Ayiti Quotes

Everything I know about my family’s history, I know in fragments. We are the keepers of secrets. We are secrets ourselves. We try to protect each other from the geography of so much sorrow. I don’t know that we succeed.

The waters did not run deep. It was just a border between two geographies of grief.

For many years, we didn't realize our parents had accents, that their voices sounded different to unkind American ears. All we heard was home. Then the world intruded. It always does.

I step away as I notice a group of young, angry men walking toward us. I doubt that there is any particular reason for their anger. It is the anger that most men feel these days; they are angry about their impotence and their desires and their reality. It is an anger we all feel. But it is an anger only men can freely express.

Dominicans are, in fact, Haitians by default Since the natives named the whole Island Ayiti Ignoring this fact makes you a dolt We are all Creole, just different mentality

He started talking about his marriage. I leaned across the table and pressed two fingers against his lips. ‘Let’s not do that. Let’s not sit here and tell each other everything there is to know about who we once loved. I am tired of listening to men talk about their regrets.

Some mornings we wake, our stomachs empty, our stomachs angry, but never do we look to the ground beneath our feet with longing in our mouths. We chew on our pride. The dirt we do not eat.

Just a little closer, my love.  Please, please, please! I just need to get a wee bit closer.  I need to feel you, the very core of you, wrapped around me.  I’ve been a good boy, been good for God for almost eight years.  I just need this.  Just a bit more.   Oh, yes.  It’s alright.  I’ve been good.  Very, very good.  I deserve this, I need this…God will understand…I need you, my sexy love, I need more.  I deserve more.  We won’t go too far.  God knows I can handle more…

Dear God, I am so, so very sorry, Lord.  I confess my sins to You.  I confess that had it not been for You, I would have deliberately sinned with my body against You and her.  I love her, Lord.  I desire her more than anyone, or anything, in my entire life.  What I allowed myself to do, Lord, is inexcusable and I am so sorry.  In addition to not sinning against You, Lord, I want to give Ayiti the ultimate respect.  I love her too much to defile her that way, but yet, operating in my flesh, I nearly did!  Please, God, forgive me.  Give me the strength to pursue her with my heart, and mind, and spirit, until it is time to give her my body—upon our marriage, if that is truly Your will.  Forgive me, Lord…

There are things that God reserves only for man and wife.  The way I felt, when I was kissing you, were feelings that definitely need to stay between a man and his wife, or they could get out of hand.  I needed to put a stop to things before it got to be too late to stop.  I am a man of God, but still, just a man, after all.”  Images of us being hot and…hotter, in the corner of the room, invade my mind again.  I let out a deep, steadying breath.  “My God!  I have never kissed, or have been kissed, that way!

Le progrès ne connaît pas la gentillesse et la nature humaine ne peut résister à l'attrait du possible.

La liberté, semble-t-il, a un prix. On nous définit par ce que nous ne sommes pas et ce que nous n'avons pas.

I will never regret this decision, no matter what happens to us.

Freedom, it seems, has a price. We are defined by what we are not and what we do not have.

I was supposed to start a clinic here. I had everything ready to go and then that girl disappeared from your school. I got scared. The threats came in their little baggies. I shut everything down because I was scared. The anger in this country, it is not like Ayiti. I used to think it was gone. Or neutered. But it is here. It is a matter of who gets to be angry and who gets to seek vengeance or claim justice. The anger here is not the kind that starts revolutions, it is the kind that wages wars. We fight other countries, the news, the politicians, all fight fight fight and bicker bicker bicker. There are lines and systems—rules of engagement. In Ayiti, the government and the people have an uneasy deal. They cross each other often. When I lived there, it made me edgy. The way things are here, people go so far out of their way to smile to your face and stab you in the back. Even with the language: English. You have to put together so many words to be understood. That is not even being heard, just understood.” Her eyes go back to the deer. She