A few friends and I took a walk around Port au Prince on Saturday. We stopped by the Hotel Oloffson again, this time during the day, for an afternoon beverage and to cool off.
Richard A. Morse (RAM), the band leader I mentioned below who is also the manager of the Oloffson, was there. We had the chance to talk with him and have him tell us about several stories about the harassment and attacks that he and has been have been through over the years. Good stories, great guy.
Just now, I googled "Craigslist Haiti" because I'm looking into vehicles for sale here and also places to stay. The first hit was this letter from Richard to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon entitled:
I liked it so much I wanted to put it on my blog.
Thanks, Richard, for standing up for the people of Haiti. Again.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Last night in Port au Prince
Hi! Sorry I've been away from blogging for so long. A lot has happened since my last posting 3 weeks ago.
Basically, just learning how to live and work day-to-day in Haiti has been overwhelming in many ways. In Haiti, just having time and space to think--much less to write anything coherent AND have internet access with which to post--can seem like luxuries that are hard to come by. I finally have all of these, for now.
I'll try to start catching up on getting some blog postings up. They may not be in chronological order, but hopefully that won't matter much.
********************
Last night I had a rare social opportunity in Haiti. I was invited to join a group of people from the U.S. to see this band
perform at this legendary hotel
The band's leader is Richard Auguste Morse--the band takes its name from his initials. Morse is U.S. citizen, born in Puerto Rico to a Haitian parent and a U.S.-American parent. He is also the manager of the Olofsson.
The band's performance last night was powerful and mesmerizing. Below is a video I took. Morse can be seen on the right with the black scarf covering his head:
Turns out that Morse and RAM have an impressive history of speaking out through their music against violence and corruption in Haiti. I didn't know any of this when I was witnessing the band's performance last night. Just learned all this today from reading on the internet.
Here's an account of Morse being kidnapped right off the stage at the Oloffson:
"One of the most dangerous moments for the band and for Morse personally occurred on September 8, 1994. This was during the time when Haiti was ruled by the military junta that took over after the 1991 CIA-backed overthrow of Haiti's first democratically president, Jean Bertrand Aristede.
"RAM was performing their regular Thursday night concert at the Hotel Oloffson [this same weekly performance I attended last night]. One of the audience members was a military officer who decided to enforce the ban on one of RAM's songs that was widely interpretted as critical of the military junta that ran the country. The officer ordered RAM to stop playing the song.
"The band played on. Morse, known to be the leader of the band, was physically carried out of the hotel by armed men. Using a wireless microphone, he sang a verse in Kréyòl that was not in the song, "Kadja bosou a ye ma prale" - a prayer to the Vodou loa to grant him safe passage. His kidnappers released him and took another captive instead. Concerned about the safety of their fans, the band ceased performing for several weeks."
My kinda guy. Anyone who uses cross-cultural art to boldly speak the truth, and risks everything in doing so, has a fan in me.
[As it turns out, the incident above occured less than two weeks before Clinton ordered a military operation in Haiti that restored Aristede to power.]
In this next video, you can see the long horns being played, which are synonimous with Rara music.
Rara is an indigenous Haitian musical form that somehow incorporates Voudou, politics and the celebration of Easter.
Especially during this week leading up to Easter, Rara bands take to the streets and spontaneously draw large crowds that follow them around the neighborhoods, chanting along with the band. The sound of rara bands in the streets around where I'm staying here in Port au Prince is nearly constant.
I love Rara. One of my absolute highlights from being in DC for Obama's inauguration was encountering a Brooklyn-based rara band moving through the crowd that was there to celebrate Obama's victory. Here's a video I made of them on that cold and wonderful January day in DC:
OK, that's rara in Washington DC.
Now, listen to this clip from RAM's show the other night. I think it's the same tune, right?
Here's one more video of RAM, which I loved:
So that's what the music was like.
The crowd was the other part of the story last night. The Thursday night RAM shows are known for drawing a great variety of people. This was in fact the case. It was easy--at least for me--to get the impression that at last night's show that every blan in the country was there. ("Blan" in the Creole word for foreigner, though it derives from the French word for "white" and so has racial connotations, too.) There were indeed lots of foreigners there. And lots of Haitians, too. A nice mix.
One of the people I went to the show with is a really nice guy named Matthew. He's a research intern from Cornell University. He and I had been talking at a table outside for awhile when a young Haitian woman came over to us and seemed to ask us in Creole what we wanted. Matthew and I assumed she was a waitress, and proceeded to ask her in our broken Creole for a menu. She seemed at first to not understand us, even though we were adamant that we were hungry and wanted to eat. Then there was a moment when it seemed that she understood. She gestured to me to follow her, and I did. Off the porch and down a poorly lit and out of the way path away from the hotel. Had I not had a few drinks, I probably would not have followed her so readily. Oh well. When we arrived at an isolated and relatively private spot, this young woman turned and looked at in me in a way that clarified that she was working, she was not a waitress. What she was offering not mange (food) but rather sex.
"No, mesi" I said, trying to be as polite as I could in a very awkward moment. She persisted only a little, but when she realized I wasn't going to accept her offer she took my hand, dropped to her knees and started to beg me for a few dollars. This was beyond awkward. This was painful. I said "Madame, souple" and pulled her back up to standing. I looked her in the eye and said "Kijan ou rele?" (What is your name?)
"Bellinda", she said.
"Bellinda, kisa ou vle?" (what do you want?) She said she wanted a beer. So I walked back to the bar with her and bought her a beer. We sat a table. She asked me one more time if I wanted to sleep with her. When I said no, she asked me if I wanted to dance. We danced. Then I kissed her on the cheek and said goodnight.
That was last night in Port au Prince, for me.
Basically, just learning how to live and work day-to-day in Haiti has been overwhelming in many ways. In Haiti, just having time and space to think--much less to write anything coherent AND have internet access with which to post--can seem like luxuries that are hard to come by. I finally have all of these, for now.
I'll try to start catching up on getting some blog postings up. They may not be in chronological order, but hopefully that won't matter much.
********************
Last night I had a rare social opportunity in Haiti. I was invited to join a group of people from the U.S. to see this band
perform at this legendary hotel
The band's leader is Richard Auguste Morse--the band takes its name from his initials. Morse is U.S. citizen, born in Puerto Rico to a Haitian parent and a U.S.-American parent. He is also the manager of the Olofsson.
The band's performance last night was powerful and mesmerizing. Below is a video I took. Morse can be seen on the right with the black scarf covering his head:
Turns out that Morse and RAM have an impressive history of speaking out through their music against violence and corruption in Haiti. I didn't know any of this when I was witnessing the band's performance last night. Just learned all this today from reading on the internet.
Here's an account of Morse being kidnapped right off the stage at the Oloffson:
"One of the most dangerous moments for the band and for Morse personally occurred on September 8, 1994. This was during the time when Haiti was ruled by the military junta that took over after the 1991 CIA-backed overthrow of Haiti's first democratically president, Jean Bertrand Aristede.
"RAM was performing their regular Thursday night concert at the Hotel Oloffson [this same weekly performance I attended last night]. One of the audience members was a military officer who decided to enforce the ban on one of RAM's songs that was widely interpretted as critical of the military junta that ran the country. The officer ordered RAM to stop playing the song.
"The band played on. Morse, known to be the leader of the band, was physically carried out of the hotel by armed men. Using a wireless microphone, he sang a verse in Kréyòl that was not in the song, "Kadja bosou a ye ma prale" - a prayer to the Vodou loa to grant him safe passage. His kidnappers released him and took another captive instead. Concerned about the safety of their fans, the band ceased performing for several weeks."
My kinda guy. Anyone who uses cross-cultural art to boldly speak the truth, and risks everything in doing so, has a fan in me.
[As it turns out, the incident above occured less than two weeks before Clinton ordered a military operation in Haiti that restored Aristede to power.]
In this next video, you can see the long horns being played, which are synonimous with Rara music.
Rara is an indigenous Haitian musical form that somehow incorporates Voudou, politics and the celebration of Easter.
Especially during this week leading up to Easter, Rara bands take to the streets and spontaneously draw large crowds that follow them around the neighborhoods, chanting along with the band. The sound of rara bands in the streets around where I'm staying here in Port au Prince is nearly constant.
I love Rara. One of my absolute highlights from being in DC for Obama's inauguration was encountering a Brooklyn-based rara band moving through the crowd that was there to celebrate Obama's victory. Here's a video I made of them on that cold and wonderful January day in DC:
OK, that's rara in Washington DC.
Now, listen to this clip from RAM's show the other night. I think it's the same tune, right?
Here's one more video of RAM, which I loved:
So that's what the music was like.
The crowd was the other part of the story last night. The Thursday night RAM shows are known for drawing a great variety of people. This was in fact the case. It was easy--at least for me--to get the impression that at last night's show that every blan in the country was there. ("Blan" in the Creole word for foreigner, though it derives from the French word for "white" and so has racial connotations, too.) There were indeed lots of foreigners there. And lots of Haitians, too. A nice mix.
One of the people I went to the show with is a really nice guy named Matthew. He's a research intern from Cornell University. He and I had been talking at a table outside for awhile when a young Haitian woman came over to us and seemed to ask us in Creole what we wanted. Matthew and I assumed she was a waitress, and proceeded to ask her in our broken Creole for a menu. She seemed at first to not understand us, even though we were adamant that we were hungry and wanted to eat. Then there was a moment when it seemed that she understood. She gestured to me to follow her, and I did. Off the porch and down a poorly lit and out of the way path away from the hotel. Had I not had a few drinks, I probably would not have followed her so readily. Oh well. When we arrived at an isolated and relatively private spot, this young woman turned and looked at in me in a way that clarified that she was working, she was not a waitress. What she was offering not mange (food) but rather sex.
"No, mesi" I said, trying to be as polite as I could in a very awkward moment. She persisted only a little, but when she realized I wasn't going to accept her offer she took my hand, dropped to her knees and started to beg me for a few dollars. This was beyond awkward. This was painful. I said "Madame, souple" and pulled her back up to standing. I looked her in the eye and said "Kijan ou rele?" (What is your name?)
"Bellinda", she said.
"Bellinda, kisa ou vle?" (what do you want?) She said she wanted a beer. So I walked back to the bar with her and bought her a beer. We sat a table. She asked me one more time if I wanted to sleep with her. When I said no, she asked me if I wanted to dance. We danced. Then I kissed her on the cheek and said goodnight.
That was last night in Port au Prince, for me.
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