Ghostbusting

The week of Carnival has set the stage for a showdown between the pagan voodoo forces which are still pervasive in the Haitian countryside and the devout Christian congregation here in Cathor. The church has been holding extended services (eight hours alone on Sunday) and the congregation will convene every evening this week beginning at 6:00 p.m. The worship is characterized by a unified chanting, a disembodied swaying, that at times verges on thrashing, and a high-pitched shrieking, all interspersed by impromptu soliloquies to God. Despite these diligent efforts, however, the evil spirits were able to “infect” at least seven members of the congregation Sunday, including Actionnel’s nephew, Wilgar. The symptoms of the possessed do not include fever or headache but range from speaking in tongues with late family members to lying prostrate on the ground and rasping one’s lips. Actionnel, who I hoped to turn to for an explanation, has been in Port au Prince and Gonaives, so I am left with a limited understanding of the phenomenon. It has been requested that I make house calls to the “diseased”, as they have been so eloquently referred to by Jacques Elie, and that I pray to God that He prevail in the battle of good vs. evil. The school is on vacation so that the vacuum left by the singing children has been replaced by the rustling of mango leaves and the portentous cawing of crows. Even the weather has contributed its part to this eeriest of weeks by blowing spontaneous gusts of wind that send a chill up one’s spine and furnishing large charcoal clouds that block out the sun almost entirely during the middle of the day. The flickering of the lights due to a misunderstanding between the solar power system and the generator, right at the pinnacle of the religious ceremonies, was icing on the cake.