You smile, he smiles, they smile, and I ….don’t sleep

It all started on Monday night. I wanted to get at least 7 hours of sleep so I went to bed at 10.30pm. The music outside our window was a bit louder than usual. You see, we live close to what looks like a shack with a small stereo and some really really big speakers. We are not really sure if there is space for dancing, and it’s possible they don’t even sell alcohol. They just play music, mostly loud music. Though it can get a bit noisy on the weekends, it’s never kept me awake. My 50 or so roommates over the past 10 years can attest to the fact that I sleep through anything: music, lights, dancing all around me…when I’m tired I sleep whenever, wherever. On Monday night that was not the case.

Ti Sourit on the dark streets of Petion-ville

An hour after we went to bed, whistles and loud cheering woke me up. The music had gotten louder, and it was now coming from more than one source. To make things even worse our nice and quiet fan had stopped working and there was no AC. So there we were... 1am, it was extremely hot, I had to get up in 4 hours, and the music just wouldn’t stop. Finally we decided to bring in a really old and loud fan into our room to cool us down, but mostly to drawn out the music. It kind of worked and we were able to get some sleep.

The next morning Graham asked the house staff about the noise. Was it a party? Or a soccer game perhaps? "Championat" -a championship! They said. We figured they were having a soccer tournament and the previous night had been the final game.

Alas, when we got back from dinner last night a big crowd had once again transformed the street into a soccer field. Obviously the car could not get through so we got off and walked. Graham’s bodyguard was unimpressed. However, instead of having to avoid being hit by a soccer ball we found ourselves surrounded by a happy crowd that was just hanging out and dancing. Apparently much more than a football championship has been keeping awake us this week. We now know this kind of street party is called "Ti Sourit" translated as "little smile" or "you smile" or "everybody smiles" according to my co-workers. It is an end of summer celebration, an invitation to do whatever you want on the street. There’s drinking and partying but mostly dancing and playing soccer all in the same space (!)

I have been told it will last all week. If only we could remember where we packed the earplugs….

(by Tania)

Fresh air

We met a smiling Richard at 6am sharp in front of our apartment. A Haitian print-shop owner in Petion-Ville, he regularly decides to skip church on Sundays and go hiking instead. He told us he has an enthusiastic but unreliable following – sometimes the group is twenty, other times just two. Today we were only joined by one other person – a young German woman named Katarina. She gently reminded him that they haven’t had 20 people for a long time. He laughed and looked down, perhaps wondering whether the hiking group’s golden age had passed.

We began our 3 hour journey by walking up and out of town. The streets were already bustling, and a colourful parade of market goodies were being walked down from the mountains, steadily balanced on human heads and donkey’s backs. As pavement turned to gravel, and gravel to dirt, the road became quieter. The cinderblock grey of the city gave way to the lush green of the Petion-Ville hills.

We continued to push uphill, putting altitude between us and the urban sprawl below. The temperature was already breaching 30*C, but the breeze was a welcome reward for our early start. By now, the road had turned into one of the many trails that web together the community. We passed simple one-room homes, vegetable fields, and communal water taps. But the perfect pastoral experience was suddenly intruded upon by a small clearing with a carpet of plastic trash. The bottles, cups, bags and cans were evidence of a rocking party last night (or was it last year?). Unsurprisingly, waste disposal is far down the priority list for the government and families alike.

The trail continued upwards, yielding amazing views of the city bordered by mountains to the north and south, the ocean to the west and plains to the east. We walked with our necks craned to the view and relied on our hearing for surprises up ahead on the curving muddy trail. “Bonjou!” was the familiar greeting from the locals. The farmers – shovels and hoes in hand - beamed smiles as they let us pass. Other locals - impeccably dressed and impossibly clean - were trotting down the trail to church. When there were no other sounds, we could hear the call of church bells for mass. But as Richard explained, this was just pre-recorded sounds over the megaphones. The few bells that existed in the area became casualties of the earthquake. Continuing on, we would here rustling beside us, and a tied-up goat or cow would be inevitably there to stare vacantly back at us.

We then came upon more buildings. The first just looked like a damaged and graffiti-marked house from a far. A closer look revealed a Voodoo place of worship. A man emerged to marshal my photo taking, and then went back to his work. The next cluster of buildings was buzzing with children. A few giggling girls darted after each other, protecting some unknown treasure. Not far away, four boys swarmed around a home-made soccer ball, only briefly looking up to greet us before returning to their game.

Richard then told us that that we were nearing the end of our loop. Our complaining legs shuddered down the mountain and we re-entered the world of rubble, cars and road-side markets. A parade of UN SUVs passed us, probably heading for some weekend hotel escape out of the city. I guess our escape had been of a different variety, one where our view of Haiti was not restricted to the view from an SUV window.

TV advertising and the World Cup

In keeping with the soccer theme of my last post, I thought I would draw your attention to the wonderful world of Haitian TV advertising. In a poor country where most of the population never sets foot in a formal store to buy brand-name food or merchandise, it makes sense that there are few companies willing to spend the money on advertising. So after your first few World Cup soccer games, you’re guaranteed to know the five commercials by heart – cell phone, chicken stock, juice, beer, and rice. Don’t worry, there’s no risk of being tortured by those SUV commercials where the car braves jagged cliffs, rushing rivers and alpine forest without so much as a bug splat to show for it. No, here in Haiti the commercials appear limited to pretty and handsome Haitians dancing away (with one of the aforementioned products in hand) to some cheery Caribbean tune in kitchens, on beaches or in front of cement brick walls. The exception is the commercial posted here, which has quickly become the most famous interlude of the World Cup.

During the game, other ads are superimposed on the screen (think ClipArt). The most common one is a plane advertising a local airline. When Argentina began losing, the plane cheekily chugged across the screen with an Argentina flag behind, presumably as it flew the team home. At times, the commentators (two guys with a microphone in a Port-au-Prince studio) chose to add some music to the game. For example, during the last twenty minutes of the Argentina match, they played the first three bars of Andrea Bocelli’s “Time to Say Goodbye” at least 10 times. With all this going on, who needs HD and computer simulations ?

Haitian delight after Argentina gets knocked out

What's the next-best thing to a Brazil victory at the World Cup? For Haitians (and many others), the answer is simple: an Argentina loss. And make no mistake, the party on Saturday was huge in Port-au-Prince as Brazil fans celebrated their arch rivals embarrassing demise to Germany in the quarter finals. We watched the game from the common-area roof top of our apartment building. As Germany piled on each goal, a widespread roar would erupt from the adjacent neighbourhood. Yellow and green figures would dart into the streets for a passionate impromptu hug or a bouncy squealing dance. As Argentina was finally put out of their misery by the final whistle, a small group began joyously charging down the road chanting "Messi, Messi". The group, seen in the clip below, swelled with every passing house, and was by no means paying tribute to the Argentinian star. Instead, it was a mock burial ceremony represented by a dressed up figure carried on a piece of tin roofing. Ah, victory is sweet. But defeat is exhilarating.