Disappointing time in Boutilliers. Pouchon showed up twice briefly, promised to come back to talk about a contract and do some more recording, but he never came. Too bad. I'll try to get in touch with him again in a couple of weeks.
This weekend, Carnival comes to Port au Prince, and Natacha invited me to the Carnival party at the MEVA School! The kids were all decked out in their costumes & spent the late morning and afternoon singing and dancing. Photos below. 
Off to Leogane tomorrow. I spoke with Jean Bernard Thomas, a talented roots reggae singer & guitarist -- he's there currently, so hopefully we can do some recording. Tentatively, I'll be there for about two weeks working with All Hands Volunteers & looking into some music opportunities down there.  

Tomorrow I'll be heading up to the mountains just outside of Petionville to find Pouchon & give him some rough copies of the music recorded in December. Hopefully I'll return with more audio, video, and a good interview!

Yesterday, I went over to the MEVA School to drop off the instruments. Natacha (the school's director) took me into one of the classrooms and asked me to say a few words to the students before we opened up the box. I busted out my ten-word Creole vocabulary and told them some friends of mine in the United States wanted them to have some more musical instruments. Big ear-to-ear smiles! We opened up the box and started assembling instruments so the kids could try them out. A state of sonic pandemonium ensued for the hour or so – everyone wanted to try out all of the instruments. The trombones were especially popular. It was the most beautiful array of off-tune squawks, honks, squeaks, blats, and toots I'd ever heard.

One of the guitars didn't make it -- there wasn't enough room in the box, and you can only carry one guitar on the plane. The other one is a gift for Pouchon - his current axe is 30 years old, won't stay in tune, and falling apart.

On the behalf of the students at the MEVA School, THANK YOU to everyone who donated an instrument! Your donation made somebody's life brighter. Let's get some more instruments down there! Get in touch with Rubble Records if you'd like to send an instrument down there at some point.

-Geoff

The internet isn't cooperating with photo upload on this site, so here are some links to photos instead:

Happy students with instruments!
Future Coltrane?
First autoharp on Haitian soil
Little ones

THANK YOU to everyone who donated an instrument! The grand total: our trombones, twenty-four pairs of drum sticks, two flutes, a clarinet, an alto sax, an autoharp, a violin, and two guitars. They'll be in the hands of some very happy music students within the next couple of days.

Hi!
I'm heading back down to Haiti this Wednesday and will be there for about a month, just enough time to skip out on the tail end of winter. Here's the plan for Port au Prince:

• Deliver a bunch of instruments to the MEVA School
• Interview Pouchon
• Record more music 
• Take photos & video
• Meet at least one new musician
• Don't get cholera

After this, I'll head to Leogane to work with All Hands Volunteers for a couple of weeks.

A huge THANK YOU goes out to everyone who donated musical instruments! There will be some very happy kids at the MEVA School.

Stay tuned to this blog for updates.

-Geoff