The rain which had peppered the morning came back. I flicked on the wipers and poked along, just letting the feeling wash over me with the music: raw Delta hoodoo. In a way the blues seemed incongrous on Caribbean streets. I should've been listening to meringue or salsa, maybe. But it felt right.
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A half-block ahead, a trio of black Cuban boys ran out into the curbless street. I slowed to avoid them, but they stopped at the edge of the pavement to hop into a broad, ankle-deep puddle. The one in red top and black jams, the colors of Elegba, laughed and flailed his arms.
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I drew past as the other two joined in, and I could still see them at it in my rear view mirror, dancing in the rain, for no reason, with boundless energy. I remembered Robert Farris Thompson's way of seeing the flashthe "flash of the spirit," the unmistakable mark of the orishain the folk art and manners of the black South. I knew I was looking at the same thing. Joy to no purpose, save to the fun of it all, the complete pointless eternity of the impulse to rejoice where heaven and earth meet, in a pool of rainwater.
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With some difficulty, I had set up an early morning appointment at the Church of the Lukumí Babalu Aye, a bright yellow and blue peacock of a building, formerly the sales office of a used car lot, at the edge of the Hialeah business district. Whatever I had expected had not included a TV remote truck and a dazzling Cubana reporterslender, curvy, sculpted face, black hair down to her shoulder bladesstanding on the curb with a cordless microphone. A photographer and soundman trailed behind, laden with equipment.
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I set my handbrake, cracked my windows and got out of the car. Across the asphalt, a group of working-class men watched from the counter of a sidewalk espresso bar. TV crews and grin-
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