Imagine being trapped under the dirty rubble of a fallen building that was once a hospital. Shorty, a fifteen-year-old Haitian boy, is in this exact situation. As he lies on his tattered hospital bed, he feels anything but repose. Shorty is hungry, thirsty and suffering from a gunshot wound with the fallen hospital walls surrounding him. As he lies dying he reflects on his life and the truculent streets of Haiti. In the journal I will be questioning, predicting and evaluating. I am questioning why a gang would kill Shorty’s Papa. One possible answer to this question is because Shorty’s father refused to pick a side in the gang fight between the Lavalas and the Bostons. Shorty’s mother supported a man called Dread Wilmé, who was the leader of the gang Lavalas. Twins are considered magical in the old African culture, which most people in Haiti practice. Since Shorty and his sister Marguerite are twins, Shorty’s mother …show more content…
Since they are twins, they do everything together. There is never a time of day or night when they are apart willingly. The twins connect with each other on a spiritual level and love each other unconditionally. When they are pretending to be possessed by the Marassa, the twins don’t even have to look at each other to know what the other is thinking. Shorty says: “We shared the same soul, so when she was gone I became half a person” (Lake 9). This is why Shorty feels such a strong urge to get his sister back. I am evaluating Toussaint as he transforms from himself to the God of War, Ogou. Toussaint says he has never believed in voodoo or mysterious African magic. He is suddenly transformed into the God of War, called Ogou. As Ogou he starts to chant and tell the slaves they must rise up against their owners. His own has been good to him, so he tells him to escape the country before another slave tries to kill him. Toussaint never looses who he truly is, even as he becomes the God of