ABSTRACT
“How can I receive a visitor in this house, if I have no place here for them to sit or sleep, and if, when the rain falls, water pours through the roof like a river?” Whispered with a grimace by a long-time Haitian resident of the old wooden barracks in El Chucho, this question echoes in my mind. It joins with my memories of the anxious apologies offered by my neighbors, on those occasions when, for lack of money, they were unable to receive me into their homes with the small gesture of hospitality considered appropriate for an esteemed visitor. (A glass of cool water, beaded with condensation, and a small, steaming cup of heavily sweetened coffee, carried out on an enamelized, painted metal tray by one of the older children of the family— the proper things, served in the proper style, the stuff of hospitality's nice distinctions.) Expressions of displeasure, at being unable to enact everyday ceremonial in proper style, are far from explosive. They are not the raw material of social revolution. They are acts of protest, even so, striking for what they denounce: not the everyday discomfort or deprivation brought by poverty but the indignity of not being able to receive a visitor in proper style. A social need, not a physical one, goes unmet, and a wound to the pride, not to their chances of survival, is endured. In spite of the general poverty of people in Monte Coca, the meaning of want for them is no more restricted to basic physiological needs than it is in any other place. Rather, the needs that define states of abundance or want include obligations of a social or ceremonial character, as defined culturally to be appropriate for kin, living and dead, neighbors and visiting strangers.
