On my knees in Congo Square, helping a Voodoo high priest gather bananas, apples and hard candy that had just spilled from the basket balanced on his head was not on my 2026 Bingo card.
Neither was the long lunch that followed at a nearby hookah lounge.
But both happened in late March.
The question of how any of this came to be is a fair one. I give credit to my older daughter, a devoted “Try Guys” fan whose paid subscription gives her early access to episodes. Six weeks ago, she showed me one of their New Orleans installments featuring Voodoo high priest Robi Gilmore (which became publicly available Saturday and can be found here: https://youtu.be/ZCj3vrkM8wM).
Watching the episode, I was struck by how much I didn’t know about Voodoo — and how much of what I thought I knew may have come from misunderstanding, caricature or fear.
So, I went looking for the Voodoo high priest.
I found him just finishing a tour at Congo Square. He was worn out. Rather than continuing to walk around the park, he suggested going to his regular, post-tour hangout, Haifa Cuisine and Hookah Bar.
As we were deciding where to go, the basket full of fruit toppled from his head — and we all picked up the scattered pieces.
Gilmore turned out to be a historian, tour guide and one of the most unexpectedly gentle people I have ever met.
That day, my niece-in-law Liz Pina was visiting from California. She lost her husband to brain tumors in November. I had a feeling that I should invite her along — it turned out to be the right decision.
As New Orleans as Gilmore is now, he grew up in rural St. Francisville, raised in what he describes as a tribal family culture where cousins become siblings and children belong to everyone.
His mother is Haitian, his father is Louisiana Creole. His grandmother taught him Voodoo.
When he was 18 and preparing to leave for the Navy, his grandmother made all his favorite foods for a farewell meal — fried chicken, hot water cornbread and red velvet cake. Somewhere between dinner and departure, he says she slipped something into his Dr Pepper.
The next thing he remembers, he was in a bamboo hut in the middle of his Voodoo initiation ceremony.
“And that’s how I became a priest,” he said.
At 22, he moved to New Orleans and became a tour guide. He still leads one tour a day — Thursday through Monday, from 10 a.m. to noon, through Congo Square and Louis Armstrong Park. After that, he does what he wants. By 6 p.m., the headphones are on and he’s playing video games, which he loves.
At 28, he came out to his family, a moment he describes as profoundly shaping his life. He decided to stop living by anyone else’s rules. That commitment still shapes the way he moves through the world.
“I don’t live on a credit score. I don’t live on a government,” he said. “I live for me.”
Twenty years ago, he survived a flesh-eating bacterial infection that cost him part of his index finger. Gilmore said the experience only deepened his convictions.
“I’m here for a reason,” he said, holding up his hand.
Every Sunday at 3 p.m., Gilmore and his family gather at a tree in Armstrong Park to perform an ancient ritual. The ceremony is open to the public.
In principle, he does not charge for the tours he offers. He does accept tips.
“If I’m supposed to be here to serve humanity,” he said, “why am I charging my brothers and sisters?”
That sense of service shapes how he meets people.
During lunch, Pina mentioned losing her husband. Gilmore did not offer condolences in the usual way. Instead, he talked about how our nephew loved his wife and about energy — how it cannot be destroyed, only redirected, always returning to its source.
“That man ain’t gone, baby,” he told her. “He just ain’t got a body to hold you.”
I came to Congo Square carrying the same vague unease many people do when they hear the word Voodoo — an unease rooted less in knowledge than in generations of myth.
What I found instead was a man from rural Louisiana who has built his life around service, history and radical openness to strangers.
As I knelt in Congo Square gathering fallen fruit, I didn’t realize that I would leave with more than I picked up.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nola.com ’
