Memoire of a ‘Yogini’: Growing up strong in HAITI

By Santia Lindor-Blanc (Karuna Devii)

I had a very interesting childhood that bring back some good and bad memories. Those events that I called “bad” created a pathway for me to help me grow and develop responsibility through my adulthood. I grew up in a family of four- my mother, father, my sister and me. I passed most of my childhood alone because my parents didn’t want me to play with the other children in my neighborhood. They believed some of these children were a bad influence for me, but I had some good friends at school to hang out with. My mother would buy me all kinds of toys, but I had no one to share them with. When it was vacation time, my cousins from the countryside would stay in my house or I went to their house so I could have someone to play with. Sometimes, I felt so sad by seeing the children playing while I sat beside with my mother.  Most of the time when my mother was not around, I would sneak out of the house to go play with the other children. My mother would spank me if she caught me playing with them.

 My sister was born when I was nine years old. It was the most joyful moment in my life to have a little sister to play with. Unfortunately, when I started growing up as a teenager, my sister was still a toddler, so I didn’t have time to interact with her. I felt like I grew too fast, and I didn’t have time to enjoy her as a playful partner.

            Teachers play a big role in our society, and they are also part of our family because they teach us the same values as our parents, especially when we are very young. I used to consider my teachers as my parents, especially my mother, because most of them were very strict. I always followed directions so I wouldn’t get in trouble, Ifthey handed me a discipline slip to present to my parent, it would be a nightmare for me. Usually, when that happened, they would ask the parent to use physical disciplinary tactics. My teachers were usually very nice to me because I was a good student and very respectful.

            When I was young, I had an adult mind because my mother raised me in a way to choose who to make friends with. I didn’t have a lot of friends. I was very picky on who I selected to be my friends because I was always afraid to be in trouble. In my country, Haiti, parents have the right to spank their children. My mother was always ready to spank me if I didn’t do something right. Even though I was the only child, that didn’t stop my mother from disciplining me very hard. In elementary school, my peers always bullied me because I was the youngest one in my class, and they thought that I was smarter than them. After school, they would wait for me outside to fight me for any reason. I remember every weekend, I would exercise at home to get ready for the week. I never told my mother about my fights because I believed if I didn’t fight them, they would not leave me alone. I fought them off with rocks or anything that came to my mind. For some reason, I was always a target for them. When my mother finally learned about these fights, she moved me to another school and all the fights stopped. When I got to junior high, I started receiving the same treatment from another student that lived close to my house and used to be my friend. She borrowed something from me and refused to give it back to me. When I asked her to return my stuff, she started threatening me. I fought her, and I didn’t get in trouble because I had a witness who explained to the principal how she used to bully me, and told other people that she had a knife in her bag to kill me. It was a Catholic school that had a zero tolerance for bullying, and that student got expelled from the school right away. After the incident, my mother started to pick me up from school.

            I grew up in a religious family where most of them were Catholic. I went to church every Sunday, and I had to do my Penance (Confession before the priest) every Saturday before I assisted Sunday Mass. At my school, the students had to walk to church and the teachers took attendance. If a student was not present, they would be punished the next day. Religion was a big part of my life when I was young, and I was very spiritual. I was part of many prayer groups for young children and I had aspirations to become a nun. When I turned to be an adult, I saw religion in a different aspect and chose to practice meditation instead, but I still participated in religious activities and enjoyed the songs.

            The next big event that marked my childhood life was political unrest that happened for a long period of time until my adulthood. When I was nine years old, there was a coup d’etat, a sudden overthrow of a government. There was a lot of violence at that time; the civilians were killing and burning anyone who was involved in the government. The protesters used all kinds of weapons to kill those people and there was no respect for each other anymore. Men were free to rape women and girls and they were also involved in kidnapping young women, and I was really traumatized. My mother sent me to the countryside to stay with family members, which was a life saver for me. The political unrest created a shock in my life forever because it was very hard for me to see violence or even watch action movies. I left my country to look for security and peace, but it seems like I am in the wrong place, especially for blacks. When I see all of the killing and injustice in this country, it becomes another shock for me. That makes me believe that there’s no safe place anywhere on this planet, especially for people of color.

            People need a platform to be informed and to have our voices be heard. Media  plays a big role in the society, but sometimes some channels can be biased in their reports. I remember when the government was overthrown, the media could not inform the public on what was really going on; at that time, the protesters were also killing the journalists and they were so afraid on giving accurate news. I believed if the media weren’t involved, there would be more crime and injustice going on.

            I lived in a community where all adults acted as family members. They didn’t need permission from parents to discipline children in the neighborhood, and they would inform them if we misbehaved or not. When I was between7and 10 years old, my mother used to go to work very early, and left me in the house by myself if she didn’t hire a maid or nanny. She would let the neighbors know that she would not be around so they could watch me. My mother used to own a store, and she would give me instructions on how to manage it while she was at work. I used to have a calculator handy in case I had to give change back to the costumers, and she advised me to consult an adult if I got confused on giving correct change. At a certain time, I would close the store and do food shopping at the Farmers’ Market in order to cook and leave food for her after work. My mother taught me how to cook at age five because it was a big deal when a girl or a woman didn’t know how to cook. These events mostly happened during vacation time. When it was school time, my mother would wake up at four o’clock in the morning to cook and take me to school before she went to work.

            All of these events shaped my life in a good way, and I learned from all my disturbing experiences. When I came to Ananda Marga and finally got initiated, my soul was happy and I learned the right way how to practice meditation. Yoga was another great tool to help me clean my physical body from all the stress, anger, fear, and trauma. I always wanted to become a yoga instructor in order to teach and talk to other people about the benefits of doing yoga and meditation, because Ananda Marga’s practices influenced me so much in a way to help me become a better human being, and pushed me to encourage others to do the same.

            Karuna DeviiSantia Lindor-Blanc is a Yoga Teacher RYT – 200 in the Ananda Marga style, trained by Acarya Dr. Pashupati Steven Landau MD ERYT in the Shiva Dancing School of Yoga. She is also a social worker in Boston Massachusetts in the USA, is learning to play guitar and sing Prabhat Sangiit songs in Bengali. She is happily married, is the mother of 3, is a professional dancer, and speaks French, Haitian Creole and English. She is also happy to give public talks on society, spirituality, and family.