B-listers, big crowds, and sudden blasts. And databases.

Apropos of that last post, I’ve got a good pandemonium story this week. Last Friday was Flag Day, or Fet Drapo. In preparation for the big event, Digicel threw a big party in the Champs de Mars, the enormous cluster of public parks and monuments that surround the presidential palace. The featured artists included a couple of well-known konpa bands, Krezi and Djakout Mizik. But the headliner for the night was, get this, Shaggy. As in the states, his three or four big hits can still be heard on the radio from time to time. But there is no way that he would get a reception anywhere in North America like he got here last Thursday night.

I drove down with three other volunteers and a Haitian friend. It was supposed to start at 6, but we figured we wouldn’t miss too much if we showed up around 7 or so. When we got there, the crowd was massive already. We were a little puzzled to see Digicel still painting the VIP stands – constructed the day before – around the main stage. Apparently there were a couple wrinkles in the event planning. There was no music yet, but we were still early, according to island time. But regardless of the lack of entertainment, the people kept coming. When we approached the stage area, still a good hundred yards away, choo-chooing through the dense crowd, we were eventually stopped by a wall of solid people that simply couldn’t give an inch. We stood there for about a half hour before realizing that the music might still be a long way off, and instead of getting cooked in this 98.6 degree oven, we should probably seek out a better spot.

We eventually found a nice grassy area about four times further away. We could barely see what was going on on stage, but it hardly mattered. Hour after hour, the same roadies and techies continued meandering around the equipment. And the people just kept coming. By nine o’clock, the crowds extended as far as we could see, which was pretty far - Champs de Mars is the largest public space in the Caribbean. There were easily a hundred thousand people there; possibly many more, considering that everyone close enough to see the whites of Shaggy's eyes, if he ever showed up, was packed in like sardines.

Around eleven o'clock, Shaggy was still nowhere to be seen. Not that we were so eager to see him, but we'd been expecting live music, and we were getting restless, along with everyone else there. Josh and I went on a walk for something to do, and on our way back we heard what sounded like Shaggy. By the time we found everyone else, Shaggy (or someone impersonating him) had played his three biggest hit songs, shortened, back to back. He didn't seem to be anticipating an encore. Apparently, there were some major technical difficulties, and someone decided to give the people some Shaggy. But after the already-faint music died down, there was some sort of disturbance in the dense crowd in front of the stage. From where we were standing, all we could see was the beginnings of a stampede. People were pouring away from the stage in rivers. We still don't know what caused the panic - we didn't hear any gunshots or anything. But I was starting to get worried as the wave of people moved closer and closer to where we were standing. And just as I was starting to ask myself, how are we going to get back to the car, there was an explosion.

Some ran, some ducked, everyone looked around frantically. And then, directly overhead, the giant blossoms of Disney-scale fireworks. People stopped, laughed, and clutched their mouths and chests as thousands and thousands of frantic pulses evened out and slowed down. I've rarely felt more relieved in my life.

* * *

I thought I should write briefly about what I've been working on in the office. Shortly after I started there in December, I found out that they were going to pay a freelance software techie to build a database to store all of the information from their human rights monitoring activities. The idea was that every time my coworkers went to visit a prison or a police station, for example, they would return to the office and record the information in a series of customized forms on the computer. Luckily enough, I designed such a database, though much simpler, at my last job. So I asked if I could do it instead, since paying a private contractor to build one from scratch would take a lot of time and money.

The project has grown a lot since I began in late January, as well as going through several revisions, but at this point it's a fuctional tool for keeping track of the police, prison and justice systems of Haiti. It's actually been a lot of fun to work on. I needed to populate the database to see if it would work as desired, and to do that, I needed "dummy data." So, I started using the names of coworkers, friends, family, old college professors, musicians and whoever else I could think of. If you're reading this blog right now, there's a decent chance that you appear in my database as a Haitian police officer, prisoner, warden, or judge. Don't worry, I'll try and clean it up before we load it with real information and let the press snoop around in there. But if one of you slips through the cracks, I guess you'll know who to blame when you're summoned before the International Criminal Court.

The week in review

All last week I was up on the north coast of Haiti with another delegation. We went to a series of schools and conducted workshops about nonviolent conflict resolution. Here's the highlights:

• Biggest forehead-slapping moment:

Walking out my front gate Monday morning, ready for work as usual, seeing a carload of my coworkers giving me the palms-up, shrugging, "dude! what the hell?" expression, and realizing that I had, in fact, forgotton all about the trip. I ran inside and stuffed a backpack with clothes and ran back out to my exasperated colleagues.

• Second biggest forehead-slapping moment:

Realizing, before we had even left Port-au-Prince, that although my book, my swimming trunks, and even my iPod made it into the backpack despite my haste, my socks, underwear, and toiletries did not. The only drawers and socks I had were the ones I was wearing on my already sweaty body.

• Dorkiest joke photo:

You might have to click on it so you can read the sign.

• Most adorable Haitian schoolchildren (tied for first with all other Haitian schoolchildren):

The guy is Dafus Richard. He was one of the two trainers on the delegation. Here he's making an illustration with a couple of students, talking about an imagined conflict and how they managed to find a solution. Dafus has a James Earl Jones-style low, low bass voice. Really funny guy. My second week at RNDDH he walked up to my desk for the customary handshake. He kept his grip and said, "yon sel Feliks la, pa gen de": the one and only Felix, there is no other. He's greeted me the same way most mornings since then.

Speaking of rare Haitian names, the other trainer that came with us was Gibbs, first name Alfred, though most just call him Gibbs. Here he is:



His greeting, most days, is a wide-swinging high-five with a locking thumb grip, and "Kurt! How are you, man?!" in fairly authoritative English.

• Most telling language lesson:

Speaking of Gibbs, something really funny happened halfway through the week. He's been teaching himself English for years with the help of the blans he works with as well as English language books, including the Bible. He's a very devout guy. So as we were hanging out after a day of workshops in Cap-Haitian, the second largest city, situated on the north coast, he asked me a language question, as he often does.

"Kurt, I have a question."

"Yes?"

"In Genesis, when it says that Adam was lonely, what does that word mean? Lonely?"

"Uh, hmmm. Well, it's how you feel when you're all alone. Sort of."

"So it is like the word solitaire, in French?"

"Yeah. No, actually it's not like that. Because sometimes you can be all alone, but you don't feel lonely. And sometimes you can be in a crowd, but you still feel lonely."

"I don't understand."

"It's like the word manke in Creole. You feel like you lack a person or people. Sorry, this is difficult to explain."

"I think I understand."

But I don't think he did. I can't help but chuckle when I think back on this exchange. It was like bad sci-fi, and I was Captain Kurt, confronted by the alien or robot or whatever, pleading "tell me of this 'loneliness' of which you speak." Incidentally, I was reading a book on Haiti during the 1994 Marine occupation shortly before this conversation, and the author said something to the effect of "Haiti is a country where it's impossible to be alone." This is something I've often felt in the last six months. There's eight million people on this little part of this little island, and it's really hard to find anyplace where you can't hear or see anyone. And even with the streets and sidewalks and public transportation jam packed with people, Haitians genuinely prefer being close to each other, holding another's hand or shoulder for the duration of a conversation, sleeping several to a bed even when there are other options. I wonder what's less likely for an average Haitian: being alone, or being lonely. Of the Haitians I have come to know thus far, the only ones I can even imagine being either alone or lonely are those who have spent significant time in the U.S. or Canada. Gibbs is going to spend a month in Montreal this summer, and I wonder if this might be the first time he experiences that Adam-esque emotion.

• Best diversion
  

Just up the hill from the town of Plaisance, we came upon this scene:



That's a full size truck trailer that almost totally plunged into a ravine when the semi driver turned too sharply around this hairpin corner. There were already hundreds of people hanging out at the scene when we arrived. By the time we left an hour later, there was at least a thousand. In the middle of nowhere, mind you. It was a fun atmosphere. Even the cops were able to keep cool and enjoy the spectacle.

• Best fake news

If you're a fan of theOnion.com, you may have already seen this. If not, be forewarned it's not, I repeat, not real. It pokes some fun at Haiti. I'm generally sensitive to people who haven't been here making comments to the effect that Haiti is a basket case. But, but, but. I can't deny that it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between a mob and a street party. If there's one word that describes Haiti since the fall of the Duvaliers and military dictatorships, it's uncontainable. For good or ill. At least it's not boring. So this made me laugh pretty hard. You can laugh too, but not too much.

Here's some photos from a big tree planting that we did in Port-au-Prince. MCC contributed the trees, but the whole thing was organized by a Haitian youth organization called JUPED. There were about 100 students from schools in the area, and we walked around the neighborhoods in four big groups, planting trees in yards for whoever was interested.

This is before we hit the streets:





My little brigade of Johnny Appleseeds even had a banner. It reads: "No to trash! Yes to cleanliness!"





















Check out the poor kid who's about to get flicked on the ear.



After handing out all the trees, Matt led the kids in an exercise to help them think of trees as one part of a bigger environmental picture.