Mizik Kanaval

I'm sure there's a better way to do this (and if you know what it is, please clue me in) but I've found a way to share some Carnival music for those who are interested. Just click on the following links and you'll go to a webpage where you can download them. Should be simple. These are some of the greatest hits from last year:

Top Alderman

Brothers Posse

Show Off

King Posse

You'll find they're very long, and go in stages. Some words you might recognize are "election" and "blackout" and "kidnapping." You'll also hear a lot of what sound like "f-bombs." But don't be scandalized, that's just how you say "it's necessary that" -- "gotta" -- in Creole. A lot of sentences start that way. If there's other lines you're curious about, just write me and spell it out phonetically and chances are you'll be writing it just as it appears in Creole. I'll be happy to translate, my rate is.....just kidding.

It's been a nice week. Winter is definitely over. There were a couple of nights when it was possible to get a tiny chill, even under my single cotton sheet, but those days are over. On Saturday I took a fellow MCCer and next-door neighbor for a driving lesson. More precisely, for a manual transmission driving lesson. So we drove around until we found something I didn't think existed within Port-au-Prince: paved roads with very little traffic. She did really well, and we'll be back at it this weekend. But it will still probably be a long time before she's comfortable on the busy streets. Driving here is something else. It's kind of wild and chaotic, but usually not going very fast. Absolutely nobody wears a seatbelt. I think it's a sign that you don't trust your driver. But I'm not much worried about getting hit by another car. I'm watching out for pedestrians. They're all over the place and they definitely get hurt by cars much more often than other passengers.

And to encourage extra caution, there's the fact that any driver that hits a pedestrian is instantly faced with an angry mob. Your only chance is to get out of the car right away and be very clear in your intentions to get the injured party to a hospital and take care of absolutely everthing and include pain and suffering money in the "settlement." I've heard people say that if, in some tragic circumstance, you kill a pedestrian, you should just take off, because it's an eye for an eye if you don't. I'm not sure I could, would, or should do that. It's a horrible thing to consider, but it definitely keeps me on my toes.

Another feature of driving is the use of the horn. I've never been a horn-heavy driver. The streets of Seattle are practically silent compared to here. But it's not like New York where people honk to express rage. Rather, it's an essential part of driving and communicating with other drivers. A tap-tap (public transport pickups) will just drift towards you until you give him a little honk-honk. I don't want to test this theory, but I think they would just run into you if you didn't have a horn. It's a substitution for looking in the rear view mirror. I heard an MCCer say that if he had to choose between brakes and a horn, he'd make do with the horn alone. And Port-au-Prince is built on a steep hill.

Finally, I should mention the traffic cops. As far as I know, Port-au-Prince, a city of two million, has two working traffic lights. The cool part is that they're solar powered. The funny part is that nobody pays any attention to them. The only real regulation on traffic is the cops that stand in the road and motion people around. One thing is for certain: these brave men and women have absolutely no positive effect. In fact, they seem to slow things down more. Haitian drivers have their own rules, and it works pretty well without help, however lawless it may appear on first glance. But it is fun to watch these cops do their thing. Each one has a signature move in their intricate language of traffic direction. Sometimes it looks like dancing, sometimes it looks like an epileptic seizure. During our commute, Jessica and Bethany and I like to keep our eyes out for one cop we call "tickle fingers" who's always gesticulating wildly, his digits all aflutter the entire time.

Okay, one last song. This one's not carnival music. It's by an artist named Belo who's definitely the most popular artist in Haiti right now, and always played on the radio outside of carnival season. I'm a big fan. Click on his name above and let me know what you think.