Voodoo Long Island Style

[zengrifter]

Runnin' Scared

Vodou Child

Haitian religious rites in the unlikeliest of places: a Long Island suburb

by Tamara Lush
September 4th, 2007 5:09 PM



Chantal Louis is a 42-year-old Haitian immigrant who lives in suburban Hempstead in Nassau County. She's a mother of three, a computer technician, and flashes a megawatt smile. She lives in a white, two-story, colonial home graced by dainty lace curtains in the windows and a white wicker chair on the porch. The home, which is worth $420,000, sits on a tidy, oak-tree-lined street. Lately, she's been a bit depressed—her eldest daughter is heading off to college, and Chantal is wondering what her own future holds. Most women at her age and station in life would pop a Prozac or take a yoga class. Instead, she turned to a 36-year-old vodou priest named Erol Josué.

So one night in July, Josué traveled from his home in Miami to New York, where he gathered a half-dozen or so other vodou practitioners—including a paralegal, an accountant, and a hospital worker. All were well-heeled Haitian- Americans—the kind of people who might work next to you in an office or perhaps coach your kid in a baseball league. Their mission: appeal to the spirits to remedy Louis's ennui.

...more - http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0736,lush,77700,2.html