UN APRÈS-MIDI

So it was that I had to make a trip into Jacmel – to the police station – traffic division – to change the ownership of my new (used) moto. I’d be the passenger on the back of my own moto with my new associate, Gazol, driving – in an odd feigning of respect for the legal system. It was midday at a magic moment when students were getting out of school – emerging from unseen schools off the main road – flooding the main road – getting picked up by tap taps (the buses or pick-up trucks that are taxis), riding four to a moto or walking home in groups. Suddenly the country’s distress melted away and was replaced by a flowering of youthful beauty and hope – for each was resplendent in their school uniform – clean, bright, even pressed – in an array of colour and variations according to their school. The boys in their short trousers of brown, blue or maroon with stiff white shirts looking their very best – the girls in pleated skirts or pinafores of double blue, green or brown, at times in gingham or plaid with blouses of sparkling white or baby blue. The young female final touch featured shiny white ribbons tied loosely to knots in their jet black hair and frilly white socks appearing above their leap-of-faith uniform flats. The spectacle of the student mass exodus unfolded all the long of my trip to town but was gone on my return. I thought to attempt one day to capture it on film but this would seem so unsatisfying because any simulation on film would never be able to capture the life affirming cycle of the spectacle’s daily appearing and disappearing.

Entering the dusty entrance to the city and continuing along the main road to an abrupt left turn we finally pulled up to the two-storey strongbox that was the police station. The two battered police 4X4s with smashed windshields parked out front were the only indications that we had reached our destination. We drove right into the building, up a wet ramp to the ground floor – an industrial blue coloured open courtyard into a medieval tableau – evidently with all present seeking justice in some shape or form. I couldn’t take in all the activity around us or figure out where the smoke, water and cooking smells came from but the din indicated that we were in a terminus of humanity. We parked our moto along side about twenty-five orphaned motos of all sizes and makes. We filtered through a crush of women carrying packages of food and supplies – all at once carrying on conversations with their men who were standing in front of their respective cells on the second floor in what appeared to be a restricted area – although I saw no doors in the building at all. At ground level, another row of cells comprised the “Bureau de circulation” (traffic division). With my comrade Gazol and the previous owner of the moto who had just shown up, we entered the inner sanctum of an office cell attended by two police officers impeccably turned out in their brown and blue uniforms. One filled out a lengthy form with a ballpoint while the other more senior officer attended to some unfinished dispute in the courtyard before returning to oversee our ritualistic transfer of ownership. This procedure was done in a surprisingly efficient manner and after a payment of 250 gourdes ($8) we were weaving through the crowds to the exit of the police station – with my officially stamped documents safely in hand in a matter of fifteen minutes.