Edwidge Danticat: There was a very powerful tradition of storytelling that, looking back now, I realize we all took for granted because my uncle's wife, Aunt Denise's mother lived with us, Granmè Melina, who was very old. No one knew exactly how old. We had sort of a bracket because she could remember what president she was born under, as they say, like, who was president when she was born, and, thankfully, the sort of one silver lining to the brevity of Haitian presidencies, she could frame it within a sort of a three year period. But Granmè Melina was a very wonderful storyteller and she would tell us stories during blackouts, during power outages, of which there were quite a few. And sometimes—she had very long grey hair, and she would put coins in it so that children—we would fight to comb her hair and, while we were combing her hair, she would tell us stories.