Once again the government municipal inspectors accosted a group of APPO vendors in the zócalo. The APPO set up a table to collect political signatures in condemnation of the government and Ulises Ruiz Ortiz for violence against the population during the 2006 uprising. Affiliated vendors use the APPO presence as a legal shelter for selling their products, since the city government has banned ambulant vendors from the area. This ban, ironically, is supposed to protect tourists — horrified witnesses to another confrontation — and commercial shop-owners and workers. By chance, members of the political opposition played a role in defying the police.

Recently, while speaking with a younger journalist, I made mention of several points of Haitian history, and the writer looked at me blankly. Although he was well-read, and had even traveled to Haiti, he hadn't the faintest idea of many of the historical facts to which I made reference.