So one of my “tasks” given to me by my instructors is to listen to popular music from Haiti and attempt to understand it.
Which is a task that I find somewhat difficult.
As in every country and culture, music / the arts come from that culture and are organic expressions of local thoughts and ideas, usually created with expressions and allusions that are simply known to both the creators and the audiences.
But for those of us not in that milieu, much of what is the art in the creation is hard to see and grasp. We just don’t know what they’re talking about, and we lose the flavor of allusion and implication.
One such difficulty arises as I am translating one of the more popular songs “Ayiti Se” by one of the most popular media artists from Haiti today, MikaBen (Michael Benjamin), who is an incredible talent and artist. (And who unfortunately died very suddenly last year during a concert.)
This song is a love letter to Haiti by someone who loves his country, and it is full of words, phrases, and stanzas that line up Haiti’s attributes and gifts like a line of customers at checkout. Every one of them is unique and interesting.
And every one of them opens yet another door.
Today I got through about twelve lines and was stumped by one:
Ayiti se anba tant lan depi aprè 12 janvye.
or in English
Haiti is [has been] under the tent since the 12th of January.
I’m looking at this and I’m completely puzzled.
Then I look up the date:
In 2010 on January 12th, a set of earthquakes rocked Haiti, the largest temblor registering at 7 on the Richter scale.
It’s hard to overestimate the effects of that quake upon Haiti and Haitians. Twelve years later and so much has not yet been repaired. It was an earthquake that traumatized people—some who today cannot even handle being in a parking garage when a large truck drives by because the floors begin to vibrate and shake.
So while translating the words has not been super hard, understanding them has been difficult—but trying to understand their meaning has taken me line by line through the many threads that build a culture and a common consciousness.
Image by kellymlacy from Pixabay