In Haiti, not only is it possible to meet a living corpse; you can become one yourself. Adam Węgłowski checked it out for himself. Luckily enough, he survived to write it up in a special report for “Przekrój”.
It was 22nd November 2015. I was slowly preparing to return from Haiti. Happy with my brief vacation in the warm Caribbean region, with my head full of pleasant memories. I was safe, despite the obvious problems of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and the many uncomplimentary opinions circulating about it.
But that day, for some reason, I fainted. In the evening, on a sandy beach, right after dinner, just before I went to bed. My legs crumpled beneath me on the covered hotel patio, somewhere between the table with seafood and the sideboard with cutlery. When I regained consciousness and the waiters were helping me to stand up, I felt a wave of nausea, and I sailed right back into oblivion. When I came to the next time, I was in the embrace of a group of Haitians who were carrying me to a car. They took me to a hospital near Cap-Haïtien.
I was maundering on about how I had insurance, but that didn’t matter. They knew I had to see a doctor. But first we had to get to him – 10 or 20 kilometres by car down forest tracks, in almost primordial darkness, illuminated only by the car’s headlights. Despite these difficulties, we made it to the hospital unscathed. There the nurses immediately took charge of me. They were nice, but the conditions of the facility were far from those found in Europe. Dark spaces with dilapidated equipment and paint flaking off the walls, spotted with mould, flies, and God knows what else.
The doctor asked a few questions. She doesn’t know English, I don’t know Creole, so I stammer something in French, and the hotel driver helps. Alcohol? Haven’t had a drop. Drugs? No way. Allergies? None. Diseases? None. Then what happened? There was a lot of sun, the beach…
Wait! There was also a visit to the cemetery.
The useful dead
It was in the locality of Milot, not far from the ruins of the Sans-Souci palace, on the UNESCO World Heritage List. I mean, just a typical Haitian mausoleum. Surrounded by a solid wall, with an iron gate. To get into the grounds, I had to find the gravediggers hanging out across the street. For a small, voluntary fee in the amount of $5, they agreed to open the gates.
The king
