Today

So, things have been quieter outside the school today. It's been raining, drizzle mostly, all day; that's made things better, I think. There are fewer tire fires, too. The only bad thing that's happened down here was that a UN convoy got stoned. Apparently, on top of them being blamed (justifiably) for the cholera outbreak, they are now the ones guarding the CEP, which is the Haitian election committee. So the people have been increasingly violent towards them. This morning, Ben Kilpatrick, the high school history teacher, Ben Saylor, middle school science and math teacher, Aaron Hendrik, high school Bible teacher, and myself walked from the school up to Petionville and back with a Haitian who tutors Creole at the school and aspires to be a journalist. It was somewhat of a spur of the moment thing. I went outside and walked the street for about an hour yesterday and when I heard that Jean (the Creole tutor) was going to Petionville to take pictures I wanted to go with him. I speak some Creole and am very familiar with the streets between our school and Petionville and above, so I didn't feel as much at risk. The two Bens joined us at the last minute. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME, if you know what I mean. We have been extremely safe and unbothered at the school. Going outside was, at best, exposing ourselves to greater danger. But the crowds were very docile at that point and we encountered more good-natured people than angry people. It didn't hurt that people were always laughing and poking fun at my beard. We had heard that things were much worse in Petionville so we wanted to see for ourselves, with every intention of turning back as soon as we saw trouble. Well, we really didn't see trouble. Not from crowds, anyway. Things seemed much quieter in Petionville than they were in Delmas, opposite of what it was yesterday. The fires were all out up there and the crowds weren't as charged. There was a lot of broken glass on the streets, something we hadn't seen in Delmas. Though going through Delmas we passed several burned out cars in the street. Again, these were relics from the day before; nothing was going on as we went through. There were a few unsettling parts of our outing. We met a drunk man who was singing Bob Marley songs and swearing loudly (in English) at the UN and the government. Outside the CEP headquarters in Petionville, he almost got tear gassed by Jordanian UN troops. Ben K dissuaded the soldiers, however. He was marvelous, actually. After that one man left, things were fine. There was a Sikh there who had a blue turban instead of a helmet, which I thought was extremely cool. After that, we passed a large crowd with a loud band marching toward the CEP. We later heard that there was some shooting when they got there and some people were hospitalized. We were doing our best to avoid the crowds and, had there been one when we were at the CEP, we never would have gone near it. In all, we were gone about three hours, which was much longer than we had wanted to be gone, but we got to see a lot. But things were not tense for us at all. Everyone we met was friendly and we had a translator with us as well. I am highly recommending that people do not do this, however, and I do not think that I will be doing it again. Things were extremely calm this morning but they are getting less so as the day has progressed. So far, as I said, we've been perfectly safe at the school and it's best to stay that way. I haven't felt any reason to be afraid and I'm really not afraid. I really, really wanted to see it, though. I felt like I would be ashamed if I had to say to my grandchildren one day that I hid in my house the whole time or watched it all over a wall.