The March for a Better President, for a Better HAITI

Finally, I was one with everyone, from “blans” to the children and adults who roam the streets.
If you’ve kept up with the blog you’ll see I’ve mentioned quite a few times how the “upper class” separates themselves from the “lower class”. Even after something as traumatic as the earthquake, the people didn’t come together. There was still a bit of “segregation”…

Well Friday was a different story and (hands down!) the best time I’ve had in Haiti yet!

My uncle is running for President, and well.. of course that’s my uncle so whatever he decides to do I have his back! Earlier this week when he mentioned the 2 hour march on Friday from the Rex to Carfou.. no questions asked I was down and looked forward to the day. Of course when Friday came it didn’t go smooth and do to some minor issues I almost didn’t make it, but I wasn’t going to let anything stop me. I arrived just in time to hop in a convertible car with cousins and drive with the “top dropped” through down town Port-Au-Prince with people in the streets giving us high fives and yelling Micky’s name the whole way.

I didn’t know what to expect, but as we got to the Rex my friend Leila jumps out of the car turns to me and says, “Hold on to me the ENTIRE TIME” To everyone I look like the naive blan that everyone has to watch over and take care of since I’m fairly new to this country, but if that were the case I would have stayed my “naive blan” a$$ home!

Anyway, Leila hops out and starts running, I run after her. At that time there were only about 50 people, within 30 minutes that number multiplied by about 5.  The live band was directly behind me, I love live haitian music especially those special horns that look like they are made out of tin. People were dancing (jamaican style if u know what I mean) in the street, it was just wild, crazy-ness and happiness.

There was this little kid walking infront of us that kept pointing to Leila, when Leila started speaking creole he screamed. It was the cutest thing. He was shocked that someone who looks white speaks creole.

The crowd is screaming all types of chants, and I’m half mumbling half screaming with them, not too sure what I’m saying lol. But my favorite was Se pa lajan, se volonte! (It’s not for the money, it’s volunteer .. or something like that)

So about an hour and a half into the walk we came across a street flooded with dirty, brown water. Before I could think of which way to go, Leila pulls me to the right and we run off through a tent city where people are directing us where to go. Everything looks good until we come up to this point where there is a strong-rushing stream. The only way to get to the other side was if we jumped. I was nervous as all hell, but Leila quickly jumped over to the other side. Crowds of people started jumping to the other side. I had to think about it, and it took me about 5 seconds before I was like “to hell with it” and conquered my fears and jumped over the rushing stream, if those friendly people weren’t on the other side to catch me I would have fallen and the stream would have taken me to God Knows Where. So Leila and I are off.. and we veer back to the path, we look behind us to see what Michel will do. To our surprise, Michel and the crowd of hundreds are chanting, dancing, running, singing as they (with Michel) walk across through the mucky water (socks and sneakers on, some people only wearing sandles). It was CRAZY and the crowd went nuts when they saw Michel didn’t care about the yucky-ness of the water. The poor people walk through it daily without a problem, why can’t he?

So we get to Carfou and the crowd has multiplied–tripled–quadrupled. There were a few Ra-Ras in the crowd and the pleasant sound of Haitian music on stage. Richard Morse from RAM spoke, and Uncle Michel gave his speech. Although I didn’t understand a word of nothing, I was in complete bliss and I thank the Lord I didn’t let anything get in my way of enjoying this day.

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