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From Leslie Griffiths, Methodist Minister:聽聽聽聽聽聽聽

I鈥檓 just back from Haiti, my umpteenth visit; I lived there through the seventies and have been going back ever since. I guess I鈥檇 have to confess that I鈥檓 head over heels in love with the place. It鈥檚 been ravaged by floods, earthquakes and hurricanes; its people are desperately poor. So how exactly do I explain my infatuation?

There are many ways of answering that question but one thing stands out above all others. The Haitian people, knocked about by one tragedy after another, all walk tall. It鈥檚 as if their early independence has conferred a dose of nobility and pride on them 鈥� after all, they defeated the armies of Napoleon twelve years before the Duke of Wellington managed it. And so, despite two hundred years of struggle for survival, they鈥檝e never lost this gritty, stubborn, fantastically-inspiring will to live.

That spirit can be seen at this time of the year in an unusual way. You see it across the towns and villages of Haiti; it鈥檚 loud, it鈥檚 in your face, it鈥檚 music and it鈥檚 called Rara. Groups of people, up to twenty strong, process through the streets singing loudly and rhythmically. In a typical Rara group you鈥檒l find a collision of instruments -bamboo pipes, trumpets made from recycled metal, drums, maracas, bells, and long sticks. Someone described the music of these groups as 鈥渁narchic folk-meets-punk.鈥澛�

Rara is an ancient form of music that emanates from an oppressive past. It鈥檚 full of allusions to the people鈥檚 tribal religion. It serves as a vehicle of protest against all forms of slavery, ancient and modern. It manages to proclaim a message with which I, as a Christian, can readily identify.聽 Jesus himself, riding a donkey and accompanied by his very own Rara group, rode into Jerusalem to face all the hostility that would lead to his death. All of which speaks of the triumph of the human spirit, the capacity of men and women to rise above all that demeans them and drags them down. I marvel at the capacity of a battered people to display such courage in adversity, and to sing and show it on the streets for everyone to hear.