Hi, There! I’m the Republic of Haiti, and I have two official languages, Haitian Creole and French. My neighbor country is the Dominican Republic. We share the same island, Hispaniola Island. It's a West Indies island located near Central America, and I’m on the western side of the island. Cuba and Jamaica are close by. I’m about one thirds the size of Hokkaido, and my capital city is Port-au-Prince. There are about ten million people living in my country.
Oh, by the way, people don't call me Haiti here. They call me Ayiti which means land with many mountains. So as you can guess, there are many mountains in my land.
Let me tell you a little about my history. After Columbus came to the island in 1492, my land was controlled by the Spanish and then the French. They brought people from Africa as slaves and then made them work on farms. So my country has a mixed culture of Africa and Europe.
One part of my culture is a type of religion called Vodou. It came from Africa and was mixed with the way of thinking of the native Taino people in my land and with Christianity.
Haitian Vodou has developed in a unique way. Some people may have a dark image when they hear the word Vodou, but it is not dark, I said that it was a religion, but it doesn't have a special book like the Bible. There are no churches, and they do not try to get other people to join them. It's a religion amoung the people, and they use drums to dance and sing at special ceremonies. In their ceremonies, they sometimes kill chickens, cows and goats like you see in movies. Maybe that is why Vodou has a negative image. Or maybe it's because of tomething known as zombie powder.
The Vodou priest makes a white powder mix made from harbs and poisone. It is used as punishment for very bad crimes. When you take the zombie powder, you become almost dead. Next, you are buried and then brought back to life with another special powder and made to work as a slave. So the scary and famous zonvies from popular movies came from Vodou religion. The important thing to remember is that each ceremony has a meaning, and Vodou is part of the life here.
I am proud of my mixed culture. You can even see it in our food. It's a delicious combination of Spanish, French, native Taino and African food. I hope you have a chance to try it sometime.