“Don’t be afraid, Cécé,” Papa said. “I am working very hard so you and Moy and Manman can come to New York and we can spend Christmas together. My friend Franck is a rich man here. He is doing a lot to help us.”

And just like that, I was less afraid. Papa’s voice could always calm my fears. Even when I was little and would wake up screaming in the middle of the night thinking I had heard Galipòt galloping up to our front door, Papa would whisper in the dark, “Cécé, many things like Galipòt exist in the streams of our dreams, but they cannot hurt us.”

That’s when I knew that nothing that was happening now could hurt us. Neither the elections, nor the shootings, nor the bombings.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26
ELECTION DAY. 8:00 A.M.

It’s quiet this morning. No sounds of gunfire or loud voices on the street discussing the bombings and shootings, who is responsible for them, and how to stop them.

Everyone in the house is dressed and walking about, but no one is going out.

I walked into the living room and found Tante Rose sitting alone between the television and the radio, both turned off, because of another power outage and worn-out radio batteries.

“Are you feeling well, Tante Rose?” I asked her.

“I am trying to decide if I should vote,” she said.

“Will you vote?” I asked.

“I am deciding,” she said. “You see, Cécé, the year you were born, in 1987, there was another election. You were born in January and the election was in November 1987. It was the country’s first election in thirty years. Everyone was so excited to go out to vote, but when the polling stations opened, the military shot and killed thirty-four people. They threw grenades into the streets, destroyed radio stations. It was a very bad time. When the killings happened, I told myself that whenever I could I would vote for the people who had died at those polling stations that day. I have not missed a vote yet.”

12:00 P.M.

The power is still out, but Raymond, the young man who looks after the house when Tante Rose is away, found some fresh batteries for Tante Rose’s radio. We are all gathered around the radio, even the two nurses, along with Nadine and Esther.

Raymond keeps switching back and forth between radio stations. As soon as a report is done on one station, he immediately moves on to another.

There are many reporters doing broadcasts directly from the polling stations, interviewing people as they come in to vote. It doesn’t seem as though a lot of people are voting. The radio reporters said that the lines were very short.

This morning before a polling station opened in Carrefour, a bomb exploded there, injuring one man. Aside from that there have been no other acts of violence.

“This is not the same kind of election we had in 1990,” Tante Rose said.