This stream is in the back, and on the side of the town, it actually runs between Cap Haitian and the upper mountain town, called Ranquite. That’s where I stayed, but at the foot of the mountain, and about 40 miles from it, is a hilltop citadel, built in the early 18th century (1706), where Haitian visitors now climb to his acropolis, some 3000 feet to sit on his many iron cannonballs, which were intended to bombard any ships that might enter, especially French ships that wanted to enslave the island.

As I was going to say, there are three hours up and back to the mountain. The road is narrow and stony, and when your two guides rest, you are subject to feeding them with a lunch and water, or at least I was back in 1986, with my companions, about 18 of them, me being 19, we made a trip up to its top. Going down is not the problem, just making sure the donkeys and guides don’t get tired, dehydrated from the blazing sun, or at least that’s what I thought would be the only problem. I thought wrong.

The citadel seemed to be among the things that would last forever, with its walls several feet thick and its imposing presence. It took 200,000 men to build it, three years, and 20,000 died in the process (trampled dead, child labor, old people dying of heart attacks, hunger, disease, sunstroke, whatever was present in its construction); they worked seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day (they worked in the rain, heat and typical disasters typical of this small Caribbean island, they also claimed their share of lives. The Haitian army was going to be prepared for the French, one way or another. They had thousands of iron balls ready, stacked several feet high in the yard.

I went from Ranquite to the citadel and had the intention of staying there for a few nights, it was the summer of 1986. When I saw it for the first time, the imposing citadel, looking down on me, I went into a trance state. been, muttering something to the effect: how come I’ve only heard of this massive enclosure recently? I was flabbergasted that it wasn’t in every book that contained the wonders of the world; this surely should have been included, I thought to myself. With time I would find out, I was in some of those books, but not in many; maybe I missed it, because I was in Haiti, the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere; a sad reason, but maybe there is some truth in this.

I couldn’t help but imagine those 20,000 bodies, victims, who had died or been killed on this stone-lined path that led to the top, to the citadel.

It was a very hot day, that fatal morning, climbing that hill, or mound, or mountain, whatever you want to call it, I hugged my shoulder, lest I fall rolling to my death, with my donkey on top. . A guide pulled the donkey away from me, the one in the back, not sure what he was doing, but I assumed he was making sure the donkey he was riding on didn’t stop. I raised my eyes to the top of the hill, the citadel was huge, and it seemed to cover the entire top of the hill, like a crown, and that moment, that very moment…

a crushing sound filled the air, like someone hitting the base battery, in a closed room, and echoes came, and I saw, yes, I saw the hill side, fall, the roof side blew up the main section of the acropolis, with much of the bricks, two hundred year old stones that seemed to remain in place for another two hundred years, ripped from their supports, their section blown down the side of the hill. I think I said, “Wait a minute (thinking I had so much time to do what I could to save myself, but I seemed to be frozen in place, I couldn’t move, I was transfixed by the amazement of it all), then I thought, “…it’s going to fall into the road on me, not a single one, did exactly that, but buried half our crew, we came nineteen, ten were buried, under the obscenity, in the dark eyes dirty, eyes closed, face and mouth without air, some unconscious bodies writhing as they, we, the rest of us dug in the dirt to dig them up, as I did the same, crazy timing, that’s what triggered this, I thought as I dug in the dirt, not that it mattered in this split second: shovel after shovel of dirt, a stream of thoughts flashed through my mind, flashed through my mind like the debris falling on my comrades, on what page of what book of God did this occur, and could there not have been? been erased, erased or booted fallen?

Science

I had been in the war, some years before, and this was worse. These people were all good Christians, churchgoers, servants of God. This collapse and catastrophe of a world monument in a fraction of a second of our lives shocked me, the monument was equal in the Caribbean to the Tower of Pisa in Europe and here, out of nowhere, a natural disaster came, an act of God some I call it, like a tidal wave, or an earthquake, or something like that, but I got to thinking, what chapter of what book of God was this? Isn’t it all written in advance and if not why couldn’t it have been stopped? And if not, why? and if not, are we all subject to what is already written? And if not, the sky forgot to look in this direction this very day; I know that God does not need sleep, but many thought that this day he was sleeping. It wasn’t the first time something so drastic had happened in front of me, on the contrary, it was the third or fourth. Depending on how gravity is measured, and maybe number five for me.

I’m not sure if this could be weighed on a scientific scale, or mathematically, the other way around. It wasn’t a chance in a million; even Las Vegas wouldn’t have bet on something like that happening. But there I was seeing his results.

ranquite

—I returned to Ranquite after all this happened, and I stayed there in the little town where I slept on a bamboo mat on the floor of a Baptist church, for several months, thinking about this; dreaming about it, trying to put it away. Sometimes we’re not supposed to know everything we want to know, I think I felt like this was one of those secrets, one you leave in God’s hands, and try to get on with life as best you can, so you don’t get caught up in it. go crazy trying to find out God. He didn’t need to state the fact, God allowed this to happen, he did it; I say this, of course, with all due respect (there are always the questions: when should you get involved and when not; and I suppose that many times when you do, people say (or have said): you should stay out of our business). , if I had, we wouldn’t be in this mess, so it goes in or out), and for me, I have established the fact that there is a God.

This town where I was, soon forgot about this event, as usually happens because they have experienced many catastrophes, storms and winds that destroy their huts and farms; storms that kill their cattle. This was just another event for them, except of course for me, it was different; I am sure that the lives of their loved ones were as precious to them as the lives of the Americans taken from them were to their loved ones.

I wish I could look at God’s Book, or the book God has called “The Diary of Earth”, and see how it’s organized, but that’s not possible, at least not now. It would be interesting to find out how he picks and chooses: if at all. He is not in the equation, he can, because he surely can, he is there if he wants, even more so.

I once found a book that interested me a lot, it was written in an old-style language, and translated into Ethiopian, and I read it, it dates back to 200 BC: it went something like this: Abraham confronted God on this issue. , and he was led to him by some angels, and God showed him the land, what it was like, of course it was at Abraham’s request, and before his death, or departure from him, a wish before the end. And when Abraham saw what he saw, he protested to God, because God was allowing many misdeeds to be done, and the guilty to take over. “Judge them”, he requested himself, if not he almost demanded of the Lord. “Look what they’re doing, this beast of men…” he went on and on, begging, telling God to kill this bad person, and that one, and so on and on. The God said: “You must be the judge, and whatever you say, it will be ordered in any way.” And so, they turned around again, and Abraham cast this man into hell, and that man into silence, and many more into eternal chains to rape and kill.

Then God said to Abraham something like this: are you aware of how long eternity lasts? Of what you’ve done to these so-called bad humans? You know how bad hell is, and maybe if you saw it beforehand they would regret it, but now they can’t of course. Do you realize that you took away their only chance to live in the afterlife on Earth, what can you expect because they did it wrong?

No, Abraham didn’t think of that of course, and cried out to the Lord to give them a second chance, but God had said, it is ordained that they not return to the land. And now that? Eternal dominion was on his way, and Abraham was the cause of his perpetual judgment. Abraham could not bear the very sight of him knowing this. And God said: I have put them elsewhere, knowing that you would condemn them as you did.

Conclution:

The question may arise, it has in the past: do people die before their allotted time? (Maybe yes, possibly not.) Can a person turn the pages of the figure? It’s like saying: can God write the Bible for every age? Because in every Period of time, the people of the world feel that the Bible is written for them, therefore, God (unknowingly in our minds) modifies and points things out for us. on it they spell our period. Yes, indeed, he does, and he has, and it has been proven to be so. We believe that it was written a few thousand years ago, when in fact it was written a few decades ago: I believe that he sends his angelic scribes and they make a modification in the scriptures, one that we cannot deny, nor can we specify, because everything seems the same. Likewise, why can’t he do the same with “The Book of Earth”? He can… period!

Yes, we are all assigned to die, accordingly, but the words “if…and…but and God…” are still part of the equation.