A review by bgg616
A Wedding in Haiti by Julia Alvarez

4.0

I really enjoyed this book. Alvarez's recount of traveling to norhteastern Haiti from the Dominican Republic with her husband and several Haitians was very affirming of Haitian resiliance and as well as documenting the lack of infrastructure and poverty of the Haitian countryside. The story doesn't focus on this, but rather it is the context of her story of going to the wedding of her Haitian "son", Piti, a young man she and her husband have been close to for many years. I identified with her bewilderment at many of the transactions through her trip - including "bribes" at the border, wondering if this is the family they will be staying with (and who exactly is everyone), what time things will finally happen, etc. In the second half of the book, she, her husband, Piti, his wife and baby, a young American, and two or three others, return to Haiti to bring Piti's wife home for a stay. This is post-earthquake Haiti. They return home via Port-au-Prince. When Alvarez tells a man in Port-au-Prince they are only there to see, he responds - people need to see Haiti.