I Come From A Place Where Breath,

There Is This Split Between The Haiti Of Before The Earthquake And The Haiti Of After The Earthquake. So When I'm Writing Anything Set In Haiti Now, Whether Fiction Or Nonfiction, Always In The Back Of My Mind Is How People, Including Some Of My Own Family Members, Have Been Affected Not Just By History And By The Present But Also By The Earthquake.

Love Is Like The Rain. It Comes In A Drizzle Sometimes. Then It Starts Pouring And If You're Not Careful It Will Drown You.

Especially Moments When Things Are Very Difficult And Complicated For Me And I Am Still Trying To Grasp What Is Happening And I Am Still Trying To Understand And To Reach Family Back Home.

When I Meet People For The First Time, I Always Put On My Glasses Because I Feel Like That's A Little Something Extra Between Me And Them. It's Like The Laurence Dunbar Poem "we Wear The Mask."

Napoleon Had Been Fighting This Army Of Slaves And Free People In Haiti And It Depleted His Forces. And After The Revolution, When The French Were Driven Out, They Stopped And Sold This Big Chunk Of North America To The Americans For Very Little Money.