Since coming to Haiti I have heard a little about Voodoo. It seems to be still very much in vogue here among everyday Haitians, who put a lot of store in practitioners and what they have to say.
I haven’t come across it personally but the night before I left Jean Rabel to travel home to Ireland (23rd July), I was awake all night. There was music and chanting going on the whole night, with the noise coming at me from the near distance.
Voodoo paraphernalia in the Marche en Fer, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
I was aware of it but it didn’t really register with me as to what it actually was. I was just aware of noise going on in the distance and I just wished it would stop so I could get to sleep.
The following morning Sr. Nazareth said she hadn’t had a good sleep either and put it down the Voodoo ritual that had been going on the whole night long not far away.
It’s a funny thing here in Haiti that it presents itself as very much a Christian country with references to Christianity everywhere, but yet on the grapevine you come to realise that even practicing Christians in some cases are also practitioners of Voodoo.