The damned roosters rouse Kevin and Ashley from their bamboo mat on the roof. They found a mosquito net at some point and arranged it in a tent/lean-to against the water barrel. They don’t hear any gunfire and the smoke has cleared. They make their way downstairs where Jocelyn has set up breakfast and is reading by one of the windows. Matt and Ti Mon are lounging in the courtyard playing dominoes. They all say good morning as Kevin and Ashley come into the kitchen. “Good news!”, Matt calls out to them, “The Macoutes all crawled back into their holes. No coup after all. Nothing like some burning police stations to remind the cops they don’t have enough bullets!” Before long, music is playing on Matt’s boom box. There’s a Haitian band named Boukman that’s being nominated for a Grammy back in the States. All the local stations are playing it on a loop. It’s a style of music that reminds Kevin of the ra-ra bands. He soon has everyone in the house doing their own version of a ra-ra dance.
Kevin says goodbye to everyone and they agree it’s not farewell. Port-au-Prince tap-tap service is up and running after the previous day’s scare. Kevin gets in one at the very last minute as its driver is getting behind the wheel. The ride east toward Carrefour is surreal. With a full view of the scenery this time, Kevin watches the quiet rural villages around Miragoane turn into empty, sun-baked fields, scarred from one last attempt to burn the sugar cane into something like fertilizer. Then the rapid train-like effect of the tap-tap suddenly entering a dark cavern with tin shacks, cement walls, and rubble rising as high as the eye can see.
Carrefour started off as a afterthought suburb outside downtown Port-au-Prince. But its location makes it the gateway between Haiti north and south, turning it into a thriving maelstrom of unzoned industrial, commercial, and residential chaos. Hastily arranged cables are thrown atop giant power towers high above the buildings. Industrious entrepreneurs have tapped so many extension wires into the towers that the whole arrangement appears to be some sort of organism escaping its cocoon. The sprawl of Port-au-Prince soon absorbed Carrefour but never really controlled it. No one has ever bothered to pave the streets and there is no public sewer or water anywhere outside Port-au-Prince or the gated communities in Petionville. Carrefour grew up around the station and then turned into slums. Radio Protestant’s engineers used to live near the station, but Tim discourages this because engineers “keep going native out there”.
The tap-tap comes to an abrupt halt. Looking around, Kevin guesses he’s about a 30-minute walk to the radio station. He needs to gather all the gear needed for the Mount Beef trip, and then get gone. Carrefour is the fault line between rival gangs, so a walk is a stroll through the lion’s den. Kevin senses that he’s pushed his luck enough the past few days, so he leans out to see what’s stopped traffic. The main police station in Carrefour is just a half kilometer ahead. It is completely bombed out and smoldering. The awful standard yellow paint on the front of the station is covered in black bullet holes with a huge hole blown out of the center of the front wall. The iron bars have all been pulled out of the windows. Lavalas graffiti is sprayed all over it and the station is abandoned.
A passenger explains that a curfew was declared yesterday and was only lifted this morning. All traffic from Miragoane and points south need to pass through Carrefour. No one is sure which gang controls Highway 1 right now, so the tap-tap drivers are all trying to convince each other to run the gauntlet to find out. Also, whatever accelerant was used to ignite the bunker police station, spilled out onto Highway 1 and melted what little asphalt remained, creating a smoldering moat across the highway.
At this point, Kevin is very glad he traveled light. He grabs his backpack, steps down from the tap-tap, glances at the surprised Haitian faces inside, and says “M’ ale”. As he makes his way toward one of the alleys, he remembers that he still has that bottle of clairin in his bag after leaving some books in Mirogoane. That will be more than enough to get him past any neighborhood watch checkpoints. He lights another cigarette, coughs into the smoke and dust around him, then uses the feet God gave him to walk toward the station.
At the first checkpoint, he has the bottle of clairin open. Before the shouting begins, Kevin takes a swallow, wipes the mouth of the bottle, and passes it to the young man who seems to be in charge. “Sak pase?”, Kevin asks. The young man pauses, then takes a drink. He passes it to his friend and the bottle is passed around until it returns to the man in charge. He hands it back to Kevin and grins slyly, “Just hand this to the guys a couple blocks away and tell them it’s from Yves. They’ll keep it but will let you pass.”
One bottle lighter but still on his two feet, Kevin arrives at the station. Just in time for Head Engineer to hurry him inside, explaining that he can stay in the extra bedroom. Then Technician Jè stops by Kevin’s workbench and tells him that he’s found a perfect two-bedroom house just a few blocks away. Maybe they can be roommates. Kevin has the cash. Jè has access to the station’s vehicles. Many problems solved. As Kevin sinks into the old leather chair at his work bench, the ceiling fan whirs and mosquitos buzz. Jè returns to his own workbench and continues soldering. Kevin opens a manual on solar panels. A solar powered repeater could give base communities their own comms network. “What’s the line between education and information warfare?” he calls to Jè, who just snorts and continues working. The Haitian on-air staff have managed to slip the new Boukman song on air. The one about remembering their African roots. Kevin recalls some advice he received from a Haitian mentor, “Love, like voodoo, does not travel overseas.” He wonders if the same can be said for the truth.