HSA presents Haitian Awareness Week and prepares for RaRa Ayiti

The mellow sounds of Carimi, a popular Haitian band, flowed from the Flag Room in the Student Union on Tuesday afternoon as some members of the Haitian Student Association took part in the organization's dancing workshop.

According to Witzard Joseph, HSA's president, the workshop on Tuesday was a part of HSA's annual Haitian Awareness Week.

The week began with a Creole workshop on Monday and the dancing workshop on Tuesday. The organization will be having a movie night on Wednesday with a Haitian-American film as the feature presentation. A mask-making session on Thursday and a social on Friday will be the preludes to one of HSA's most anticipated events.

HSA's annual spring event, "RaRa Ayiti" will be held this Saturday, April 7, in Harriman Hall and is the culmination of Haitian Awareness Week. The event will consist of traditional Haitian dances, costumes and Haitian cuisine.

According to Joseph, even the event's name is steeped in Haitian history.

"Ayiti is how Haitians spell Haiti, and RaRa is a festival or carnival held in Haiti every year," she said. "It's slightly different in Haiti because there are different religions and people put masks on to represent their religion. Our version is mostly just to display the culture and heritage of Haiti."

Chidieberry Asogwa, second year student medical chemistry and secretary of HSA, said she has been helping to prepare for RaRa and has big expectations for the event.

"I think it will be spectacular, there will be a variety of events," she said, "all of them have something significant, special and unique."

According to Joseph, quite a lot of work went into RaRa Ayiti's preparation with the majority of the work being done by members of the executive board; Joseph herself, Wesly Jacques, the vice president, Jessica Neilan, HSA's treasurer, Berry Asogwa, the secretary, Shana Malette, activities coordinator, and Eddy Gilbert, the organization's publicity coordinator.

"The costumes for this event are usually made or put together by the members. This year we are showcasing Haitian Caribbean wear. The Haitian food is always good and consists of some of our signature dishes such as grio - which is our word for fried pork, and diri-a-djon djon - which is black rice," Joseph explained via e-mail. "It took a lot of people to make this work."

According to Joseph, RaRa Ayiti has been an annual event for the Haitian SA since the organization's inception in February 1991. Last year the event was the biggest for the organization and members had quite a reason to be generous.

"Most of the money we made last year went to our Haitian Relief Fund, and we felt that this was more important, to send money and supplies to help out Haiti, than to use this money for a social event," stated Joseph.

Members of HSA are expecting the event to be just as successful this year.

Olivier Vasquez, a sixth year student majoring in industrial engineering, has been a member of HSA for five years and has held thee executive board positions in the organization. Vasquez, who was giving dance lessons to students at the dancing workshop on Tuesday, serves as the choreographer, along with Marie Annie Sanon, for this year's RaRa.

"We've had practice every night for the past two weeks," said Vasquez. "We had to practice a lot longer in past years, but now we're more aware of what we have to do."

According to Vasquez, RaRa Ayiti has different things to offer than HSA's Tribute to Haiti, held in the fall.

"RaRa is more focused on the history and culture of Haiti than the Tribute to Haiti that we do in the fall," said Vasquez. "Tribute is a lot of different clubs coming to pay Tribute to Haiti, but RaRa is more festive."

The official language of Haiti is French and most of its citizens speak a form of broken French called Creole. The language is a big part of the culture and audience members can expect a few Creole phrases during the show. Joseph said that 75 percent of the show will be in English to cater to the audience.

"A lot of our active members aren't Haitian, if we say anything in Creole, it will be translated," she said.

According to HSA members, the show will have much to offer for those willing to expose themselves to Haitian culture and have a good time doing it.

"We are trying to show the audience Haiti is much more than what they show on TV," Joseph stated. "We have done a lot of things in our history that are worth mentioning and hopefully we will do much more. We want to show them how proud we are of our culture."