Tèt kale (TET KAL-ay) is a Kreyol phrase that means “bald head.” It’s also the widely-used nickname of Michel Martelly, the now-44th president of Haiti. He was sworn in on May 14th, 2011 and we went to Champs du Mars (the area around the National Palace, which is where the swearing in took place) an hour or two after the investiture.

In the week and a half since I took these photos, I’ve been both busy and sick! It truly is a magical time for me. I think I got the flu. Which wasn’t pleasant. But in any case, I’m feeling much better (not 100% yet, but better). So you finally get some photos.

This lovely couple were had set up shop directly across from the left wing of the national palace. When they saw our crew start shooting footage and photos, they caught my attention and demanded that I take a photograph. It’s honestly one of my favorite photos from the trip so far. They’re just happy, lovely people. His smile is great.

Francoise (in orange) interviews a young while Jean Marc shoots, Jasmine records sound and Siebren supervises. I’m never not amazed by the ability of people to carry things on their head. Fantastic.

The UN was there, being all MINUSTAH (min-OO-stah): Mission des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en Haïti — United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti. Thankfully, they turned out to be unnecessary that day. The general feeling was that of reserved hope and excitement. These troops happen to be Brazilian. Most of the UN troops like to throw an occasional thumbs up to the kids that inevitably stare at them when the drive past. For adult blancs, we get a nod or a small wave.

Louvenson is taking photos of the palace. That large tower behind him is some sort of a memorial for Haiti. I’m not sure what it’s called. The large bowl on top is supposed to contain a flame. There were UN and PNH (Police National d’Haïti — National Police of Haiti) riflemen using it for a vantage point that day.

This gentleman stopped to chat with our crew. Honestly, the main reason I took his photograph is that I thought he looked very much like Dwayne Wayne from “A Different World.” It’s an okay photo on its non-Kadeem Hardison-related merits as well, I think.

This gentleman asked me to take his photograph. I obliged. He asked to see it afterward. I showed him, asked, “C’est bon?” He nodded, gave me a small smile and then bumped my fist.

This statue depicts Henri Christophe astride a horse. Christophe was also known as King Henri I of the State of Haiti, which was an independent nation that consisted of the northern part of what is now the Republic of Haiti. He was responsible for the construction of the Citadelle Laferrière, as well as the Sans-Souci Palace (“sans-souci” means “without mercy,” by the way). His statue in Champs de Mars is now surrounded by the tents and shanties of a few of the thousands of people who are still otherwise homeless after the 2010 earthquake. In Haiti, they refer to it as Douze Janvier.

“Titid se nou!” means “Aristide is us!” “Titid” is an affectionate nickname for Aristide, which — even though there’s not an exact translation — means “Little ‘tide.” Other than that explanation of the language, I rather think this photo speaks for itself.

And, of course, we had video cameras rolling with the students. If you’d like to check out the videos the students cut together out of the footage, check out the Vox Pops Martelly album on our Vimeo page.

So in case you were wondering where the heck I’ve been (and I’m sure nobody has), the answer is that I’ve been busy. Doing film stuff. But, I come bearing a peace offering: The first videos from the new term of students here at Haiti Reporters. It’s called “My Story,” and you can see them all at Vimeo. Several of them came out rather well, I think.

In other news, I’m rather excited for Betsy to be visiting in something like 25 days. For several reasons. But not the least of which is that by the time she gets here, it’ll have been a month since I’ve seen her. She told me she’s bringing the cats, but I think she’s lying.

Also, Madame Viecent made maiz moulin for lunch today. That was good. More later, including some photos from a dance school I went to yesterday.

It’s a lovely group of students. Eager, smart and most of them can speak at least a little English.Which is good because my French is rubbish. The new class has started by being taught how to build a camera and tripod, how to configure the settings, how to set a white balance, etc.

But really a majority of my time has been spent helping the stragglers from the previous term finish the editing on their projects, which are well past due (about a month now, I think). Their skill levels range from low to surprisingly apt, especially given both the general circumstances of the average Haitian and the fact that they’ve only had a four month course to learn how to shoot and edit their pieces.

The house is nice. We’ve got state electricity (provided by Electricité d’Haïti, aka EDH)… kind of. Everyone that has EDH has electricity… kind of. I’ve heard that the average house gets about 10 hours of electricity from EDH per day. I’ve also heard that the efficiency of the distribution system is on the order of 50% — which means that half-ish of the electricity disappears before it gets to the customers. And that something like 35% of the power delivered is stolen. Anyway, we’ve got a system of batteries and an inverter to provide us power when EDH is down. We can comfortably run for about a day and a half during classes, with the computers and batteries charging and all that. Which is good, because EDH was down for nearly two days, Thursday and Friday. We finally got power back last night, so our batteries are now topped up and we’re still running on EDH power.

The running water is also provided by the state, as is the sewer. We depend on electricity for the water, which may seem odd. We have a tank below the driveway that gets filled with a tap from the city — when there’s water from the city (once or twice a week at the most). We then pump water from the cistern into the tanks on the roof, which provide water to the taps in the house. So if the roof tanks are empty and we’ve got no EDH, we have no running water with which to shower, wash hands, or flush toilets. Good times. Luckily, that hasn’t happened more than once so far.

The pump sucks up too much electricity to use it with the inverter and batteries, so a generator is being looked into. Hopefully we’ll be able to plug it into the inverter and charge the batteries that way.

What do you want? It’s Haiti, man.

Mister Clucky Pants here keeps me up at night, sometimes.

Mister Cokey Pants here keeps me somewhat sane sometimes. Prestige takes care of me the rest of the time.