Port-au-Prince, Feb 19 (Inditop.com/EFE) To the rhythm of the music, at a huge open-air concert, several thousand Haitians temporarily forgot about the tragedy that has gripped them since the Jan 12 earthquake that devastated the capital.
“It’s a way of thanking God for the fact that we’re alive,” one of the concertgoers, Rene Maurice, 32, told EFE at Wednesday night’s show, adding that all the Haitian musical traditions were present on the stage.
“Singers of Haitian rap, konpa, reggae, soloists have come…” said the engineer, who emphasised the desire of the public to “honour the name of God”.
The concert served to officially close the week of mourning that began Feb 12, exactly a month after the magnitude-7.0 quake killed some 217,000 Haitians and threw the entire country into chaos, although most of the damage was concentrated in and around Port-au-Prince.
“We’re all victims,” read one of the slogans imprinted on T-shirts distributed to the people attending the concert. Another slogan simply said: “I’m forgetting.”
And to forget the bitter hours and days surrounded by death and pain that the Haitian people have been living through, the bands started up and the choral groups, performers and dancers paraded across the stage set up in the middle of Champs de Mars square, where thousands of campaign tents have been erected for shelter in front of the half-destroyed presidential palace.
The vice chancellor of Haiti’s University de Notre Dame, Guy Laroche, a member of the presidential committee created to organise the activities during the week of mourning, said that the aim of the concert was to “give confidence to Haitians after this disaster”.
“Life goes on,” he said.
And to demonstrate that to the residents of this ruined city, some of the country’s best groups and individual singers – “the favourite artists among the Haitian public,” as Laroche called them – one after another took the stage.
Ignoring the odour of urine that permeates the plaza and happy to be seeing a show filled with rhythm and beauty, thousands of Haitians danced and let themselves be uplifted by the mixture of sounds, clapping their hands and singing along with the performers.
On stage during the event were many well-known artists here, including rappers Barikad Crew, reggae mainstay Dom Cato and singer-songwriter Manno Charlemagne, a star here since the 1970s.
And in this way thousands of Haitians reiterated their intention to rise up and go forward after the tremendous blow dealt to society by the temblor.
What happened here Wednesday night was, Laroche said, “therapy” for a people who “are very happy, very animated, who like to dance, who like their music”.
“And this evening even more so, because we haven’t had a traditional Carnival (which was suspended this year in the quake’s aftermath), and so this is an occasion for release,” he added.
