Days 124 -126 (2/17 – 19)

Friday – Today was a busy day team wise. We had 2 teams go out to their work sites and 2 teams returning form their sites and 1 team coming in from the states. Also, Mario left for 10 days R & R at home in Florida. So, we’re down one in staff. I had to make anotherequipment run. We’re running out of shovels again.

Saturday – Today is the official start of Carnival. The holiday runs through next Wednesday (Ash Wednesday). It also happens to coincide with the 3 day Presidents Day holiday in the US. This combination of events significantly raises the cost of airplane tickets, so – we only have one team flying in for the next 3 days. Sarah took advantage of the lull and bolted (she actually flew) to Miami to spend a couple of days with friends. That means we’re down to 2 – Tom and I. However, being the troopers that we are, we managed to get 2 teams to the airport to fly home; one team to the National (commuter) airport to fly to Jeremy; and welcome our 1 and only arriving team.

Sunday – We got our 1 team off to Furcy early and then Tom, Spana and I jumped into the D-Max and headed for Les Cayes and CARNIVAL. The National Carnival lasts for 3 days – Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, which is Mardi Gras. It generally is held in downtown Port-au-Prince, but since downtown PAP is still a mess, Les Cayes was selected to host the event this year. There was virtually no traffic this Sunday morning and we made the trip in 3 ½ hours – it usually takes at least 4 ½. We had arrangements to stay at Jenn’s (Sarah’s friend that works at Haiti Health Ministries) fiancés house in Cayes and met them at Gelle Beach. What a change from the last time we were there. There were hundreds of people and the beach was spotless – no more trash. We decided not to order food since the wait on a good day would be at least an hour. Instead we had a cool drink and were interviewed by a Haitian TV crew filming the activities. Then we went for a walk on the beach and Spana and I bought some raw conch (lambi) strips with hot sauce from a vender. It was very good, but not as good as the fried lambi with creole sauce that I had the last time. We then went to Jenn’s fiancé, John John’s house and dropped off our backpacks.

John John’s cousin is an executive with diri Bull a Haitian rice company and they had a viewing stand at the beginning of the parade route. So – we went to the cousin’s house which was right across the street from the viewing stand and were issued wrist bands and diri Bull Carnival 2012 t- shirts which were required wear to gain access to the viewing stand. The pre-parade started before we could get to the stand, so we watched it from street level. It consisted mostly of dance groups in colorful costumes and local organizations marching by. It lasted about an hour and we then headed toward downtown to get something to eat. We walked down a side street that was almost totally deserted to a restaurant that Jenn and John John knew. The food was good – I had grio (pork) – but best of all fast. We then walked to the main parade route downtown. It was truly amazing. They had built reviewing stands on both sides of the street for 6 or 8 blocks and the crowds were almost shoulder to shoulder. We immediately appreciated the fact that we had access to a reviewing stand a little removed from this mayhem. We made our way back to the diri Bull stand and took our places. The good news was that we had an excellent view of the parade – the bad news was that they had a million watt sound system with Volkswagon sized speakers blasting Haitian samba music at a trillion decibles. It did, however, keep the crowds gathering in the streets dancing until the parade started a couple of hours later.

The parade consisted of a huge boom box on wheels pulled by a semi-tractor - followed by a couple of very colorful floats and thousands of dancing Haitians. On top of each of these rolling boom boxes was a Haitian band consisting of a keyboard player, a guitar, bass, drums and 5 male singers playing at the prescribed trillion decibles. These band units came at about 20 minute intervals. After the first 3 I thought the parade was over but was informed that there were 17 more to go. I’ve got to tell you that they all sounded the same -same samba rhythm; same tempo; same call and response vocals; all unison – very little harmony; and most songs consisting of 2 maybe 3 chords if you’re lucky. But – these guys are like rock stars to the Haitians and they go crazy for their favorite group. Tom faded at about 11:30 and went across the street to the cousin’s house and found a bed. I stuck it out to the bitter end at 1:30 am. And after 10 hours of standing, my legs and back were really starting to complain – not to mention my ears. However, I’ve got to say that, in spite of it all, I really enjoyed it. It was colorful; the excitement was infectious; and it was a joy to see people who have so little to celebrate having so much fun. When we got back to John John’s house we could still hear the music from the parade. The last unit didn’t make it to the end of the parade route until 3:30 am. Carnival – Bon bagay (a great thing).