BUT WAIT a minute. There’s something dat I see pon the news last night and now last Wednesday I see it in the papers too.
It is wid “Baby Doc”, dat fella from Haiti who was living in exile for the past 20-something years, who just turn up in dat country Sunday gone. His real name is Jean-Claude Duvalier. The paper say dat he said dat he came back tuh Haiti tuh help.
You imagine dat? He fuh real? Under he and his father, dem people in Haiti see a fair amount o’ hell and God knows duh still seeing hell. I will continue tuh pray fuh Haiti because duh really ain’t need nuh more pain. Dem poor people have been seeing it rough fuh not only a few years, but fuh decades. It has been one thing after the other; one dictator after the other; one tragedy after the other; one storm after the other; one coup after the other; a massive earthquake and now dat killer disease called cholera. While all o’ this going on, people coming and going as if they making mock sport at these poor people. And now Baby Doc come back; wuh loss!
After the earthquake, the president – I think he name Preval – just couldn’t function. He couldn’t find he head from he tail; the man like he was seriously out of it. Then dat entertainer guy Wyclef Jean, who lives in the United States, announced dat he was going back tuh Haiti tuh run fuh the presidency, but he get disqualify. Well, suh far duh had some kinda election and I ain’t hear nutten ’bout anything. Up tuh now I cahn tell you wha’ went on, wha’ going on, who in or who out. I ain’t even know if duh got a president at all yet. Duh ’bout there doing as duh like wid dem poor people lives and now up steps “Baby Doc” out o’ the wood work, saying dat he come back tuh help. Huh! I ain’t know, hear?
I think it was last week when I see a picture in The NATION wid throngs o’ people in some kinda rally in the streets of Port-au-Prince raising duh hands, praising and thanking God even in their sad situation. Dem is some resilient people, hear wuh I tell ya? You could imagine dat up tuh now some o’ dem poor people who lost duh homes in the earthquake still living in makeshift tents? I was hearing the other day dat some o’ dem poor people ain’t see half, if any, o’ the things dat people here in Barbados and all through the Caribbean pack in containers and ship cross there. And dat ain’t got nothing tuh do wid the monies dat people all over the place collected fuh Haiti.
I was watching the ABC channel the other night, and I see dat young anchorman who does read the six o’clock news walking up and down in Port-au-Prince, looking at the rubble, and he was saying dat even after a whole year it looks like nothing of any great significance had been done. He was walking through the ruins and rubble of the Catholic Church dat came down in the earthquake.
And dat is why dis Baby Doc thing got me. Why after all o’ this time he would now want tuh come back tuh such an impoverished country after living comfortably in France all these years?
How come he, Baby Doc, who Amnesty International considers a wanted man fuh corruption and embezzlement of millions from his Haiti, could just saunter back into the country with not a word from France, the States or nuhwhere else? Yet Aristide, who was a democratically elected president and who was forced outta office by the same Western powers and into exile in South Africa, cahn come back tuh help the very people who elected him, but a man like Baby Doc could come back easy so. Huh?
But uh gine tell ya something though, fuh a man who supposedly had suhmuch wealth, living fat off the hog of Haiti, and then resting comfortably in France fuh all o’ these years, Baby Doc look real old; he look much older than 59.
This is another interesting twist in Haiti. I only pray tuh God dat he ain’t coming back tuh brek up dem poor people nuh more.• Mavis Beckles was born and raised in The Orleans. She has an opinion on everything.
