3,2,1 Happy New Year! ------ GET DOWN!!!

What better way to bring in 2007 than with a little dancing? We all went to Eddie’s store to get some beers. The reggae played loud, we danced and chatted. After a while, we moved to this club called Marabou where we had to pay a whole $2 American to get in. You can buy drinks at the bar but you can also BYOB, which is the route we took.

The DJ played copa all night long and we danced under the clear sky, bright moon and stars. A perfect night, with new friends and old. At midnight we kissed each other on the cheeks. The music and dancing make up for the utterly disgusting state of the open-stall bathrooms, which, by the end of the night, became co-ed. If I never smell that smell again, that’ll be OK with me.

Around 1am, as I was dancing with Eddie or Yves, we were suddenly pushed toward the back of the club by the crowd. Everyone starting shouting to get down so we all crouched near a garden and dogpiled on Charlotte and Rob with Daniel and Eddie somewhere in the middle. This happened to be one dogpile instance when I would really have prefered the bottom. In a touchingly protective moment, Whistle (pronounced WHIS-LAY), who guards the Pwoje Espwa property in town and was partying with us, stood over us to provide cover. The crowd made some noise and then we heard shots.

Nobody moved. The rumor finally reached us that a drunk guy had come into the club and the police chased him in. Another rumor said that someone was sending up fireworks. It was the former.

At that moment the absolute ridiculousness of my situation occurred to me – my first hour in 007 and I’m crouched in the garden of a Haitian club with my friends and co-workers surrounding me and I’m hearing gun fire. As bizarre as it sounds, I had to laugh! There was another commotion and everyone who’d gotten up, ducked back down. Then it was over; the music continued and we danced a while longer. The party must go on? Well, it turned out that the cops shot blanks from a .38 into the air. No biggie. In DC, the incident might have been far more problematic.

Despite the night of revelree, I made it to church at 9am. Today we’ll go to the beach. Tomorrow, we’ll work. And I’ll work out my photo uploading problem. Mwen promete nou (I promise you).