A Malayali in Haiti

Following a job opportunity, Jerome Geevarghese went to Haiti in 2004. He married a local woman and has two children. After a few years, he took his family back to Kerala, settled them there, and returned to Haiti

By Shevlin Sebastian

In 2004, Jerome Geevarghese’s brother-in-law Pradeep Mohan, who runs a placement firm, called him from Tirunelveli in South India.

“Hi Jerome, how’s it going in Kochi?” said Pradeep.

“Fine,” said Jerome. “I am preparing for my civil service examinations.”

Pradeep said, “Oh okay, no problem. I called you for a reason. There is an opening in Haiti.”

Jerome said, “Where is this place?”

Pradeep replied, “I don’t know. Check it out on the net.”

Later, Jerome looked up Haiti on the net. A Caribbean island, with an area of 27,750 sq. kms, and a population of 11 million, it is near Bahamas, Cuba and Jamaica. Haiti shares a border with the Dominican Republic.

 The job was at Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. It required managing a 10,000 sq ft. scrapyard of a company called Laguna Azul, owned by an Indian, Sudhir Khare. The company bought metal, copper, aluminium, and lead scrap. This was fabricated, loaded in containers and shipped to countries like Taiwan, South Korea, and Thailand. Jerome decided to take the plunge.

On December 14, 2004, Jerome flew to Haiti from Kochi.

As the plane approached Port-au-Prince, Jerome looked out of the window and noticed there were a lot of mountains. He also realised there were fewer houses and a lot of greenery. “It is a beautiful country,” said Jerome. “It reminded me of Kerala, with its many coconut trees. There was a lot of banana cultivation too.”

The city was well maintained, but it was much better than the older parts of Haiti. For the next several weeks, Jerome was on a discovery tour of the country. 

As for the food, the people eat a lot of rice. “Nearly everybody is a non-vegetarian,” said Jerome. For breakfast, they like to eat eggs and bananas or spaghetti with hot dogs along with cornflour shake. For lunch and dinner, it is rice, beans and meat. “Unlike Indian food, there is very little spice in the cuisine,” said Jerome. “Most of the vegetables are boiled. The cuisine is healthy.” 

The currency is called the gourde. One gourde is equal to $0.15. The language is Creole. It has French roots. The official language is French. “But in the day-to-day interactions, everybody uses Creole,” said Jerome, who is fluent in the language. He learnt it by speaking it daily.

The people are friendly. Around 90 percent are blacks. Apart from Arabs there are Poles, Spanish, French, Indians, Jews and Italians. Most of them are wealthy entrepreneurs.

The Haitians are fun-loving people. “They enjoy parties,” said Jerome. “They work hard from Monday to Friday and enjoy themselves on the weekend. They go to the beaches like Labadee and Kokoye to relax.”

When Jerome said he was from India, people were aware of the country, as many had travelled all over the world. “The people also watch a lot of Hindi serials and films, through French subtitles,” said Jerome. “They love the stories.” A few also knew about Kerala because they had come for a vacation to the popular tourist state.

But some locals thought Jerome had Native American ancestry. “They called me one of the original inhabitants of Haiti,” said Jerome. “So, I had to explain that I am a different type of Indian.”

He befriended a family: the Bonhommes. The head of the family was from the UK, while the wife was from Haiti. “My in-laws had a love marriage,” said Jerome. “This is common. In Haiti, unlike India, there are no arranged marriages.”

Before Jerome started working for the company, the Bonhomme daughters had done secretarial training at the firm. “So, the Indian employees were close to the family,” said Jerome. “When I arrived in Haiti, my colleagues introduced me to them.”

The Bonhomme family often came to the complex where the Indians lived to celebrate festivals like Diwali, Id, Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

Falling in love

Jerome first met Emmanuelle Bonhomme on December 25, 2004, when the family invited Jerome and the other Indians for lunch. He realised Emmanuelle was young. Jerome was 26 while Emanuelle was 20. “I found her very charming,” said Jerome. It was a shock for him to see a white girl in a predominantly black country.

Both Jerome and Emmanuelle did not fall in love immediately. It happened over a period of several months. Jerome had come to Haiti with the typical Indian attitude. He would work hard for a few years, save up money, go back, get married to a girl from Kerala, and settle down.

But it did not work out as he had planned. In 2006, Jerome went on dates with Emmanuelle. But her family accompanied her.

Sometime in 2007, after three years working in the scrapyard, he told the family he was planning to start his own scrap business. Emmanuelle encouraged Jerome to go ahead. Emmanuelle’s father, Henry George, said it would be helpful for his business to start a firm in Florida. So, Jerome bought a house and set up a business base in Coral Springs. Now, Jerome divides his time between Haiti and Florida. Jerome’s clients are in the US, Canada, India, Thailand, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates.

It was at this point that Jerome felt he needed a life partner. He proposed to Emmanuelle. She accepted. “Later, Emmanuelle told me she liked tall men with long hair,” said Jerome, 6’2” and long-haired, while she stood at 5’2”. Jerome told the Bonhomme’s about his desire to marry their daughter. They accepted his proposal.

As for his parents, he felt it was prudent to tell his two sisters to inform them. When they did so, his parents became upset. “They wanted me to marry a Malayali girl,” he said. “They also thought I was getting married to a black girl.”

In the end, they said yes.

By this time, Emmanuelle had become pregnant. “We were planning to go to India to get married,” said Jerome. “But my parents told me that since she is pregnant, it is better to get married there. Otherwise, tongues will wag in our conservative hometown.”

The marriage took place on January 5, 2008, at the Methodist church in Port-au-Prince. Over one hundred people attended the Mass, reception and sit-down dinner.

The couple flew to Kerala in March, 2008. There was a small function at the church. This took place after the Sunday Mass.

During the trip, Emmanuelle found it difficult to adjust to the food. “She did not like the fish curry and spicy dishes,” said Jerome. He had to buy KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) or pizza from the nearby towns.

Jerome’s early life

Jerome was born in a village called Nariyapuram in Kerala. But since his father worked as an accountant in a private firm in Hyderabad (760 kms away), he spent his early years there. But Jerome moved back to his village when he was in Class 5. He has two older sisters, Glory and Jerry. His mother, a homemaker, looked after them. Jerome studied in St. Paul’s Higher Secondary School in Nariyapuram village. His father would come home once a year.

Most people in the village worked in countries like the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

After graduation in mathematics from Mahatma Gandhi University, Jerome got a job in a credit card company in Bangalore. The owner was a relative of Jerome’s. He worked there for one-and-a-half years. At the end of 2002, Jerome moved to Kochi. He had joined a training course so he could sit for the civil service examinations. But the institute fell into trouble over some legal issues. So, he could not complete the course. So, he joined a private company as a salesperson. He spent two years there before moving to Port-au-Prince.

Move to Kerala

In 2011, Jerome made a momentous decision. He convinced Emanuelle and his two children Sayra, 14, and Rayas, 13, to settle in his village. He wanted his children to get a good education. This was not a surprise for Emmanuelle. Jerome had told her about this plan before the marriage. And she had agreed.

Asked the reasons for this move, Jerome said, “I wanted my family to imbibe the Kerala culture. When they grow up, my children can come to Kerala and feel a connection to their roots. I have seen too many children of my friends who don’t want to go to India at all.”

Only Jerome’s mother was at home. His father, who had been suffering from multiple myeloma, passed away on July 20, 2011, at the age of 74.

Jerome comes once a year in December and stays till March.

As for the impact of the move on Emmanuelle, Jerome said, “She has become a typical Malayali. She speaks Malayalam fluently and wears saris. Sometimes, I feel Emmannuelle is like my mother. My children know how to read and write in Malayalam.”

As to whether Jerome has made the right decision, he said he would know only when the children have grown up and settled into careers of their own. Incidentally, both his children are US citizens. “There is a strong possibility they will settle in America,” he said.

Regarding his cross-cultural marriage, Jerome said he was very lucky. “We had fewer problems because Emmanuelle made a lot of adjustments,” said Jerome. “Hence, it was very easy for me. I have to thank her. She learned to love everything about Kerala.”

Asked about his plans, Jerome said, “I want to start a recycling furnace for melting scrap. This will create 500 jobs. I also have plans to export food items like meat and fish. I have to wait and see what happens.”

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Haiti History 

Explorer Christopher Columbus was the first European to arrive on the island on December 5, 1492, mistakenly thinking that it was India or China. Later, the island became part of the Spanish Empire. Then the French took control in 1697. They set up sugarcane plantations on which many slaves from Africa did the labour. The colony became one of the richest in the world.

Inspired by the French Revolution (1789–99), the local people had their own Haitian Revolution (1791–1804). It was led by the first black general of the French Army, Toussaint Louverture. For 12 years there was a war with the army of Napoleon Bonaparte. Eventually, Louverture’s successor, Jean Jacques Dessalines, defeated the French. Haiti became independent on January 1, 1804. And it became the first independent nation in Latin America and the Caribbean.