Baby Doc Duvalier was still in power and we had gone down thinking this was a horrible police state. It was, but on the surface, it was okay. The worst stuff was going on over in the corners. We actually got within about ten feet of the dictator. One day we were walking down on the main paved road from the airport into Port-au-Prince. We hear sirens going off, then come a dozen roaring black Harley Davidson motorcycles with the guys in sunglasses, the goon squad, riding them. It was a kind of parade of military police motorcycles. Behind them was a handful of black sleek Mercedes limousines. These are the guys who’ve got the guns, ya know. They are going really slow, maybe five or ten miles an hour, not hauling ass or nothing. In one of the big old limos, with the window rolled down, is Baby Doc. Just a fat guy in the back seat of this thing. He has a briefcase and he’s taking fistfuls of coins and small bills and throwing them out in the road. All these small poor kids are going after the money being thrown into the street. We were standing there on the curb. He was not wearing shades and it seemed we made eye contact. I wonder what was going through his head, this little Third-World dictator tossing money, when he saw these hippy-looking white guys with braided hair and wild beards. It was a mind-blowing experience for me.