Haitian Hot Chocolate

Haitian Hot Chocolate

A month ago I went to Haiti and I brought back with me some raw Haitian chocolate. I set about making the real deal this morning, hot chocolate Haitian style. No hot water or little packets of cocoa powder were involved in the making of my hot chocolate.  Roasted and stoned ground Haitian Criollo cocoa beans were the stars of my hot chocolate which I sweeten with unrefined organic brown sugar.

1. I poured water in a heavy-based saucepan and boil it over medium heat for five minutes.  Then I added cinnamon sticks, pure cocoa balls or to the boiling water. I boiled the mixture for 15 minutes or until the cocoa balls are completely dissolved. I  removed the mixture from heat then strained it.

2. I later returner the pot of strained chocolate to low medium heat; add almond extract,  milk, and sugar then stir. When it reached the desired sweetness, I mixed some flour with water and slowly added it the simmering chocolate to add  consistency. 

When ready, I serve the  hot chocolate with buttered toast. Sipping on a cup of Haitian hot chocolate with toast really reminds me of home!

Ingredients

1/2 cup grated Haitian cocoa sticks or balls

2 cups water

1 cup milk(I like it best with carnation evaporate milk)

Sugar to sweeten

Vanilla

Cinnamon sticks, or anise

Tablespoon of flour

Haitian priest Sexually Abused Haitian Boys...

I was ten years old when I heard the word "had sex" for the first time. My friend Manon said to me one day,

“Laurie, Pè RL fè bagay ak Gerard. Priest RL had sex with Gerard".   Gerard was fourteen years old at the time.

“Where did you hear that?”

“Gerard told Christòf and I heard him."

Haitians associate the knowledge of sexual matters with promiscuity; talking of sex in Haiti is Taboo. Later that week my godmother told me only bad girls talk about sex.  I did not want to be a bad girls so I never repeated what Manon told me. 

Beside, something sensational happened to the  village that summer.  Priest RL gave Gerard a brand new Suzuki motor bike. Subsequently Gerard became the coolest kid in the village thus all talk of sex died out.

I would understand what Gerard meant by saying that he had sex with priest RL ten years later while watching a documentary about  people from Alaska that were abused  as children by priests. I deducted that he too was abused by a priest, a trusted member of our community! After watching the documentary I facebooked Marnon;  I wanted to know  what have become of Gerard.

“Didn’t you hear? she said”

“Heard what?”

“Gerard is acting all crazy these days; he goes about on waving a gun at people in the village.  He must be  involved in politics, because he hates a certain political party created by a former priest. He said if he could he would wipe all of them priests out and that they are all bad people”

“H-o-m-y gosh really…?  Manon what happened to priest RL he practically raised Gerard”. 

 He is around… well “pitit” now people are saying that he is gay. They said he did not voluntarily left Anse-d'Hainault around 1985, people there kicked him out of the “Pawas” parish. Get that they say it was because he sexually abused a young boy. 

“…and nothing was never done about it; they just pass along the bad apple to three other villages, Anse-d'Hainault, Chanbellan, and  now Jeremie...over 30 years of crime goes unmentioned and unpunished. ”

“You really believe he did... A priest would never hurt a child!” 

Sweet Manon, my best friend still believes in fairy tales and in the goodness of clergymen.  More pathetic, I believe that no one will ever talk,despite the fact the list of Priest RL victims is growing. In our village clergymen are Godlike.

Caribbean Living: Haitian Birth Certificate II

Caribbean Living: Haitian Birth Certificate II