Whether round or rectangular, I am found in every Haitian home from the heart of the city to the remote mountain homesteads.

While not everyone believes in my powers and my purpose, I can assure you that the very mention of my name stirs emotion.

In the rural provincial towns beyond Port au Prince, I am most commonly spotted in the hands of those working in their gardens and on their farms.

Don’t they know that cholera still lives in the soil, and that mangoes picked up from the dirt can spread that plague?

In the wee hours of the morning, my familiar “thump, thump, thump” wakes even the roosters and goats before the sun peeks over the horizon.