Monday, February 7, 2011

a good day to catch up on laundry or emails...

News from Port au Prince:

Manifestations have been brewing all day. Stones are being thrown at passing motorists, there are demonstrations and burning barricades (ie. stacks of tires in flames in the middle of the roads.) One of the local markets was burned down this morning. Our neighborhood (Clercine/Tabarre) is still quiet. Most of the action is up near Petionville, downtown, as well as in the Artibonite Department, between St. Marc & Gonaives, and up north in Cap-Haitien. We suspect that unrest will continue to move this way, but it's still too early to tell.

Tara and I just walked over to the U.N. to use the ATM before the streets "get hot" around us. Cash is always good to have on hand when this sort of thing is going on. Unfortunately, we weren't the only ones with that idea, and both ATMs were empty. Things seem pretty quiet in our neck of the woods, but it's also before noon.

To be honest, even though the unrest is being blamed on the election announcement (Manigat and Micky are the two in the run-off election, scheduled for the end of March), I truly believe it has more to do with Preval than Manigat or Micky. Today was the day Preval was supposed to step down. Now he's saying he's going to stay in office until May. One of my local friends told me that they (Haitians) would burn the country down to the ground rather than let Preval stay in power. Which is what they've started doing today...



~PJ