DOWN TOWN MIAMI,

...SKY, SEA AND SUN

GRAND GOAVE'S FIRE

CLAUSE SASSINE

Our Man at Grand Goave

A LOVE STORY

 by Frantz Bataille

He loved everybody.

In his mid sixties, Mr. Claude Sassine seems to have two passions: Grand Goave & Miami. However, he dreams about something else - Name it. I won’t-. That Lebanese descendant, born and raised in the Southern town of Gd Gve, grew up to show always cheerful and good laughing. What is uncommon in our times. Unfortunately, as the uncertain sixties were unfolding, Mr. Sassine left Haiti to settle in the US. As an immigrant, he had been among the first ones who were shaping what in the 80s would have been the so-called Haitian Diaspora starting to grow in Brooklyn. Some figures already were highlighting this Diaspora such as Ti Sove and his barber shop open at Franklin Ave. Over the years, this place became a kind of epicenter for politicians and their fans. Marc Records, Wilson Desir still unknown.

 A hard worker, Mr.Sassine shared his time between two jobs and week-end splashed with coca cola and Haitian music. He said to have tried all kind of life: driving limousine car for more than 16 hours a day, making a security job for 24 hours during the week end and getting to his regular job from Monday to Friday. He was young and strong. But, what delight to go home with a loaded paycheck! God bless America for allowing him to make a living. But, G G’s magic was somehow appealing. This man fond of simple life and quiet suburb was homesick. “ Grand Goave sent me away, now it keeps calling me” Mr. Sassine whispered in the beginning of 2000s.

 A town of 40.000 peoples, lined with a lot of beaches carpeted with fine sand, and turquoise seas,GG relies on fishing and farming, let alone local tourism and transfer. No resort no hotels, but the late Taino Beach, to accommodate the nascent rush on Haiti since the earthquake. Mr.Sassine has some concern regarding the coming future. G G, his last frontier as Himalaya is so for adventurers, continues to inspire Mr. Sassine now back home. He dreams of a nursery for the GG’s elders so unfortunate; he adores going fishing in the early morning. But, a man acquainted to the high seas, Mr. Sassine dreams and thinks big, as lift up by the GG’s fire …

 A father of four, all born in the US, Mr. Sassine is not sure his offspring can share his love for GG. In the meantime, Mr. Sassine remembers how much his father had respected the men who plow the land, and the beautiful life they get there. As a child, Mr. Sassine used to sing and play with them, when he was not swimming in the blue waters of the sea, or visiting his sisters in P-au-P. Close to his roots and family, Mr. Sassine is still looking for opportunities. “ why not setting up a booming business such as fishing and tourism in the surroundings, he kept saying” . Elders’life is boring. “ I would enjoy entertaining them”, he added while laughing aloud and caring for his mother still alive.

NB: My friend, my brother had passed away, almost two months ago
. Resquiescat in pace!

ENTREPRENEUR LIFE

MR CLAUDE BASTIEN ACHIEVES THE AMERICAN DREAM

Few Haitians have been so successful as M. Claude Bastien  has been, in NY, the so-called big apple.

We know a few about his beginnings. But, by the turning eighties, in Brooklyn, the city where Haitians had settled, as in their country, every body had been dreaming of going overseas, M. Claude Bastien, now a man in his seventies, earned a 7-jewerly store located mainly at Utica, Nostrand and Flatbush, the most busy BRKLYN areas. Back home, Haitians  would have to become eager  to show off  and probe how beautiful  their lives had changed.

M. Bastien didn’t go that way.

Even though times went bad, namely after the 1970 blackout which made thefts breaking most of his business with a loss of almost  500.000 dollars, M. Bastien didn’t get  angry. Not even when one morning he lost by neglect 55.000 dollars after a purchase deal of 100 watches.  His optimism had not faded away. “It was a very bad experience”, he said without any change in the voice tone. He had made it after all. With a 11- personal member paid every week, going back and forth along the bustling   Brooklyn,  M. Bastien could not complain too much. He had achieved his  American goals and continue to live by American standards. Once, in the past, by the early sixties, he had been making a living from the scratch: selling  clothes, cleaning floors and working as a handy man. Now he was the boss and a big one.  What does that  mean watching bad guys looting businesses in the dark? M. Bastien, a born optimist, went over those hardships and continued to plan for the future.

At his spare time, M. Bastien knew how to spend his money. Few Haitian entrepreneurs had  seen the world as he did. There is no continent but Africa where he had no paid a visit. Coming to  the US for the first time  through Canada, M. Bastien had never stopped traveling. “Russian subway is impressive, he said, while mentioning how carefully the Lenine grave was  revered.  Jumping to South America, he said to have climbed over the Aztec  plateaus to watch those  pre-Columbian ruins still imposing. He knew Roma and St Peter square where doves  seem to fight happily.  But, according the way he remembers his travelling, Europe seems to have been his main rendezvous. M. Bastien has always been cruising along the Greek islands, tired to sip coffee in Paris or under the Londonian fog. He used to like Holland, its flowers and its dairy products, let alone Argentina tango.