You have all these people in the city and everything has become centralized. If you live outside the city and you need a birth certificate or some official paper from the government, you have to travel to the city.

I was able to not fold and go in a corner because I had my writing as therapy, but also as my tool for struggle.

Anger is a wasted emotion.

When people think about this religion, they'll say "voodoo" this and "voodoo" that in the way the Hollywood movies show it: the sticking of pins in dolls. It's very different than Vodou - which is a religion that comes to Haiti from our ancestors in Africa. I want to differentiate it from the stereotypical, sensationalized view that we see of the religion.

Salt is a powerful symbol in Haiti, as elsewhere. Salt of the earth, for example is an American phrase. In Haiti, myth and legend has it that if you are turned into a zombie, if someone gives you a taste of salt, then you can come back to life. And in the life of the fishermen, there are so many little things about salt that I wanted to incorporate. The salt in the air. The crackling of salt in the fire. There's all this damage, this peeling of the fishing boats from the sea salt. But there is also healing from it, sea baths that are supposed to heal all kinds of aches and wounds.

Art is a luxury but also a necessity.

The way the media cycle works, the way the news works, and the way people's attention span works, is that we only learn that people exist when there is crisis.