The Best of Us All

This weekend we went to Jacmel to celebrate Carnival ("Kanaval"). It was awesome. I will post as many pictures and videos as I can here. Although this post seems trite, please read on; it was a once-in-a-lifetime event.

One of the Drs. we work with (Melissa) drove us down there. “Dr. Kall” (Karl, my roommate), as the Haitians call him, me, my other two roommates (Maryum and Patrice), and a girl who lived here last summer all drove down. On the way there we saw a beautiful country. I tried to capture some video. When we arrived at the gates of the city, guards with huge guns greeted us. It kind of scared me, but they were nice and let us in. That night we went to the woman’s house we were staying at (one of Karl’s friends). The house was awesome. It was all tile and cement and several stories high with open (no windows) barred "windows" and balconies. You could see the ocean and beach from the room we stayed in. In the pictures you will see her children Max and Anika running around and dancing. Anika took a liking to the cow head i bought, so you most likely see her wearing it more than I am! They were the sweetest kids! Every day here I'm reminded how great it is to be around children.

Friday we went shopping for masks. I settled on a cow head. I managed to bargain him down to 20 bucks (most masks were 30-50). You’ll see it in the pictures – it is a full paper machete "helmet" where I see out the mouth and nose.

We then went to the beach and just relaxed. That night we went out to a club/bar. It was INTENSE getting in. We basically had to just all hold hands and grab onto each other as Dr. Kall pushed his way through the crowd with us in tow and bought tickets. We were probably obvious as the only "blan" in there, but we had a blast. Everyone was dancing and the party went on forever. Dr Kall and Maryum danced up a storm too.

When we finally left the club we arrived at Melissa’s car to find the passenger side window bashed in, her purse and all her money stolen. It was crappy ‘cause there really isn’t much you can do about it. It’s just the nature of the beast here.

On Sunday, we walked down to Kanaval. It was intense. We managed to push our way through the crowds on the street. Dr Melissa had friends who had a “Stand” overlooking the road, so we were ushered up into the stand and given t-shirts to wear while up there (they worked for an energy drink, and part of us being there was advertising with these shirts). So we put on our orange shirts and had a good time.

The paper machete art of these people is amazing. The creativity. Unreal. Hopefully I captured some of it in the photos and video.

As the parade ended, sun went down, and the streets opened up, seemingly "controlled" chaos broke into violent chaos. It was strange. Even during the parade you could see a constant stream of fights in the crowd. A barricade was knocked over from the crush of people fighting behind it. I tried to capture some of it on film, but I left my camera at home (afraid to carry it after hearing all the stories). So I borrowed cameras. Someone with us had hand sanitizer and chapstick yanked from her pocket. The rest of us held onto our pockets with one hand and each other with the other. Even this was difficult. You had to accept that you were going to get shoved around and pushed and maybe hit and maybe have something stolen. It was a huge mob going crazy. Luckily, we were in a stand and only had to make our way through the crowd once to get in and once to get out. It was intense. We saw fight after fight after fight. It made me ponder many different things about the event and the people. For the most part, the fights seemed “controlled”. That is, it appeared like the folks on the street after the sun went down were there to push and shove and wrestle (and pickpocket); everyone else goes off the strip. Imagine a violent New Orleans on Mardi Gras with 5X as many people in half the space. It was a strange sensation to be in it. Although I felt no special hostility because I was white. I have been told by a few of the Haitian Drs that being white protects you in a strange way. Most people don’t want to kidnap or hurt you because you’re white. If they kidnap you, arranging payment (ransom) for you from outside the country is extremely difficult. If they harm you, then there is the chance that it will cause a big stink and more problems for them. So for the most part most of them will steer clear.

On the way out, a man on a porch was splashing whiskey at us and smiling. So I walked over and opened my mouth and he started pouring whiskey in (I think I had one beer all day). He laughed and I laughed. Then he started speaking English. It was great – he was so excited to see us; he lived in Boston but lived here now. There was another man who was on the energy stand with us who was American (both of these men were black so I just assumed they were Haitian). He was so happy to have us there. I think at one point he mentioned how much America seems to be changing and how great it is with the whole Obama movement. I have been reading a lot of Haitian history, so this was especially touching to me. If you don’t know the story, the US government was not very pleased that these slaves managed to overthrown their government and start their own country (obviously against the interest of the slave-holders in the US). Haiti was an independent country in 1804. The US would not recognize this until 1862. It was nice to hear that the US is changing.

These Haitians are remarkable people. Who among us would be strong enough to say "enough is enough" if we were born into slavery? These people were carted over en masse from Africa to tend the land as if animals. Haitian Kreyol developed because the different African tribes brought over as slaves needed to communicate with each other. Because the French were their owners, Haitian Kreyol shares many similarities with French. The slaves basically created this new language to communicate. Another way these people are fascinating – they made up a language to communicate and then overthrow their oppressors. If you still look down your nose at them as less than you, I’m not sure what else I can write. It seems to me that in many ways they are the best of us all.