1. Ask your potential parent what they do with your "Pot Tet". This ritual object is a ritually constructed double of you and its safety and well-being is closely tied to your own. Some houses let you take them home with you, some houses let you leave them in the peristyle and some houses require that you leave it in the peristyle. Any of these options are great choices if your humfor respects your Pot Tet. However, I actually know of a Mambo who keeps her children's pot tets in a bucket on the floor by her toilet! Your Pot Tet is critically important and you should have some agency in regards what happens to it after your kanzo.

2. Ask your potential parent how they will continue your training after your kanzo. Training at a distance is difficult and the new initiate should always be patient with their parent. I know that I personally adjust my teaching for each individual. Sometimes the lwa tell me to teach certain things to a particular initiate, so I do. Sometimes I am told the initiate isn't ready, so I wait. It's all part of the training process. Nevertheless, training after your kanzo should always be free. Of course not all houses are as lucky as we are to have a house for our initiates to live in while they are in Haiti for free, so in most situation the initiates should expect to pay rent while living in Haiti for any advanced training. However, I want to STRESS that an initiate should NEVER pay their initiator after their kanzo for "advance training". There are people who charge their initiates $500 each time they go to Haiti for training. This wrong and completely against the tradition.

3. Ask your potential parent how he or she discovers the identity of your lwa met tet. Your met tet is your personal guardian spirit given to you buy God at birth. It can not be changed because you decided you don't "like" your met tet. This spirit is your guardian, your parent, and your teacher. Knowing who your met tet is is critical. If your met tet is wrongly divined and you kanzo on the point of the wrong spirit it could lead to serious mental and physical problems. However, your met tet can ONLY be divined during your bat ge or in a djevo either during a Kanzo or a Sevis Tet. If your potential parent insists that he or she can tell you who your met tet is with cards or any other "New Age" divination technique, they are highly misinformed. The best a card reading can tell you is which lwa are walking with you at that given time, and often the lwa met tet is an allusive presence who will only reveal themselves under the right ritual conditions (largely for your own safety).

4. Get to KNOW your potential parent and do some research of your own, ask them about the other ceremonies they perform. There are some Houngans and Mambos who think that a Lave Tet is a simple series of Herbal baths. This just isn't true! While I have seen these kinds of rituals done in Haiti they are not called a "Lave Tet", normally they are just called a "Bath". A true Lave Tet takes three days to correctly perform and involves a kouche and seclusion. Pouring buckets of water on your head just won't cut it. I always recommend that people receive a Lave Tet/Sevis Tet, a gad, or a pwen from their potential parent before they invest their time and money in a kanzo. Make sure you and the Vodouisant community has faith in your parent. The identity of your house is critical. If you are made in a house that has a less than stellar reputation you will be a seen as a less than stellar Houngan or Mambo and in the end you will have wasted your time and money. Ask questions and visit your potential parent. Go to their ceremonies and engage with them. They will be your parent until you die or until you re-kanzo, you will be embarking on a life-long adventure with them and their house, make it count.  I would take a bullet for my Mama kanzo, make sure you will feel the same way.

5. Ask your potential parent, "Where do you perform the Kanzo?".  If they tell you they perform the Kanzo in the USA that is a red flag! I know this is a hot debate in the Haitian diasporic and Euro-American Vodouisant community but Houngans and Mambos who live in Haiti are very clear about this: The Kanzo can ONLY be performed in Haiti. One summer I asked well over twenty Houngans and Mambos, "Do you think we can do a Kanzo in the USA?", and each of the replied without much thought with an emphatic "No", and each of the sited the same reason. Unfortunately that reason is oath bound and can not be discussed with non-initiates. However, I will say that the Kanzo is impossible in the USA because of the way certain ritual objects must be procured.  I am afraid, what those objects are and how they are collected must remain one of the many great mysteries of the djevo.