This Week’s Top Stories About Haiti
Hopes, fights, emancipation. Haitian daily life is rich in content. Some daily facts are closely linked to the history of the country and the people. These facts, these events, these stories, when you listen to them or when you overlook them, arouse in you a feeling that encourages you to hold the dragee high, not to give up, to show bravery despite all. We invite you to discover (or rediscover) perhaps even immerse yourself in this melting pot through This Week’s Top Stories About Haiti.
Source: Royal Caribbean
1-Cruise ships returning to Labadee
After a long absence due to Covid-19, cruise ships are back in Labadee (Cap-Haitien), northern Haiti. Indeed, Harmony of the seas’ the cruise ship that inaugurated tourists’ return to Labadee. Two thousand eight hundred ninety-six (2,896) passengers and 1,979 crew members have been in the harbor this Thursday, January 27, 2022, since 9 a.m. Departure was scheduled for 6 a.m. Other cruise ships will arrive in the coming days.
This is an essential step towards strengthening the capital of the various players and tourism operators at the department level. For almost two years, it had been stagnating due to restrictions linked to COVID-19.
Note that Labadie is one of the most beautiful seaside resorts in the Caribbean, located a few tens of kilometers on the northern coast of Cap-Haitien.
2- The legendary Haitian comedian known as Alcibiade has been making people laugh since 1967
Who of this generation has not known Alcibiades?
With his radio soap opera broadcast Sunday on Caribbean FM for more than 25 years, the man with the shaky voice still attracts thousands of pairs of ears. The various pranks, the thundering “oh, hohoho” of the big devil, the stories of bewitchment, the misunderstandings, and of course the inevitable moral lesson of the end, constitute in a way its trademark.
Initially, a passion was satisfied by Nicolas Pierre Rollin, with minor roles, small sketches staged here and there, from 1967, for the great pleasure of the residents of the rue Tiremasse. In the very heart of the Bel-Air area where he was born and where he grew up. 500 plays later, Biade and his comic stories had a loyal audience that followed them from Radiodiffusion haïtienne (RDH), then to MBC radio, and, since 1983, to Caribbean radio. This is an absolute record. For laughter, for a show, for an actor. There was undoubtedly a downtime between 1987 and 1999, but no one remembers it as it seems that Alcibiades and his troupe had always been present since 1967.
Alcibiade, who died on Friday, January 21, at the age of 83, remained a reference for the quality and depth of his texts. His works, broadcast every Sunday on Radio Caraïbes, depict social reality by highlighting the flaws and mores of society. Behind his contributions, we detect a character with many faces, including that of an intransigent father, a court guardian ready to satisfy his bosses by playing spies.
One of a kind, Alcibiades stood out for his vocal timbre and his ability to alternate roles and characters. His successful instructive plays always convey a message and a life lesson. True satyrs reflecting the mores of society, Alcibiades’ plays carried generational information.
Haiti-Tempo | Haiti-Tempo
The American basketball player of the Brooklyn Nets, James Harden, donated sports equipment to young Haitians practicing basketball. He shared the news on his social networks on January 19, 2022, after giving an intervention to Yahoo Sport. Through his Impact 13 Foundation, the athlete has distributed nearly five thousand essential materials to children in Haiti. They benefited from backpacks, socks, shoes, Adidas basketballs, water bottles, and personal hygiene products such as deodorant shower gel, among others.
In addition, according to the player, the GoPuff platform has partnered with the Impact13 Foundation to donate 3,000 personal hygiene products, particularly condoms, tampons, sanitary napkins, and postpartum underwear. This gesture is for Harden, stimulating other people to make the same gesture to help Haiti.
“Leading by example is the best way to inspire others to step up and join the effort to help change lives for the better,” he told Yahoo Sports.
“I read about poverty in Haiti and the disadvantages they face every day, and I want to make sure I’m doing my part to help where I can,” added the superstar.
Note that Harden has partnered with the Barbancourt Foundation and the Haitian artist Olivier A. Ganthier to build a new basketball court that will present the works of the latter.
With this construction, he said he wants to leave something special for generations to come. This court will be an excellent opportunity for young people to practice basketball in a safe place to pursue their dreams of making it to the NBA. or in WNB, added James Harden, taking advantage of praising the beauty of Haiti and the resilience of the citizens.
4-Me Jacques Letang laureate of the Franco-German Human Rights Prize
Me Jacques Letang, President of the Bar Federation and head of the Human Rights Office in Haiti, won the Franco-German Human Rights Prize. The award ceremony was held on Saturday, January 22, at the French Ambassador to Haiti’s residence in Bourdon. The Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law, established in 2016, annually honors human rights defenders worldwide, lawyers, and journalists who campaign for the truth. The ambassadors of France, Germany, Spain, the European Union, the public protector, Renand Hédouville, the president of FOKAL, Michelle D. Pierre Louis, etc., all took part in the awards ceremony.
It is a tribute to those who, every day, devote their strength and energy to fighting for human rights, to denouncing violations of the law, even if it means putting their lives at risk.
Source: Parole En Archipel
5-Dany Laferrière will enter the Grévin Museum
The wax statue of the academician will enter the Grevin Museum in Paris. The writer joins other big-name wax figures from the famed museum. Signed by the sculptor Claus Velt, the statue bearing the effigy of the writer will be visible to museum visitors from Wednesday, February 2, 2022. It took six months of work for the sculptor Claus Velt to create this wax figure.
Haitians can be proud since their country was elected the Most Beautiful Country in the world during a gala evening in Port-au-Prince Tuesday, January 25, 2022. Awards also saw the Haitian people win the envied title of People the friendliest on the planet.
6- The “Soup Joumou” enters the intangible cultural heritage of humanity
The recipe for “soup joumoun,” a culinary art and symbol of independence in Haiti, is now part of UNESCO’s cultural heritage of humanity. Indeed, the Intangible Cultural Heritage Committee has just decided to include pumpkin soup on the Representative List of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
Among the ambassadors, those of Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Poland, Switzerland, Tunisia, Djibouti, Japan, Peru, Sri Lanka, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Sweden, of Poland, in particular, defended this candidacy.
But above all, what must be appreciated is the “elegance” of the Swiss representative. “If today we accept the candidacy of pumpkin soup on the list, it is not out of generosity because of the exceptional circumstances that Haiti is going through, but it is because of the quality of the file. The criteria were respected and that, it must be underlined”, indeed supported Muriel Berset Kohen.
In the past, many enslaved people, who nevertheless cultivated the squash essential to its preparation, were deprived of it, its tasting being reserved for French plantation masters.
Meat, vegetables, pasta, pumpkin squash, and a taste of freedom, the joumou soup is a way to invite the world to “discover the history of Haiti,” and a way to show “how we are a proud people, that we appropriate and perpetuate the tradition of our ancestors.
We start preparing the soup on December 31 in the afternoon, while having marinated the meat the day before, and then we start cooking in the afternoon. The preparation requires a good organization, but it is, above all, a great moment of sharing. We meet early enough to prepare together. Everyone gets their hands dirty, all generations participate.
The soup cooks all evening, sits all night, and is ready to delight the family the next day, January 1.
It is the first meal shared by the first black people of humanity. On January 1, 1804, the wife of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the father of Haiti’s independence, decreed that this soup was the national soup. A booty of this anti-colonial war that he had just won because the soup, during the colony, was reserved for the colonists, prepared by the enslaved people who were not allowed to drink it because they were not “civilized.”
7-A rising star has passed away
If you have been on the Facebook page of Thòy’Art only once, the name of Nègès Da is probably familiar to you. The little Dalanchika Malbranche of her real name was barely eight years old when she became involved in the singing and the declamation of strongly social text.
Nègès Da, a sunny little girl, was brilliant, endowed with a powerful voice, an asset much sought after, especially by directors. When she put on her fortune-telling cap, it was marvelous. As for singing and acting, let’s not even talk about it.
Cheerful, fiery, an absolute ball of energy, this is how we can describe the protege of Martine Phebe dit Toya. The latter is the head of the “Mouvman Agrilki ak Elevaj” which invites the youngest to devote themselves to working the land to fight deforestation. During one of her planting sessions in 2019, Phebe met Dalanchika, who dazzled her with her intelligence and talent for singing, says Cadet Germanie, the girl’s mother, in a viral video since. Little on the web.
Young and so go-getter, nothing seemed to scare her; she took songs from the most imminent Haitian artists. According to those in charge of the structure, she always had to learn and recite texts, even those which seemed too difficult to memorize for a person of her age.
Dalanchika Malbranche taught us in a short time that there is no age to get involved, to take responsibility for society, the environment, culture.
In conclusion, this unfortunately misunderstood country is poorly known by some foreigners or even by its peers who know only one aspect: poverty, dictatorships… But Haiti is not only that: it is a country with multiple facets, the ultimate symbol of the fight against slavery, against colonialism, against racism. Haiti has vast natural resources and diverse arts and culture