BIG NIGHT IN LITTLE HAITI

    Last night's Boukman Eksperyans concert at the Haitain Cultural Center was fantastic.  We danced, we sang, we wore ourselves out.    When getting the energy to drive home seemed difficult, we heard new music. It was coming from a rara band in the street.  

  

 Raras are small groups of musicians who lead dancing, chanting, processions through the streets of Haiti.  They play the simplest of instruments, two-note horns, drums, whistles, and cow-bells.

When they get a beat goin', you must follow.

   
As the concert was breaking up most of the 600 attending took to street to follow this Miami rara band.  What fun it was!   They led us out onto NE 2 Avenue and we danced through the long line of stopped traffic.   

 

We rara'd into a Little Haiti neighborhood and boogied past dark houses.

The residents apparently had seen it before.  At 10:30 p.m. some came out, waved, and smiled.

            Taking over the street

   One Haitian man watching warned our light-skinned group, "Be careful.  You never know where the raras will take you".  They took us for a great time for ten blocks.  After that we peeled off.  As we returned to our cars, the rhythmic procession was still heading south. 

  Who knows?  They may still be marching.

   We were amazed by this heaping helping of Caribbean culture.  I still can't believe we got to strut through Little Haiti in a rara parade.  
Only in Miami.
 
  Hundreds follow our rara band as it marches through Little Haiti.