Voodoo War!

So Tavor has moved in around the corner, and she seems to have caused quite a stir...

A few months before she moved in, there was a week-long (maybe longer) Voodoo celebration on either her block or the next street over.  It is difficult to tell exactly where because I didn’t actually go and investigate.  The neighborhood folks over there rented a big tarp and set it up and put chairs and speakers under it and we heard singing and music blasting all throughout the night for at least a week.  I asked people one night what was going on and they said that there was some sort of vodoun fête going on.  My curiosity stopped at that, I went home, and the celebrations stopped after a few more days.

The path that takes Tavor home from our house essentially leads though a dump.  Maybe it’s more accurate to say that the path skirts the area of where people just throw trash, so there is a big trash pile on the side of the path and occasionally you have to walk through it a little bit to get through, which isn’t too unusual or uncomfortable for us at this point.  The path is narrow so that, unless someone wants to literally walk in the trash for a good 20-yard stretch, groups have to walk single-file.  Same thing if someone is walking the other way.  To pass, someone has to walk through trash.  When it rains, a thick, black, smelly mud seeps out from the pile and partially onto the path.  I think you get the idea; it’s pretty nasty stuff.

your everyday, free-range chicken

 There must be something special about this trash pile because some odd things have been going on lately.  First, someone dug a shallow hole and placed a small offering in it (a clay pot filled with something, but it was covered up by the time I noticed the spot—read on).  Next, a few clay pots filled with some sort of pungent oil was placed directly adjacent to and on the side of the trash pile.  Fair enough.  A few days later, the first hole was covered up, and and few days after that, a new, deeper but narrower hole was dug and filled with chicken eggs.  All very bizarre, especially since there are literally 3 small voodoo altars located literally 20 seconds from this “magical” trash pile. (“Magical” being my feeble description.  I have not discussed the qualities of this trash pile with anyone.).  The other day, Tavor left our house after telling us about all this silly nonsense and called us a few minutes after she left to tell us that now there is a dead chicken in the middle of the path with a knife sticking out of it!  I’ve included a picture if you, like me, have a morbid curiosity.  There are flies all over it, but you can tell that the bird was split open vertically around the middle and then placed in the path with the knife and entrails sticking out of it.  And with my keen detective skills I can tell that this chicken was either bought at the marché or it’s a local trash-eater (a.k.a. “free range”), because the chickens found at the Vodoun Fetish marchés are already dead and starting to decompose.  You could say that this was a fresh sacrifice.  It’s like there are competing cults that are trying to outdo each other!  We have a Voodoo War!  I’m curious to see what’s going to happen next.  Will there be a dance-off?  Machete fight?  Bigger and better sacrifices?  I can’t wait!

sending someone a message

Cheers.

UPDATE [14 June]:  As of this morning, there are two new piles of “gris-gris” (magic).  Both look like packages of something (probably ash) with strings tied around them.  These were left in a different place near another gris-gris spot that consisted of a plastic bag filled with other little plastic bags filled with what looks like sand.