Zaza and her youngest son Kwa enjoying soup joumou in Matènwa. For Haitians in Haiti and abroad, January 1st is about more than ringing in the New Year. It's a celebration of their country's independence, and a squash-based soup called soup joumou is a symbol of that freedom. January 1, 1804, marked the culmination of this a successful, decade-long slave rebellion against French colonial rule, establishing Haiti as the world's first black republic. Two-hundred-and-fifteen yea