Chapters (10)
I asked her how things were in the capital. She said it was calm again. At least there were no more bombings.
I helped Manman make breakfast and then it was time to open our presents.
Papa gave me the typewriter I had asked him to send me after I had seen a secretary using one at the money-transfer place in Léogâne.
I immediately started tapping at the keys, making a click-clack melody with them.
Slipping a blank page into the typewriter, I typed my first note in English.
Dear Papa,
Thank you.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 26
Manman and Papa had their first fight in New York. I could hear them arguing all the way from my room.
Manman had turned up the stove too high and burnt some rice she was cooking.
“You are not cooking on sticks and rocks anymore,” Papa said. “You can control this fire.”
“Oh!” Manman said. “Are you calling me a peasant? Don’t forget, we both come from the same place. The sticks and rocks were fine for you before.”
“I’m just saying you don’t have to turn it up all the way,” Papa said.
“Don’t look down your nose at old rags,” Manman said, using one of her proverbs. “Remember, they fit you fine before.”
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27
I used my typewriter to write my first letter to Thérèse, telling her about all the new things I had seen and done: Flatbush Avenue, the shops, Christmas Eve Mass. I told her how much I missed her and how I wish she could be here to share these things with me.
Moy had some letters of his own to mail for Bòs Dezi and his other friends in Léogâne. A friend of Papa’s, who was traveling to Haiti, was going to bring the letters to Tante Rose’s house, and she promised to get them into the right hands.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28
Papa showed us how to find a Haitian station on the kitchen radio. The station we found was just like the ones in Haiti, with music and news programs in Creole and discussion programs where people called in to debate different topics.
Some people called in about the American presidential election, which had also taken place this past November. Apparently the votes had been so close that the two candidates had taken the matter all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
The caller said how similar this was to elections in Haiti, where the results were often in question.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29
We heard on the Haitian radio station that there would be a big snowstorm tomorrow, so Papa took us shopping for the ingredients for our New Year’s Day soup joumou, squash soup.
We went to a shop on Nostrand Avenue, where Papa buys ingredients for the food cooked in Franck’s restaurants, and chose our beautiful squash, which we were told came directly from Haiti.