Friday, April 21, 2006

La parentèse Enchantée

It's been a while I know. I needed a break and I took it. I made a short trip to visit my aunt and managed to almost not talk about "the situation" with anyone.

Almost because, of course, the minute anyone found out where I come from, they wanted my opinion on all the news they heard about the elections, insecurity etc.

I have to say my most startling conversation was with this volunteer. She assumed I'd voted for Rinse-Repeat which shows you the level of spin people are spewing and ingurgitating. If the poor girl had had access to other sources of info, she'd realize I am truly not the person to assume this about.

I tried to explain my vote choices and my general position in a calm and rational way. Not an easy task, believe me. Especially since I tried and failed to blog about the election results for the first round.

I had to delete all of my first draft, and the second, and the third. By the fourth, I realized this wasn't going to happen. I just couldn't seem to say what I felt without using words that started with f-, c-, g-, m- or a-.

I'm still upset. Whenever I manage to forget that both Haitians and the Int'l don't believe we are worthy of and, actually, even need true democracy and laws and all that jazz, somebody reminds me.

So let's talk about the infamous results. I say infamous because I'm still violently opposed to handing out any blank vote like it's some damned bonbon.

I also cannot stand hearing about how grown up it was for the Haitian people to go vote and not kill each other all over the streets. Practically since the beginning of the registration process, I've heard people say that they were going to "sell" their vote. And just as soon, everybody believed that Rinse-Repeat would win!!!

So big whoop, we voted and no bloody massacre. One could tell from the questions of the foreign press that they were sooo disappointed, boohoo.

I'm still convinced the alleged "spontaneous" protest in favor of Rinse-Repeat being elected on the first round is manipulation. How else to explain that all this crowd would have brand spanking new t-shirt and posters of their dear candidate? In this dirty, no water country? Yeah, right...

As if that comedy wasn't enough, the second round for the legislatives was today. Logical sequences are also absent, you see. Every election will apparently have it's own special counting system. No wonder schools are rare here. Can't have too many people wondering why 1+1 doesn't always equal 2, can we?

Anyway, my mother voted. I didn't. Early numbers estimate that only 8% to 15% voters bothered to go today. My mother went with friends and it was the same site as for the previous round. Except no line, no crowd, nada. To hear he tell it, the whole experience was like a Sunday afternoon during World Soccer Championships.

Meanwhile, I was busy enjoying all the electricity we had. This was my second at-home day (thank you, temporary govt!!!) so I've been doing all the stuff I couldn't do during the terrible blackouts we've just had: ironing, sewing, blending, mixing, curling my hair.


As you can see, my self-imposed vacation is over. Can't wait to see how this latest farce plays out. [insert smirk here]