white girl driving

it is a truly gorgeous day, just three days before elections are supposed to happen. it is sunny, about 85 and the wind is blowing in off the ocean in gusts, making the wind chime sing. ooo, it is just so gorgeous, and so hard to reconcile with all that’s going on in haiti. i suppose i feel this way most of the time, and i am constantly trying to reconcile. i’m not trying to adapt anymore - adaptation becomes second nature in haiti. if you cannot accomplish that you just won’t make it here. the elections have filled the country with tension, unavoidable stress that underlines everything that you do in a normal day. its because the elections mark the demarcation between what we know and what we don’t know - the black hole of our future here is february 7, 2006. it sounds dramatic, but really, i’m not making it more dramatic than it is. it is serious, this not knowing what will come next in your life. a few days ago joe was saying, “this could be the last weekend of carnival” acknowledging that a bad outcome on tuesday could close the country down in a lot of ways. that is, if things go bad they will go terribly bad. now this weekend’s carnival has been cancelled, along with sale of alcohol and school for the next week. american airlines has cancelled flights to and from haiti on monday and tuesday.

and it is serious that things could change and our lives could be completely different in a week. we’re hesitating now, the whole country is holding its breath to see what will happen. at the same time everyone is getting up everyday and doing, doing whatever they do to make it. jacmel police announced a respite, that the bands will be allowed to go out tonight, and people will dance in the street, fearless and accustomed to not knowing, the unpredictability. as i said, adaptation is the particular art of the haitian. elections in the US change the lives of americans, too, but you don’t have to run or hide or any of that. you don’t worry about losing everything one moment to the next. haitians know this well. their situation may inspire them to flee, but they have no where to go. life just goes on regardless of how shitty it may get.

and so it is a sinfully gorgeous day - sinful in the sense that you feel guilty for enjoying it so much. we talk in the morning about contingency plans and i spend the day scanning the news for a prediction that sounds believable. it could go either way really. people in our village are being sent into the mountains to vote, and this is typical of most of the country. people are being sent to places that are too far to get to by foot, yet there are no cars allowed on the road on election day, especially public transportation. so preval could win, he could still win and things could stay as they are now. or enough of the population could be discouraged from voting, and the second-up, charlito, could win. in which case the slums of port-au-prince would likely erupt. that is the scenario that american airlines is worried about, isn’t it? the explosion in port-au-prince, the all-out war. what could inspire such violence other than a preval defeat?

it’s a mistake i make all the time, running through the possibilities and trying to see what the powerful are preparing for, what the rich of this country are expecting to happen. what would benefit the private sector most right now? i ask myself the question every morning, for three more mornings until elections. the electoral council has suggested that results of the elections will be available in only three days, which is laughable considering it took weeks in may 2000 and there are at least as many if not more seats being contested on tuesday. will the elections happen, be accepted, and the country just proceed on to carnival? will the city become more violent, more impossible, more insecure? can the private sector afford to not have a carnival this year?

twop kesyon, san repons. too many questions, without answer. it makes more sense to enjoy the weather, to adapt to this aspect of life in haiti, too. we don’t know what will happen so we just do, do whatever it is we do to make it.