Syrians, The

One point of fact I wanted to share–more like a corrective. It annoys me to hear Haitians talk about “The Syrians” in Haiti, even lumping all people of Middle Eastern origin under the Syrian rubric. A lot of you do that. Please stop.
Most of the first “Syrians” who landed in Haiti around the early 1900s were not true Syrians but Lebanese Christians from the Ottoman Empire, refugees really escaping religious persecution and poverty.
On a personal note: My late uncle Tonton Popo married a “Syrian” lady. She was nuts. Really nice lady. But she talked nonstop, even after you walked away. I suspect she drove Tonton Toma to the bottle, so alcohol became a way to numb his senses, an escape from her non-stop rambling He might’ve preferred death over waking up every freaking day to hear her prattle on incessantly.