Rendezvous at Vodou Lakay

My Interview with Dardelle Francois, President of Haitian Heritage House and Owner of Vodou Lakay & LaSiren's Mystical Boutique & Apothecary

For all its pains and frustrations, Trenton, New Jersey has a tearful beauty to it, especially in the summertime. Its dense population is just under 90,000, crammed into less than 8 square miles of Revolutionary War era monuments, municipal and state buildings, abandoned commercial real estate, and rewilding, dilapidated residential structures. Amidst the clear structural decay of the State capital are painfully grimacing smiles between residents. The worsening conditions—or, rather, condition of worsening—has become the City’s “normal”.

Demographically, according to a recent Department of Justice report on the City of Trenton (more on that in a separate article), “…Blacks make up 45.5% of the population, Hispanics 38.7%, and whites 13.3%.” With the poverty rate nearly double that of New Jersey’s (nearly half of Trenton’s children are in poverty), and homeownership and high school graduation rates also well below the State’s, the simple eye test hints at which ethnicities are most impacted.

As with any community fighting over scarce geography, employment, and access to capital, Trenton has never been above cannibalizing itself via gang turf wars among the young men—turf they hold no actual stake in aside from their emotional attachment to it. This is not to mention the now decomposed corpse that once was community trust in the local policing institutions—again, a discussion for another article.

While the City of Trenton lags much of the country in wealth creation, graduation rates and the like, its cynicism toward politicians, local and national was years ahead of where the United States has just caught up with the relatively recent MAGA Movement. Let’s face it, we have had our share of political crooks and opportunists that have left us with broken promises and even more broken spirits.

The danger in this becoming our “normal”, is that with normality comes familiarity—and with familiarity comes acceptance.

With acceptance comes stagnancy.

With all this painful political and economic stasis, the sense of community among Trenton residents—at least within their own micro-communities—is the only thing keeping the city from tearing itself completely apart. It is a unite-or-perish environment of existential proportions.

Community is the core value that staves away that toxic acceptance, unblocking the stagnancy of a people. It asks demands more of its collective of members to lean inward and maximize its capacity as a self-regulating organism sustaining itself during periods of heightened political and economic instability. Furthermore, it fortifies the social ties between the individuals within it that bind it together.

One of the best examples of this is the Trenton Haitian community. Accounting for 1.52% of New Jersey’s 71,444 Haitian population (though this number is likely to have increased significantly due to the Biden Parole Program which saw over 200,000 Haitian migrants come to the US) it faces the same challenges as the rest of Trenton’s residents—two-fold.

For starters: the language barrier. It is difficult enough to be in a strange land, but the disconnect widens when your native tongue is understood by less than 0.2% of the human population. In terms of communicating at work, and even communicating with healthcare professionals for treatment, the cultural minority in pursuit of survival must ban together.

Another issue the Haitians face is the growing xenophobia against them, exacerbated and enflamed by President Trump’s “they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the pets” accusation during the 2024 Presidential debate against then-Vice President Kamala Harris. While this accusation was proven to be the false propaganda of Springfield, Ohio’s Neo-Nazi white supremacist organization Blood Tribe, its lingering effects are the stigma following both Haitian American and Haitian immigrant in all areas of the country, Trenton included.

The animosity toward the Haitian community in America despite occasional public displays of solidarity by other ethnic groups continues to be an issue. This issue worsens their “otherness” relative to the surrounding majority, while strengthening their “togetherness” within their own communities. Thankfully, despite their small relative size, the Trenton Haitian community’s resilience is a testament to their efforts to contribute to the social good of not only their own communities, but those surrounding it.

I sought a better understanding of this resilience by conversing with one of the most indispensable leaders of the tight knit Haitian community in Trenton, New Jersey—Dardelle Francois.

---

If you are not careful, you could mistakenly walk past Vodou Lakay & LaSiren's Mystical Boutique & Apothecary if you are walking down Perry Street with your head in your phone. To add to that, a humid 90-degree Saturday afternoon in Trenton is sure to stimulate all of the senses and divert your attention in a million different directions.

Hoopties with 30% (or less) tinted windows cruising toward and from the intersection of Perry and N. Broad Street, blasting Jadakiss’ “Still Feel Me” with entirely too much bass—so much that you wonder if that was how the cracks got in the sidewalk underneath your feet.

Groups of three and four trash talking young boys in dingy clothes having death-defying bike wheelie competitions—mere inches between squeaking NJ Transit buses and parked cars at the sidewalk, whizzing past your car door seconds before you open it.

Thunderous laughter can be heard from a group of young men loitering outside of Gara Grocery and Grill a block down, on the corner of Perry and North Montgomery Street. Directly across the street from the historic Friendship Baptist Church and one door down from the Iglesia Asamblea De Cristo congregated three middle aged looking Trentonians—two black male, one white female, having a spirited but friendly debate over God knows what.

Indeed, the city was teeming with the aforementioned “tearful beauty” that was customary of the Capital City. The sounds of the city were as a free-form jazz band—each “instrumentalist” having their own routine, creating a clamorous yet still somehow melodic sound. Immersion into its joyful madness is usually why I arrive at interviews so early. The contrast between it and the indoor environment is always noteworthy.

My arrival at Vodou Lakay was no different. Standing at the entrance was a tall, strong looking man, scanning the block left and right with a focused determination, for a car matching the description he’d been told over the phone to find—mine. When he saw me, we exchanged grins as I approached him to introduce myself. He again warmly smiled and said “John”, and we shook hands. I could tell he did not speak much English, but he did not need to. I knew that the person I’d come to meet would not arrive for another 15 minutes or so.

John’s niece, Dardelle “Dee-Dee” Francois—owner of the Vodou Lakay, educator, Haitian community advocate, Vodou High Priestess (or Manbo), mother, and wife— was finishing some last minute grocery shopping for an upcoming event. I did not mind waiting. The serene atmosphere inside the Vodou Lakay was a respite from outdoor city raucous. The air conditioning was relief enough from the scorching sun outside. Above all, I wanted time to orient myself to the Vodou Lakay. I pulled out my pen and notepad and sat in a chair a few feet from “Uncle John”, keeping him company as I took notes on everything around me:

Nearest to the entrance was the Haitian Flag in its original red and black colors, with an AI generated portrait of General Jean Jacques Dessalines—champion of Haitian liberation and Haiti’s first Emperor—directly underneath it. There were scores of mason jars of what appeared to be herbs sitting in rows upon shelves, bundles of sage, incense, and pictures of Catholic saints.

There were bottles upon bottles of rum, piles of cigars, pictures with cryptic symbols containing different accents of red, blue, black, and pink. There were handmade bags and hats directly from Haiti, and enameled cups with symbols called vèvè There were altars—some at level with my chest, others at level with my knees. There were candles, some lit at the altars, some unlit and for sale on the shelves.

The lighting of the place was natural, and the crisp, centralized air smelled of a welcoming, sweet, yet smokey fragrance (I assumed it was the lit candles). Sitting comfortably in a burgundy arm chair next to John—and staring at me—was a white cat, and directly behind me were two caged birds.

Peppered throughout the place were skull and bones pictures.

A couple feet away from where I sat was what I assumed was a set up for a ritual, where at the “bottom” of a giant white circle drawn on the ground (the part of the circle closest to me) sat two intersecting machetes. Inside of the white circle were smaller symbols.

As far as I was concerned, I’d stepped into an entirely different dimension—at the very least, a different country.

Well, I thought, all that’s left now is to meet the Manbo…

As if on cue, in walked an energetic woman with her hands full of grocery bags and her face with a familiar, warm smile. I scribbled my last notes, then stood up to embrace her in friendship.

Granted, this was not our first time meeting. Months earlier, we connected at the 4C’s bi-weekly community meeting hosted by Friendship Baptist Church, two doors down. After numerous correspondence with her and her husband (coincidentally, also named Johnny) she agreed to a sit-down interview to tell me more about her contributions to and hopes for the Haitian community—in both the US and Haiti.

---