take a look at our photos of this fun and crazy nite
this was an incredible and unexpected highlight of our trip. emmanuel asked us if we wanted to go to kanaval ... and after checking it out with a few people, we decided to go. we were a bit tentative but, because emmanuel is with the police and he promised that we would be safe, we decided to go. joyce was totally prepared for fun and gave us stick-on tattoos and such to dress up with. emmanuel picked us up at 6 pm. we took the tourist route by the palace. there were a lot of people partying as we got closer to the event. we waived and gave out canada pins and such. i even got to drive! we parked in the police parking lot, toured the station and met emmanuel's commander.
as we began to walk through a park toward the event, we met up with a tactical/swat team. we gave them canada pins and glow sticks and just hung out for a while. then emmanuel headed toward the carnival. we understood before the event that there may be 100,000 or so people there and were told to stay close. as the crowd thickened, we held on tight to each others shirts and danced into the crowd. it became apparent that the crowd was going to be difficult to wade through. i'm a bit claustrophobic and was wondering how i was going to do in this massive crowd that was so tightly woven together. the possiblility of being carried away by them, by pure accident, was very real and someone could easily get lost or trampled by accident.
what happened next was unbelievable! we met up again with the swat team and they escorted us through the crowd by creating a box around us. we walked with ease as they created a human wall against the surging crowd (which turned out to consist of over one million people!) the team escorted us for some time ... and at one point the group commander leaned forward and whispered into my ear "i've got your back". at this point i was weeping with the living picture of what God's protection looks like ... something so undeserved and complete. this leader kept pushing and leading me left, right, straight etc. it was profound to me to be this protected and i will never forget it. we were escorted to guarded staircase and climbed up stairs to a platform where we enjoyed the carnival from an elevated place. we were given t-shirts. we danced, sang, painted, gave out the rest of our stuff, watched the carnival and had a lot of fun.
we were right beside another stage that was broadcasting the event and was hosted by a nationally renowned dj, who is also a rapper. wyclef jean came by on a float and rapped with this guy ... right within our reach!
a bit of a challenge came when the voodoo float went by. a couple of the gals on the team found this stressful ... and i must say that it was as though a heavy cloud descended over the place for a time. i sensed the heaviness around us ... but felt a real peace to stay put. the float went by and the cloud passed.
we had to stay til 2 am because of the size of the crowd and where our car was parked. on the way home there was a terrible accident - 3 people died. bodies were pulled out of a truck right in front of us. emmanuel got out and wanted to help, but we had to get out of the area as it was late and there was a lot of traffic. so emmanuel helped to push the truck into an upright position and called the police.
a note here on emmanuel: spending this evening with him was amazing. he is a profoundly loving and caring man. he is well liked ... has a very good heart. we could not believe the trouble he went through for us ... and wuold have never gone if we knew that he and his friends would be working so hard to ensure our safety and comfort. teresa has made a good choice in him as a husband.
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