CARNAVAL

February 5, 2014 by Cassandra Honorat

If you have ever been to Haiti you must have been struck by the overpopulated cities, you certainly felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of people walking up and down the streets in what can sometimes be unbearable heat, you were undoubtedly charmed by the amazing beauty of our beaches and awed by the majesty of our mountainsthey seem to be everywhere those mountains; plopped there by God long ago. Now and then, a little village nestled between beautiful mountains and seaside will beckon your attention. Sometimes Haiti has poetry in its dysfunction. Someone once told me, and she was right (R.I.P. Mrs. M.), you can never really leave HaitiI understand what she meant, it has a way of imprinting itself in your very core. But I digress; today, I wanted to talk about Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday). It is the traditionally pagan holiday that precedes lent, it is the day before Ash Wednesday. Well in Haiti, Mardi Gras is a phenomenon. As a child the name would send such fear through my very being that for several weeks, on Sundays, I dreaded walking out of my house. The tradition was that for the Sundays that preceded the three-day celebration people dressed in costumes, one scarier than the other, would go around neighborhoods scaring children. Boy, was I scared! As a result, Carnaval has had this terrible connotation of fear and horror and it is not my favorite period of the year. I am a minority when it comes to my feelings (or lack thereof) about Carnaval. In Haiti and in the Haitian communities abroad, millions of people live for these three days of celebrating, dancing, drinking and letting go. It is the one time of the year where people of all walks of life, regardless of social status will get together and forego their inhibitions to express themselves and experience life as freely as they can. It is an experience to be had. As we speak, on February 4, 2014, one would be hard pressed to find a seat on an airplane bound to Haiti on any of the days preceding this years celebration. Tickets have been bought, rooms have been booked and many in the US and elsewhere are trying to devise the right excuse to escape the responsibilities of work for 3 to 5 crazy merry days.

Cassandra Honorat 2014

In a different world and time, this would be such an amazing opportunity to welcome tourists from everywhere to partake in this feast. As it stands, it feels like an opportunity to disconnect, to forget and to pretend that for three days one is living in an almost normal place where brothers and sisters of the same land and history can come together, go crazy and let loose. There is nothing wrong with that. No one would dare tell an American family to forget about Thanksgiving, it is perhaps the most cherished holiday in the US; the one everyone celebrates. The same goes for Mardi Gras in Haiti. It is almost a cultural obligation. I, on the other hand, am interested about what will happen after the bands have packed their instruments and returned to wherever they came from. What do we do when the last note has been sung and the last hips have gyrated into oblivion? What will happen in the real world after the rosecolored glasses have been trashed and ones head is clear of the rum and clairin? There are elections to be had, without those elections the future of the Senate will be in serious jeopardy and with it, perhaps the chance of ever building that democracy that keeps evading us more and more. There doesnt seem to be any real plans for those elections to take place in the shortterm. In the meantime, the Haitian Prime Minister was in Davos trying to convince the money makers of this world that Haiti is a place worth big investmentsI wonder how that went. Today President Martelly is on his way to Washington DC for a meeting with President Obama, it always amazes me how Haitian Heads of State almost always search for the answers to Haitian problems in foreign land, no good ever came of it and I am not holding my breath now; I could die if I do! At the end of their term, both President Martelly and Prime Minister Lamothe are encouraged to update their Curriculum Vitae and in the list of skills, should add has traveled extensively. As I have told someone very recently, the Haitian official is more concerned with power and less with the quality of leadership needed to move this country forward. God, I almost wish (I am going to be yelled at for saying this) that we could cancel Carnaval this year and take those three days to do a vast campaign of awareness and empowerment to teach the population about earthquakes and safety during one. That too can be done with music but at least something valuable would have been gained and millions of lives would have been saved. One can always dream Cassandra Honorat cashon1604@hotmail.com

Cassandra Honorat 2014