A Taste of Salt-- Frances Temple

Haiti has been in the news, and in the minds and hearts of many, since the earthquake earlier this month. My wonderful friend E— a middle school teacher and social activist— loaned this book to me, and we had a discussion about how she plans to use the book to give her students some context.

Quite honestly, I struggled with A Taste of Salt, and I wondered if younger readers would also. It certainly gives a vivid sense of place, but its historical perspective has not aged well. (I suppose this is the price someone pays for trying to write about emerging democracy—so much for “new chapters.”)

A Taste of Salt takes place amidst the events leading up to Haiti's first free election in decades. Soon-to-be President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s inspiring words are the so-called “taste of salt”— the legendary cure wakes zombies from their trance and restores them to life. Aristide first appears in the story as the founder of the home for street children where Djo lives. Later, he is the pastor who delivers the sermons that give Jeremie her political awakening.

Djo and Jeremie’s stories make for interesting reading. We see childhoods in a street boys’ home and a neighborhood built on a garbage dump, the religious education system and bonded labor in the Dominican Republic, a firebombing and riots. Destiny, wrought here rather heavy-handedly, designs that Djo and Jeremie will become part of this new era in Haiti together.

That last bit was the rub for me, considering the turn that history took after A Taste of Salt was published in 1992. Basically, if hope is this story’s lifeblood, the whole thing is eviscerated by the corruption, the human rights violations, the coup, and Aristide’s exile to South Africa. The narrative is possessed a sense of history we know to be dead. It is (yes!) a zombie, but there's no waking it-- Jeremie, you should have thought twice before turning down that scholarship to the Sorbonne.

On a much more compassionate note, you can still support the ongoing relief effort-- you can find a great roundup of links here.