From my old record player, Ella Fitzgerald’s sweet and sensual voice sounded the cool melody of “Blue Moon”. My soul waltzed on every dull and deep note. My heart trembled and my gaze was lost in the blue of this warm summer night at Jacmel. This morning, sipping a bluecocktail, intoxicated by the sun in an indigo sky, I let Aretha Franklin echo my boredom with “Today I sing the blues.” But this evening the breeze from the ocean coming from the gulf, blew me another refrain, hardly attenuated by the sound of the waves. Tam! Tam Tam ! Tam! Trained in spite of myself, I went down the steps and followed the call of the drum. In the slate blue shadow of an imposing flamboyant, musicians barefoot, blue pants retouched, typed with rage on the skin stretched a tamtam. The muscles protruded at each movement, the hands fell in cadence, entrained in a samba endiablée. The sounds, sometimes grave and sometimes deaf, pierced the petroleum bluefoliage of the centennial tree to fly towards the celestial blue. Suddenly! the silence. A dancer, no, an apparition in a long indigo dress, adorned with magnificent sapphires, darted into a frenzied and sensual dance. He swirled, twirled at the frantic rhythm of tamtam. He suddenly seized me by the waist and I found myself carried away in this yanvalou, a true homage to life. Hesitant, I stared at my unknown rider. But the drum took hold of my soul. The outside world disappeared. Our two bodies sketched out a frantic banda. There was nothing left but him and me, lost in his azure eyes.

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Herlyne Blaise is a 30-year-old Haitian woman living in France, making plans in an electric and gas company, and creator of Hecosfair. A passion for books, she likes to travel with them.