"The force received AK-47 fire from the compound courtyard," he said.
Originally a set of four simple mud-brick rooms facing a central courtyard, the walled compound now encompasses pottery workshops and a lush garden of bougainvillea, hibiscus, flame trees, poinsettia and wild roses.
The Haitian people got the message loud and clear, although many of the young people who flooded into the Aristides' courtyard, scaling the compound's walls and climbing onto the only partially repaired house's roof proclaimed that they would vote "tèt kale", a reference to Martelly's bald head.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, an adviser to Mr. Arafat, held a news conference in the compound's courtyard.
One morning, Dr. Greenewalt held a show-and-tell at a table in the compound's courtyard.
"We thought his life was over," Harbi Abu Duheileh, 60, said as he waited to greet his younger brother in the courtyard of the presidential compound here.
Across the courtyard, in the main compound, the sick are crowded so tightly against each other that even in the day you must pick your way carefully through the prostrate bodies.
"We are taking, if it is possible to say it this way, one step at a time as quickly as possible," Dr. Albright said today as she stood beside Mr. Arafat in the bare courtyard of his stucco compound here.
Among the eight or nine white Land Cruisers parked in the courtyard of the Abéché compound, I noticed one with a faded blue insignia, hands reaching around a stylized globe, and, under that, the faint words "Aide Publique au Développement".
The blast occurred in the courtyard of a family compound where hundreds of guests had gathered and came about 9 30 p.m., shortly after dark, adding to the sense of terror and confusion.
But the pendulum is now swinging back toward repression of Baathists, something being discussed over tea in places like Mr. Abu Risha's tent, pitched in the courtyard of his fortresslike compound.
