#5278: Have you met Gwo Lobo? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JHUDICOURTB@aol.com

To celebrate the beginning of President Aristide's campaign a Carnival style 
float with  very strong speakers and a crowd of about a couple thousand 
blocked the Delmas road during most of the day.  The President showed up to 
register his candidacy around 1:00 p.m. and made a short speech.  I thought 
all the events of the day were over when I stared driving up Delmas 105 
towards Petion-Ville at 4:30 p.m.  The traffic was very slow so I took some 
back roads and ended up near the Sogebank branch in 
Freres.  I guess if I had been more educated into the ways of local political 
campaigns, I should have known to head for home rather than to head for the 
direction of the action.  I saw several of the little pick-up tap-taps 
unloading their passengers and doing u-turns.  I thought they were just tired 
of wasting the expensive gasoline in slow traffic.  So there was a large flow 
of worker and students passing the cars, and heading home on foot.  I thought 
there was just an accident or a cement truck broken down up ahead.  Then I 
saw that people were actually coming out of little streets and paths and 
lining up on the side of the road, looking towards Petion-Ville.  That's when 
I saw it coming: a wide human wave dancing to the rhythms of this years 
carnival songs, the words having been change to include Aristide's name.  Gwo 
Lobo itself is a giant float, wider than an ordinary truck, taking so much 
road space the on-coming cars have to ride the sidewalk.  There was nothing 
to do but to stop on the sidewalk, wait, and watch.  Apparently they had gone 
up Delmas to Petion-Ville and were going down to Tabarre to continue the 
celebration.