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