Yesterday, November 1st – the day of the dead, was a national Haitian holiday. This so marvelously afforded me an extra long weekend – with no school, Monday or Tuesday!
To assist in the celebration and attempting to wake the dead, my friend Angela rolled into town with quite the crew. After squeezing in one last work session Sunday evening, Angela and I washed away the day’s dust and got ready to hit the Bay Club.
Being dropped off at the bar by Ajax (our boss/the man I live with) was definitely more funny than awkward; however actually walking into the Haitian club searching for our friends was the reverse. Luckily our friends quickly spotted the two blans roaming around aimlessly and waved us over.
An evening of Barbancourt rum and dancing ensued. In Haiti, practicality always comes first. So in the spirit of practicality when at a bar or restaurant the rum is always ordered, not by the glass, but by the bottle, half bottle, or ¼ of a bottle. For this particular occasion, a whole bottle was definitely in order. A nice balance of Kreyonglais was the icing on the cake enabling everyone’s humor to translate perfectly. The shenanigans began.
The night ended with us all crammed into the nicest whip I’ve been in for months – a shiny new truck with air conditioning and flawless interior. Music bumping, I felt for a moment I was back at Sewanee cruzing down university avenue.
The next morning we arose at 9am to keep the fête alive! With swimsuits and hula hoops in tote we set out to meet our gang at the most beautiful beach around…Port Salut. – We had promised Ajax we would hop a Tap Tap (truck bed taxi) the least dangerous of all the incredibly dangerous methods of transportation. But shortly upon leaving the house we were met with an offer we couldn’t refuse. A mototaxi driver offered to take us the entire way for 50 goudes each ($1.50 US). Speeding down the street, weaving in and out of traffic, we wondered…why everyone was starring at us?? Two white girls on the back of a motorcycle holding hula hoops – what’s weird about that? Then, low and behold, who do we pass on our wild ride? But Ajax, of course. We gave a smile and wave and knew we would certainly be receiving a lecture that evening.
As we chatted away, the driver eventually turned to us and asked if we were aware that we had long since passed our destination. He had continued driving, assuming we would inform him of where exactly we needed to be dropped off. Fortunately our friends were just shortly behind, and they were able to rescue us from being stranded. In the meantime we found a cozy spot on the side of the road with some vegetable vendors. We told the kind ladies our story of passing our intended stop and they laughed pulling up stools for us. Soon our ride arrived and we kissed the friendly women goodbye.
Once again squeezed in the truck with good tunes, we agreed what a good day it would be even if we did nothing else but ride.
Alas, the brief road trip came to an end at the beautiful waters of the Caribbean Sea. A beach vendor brought a table and chairs to our shady spot in the sand where our truck was still cranking out music, the leader of our group ordered a bottle of barbancourt, and there we had it, the perfect day.
In between swimming, hula hooping and lounging a stumbling man covered in sand paid us a visit. His blank blood shot eyes revealed that he was taking his day of the dead celebration very very seriously! He simply held out his empty sprite bottle for bit of our rum. To show his appreciation he placed the bottle on the ground and proceeded to do a pretty dramatic front roll in the sand. He walked away without a word, but periodically throughout the day I was caught a glimpse of him on the beach doing front rolls. Hundreds of them…
Sadly the day could not go on forever so eventually we headed to the house of one of our friends. His mother had been expecting us and prepared an absolutely huge and amazing dinner!
And though our beach day ultimately ended at the office, putting in a couple hours of work before bed, the two day GHEDE celebration made it all worth while!
Thank you Ghede.
And Thank you Mister Kingston.
by: Sean Kingston
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