It's kind of like the cold Haitian shower. You go in tentatively, first getting your hair wet while keeping your body dry but slowly and surely you find yourself sopping wet in the cool water and you can't imagine a shower more refreshing. I'm wet, sopping wet, with sweat, tears, laughter and love and it all, every bit of it, comes from this place, Haiti.
We Ran Like the Wind today. It started out as a utter disaster. Each one of us tentatively stuck one toe in the water...checking it out. Handing out the T-shirts we were mobbed as little hands tugged and pulled and begged with their beautiful pleading eyes, "take pity on me." We each found our favorites. I found Ben Wesley for Jen and the sweet little one with scabies and a runny nose. The mob was so bad at one point the teacher took off his belt and chased after the students to move them back. I asked after Tony's little Eterson, but he wasn't here. And I couldn't find my Didslande, but make no mistake, he was there. Those shirts went faster than Usane Bolt!
And then the fun began. We started marching through the streets of Terrier Rouge. The band led the way and everyone came out to watch. And I mean everyone, we were the parade. Then came the kids, barefoot, short and tall, pushing and shoving, laughing and some were even fighting to get up front. The older girls had their T-shirts pulled up with a rubber band and the little ones wore them down to their knees like dresses. The teenagers flirted with the boys by batting their eyes and giggling with their friends while the wee ones just pushed and shoved and I even saw one little boy pull a girls ponytail...some things, I guess truly are universal.
One might think that in that heat that they would want their own space, that they wouldn't want to be on top of each other, but packed in like sardines they filed down the street practically on top of one another, each closer than the next. If a shoe came untied it was a mass casualty as they would all topple on top of one another like a bunch of dominoes. We marched through those streets and those kids had such great pride and excitement that you couldn't help be a part of it.
Now, you've got to remember that Boo Mike forgot my pants, so at this point in the trip I was down to a skirt and a pair of jeans, the skirt won. We lined up at the start line for our 200 meter race and those k
ids were off, ZOOM!!! I fully expected them to stop a little in, but no those kids kept on going and going, WOW did they run. I'm happy to say that Elmer, Joan and I all placed first in our age groups, but alas we were last in the race. That alone brought great entertainment to see the slow "Blancs" bringing up the rear. And Mike and Tim were up next, running with the ninth graders, we figured we'd give them them the tough crowd. They came tearing down the street, Mike was close behind the last Haitian runner and in order to shoe them on, and only Mike would do this... He goosed them across the finish as he came in next to last. Only Mike...
But the story doesn't end there. What happened next, if we could bottle the sheer joy and spontaneity, we'd be trillionaires. When we got back to the school it was like a gigantic frat party hosted by Pere Bruno himself. Dancing and shouting took over the soccer field of the school. Kids were doing the twist and Mike had a multitude of kids climb up on his shoulders. I spun the kids in circles and dipped them to the ground until I was too dizzy to stand. Joan, oh Joan, I can tell is a party animal, she was bustin a move like Lady Gaga herself.
Pure Joy.
I hate even writing this down, because our language inhibits expressing all that happened, pictures and video can't even touch the magnitude of happiness and solidarity found here in Terrier Rouge this afternoon. This race today raised no money. No sponsors were highlighted. No famous people ran down these streets, but of all the races I've run, it is by far and wide my very favorite because it was ... Pure Joy.
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