta be a better way than being a fisherman or kidnapping people."
Somalian pirate: "Maybe in America."
And the Somalian pirate does, in the end, go to America. He is told he will go to jail in America. And we now understand that the only way for him to really have gone to America was like this. What other way could there be for this unskilled ex-fisherman, who wasn't really a well-trained fisherman to begin with? We are left shaking our heads and feeling sorry for Captain Philips, and maybe, a little for the pirate, though rationally, we do not think he deserves much of our sympathy.
When we landed in our tropical paradise, we are very white. And everyone who is servicing us, cabbies, restaurant people, policemen... are black locals. The hotel owners are white, though they grew up on the islands, we are told. And we hire local businessmen for our excursions, all of whom were born and grew up on the very island we are vacationing away from the annoying crowds on the main island. For the most part, the locals we deal with are well educated. Some have worked in the US before. We do not feel out of place much, because we know, as racial as the divide seems, it is very much a class divide, the same class divide that we find vacationing in Turkey, where everyone is Caucasian to some degree, but those who serve and those who vacation clearly belong to different socioeconomic classes.
There is one incident that puts me right back into Amy Wilentz's book: I usually over-tip when on vacation in places like this, aware that this is very much appreciated by the people who work there. I tip the local guide who takes us around the caves more than 50%. I know, he is also getting 66% of the tour price to himself, the remaining portion goes to the island, presumably, for the maintenance of the protected area. But this is not enough; he asks me to pay the cab driver, too. Our hotel owners are very detailed in their directions and they have never mentioned this fee, and I know, I just know because I have been in similar situations before, that I am now officially the tour guide's "white man." I pay and smile. I sincerely hope he enjoys his earnings. But I can easily see how this can become a source of resentment very quickly.
When we are flying back, I count the number of non-white people in the airport (not just our flight, but a good 8 flights!): Four. We are at the airport for over 4 hours, and a total of four black people are among the ocean of white people with pink children are flying today.
In Farewell, Fred Voodoo Amy Wilentz reports not only the state of Haiti and its people, but on the complicated and often contradictory state of foreignness in this seemingly cursed, yet beautiful land. Wilentz's observations and experiences, which she dissects with relentless self-criticism and journalistic vigor, are very much the blueprint of the experiences of the privileged and lucky in the world, who may intend to help struggling nations and peoples, who may vacation in places that suffer from chronic poverty, who may do business in such developing countries.
Wilentz sets out to answer many questions, but one is very difficult to pin down an answer for: Why does she keep coming to Haiti? Why is she still there? What is she doing there? And the answer seems to be: to be useful. But even this is unsatisfactory, as she questions just how useful she is, or her book is, or how selfless, as she will put it on her resume, and earn something from the book sales, just like the doctors who rush to disaster areas and become celebrities based on their sacrifices, and the religious missions, who are, undoubtedly, doing good to be good in their God's eyes.
We met a couple during vacation. I told them about the book. The woman said she had been to Haiti several years ago. On a mission trip. I recommended she read Farewell, Fred Voodoo. I tried not to smile too widely.
February 15, 2018
Amy Wilentz covers a lot of history, astute observations regarding disaster relief and the odd characters drawn to such situations and those specifically drawn to Haiti. This is the type of reading I recall falling in love with while a student at university. It makes me question everything from my own current government, to historical revolutions, to cultural differences and to my own motivations to travel to such a place (as we are soon doing). Haiti's story always seems so complicated, but Wilentz presents the story in a way that feels raw, authentic and somehow balanced - reminding the reader (ironically) that perhaps Haitians should be the ones to tell their stories and tackle their dilemmas.
I will carry many stories with me, but a few passages really stuck out:
"There is barely a moment in all Haitian history that has no relation to the United States. Haiti is like a fifty- first state, a shadow state, one that the United States wants to keep hidden in the attic and bears all the scars of the two countries' painful twinned narrative. " pg. 12
"But the fire was still in him [Frederick Douglass]. Standing there before the alter in the recently built church, he unloosed a blistering cannonade against American mercenaries who were busy fomenting internecine battles in Haiti, and told his receptive audience that the United States had "not yet forgiven Haiti for being black. " His words ring out from Chicago to this day. " pg. 90
"The Haitian Revolution was one of three defining revolutions of the 1700s, and as much as the American and French Revolutions, it has shaped the world we live in. It destroyed the era's economy of slave capitalism; it wrecked the global ruling powers' [desires] of eternal colonialism. The Haitian Revolution, outcome of the fervor and intelligence of so many unlettered and enslaved Fred Voodoos, anonymous but valiant warriors, also extended the ideas of the Rights of Man to all men and women; and it suggested the concept of labor rights that was later expanded on in Europe and, eventually, the whole world. It distracted Napoleon and forced him to sell the Louisiana Territory to the Americans, thereby turning the United States into a continental power. In addition, the slaves triumph in Haiti limited France's future economic power and ironically made an opening in the global economy for the rising United States, which was still the beneficiary of its own unpaid slave labor force. " pg. 91
"No one should co-opt someone else's pain. My rule is, don't be full of pity and charity. Don't feel sorry for them, rule number one. Be glad you're not in their situation, but don't pity. Their pain is theirs, and, in disasters and destroyed places, their pain and their survival are sometimes even important aspects of their identity. Don't pretend it's your story. Don't bee an occupier of their narrative; don't be an imperialist in their lives; don't colonize their victimization. " pg. 210
I will carry many stories with me, but a few passages really stuck out:
"There is barely a moment in all Haitian history that has no relation to the United States. Haiti is like a fifty- first state, a shadow state, one that the United States wants to keep hidden in the attic and bears all the scars of the two countries' painful twinned narrative. " pg. 12
"But the fire was still in him [Frederick Douglass]. Standing there before the alter in the recently built church, he unloosed a blistering cannonade against American mercenaries who were busy fomenting internecine battles in Haiti, and told his receptive audience that the United States had "not yet forgiven Haiti for being black. " His words ring out from Chicago to this day. " pg. 90
"The Haitian Revolution was one of three defining revolutions of the 1700s, and as much as the American and French Revolutions, it has shaped the world we live in. It destroyed the era's economy of slave capitalism; it wrecked the global ruling powers' [desires] of eternal colonialism. The Haitian Revolution, outcome of the fervor and intelligence of so many unlettered and enslaved Fred Voodoos, anonymous but valiant warriors, also extended the ideas of the Rights of Man to all men and women; and it suggested the concept of labor rights that was later expanded on in Europe and, eventually, the whole world. It distracted Napoleon and forced him to sell the Louisiana Territory to the Americans, thereby turning the United States into a continental power. In addition, the slaves triumph in Haiti limited France's future economic power and ironically made an opening in the global economy for the rising United States, which was still the beneficiary of its own unpaid slave labor force. " pg. 91
"No one should co-opt someone else's pain. My rule is, don't be full of pity and charity. Don't feel sorry for them, rule number one. Be glad you're not in their situation, but don't pity. Their pain is theirs, and, in disasters and destroyed places, their pain and their survival are sometimes even important aspects of their identity. Don't pretend it's your story. Don't bee an occupier of their narrative; don't be an imperialist in their lives; don't colonize their victimization. " pg. 210
June 12, 2023
Initially I thought I wouldn’t get through this book - I found the author’s voice to be so self-congratulatory, so smug in comparison to the other “white men” who come to Haiti without understanding the place or its people and who attempt charitable deeds in order to improve their own status. Nothing Wilentz says is untrue but it took a little while for her to start clumping herself in that pile as well. Once she did o was better able to credit her perspective. Wilentz describes ngo presence in Haiti in terms of effectiveness and ineffectiveness, and explains many of the hydra’s heads - the deep-rooted and complex issues that stymie change and growth in this country so unlike all the neighboring countries. The specific examples of Megan Coffee (the indefatigable doctor who has given her everything, no questions asked), Sean Penn (who has given much because he is able, and who may take credit for good deeds but who actually succeeds at doing them) and Denis O’ Brian (the brash Irishman bringing 21st century communication to Haiti, for better and for worse) are pitted against some religious groups, political clans (Clinton among them) and cheap stars (the Kardashian name is brought out). I found myself more and more interested in the book as I got deeper into it, and by the end felt that I had actually experienced an authentic exchange about Haiti - one that doesn’t pretend to be objective or complete, but at least one that tries to be transparent and devoid of any motivation other than telling the story of Haiti. In the end it is really a profound read in its discussion of the role of NGOs and on the nation of Haiti.
January 8, 2019
Having read the author's first book, The Rainy Season, I was interested in this collection of essays. I am traveling to Haiti with a group in a few weeks and was interested in Wilentz' thoughts about race and aid, among other topics. While her first book was well-written but very dense with history and politics, this book is more about her own thinking about Haiti. She does interview people -- aid workers, Haitians, some politicians -- but mostly this is her wondering what Haiti needs and who should be helping them get it. I appreciated her thoughtfulness and feel as prepared as I'm going to be to head to Haiti soon...
June 16, 2018
I am always trying to learn more about Haiti and its culture. While I appreciated the author's firsthand perspective, I would have liked to have heard more about the positive spirit of the Haitian people. I imagine it would be frustrating to watch mission group after mission group coming to Haiti trying to help but really exacerbating the problem at times. It would have been nice to have read about some proposed solutions instead of just coming down on those who have good intentions in their heart to help a country they love.
June 17, 2019
I have read many books about Haiti, and this one stands out. Wilentz, a former reporter for Time Magazine, has a journalist's questioning mind. There are no easy answers when it comes to addressing the problems of Haiti. This is a personal journey, written in an engaging voice, like a friend talking with you over a cup of coffee about their love affair with a country that's is filled with heartache. Thank you, Amy Wilentz.
November 27, 2025
very enlightening trip to haiti with a wonderful guide..her writing just invites you along with a warm and witty, self-deprecating and intelligently critical perspective on the outsiders who come to haiti as helpers, and particularly here those reacting to the earthquake. i want to read everything she's written.
February 3, 2019
Fascinating book -- includes history, current politics, colorful characters --it felt like a confessional --as to why are foreigners lured by Haiti -- and what can we possibly do it there to help -- if anything. An honest account by a great writer.
January 6, 2017
i love books about Haiti, and always enjoy reading books by Amy Wilentz (I loved th Rainy Season and read it a few times.) this was an interesting and engaging description of post earthquake Haiti.
February 11, 2020
Deeply intelligent, written with empathy and soul. Superb book, it will take you into the heart of a complex, vibrant, resonant world. Gripping reading, the pages will turn by themselves.
June 23, 2023
Excellent reflections on the situation, honest and observant narrative.
December 22, 2014
Nearly five years ago, an earthquake devastated Haiti. I thought I would do some reading on the subject and find how how much progress, if any, has been made. Amy Wilentz has written about Haiti extensively, well before the earthquake, and in Farewell Fred Voodoo, she offers her valuable insights.
What could we do for Haiti, if anything, and conversely what did Haiti do for us? What kept us here? Why did some of us come back again, and again? Like me.
Wilentz examines these questions throughout the book, but if you're a humanitarian looking to cure your cynnicsm, or if you're someone who
donated money to a Haiti relief fund after the quake, you might want to skip this one. However, if you're interested in learning more about America's relationship with it's third-world neighbor, and how humanitarian aid really works, (think: Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine) this book is a real eye opener. For example:
The lack of in-country investment by the money-making class is one reason Haiti has been so reliant on foreign aid, both before and after the earthquake. But in the world of foreign aid, things do not work the way most people would imagine they do. According to the Associated Press, most of the $379 million initially allocated by the U.S. for aid to Haiti after the earthquake did not go to Haiti or Haitians... These foreign aid figures highlight the real purpose of aid to Haiti both before and after the earthquake, which is to funnel money to the guys who, the Americans beleive, can make things work here—which is to say, Americans.
Well it might not be as bad as it sounds. More likely it's worse. Reagan's dream come true? Wilentz makes the case:
It often seems as if Haiti is the perfect example of what would happen if Ronald Reagan's dream of a privitized state should become a reality. One day, years ago, when I was walking around downtown Port-au-Prince, I realized that I was living in Reagan's fantasy world. So this is what he wants, I thought. As I walked through the streets of the Belair neighborhood, I saw private schools, private water trucks, stolen and microprivatized electricity, private sanitation (the bayakou) when there was any. The private sector, such as it was, had taken its place in the state vacuum long before Aristide, in negotiations to get Clinton's backing for his return from exile in 1994, agreed to further privatization of Haiti's few state-run entities.
Of course not every humanitarian aid worker in Haiti is a free-market capitalist wolf in sheep's clothing. But as Wilentz describes, the more well-meaning and genuine you are the more trouble you are up against, as in the case of the missionaries Gerson and Heather Nozea. The following scene is like something right out of a Quentin Terantino film:
"Well the DEA guy takes out a gun," Gerson says. "The German pulls out a gun too. So here's the situation: we own the land, the DEA guy owns it, and now the people, too, are telling us they own it, and thugs from the tent camp next door are saying they own it too. The thugs get in a fight and one of them breaks the arm of a guy who tries to convince everyone to calm down—all of this in front of a fresh mission group from the states who have no idea what's going on." Finally the Nozeas in their confusion and desperation go to the local authorities. They complain: four different people say they own our land, which we've already bought. They look expectantly at the official over his big desk. He smiles and says, oh don't worry, it's simple: That's government land.
Wilentz also gives adequate time to Sean Penn, which seems appropriate enough given the star's unique classification of celebrity-aid-worker, and as such, his ability to make things happen and get things done.
She also spends time questioning—sometimes dipping into existential doubt—the role of the writer or journalist covering the the pain and suffering of others.
No one should co-opt someone else's pain. My rule is don't be full of pity and charity. Don't feel sorry for them, rule number one. Be glad you're not in their situation, but don't pity. Their pain is theirs, and, in disasters and destroyed places, their pain and their survival are sometimes even important aspects of their identity. Don't pretend it's your story. Don't be an occupier of their narrative; don't be an imperialist in their lives; don't colonize their victimization.
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August 6, 2018
This book is a must, especially for anyone interested in doing social justice. It voices nearly all my concerns regarding modern takes on imperialism in Haiti, a country with much (well-deserved) pride and dignity. It also forces reflection on unsustainable forms of "foreign aid" (hand-outs).
April 23, 2013
Amy Wilentz has spent over thirty years traveling in Haiti writing extensively about the country including the award-winning book The Rainy Season about the post-Duvalier years. Yet Wilentz is emphatic that she is an outsider simply because she is non-Haitian, a status that will never change and give her choices unknown to most Haitians. To be an outsider places her among the hordes of aid workers, missionaries, celebrities and assorted “do-gooders” who descended upon Haiti. She knows Haiti better than most because of this honesty about who she is and is not, which enables her to hear the deeper stories of the people of Haiti whom she loves. This memoir - she calls it a letter from Haiti - captures the complexity of this poorly understood country and strips away the romance of the well-intended missioners, philanthropists, and aid workers while exposing the worst of the various government interventions by the USA and other countries. Wilentz is an eloquent writer who is able to get inside Sean Penn, describing the best of his post-earthquake work while not flinching at the celebrity magnet that he has become. “He’s a peculiar and unexpected person, in an unexpected situation, and all those who predicted failure and combat fatigue for him were wrong.” With searing honesty she recounts a conversation with a Haitian friend about those who step in and out of Haiti so easily. “Her point was that poverty, or even just some discomfort, is not so bad when you know that with a snap of your fingers, it can come to an end, and you’ll get up that morning, inch through traffic to the airport, hop on your flight, take off, plunge into a well-deserved nap, and, on waking, change into fresh clothes, only to find yourself that evening ordering a dozen or so small plates and drinking large cocktails with some friends.”
Wilentz has no respect for those who use Haiti for their own purposes and impose ideas upon the people as if they were ignorant and unable to do anything for themselves. It is this arrogance of outsiders with their ideas about “development” or “protection” that has contributed disastrous consequences in the complicated history of Haiti. And, she notes, Haitians know their history. She lifts up several people for particular critical scrutiny, like Bill Clinton and former President Betrand Aristide whom she knows well. Wilentz is also careful to shine a light upon the quiet, unknown noble ones who are doing remarkable work, like Megan Coffey the young physician who came after the earthquake and remains to this day. To her patients, Dr. Coffee is “miraculous, a kindly, heavenly phenomenon, even though she never puts on airs and is always matter-of-fact and responsive, rather than grand for godly.” This quality sets her apart from others who come to Haiti and often leave bewildered and tired. “[Dr. Coffee] never talks about exhaustion or fatigue. She never mentions being afraid or worrying about her health or security or about the dangers in Haiti. She’s averse to such subjects. She’s a person who simply rises to a situation with no pretension.”
Of the books written about Haiti this is the most well written and truthful of them all.
Wilentz has no respect for those who use Haiti for their own purposes and impose ideas upon the people as if they were ignorant and unable to do anything for themselves. It is this arrogance of outsiders with their ideas about “development” or “protection” that has contributed disastrous consequences in the complicated history of Haiti. And, she notes, Haitians know their history. She lifts up several people for particular critical scrutiny, like Bill Clinton and former President Betrand Aristide whom she knows well. Wilentz is also careful to shine a light upon the quiet, unknown noble ones who are doing remarkable work, like Megan Coffey the young physician who came after the earthquake and remains to this day. To her patients, Dr. Coffee is “miraculous, a kindly, heavenly phenomenon, even though she never puts on airs and is always matter-of-fact and responsive, rather than grand for godly.” This quality sets her apart from others who come to Haiti and often leave bewildered and tired. “[Dr. Coffee] never talks about exhaustion or fatigue. She never mentions being afraid or worrying about her health or security or about the dangers in Haiti. She’s averse to such subjects. She’s a person who simply rises to a situation with no pretension.”
Of the books written about Haiti this is the most well written and truthful of them all.
June 6, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars The enigma of Haiti
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 18, 2021
Verified Purchase
Haiti remains an enigma to most of us. We wonder how this tropical island jewel, set in a sparkling aquamarine sea, replete with numerous agricultural crops and natural resources remains stuck in perpetual poverty. Plagued by disease, starvation and unceasing political corruption, it's inhabitants appear incapable of surmounting the troubles that are their history and heritage.
In her 2013 book, Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter From Haiti, Literary Journalist Amy Wilentz beams a sharp light on the subject. Immediately following the devastating 2010 earthquake aid groups and monetary support poured into the country. Everyone from Sean Penn to Kim Kardashian got involved yet strangely, after an initial feeble recovery, Haiti has remained mired in a centuries long state of decline.
With her cultural immersion over a period of decades, her ability to speak the native language (Haitian Creole) and her keen understanding Wilentz enlightens us to the deep distrust its inhabitants hold toward outsiders and do-gooders.
She takes us on a tour of the cultural influences including everything from Voodoo to Zombies and pulls back the curtain exposing the political machinations working to keep Haiti stuck.
This book was eye-opening. It is a must read for anyone who ponders how the world really works (or doesn't). It sheds light on the true motivations behind "helping" governments and organizations.
Wilentz shows us that the magical belief that outsiders are capable of pulling a country out of pain and poverty is destined to fail. She demonstrates that only genuine and earned trust, perhaps most importantly of the inhabitants trust in themselves must play the largest role in any sort of true recovery. We gain insight to the instinct and self preservation of the native Haitians and understand at a higher level the complexities of culture and history that profoundly shape a nation.
FIVE STARS.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 18, 2021
Verified Purchase
Haiti remains an enigma to most of us. We wonder how this tropical island jewel, set in a sparkling aquamarine sea, replete with numerous agricultural crops and natural resources remains stuck in perpetual poverty. Plagued by disease, starvation and unceasing political corruption, it's inhabitants appear incapable of surmounting the troubles that are their history and heritage.
In her 2013 book, Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter From Haiti, Literary Journalist Amy Wilentz beams a sharp light on the subject. Immediately following the devastating 2010 earthquake aid groups and monetary support poured into the country. Everyone from Sean Penn to Kim Kardashian got involved yet strangely, after an initial feeble recovery, Haiti has remained mired in a centuries long state of decline.
With her cultural immersion over a period of decades, her ability to speak the native language (Haitian Creole) and her keen understanding Wilentz enlightens us to the deep distrust its inhabitants hold toward outsiders and do-gooders.
She takes us on a tour of the cultural influences including everything from Voodoo to Zombies and pulls back the curtain exposing the political machinations working to keep Haiti stuck.
This book was eye-opening. It is a must read for anyone who ponders how the world really works (or doesn't). It sheds light on the true motivations behind "helping" governments and organizations.
Wilentz shows us that the magical belief that outsiders are capable of pulling a country out of pain and poverty is destined to fail. She demonstrates that only genuine and earned trust, perhaps most importantly of the inhabitants trust in themselves must play the largest role in any sort of true recovery. We gain insight to the instinct and self preservation of the native Haitians and understand at a higher level the complexities of culture and history that profoundly shape a nation.
FIVE STARS.
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