Between Disappointment and Nostalgia, Richard Morse Opens Up

PORT-AU-PRINCE.— Following his social media posts expressing his shock at learning of the Hotel Oloffson fire, Richard Morse spoke on the Panel Magik show on Wednesday, sharing his refusal to see Haiti collapse on its own.

While reactions pour in from all over, condemning not the arson itself, but the burning down of a postcard, both mythical and mystical, a testament to the depth of local culture, Richard Morse seems more affected by this grim progression from the Haiti of RAM to that of Viv Ansanm today.

Speaking to journalist Roberson Alphonse, Morse spoke candidly. “It gnaws at me to see more concern for the hotel than for the country’s situation,” he stated, noting that the Oloffson fire draws more attention to Haiti’s fate.

*An Emblematic Place or an Energy Catalyst at the Crossroads*

“My mother brought me to the site for the first time in 1982, to reconnect with my ancestral roots,” Richard Morse recalled, remembering that he had arrived in Haiti in search of spirituality in Vodou, without really knowing what it was.

“I was pursuing a rite, I was searching for myself. And Haiti, through the Oloffson, opened my eyes to the reality of the spiritual. I evolved and became complete. I understood that the rite I was looking for had its music, its dance, its own words, its setting, and everything.”

This relic with familiar shivers, planted at the crossroads of seven streets, was a source of natural and profound energy, which Richard Morse says he followed. He states that he used it to bring together those who, elsewhere, were not alike. At Oloffson, there was no class or color; there was a higher dimension.

*A Witness to a Part of History and Arts Gone Up in Smoke*

Hotel Oloffson represents a family legacy dating back to former President Tiresias Simon Sam. “My older brother Jean Max Sam built this hotel,” Morse indicated, specifying that for him, the hotel represented more than a family jewel.

“A possession is not what you own; it’s what you do with it to remain attached to your culture, your roots, and the world around you,” he added. Oloffson represented all that attachment for him.

It was a crossroads where tourists, painters, sambas, and everything that wrote this page of over 40 years of my life’s experience converged, Morse stated.

*The Desire to Start All Over Again*

Richard Morse’s last visit to Haiti dates back to January 2025, where he walked from Canapé-vert to Carrefour-Feuilles, a nostalgic place of cultural and culinary blend with the tastes of Haiti.

In his inner struggle between deep disappointment and nostalgia, Morse still harbors the desire to retrace his steps, in a disjointed Haiti ravaged by relentless gang violence and fratricidal struggle.