Usually, right about now, I would be getting revved up for the Winter Olympics. I have always loved them. I grew up skating on frozen ponds and resent people who say global warming is a lie. The ponds here rarely freeze solidly enough for this young generation to have that experience. Hardly ever do the girls have to get out of the way of the hockey boys and the boys get angry that the twirling girls are on "their field." In Haiti, right about now (since right after New Year's/Independence Day), Sundays would be devoted to dancing in the streets behind the Carnaval bands practicing for the HUGE national event that is Carnaval in Haiti.
Wow! I have been in this territory before. Carnaval in Haiti this year is an even bleaker prospect, potentially non-event, than was Mardi Gras in NOLA after Katrina. But you never can count the Haitian people out - no more than you can the people of New Orleans. Never bet against the Creole spirit!
Last night, Wyclef Jean, on Hope For Haiti Now, sang a song that began so plaintively about Haiti, its landscape and spirit that by mid-song, I was in tears. Suddenly, in the middle of the song, they began playing Rara music, and it was a joy! I actually got up and danced.
Carnaval unofficially begins around mid-afternoon on the Friday before Ash Wednesday. As it happens, this year, that Friday is also my birthday. (Disclaimer: I am not that crazy about my birthdays.) I learned something about the Haitian culture when even the Salesian nun, Mother Nicole, in my EFL class refused to stay when all the students in uniform rushed out to the street undismissed by yours truly, the teacher. "No!" said Mother Nicole (yes, Mother Superior of the Port-au-Prince Salesians) "I want to see the bands!"
Carnaval in Haiti is a transforming experience. The photo above (and I usually NEVER share such personal information here) is of me with American and Haitian friends at my very first of ten Carnavals in Haiti. The bands were only a few feet away and it was rum and coke (what else?) in those cups. We had great fun!
To think that Haiti will be denied this one joyful celebration this year tears my heart out. Lives that are hard deserve this free fun. So I wonder if Carnaval really can be stopped. Wyclef and the people singing on the street as Anderson Cooper is now showing them on CNN, along with my own experience of the resilience of the Haitian people cause me to think that there will be some kind of Carnaval anyway - in Port-au-Prince, and in the many outlying cities and villages to which many urban Haitians are now migrating.
I probably do not have to explain that Carnaval precedes Lent in Latin cultures. Lent is a time of self-mortification in the Christian (especially Catholic - which most Haitians are) liturgical calendar. God knows that Haitians do not need to "give up" anything for Lent. They have very little. But they do anyway. You may not know, however, that once Lent is over, during Easter week, there is ANOTHER Carnaval in Haiti.
Known generally as The Peasant Carnaval" (again, not pejorative, an actual class in Haiti - "paysanne"), Rara is a celebration that does NOT roll through the cities as Carnaval does, but rather marches its way through the winding rural paths. Unlike Carnaval, it does not boast the music of Wyclef, or Ska-Sha (dating myself?), you hear music made on rough, instruments, homemade of natural, organic products, and the joy is, once again, overwhelming - pure - in lives that were never that easy, even before the cataclysm.
Will there BE a Carnaval this year? I don't think you can keep the Haitians down. It may not be officially sanctioned, but watch Haiti on the night of February 13 this year - the night Carnaval would officially begin. You might actually see it happen somehow. Will there be a Rara? With so much of the urban population moving out to smaller cities, towns, villages, and lakous, I expect Rara might be more spectacular than ever. Never count the Haitians out! They always have hope, they always have faith, and they always show charity. To lift hearts, praise God, raise a song of joy, the living, the survivors, will do their Haitian thing, I think. I am pretty sure our Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knows this exactly as I do. The Haitian people are very, very special. As they continue to show their great spirit, let us continue to show our great charity. God Bless Haiti, America, and everone involved in the rescue and relief effort.
