My first Haitian friend was Vilner, Jean and Marcia's eighteen-year-old cook. What was I to him? I was an extra mouth to feed. I was an extra dish to wash. I was the one who left sandals by the door step that he tripped on day after day after day. He spoke not a word of English, but thanks to his emphatic gestures and gentle nature, he managed to communicate somewhat.
I've never met anyone who reminded me more of a puppy. He was--and is--incredibly eager to please. One day I was filling my water bucket so my toilet would work, and, while I was waiting, he called, "cheve la!" "Sit over here!" I came over, and he picked a banana off the tree and gave it to me. It was green as a lime, but I opened it and behold! it was perfect. I ate it with obvious pleasure. He liked me for the simple reason that I was appreciative of the work he did.
I tried teaching him some Spanish. I have never met anyone with such a completely absent faculty for language. He can say two things now: "buenos dias" (good day), and "veinty-ocho" (twenty-eight). That's right. He knows how to say twenty-eight. It is beyond me how this managed to lodge in his head, but he now regularly hails me down and says with great enthusiasm: "veinty ocho!"
I remember sitting outside of the church during the evening service. I was reading a book when a little girl came up and took it from me. It was a thick, small-print book on business policy, and of course it was all Greek to her. "Eske sa ou'li pou mwen, supli?" she asked. "Will you read this to me, please?" I hardly knew what to say. Well, what the heck.
And so I read. And, to my great surprise, she paid attention. For several pages of case studies and financial evaluations--none of which would have made sense to her in Creole, much less English--she sat attentively. We were interrupted by another little girl who thought my nose was just about the strangest thing in the universe. She would touch it and squeeze it until I was forced to cover my face with my hands.
Then some eight-year-old-ish boys joined us. They wanted to play a game: the one where you hold your hands palm-up underneath theirs (which are palm down) and try to slap the top of their hands. It is a game of reflex. We played for quite some time, and the girls would occasionally jump in.
Then some older girls, probably my age or a year or two younger, came and joined us. At this point I had moved on to faux-juggling. I would pretend to attempt easy feats--throwing up a rock and catching it, for instance, or juggling two rocks at a time--and fail miserably. To them, it was hilarious. Easy crowds!
Crowds, indeed. That group got bigger and bigger until I was entertaining ten or twelve people. I was starting to run out of ideas when boom! church ended and the group dissolved like smoke in a wind-storm except for one little boy who had (apparently) decided that he wanted to spend the rest of his life sitting next to me as if he were my manager. Or my little brother.
There are a lot of things I have done here. I have built and I have repaired and I have ordered and I have written. But the people, the experience of communication sans language, has been the most powerful part of my journey.
A man approached me yesterday. He spoke as best he could in English: "I want you know... if you sad you will call me and I pray for you so you can look up." God has been asking some difficult things of me lately, and I've had some really difficult decisions to make. What better prayer could there possibly be?
So that I can look up.
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Haitian Creole, Goodbye Edition
How're you doing? : Sa pase (sahk-pahs-eh) (Colloquial)
We're burning (aflame, ablaze). : N'ap boule (nahp-boo-leh) (Colloquial)
Goodbye : A revwa (ah-rev-wah) Derived from the French "au revoir"
See you later : M'we'w pita (mm-way-oo-pee-tah)
I love you : Mwen reme'w (mwehN-ray-may-oo)
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If you are new to this newsletter and would like some background, please visit my blog, which contains an archive of all my updates.
On March 23rd, I will travel to Florida to hang out with my mother and my Grandfather until the 29th. After that, I will not be staying with Jean, so please direct all packages and letters to my Grandfather's address so that I can pick them up when I get there. Nothing sent from now on will reach me fast enough at Jean's address to reach me. I am still not entirely sure of my direction from then on, but I have some options in mind and will keep you all informed.
Phone Number (cell): 011-509-617-7720
Address for Letters & Packages (temporary): Dan Kaschel, c/o Jack Mendillo, 6746 Aliso Ave., West Palm Beach, Fl, 33413
God Bless,
Dan
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