A Presidential Candidate Visits

Just before we left for Hinche, an entourage arrived to see Pere Walin:  it was a distinguished visitor, Mirlande Manigat, candidate for prezidan of Haiti. She toured St. Andres school with Pere Walin in the company of her staff and two very scary looking guards, loaded to the hilt with firearms.

The St. Andres children and teenagers were wildly excited and packed the rails upstairs to watch the scene. Little girls poked their heads above the girls' toilets in a  line for a better look at the guards. Children chanted the name of the candidate.

The election is very soon, and Pere Walin has been talking to young men in his congregation about the importance of voting (not, as he explained to me, suggesting for whom they vote--just that they vote). As he said to me, explaining what he said to the young men, "What you don't want to smell, you will swallow. What you don't want to kick, you will take in your hands." In other words, he was saying that the young people of Haiti must take responsibility for their collective future in the form of voting, or the results may be repugnant to them.

Yvonne asked him who he planned to vote for. He just laughed. Then when she teased him a little more about his choice, he said, "I will vote for the winning candidate, of course."