Kafou Malonèt — An Emotion From Haiti to All Over the World 🇭🇹✈️🌎

A part of me is still there, I promise.

Sir Charles
5 min readJul 22, 2023
The author’s cousin walking the dog in Havana, Cub next to palm trees
The author’s cousin walking the family Dog in Havana, Cuba near la costa

In Haiti, they call it “Kafou Malonèt.” That is the most beautiful and, yet, morose expression ever thought of.

Kafou Malonèt is an expression in Haitian Creole that roughly translates to, “crossroad of rudeness” or “[street] intersection of disrespect” in English. You can play around with it.

Kafou Malonèt is the place where some individuals (preferably in a loving relationship) say their final saddening goodbyes before continuing on their separate paths or before one leaves the other.

It is the final moment at the airport, bus station, or outside of home, after your son had visited from the army for a few memorable months, but now you have to say goodbye to him because it has all come to an end. Is that not just…rude?

Author in BA Verde in front of The Obelisco de Buenos Aires at Plaza de la Republica in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Author in BA Verde in front of The Obelisco de Buenos Aires at Plaza de la Republica in Buenos Aires, Argentina

For the past four months, I’ve been traveling from house to house visiting family members. I spent an entire month in Argentina living with my Argentinian family, who I’ve been longing to see again since I had left them in that intersection in 2015.

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Sir Charles

I tell stories about my interesting life. I have some opinions. Subscribe to my newsletter to become besties: https://sircharles.substack.com