Читать книгу The Seven Year-Old Pilot - Capt. Steven Archille - Страница 19

With my dad being one of six kids and Mom one of seven, I had more cousins than I could count. After our trip to visit my grandparents and neighbors up in Fort Jacques, most of the rest of our time that summer was split between our house in Delmas and my Uncle Moliere’s house. Uncle Moliere had a large, two level, five-bedroom house that had a wrap-around balcony even larger than the one my parents had. He and his wife had seven kids of their own: five of whom still lived at home. I was sixteen at the time, and my cousin Darby, age seventeen and I instantly became best friends. Also in the house were his two big brothers, both in their early twenties, Elrood and Walter, along with his younger twin sisters Judith and Jemima, who were both my age. The two eldest sisters in his family, my cousins Venante and Nancy, were actually living with us at my parent’s apartment in New York. Mom and Dad, over the years, had taken in many family members from both sides who arrived from Haiti and needed somewhere to stay as they got settled. Everyone from my uncles, aunts, countless cousins, and friends of the family would, at one time or another call my parent’s apartment in the projects, and later their house on Staten Island, home. Mom and Dad both had generous spirits, and they always tried to help as many people as they could. While the nucleus of the seven of us was always there, rarely were there only seven of us living in our home. However, while many cousins would come and go from our house over the years, this was the first time I was meeting these particular cousins. Betty and I were immediately taken by how fascinating, friendly, and just downright cool they all were. Mom and Dad spent their days visiting friends and family scattered all around the capital, and Mom would take my three younger siblings with her most of the time, so Betty and I got to hang out around town having fun with our older cousins, learning what it was like to be a teenager growing up in Haiti.

The days went by quickly with my family and I making the most of every minute of our time that summer. Although we were scattered around during the week, my parents always reunited the whole family every Sunday, and we went to a different church each time. After, we visited family and friends and had dinner at one of their homes, as was customary Haiti. Dad’s cousin Lucane, an engineer, and his wife Bernadette had a lovely house perched up in the hills on the side of cliff in an exclusive area called Black Mountain, with a view looking down onto the city of Port-Au-Prince below, and we had a couple of Sunday dinners there complete with music and good times. Uncle Lamartine and his wife Aunt Patricia, the American missionary whom he had married many years before, also had a beautiful house that they shared with their three daughters, Peggee, who was my age, Leanna, who was Betty’s age, and Jacqueline who was a few years younger. Uncle Lamartine was a tall, elegant man with a very calm, almost regal demeanor. I never saw him get angry or even raise his voice once. We went to their home a few times for dinner, and Betty spent a few nights there since she was around the same age as Uncle Lamartine’s girls.

As we visited family and friends all around the city, I was struck by how well my family and friends lived in comparison to the impoverished people all around us. A minority in Haiti were very rich (like the corrupt politicians, some business people, and entertainers) while another minority, such as my family and most of our family and friends, were in Haiti’s version of the middle-class, which meant that we lived very comfortable lives. This left the unfortunate majority of the population as very poor. In later years, after the start of my airline career, as I traveled to other developing countries like Brazil, Mexico, The Dominican Republic, and India, I observed the same dynamic in differing degrees: a very small middle class, an even smaller wealthy class, while the majority was poor. I would come to realize that in the developed countries, such as the US, Western Europe, and some parts of Asia, the majority of people were in the middle class. They were the ones working, paying taxes, and acting as the backbone of society. I wondered when my little Haiti would be that way.

The days and nights that we did spend at our own home were like a dream. Just like at Uncle Moliere’s house, breakfast, which was prepared by our maid, greeted us on the table whenever we decided to wake up. Our house at Delmas 65 was closer to the center of town than some of the houses of our other family members were, and the balcony had a view that encapsulated the class divisions in Haiti and the gulf between rich and poor. It looked out over a dry river valley full of little aluminum-roofed shacks, where many of Haiti’s poor lived. On the other side of the valley and along our street, were big, beautiful houses even larger than ours. Most of the maids and watchmen who lived in those small shacks in the valley worked for families such as ours. Many of the maids, watchmen, and other domestic workers were illiterate and sadly had been working since childhood. My mom and dad always paid them more than the going rate for domestic help and always gave them a little extra when they were leaving to go back to the US. That day finally came again, and it was time to say goodbye to our family, friends, and to our “Haiti Cherie” (dear Haiti). As we boarded our plane back to New York, I wondered when I would visit my birthplace again.

As we left our little palace of a home at Delmas number 65 in poor little Haiti, I thought of how ironic it was that although we were going back to the rich US, we would be returning to our little apartment in the projects. Here in Haiti, we had been living in the virtual lap of luxury in our own large home complete with a maid and a watchman, while on Staten Island, we had no house to call our very own. Mom and Dad later told us that our trip to Haiti, when they had to bring us back to that little apartment in the projects, brought on a new sense of urgency in them to buy a house. Although they had been saving for many years towards that goal, they kicked their plans into high gear as soon as we returned home late in the summer of 1989, and by February 1990, our family’s dream and the dream of many immigrant families had finally come true: we owned our own home. It was located on a quiet tree-lined street on Staten Island, the house number... 65.