Election Day: Manifestation

In Port au Prince, we had heard that morning that someone was already killed trying to vote.  It's a madhouse.

Today is Election Day is Haiti.  When I planned my volunteer trip to Haiti, I didn't realize that I was coming around the time of their presidential elections (an event that occurs once every five years).  It is a time of predicted chaos and violence -- a time when Americans are discouraged from visiting Haiti as a result.

Well, I came anyway.

A few of the volunteers and I walked down into the town of Fermathe to see what was going on at the voting booth.  We walk through the market place in Fermathe to discover it is a relative ghost town in comparison to the day before.  How many people decided to stay home today because they were afraid of what was occurring outside?  How many of these people aren't voting as a result?

The local voting was taking place at the Baptist Missionary School.   A crowd surrounded the outside of the gate.  A crowd stood inside the play yard waiting for their turn to vote.  Police cars (the only ones I ever saw during my nine days in Haiti) drove up and down the street.  There was a sense of tension in the air.  I was uncertain if it was a good idea that we were there after all.

Hours after we left the voting location, I found out that the same thing had happened in Fermathe that had already happened in Jacmel earlier that morning.  Someone had gone into the voting booth, pretending to vote, and grabbed the ballots and ripped them out.  Amazingly, these people keep escaping into the crowd and getting away with it.

One of the employees at the home I was staying at left early this morning to vote in Port au Prince. He came back in the evening and said he was not able to get down to the voting booths.  There were no tap taps or vans allowed through Port au Prince.  It's crazy how safety could also make it difficult for someone to be able to exercise his or her right to vote.  Another one of the employees had better luck and proudly showed off her thumb which had been marked as a sign of voter participation (and to prevent double-voting).

We watched the news all day.  The live coverage in Haiti is different than in the US.  While there is ususally commentary that accompanies the US news to explain what was going on, in Haiti, you only saw the images.  I saw hoards of people parading down the street in unison  on television.  It was difficult to tell whether it was good or bad parading.  

I asked a Haitian man if the situation was worse or better than he expected.  He just responded with, "This is bad.   You have your responsibilities.  I have my responsibilities.  But a lot of people don't need change."