It’s time that we share some of our most amusing moments in Haiti and favorite Kreyòl phrases thus far:

He must really love you!

One night, during our home stay in Dezam, we sat on the front patio with our host parents and a 19-year old friend, Vernard, a flashlight faintly illuminating our faces from its position on the ground in the middle of our circle. We were having a ti koze (a small chat) in the cool nighttime breeze. In the conversation, Ted mentioned that he is 29 years old, and I asked the others to guess my age (not thinking that they would guess I am one year older than Ted.) I was right; Vernard started off by saying, “Well, you must be younger than Ted, so…” and I think they may have guessed 26 in the end. When I revealed my true age, Vernard’s jaw dropped; he let out a loud laugh and clapped his hands in surprise, exclaiming “Wow, he must really love you!”

Our friend Vernard, pictured on the right.

Fè Dezòd

"Fè dezòd" is an expression that means literally “to make” (fè) “disorder” (dezòd.) Children often do this: “Ti moun yo ap fè dezòd!” (Those children are making disorder!)

One friend, also in Dezam, was a 6-year-old boy named Migerson who was often engaging in the activity of “fè dezòd,” so much so that our Kreyol teacher and distant relation to little Migerson also gave him the nickname “Tet di” (hard head) – this also came about because Migerson continued to climb on the grape vine from which he had fallen one morning, bumping his head pretty badly on its roots.

Migerson

"Radyo 32"

This is one of my favorites. Over staff lunch one day, we came across a term for gossip called “teledjòl.” Ted had heard it before so inquired further about its meaning. It’s apparently not a very nice way of saying “hearsay” or to refer to unreliable news you simply “hear on the street.” A young co-worker of ours, Fania, had another great expression for it: Radyo (Radio) 32. The 32 refers to the number of teeth in our mouths, and so Radyo 32 is her way of referring to gossip - love it!

Our great Port-au-Prince ekip - team

There is a dead chicken in your yard

Last Monday morning, the woman who works at our house two times per week - Madam Amid - came to me in the kitchen and said, "You know, you have a dead chicken in your yard..." I did a double take, as I was attempting to track carefully with her Kreyol. "There's a what in our yard?" She took me out back to show me. Sure enough, along our back wall and in plain view is a chicken hanging from a string attached to its foot, dead as a door nail. I asked her, "Poukisa li la??" (Why is he there??) This made absolutely no sense to me. Madam Amid explained that it, surely being a neighbor's chicken, had attempted to fly away but its string got caught on the nails and glass bottles protruding from the dividing wall between our yards. Oops! She then commented, "I tried to take him down last week but the smell was so horrible I couldn't go near him." Again, I had to do a double take. "The chicken was here last week, and I didn't see him??" "Yes," she tells me, "he's been hanging there for about two weeks!"

In memory of the departed (note: this photo was taken by Ted this summer of a chicken
that still lives, happily settled in her home in Davis, California)

A taste of our work

I had a good friend share the other day that she wanted to know more of what we're doing here. Fair enough! I think we are still trying to get our feet wet and figure that out ourselves, though we certainly would like to be sharing more at the same time.

On Thursday we sent out our first monthly Media Alert, which includes links to recent articles on some of our core advocacy issues areas. Our roles as Advocacy Coordinator and Policy Analyst are to work with MCC's partners to better understand and advocate for just solutions to many of these pressing policy issue areas. This will give you a good taste of what we are working on.

Please click above for the full newsletter and article links. You can "like" our MCC Haiti Advocacy page and feel free to sign up for this monthly newsletter yourself. Also, do not forget to watch Baseball in the Time of Cholera, and let us know what you think.

This one's for you, Joy! :)

Adventures

Within some of the day-to-day here in Haiti - getting up, making breakfast, washing dishes- I can forget what an adventure we are on, and what a privilege it is to be here.

In coming to Haiti, we have the honor of trying to learn a new culture and language. Studying Kreyol is really fun for us. Our first set of lessons occupied our three week home stay in Dezam, and they have continued every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings through the end of next week. Ted and I would both like to become "Kreyol masters," I think. We see other foreigners who have worked here for years and we admire their language abilities. We want to be like them! But that mindset will discourage us more days than not while we're here. Some days we advance, and other days we can feel stuck in the mud.

We are still "kids" in a lot of ways. Learning a new language is not just about acquiring words, but about understanding innumerable nuances, gestures, and expressions. After three years here, we still won't understand most of these things! Learning language is about learning a new culture, really. And this is not an overnight process with some fast track option - not at all.

In the midst of our day-to-day, we need to remember that this is not our native context but appreciate the fact that we are here. It is a gift.

The two of us on our introductory tour of downtown, outside of the national museum

Hamlet, today

This may seem like an odd post title, but special circumstances call for out-of-the-ordinary reflections. Two weeks ago, for our anniversary, Ted and I actually saw Hamlet performed in Port-au-Prince by none other than the London Globe. Through the Globe-to-Globe program, actors are traveling to every country in the world over the next two years with their production of Hamlet, and we were lucky enough to attend their thirty-ninth performance.

As we watched the tragedy unfold, I couldn't help resonate with some of the main character’s musings and woes – lines that are so familiar to me now after pouring over them in high school and seeking out various theatrical and film adaptations since. (I think that part of me has come to believe, like my English teacher taught us, that Hamlet is the greatest play ever written.)

This time, the stage and setting were different. The reflections of our epic protagonist, Hamlet, stirred in me new thoughts and parallels to our own context as foreigners newly arrived in Haiti, and generally as Americans in today's world so full of injustices. What are these thoughts and towards what actions might they lead?

Act III. Scene I.

To be, or not to be, that is the Question:

Throughout the play, Hamlet is caught by fear; the fear of action. After receiving his deceased fathers’ call to avenge his unjust death, Hamlet cannot bring himself to execute the action; a cycle of fear and reflection holds him back. In Hamlet’s case, acting would bring unpredictable and perhaps fatal consequences - one cannot murder the king without expecting some reprisals – yet he cannot shake the fear of his own death that would likely follow (and one can hardly blame him.)

Act II. Scene II.

Oh what a Rogue and Peasant slave am I?...What would he do, Had he the Motive and the Cue for passion that I have?

A travelling actor employed by Hamlet evokes strong feeling while recounting a fictitious drama –that of Hecuba and her murdered husband. Hamlet, who has a reality to mourn (the murder of his father) is distraught at his own lack of passion in response to his father’s death. How can someone feel so deeply over a fiction while he still sits, unmoving, on the news of his father’s unjust death? He is shamed, confounded, by his own slowness to act.

Act IV. Scene IV

...to my shame, I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame, Go to their graves like beds.

The young Fortinbras, a prince of action, pushes into Poland with his army of 20,000 to defend a seemingly small area of land from capture. Hamlet again is aghast. These soldiers fight and die valiantly for a cause so less personal than Hamlet’s own. The only motive these men require is honor.

Act III. Scene I.

…Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all,
And thus the Native hew of Resolution Is sicklied over, with the pale cast of Thought,

Hamlet knows from the beginning what he must do. Yet as he delays, it seems that his own ambition to address the injustice in front of him is dulled, as well as the clarity required for decisive action. As we all know, the play does not end well.

I wonder if we, too, can get bound by fear in a cycle like that of Hamlet. Getting caught up in thinking about the gravity of injustices in our world, we can grow afraid to act. There are always consequences to action. The consequences of inaction are real as well, but they feel more tangible and pleasing to us at times; the consequences of inaction are the continuance of the status quo. If we sit and muse for too long, our thoughts run the risk of shriveling and not bearing the fruit of action.

Check out the Globe-to-Globe Hamlet
tour website to see their list of stops:

Baseball in the Time of Cholera

We really hope you will take the opportunity to watch this short film, released in 2012,
about the outset of the 2010 cholera outbreak in Haiti. It is about much more than that, as you will see.

This film will also give you a window into one advocacy area that MCC works on with its partners - which is MINUSTAH and its culpability in the cholera outbreak in Haiti.

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After watching the film, some helpful updates for you:

To date, 8,500 people have died from cholera and 700,000 have contracted it.

Despite overwhelming evidence, the UN still disclaims responsibility for meeting victims' demands for compensation.

There are currently three cholera related cases pending against the UN in New York.

Celebrating 5 years!

Our 5th wedding anniversary was commemorated in some unexpected and unforgettable ways :) It was August 15th, and we were still living with a Haitian family in the countryside. We were not expecting fireworks for our special day!

It happened to come up during the lunch the day prior. Our host sister, Lovely, and her cousin Rose-Angele asked what we were up to the following day and we mentioned it was our anniversary. Rose-Angele jumped on the news, "Oh, and what are you planning? What are WE going to do?" She instantly started planning something, in cahoots with Lovely, that we weren't to know anything about. All that was decided, was that we would all walk to a local river basin to swim, something that Ted and I loved to do under the hot, hot Dezam sun.

Friday came, and we were instructed to stay outside of the house for about 45 minutes. They were all like schoolgirls, coming in and out of the house with unrecognizable bundles in their hands. We had some idea of what they were up to. . .we could make out some flowers and fruits passing hands from the garden to the kitchen area.

At long last, they "let us in." Amazing! Our bedrooms was adorned with flower petals. They nearly stripped their hibiscus tree to spell out "Happy Birthday Ted & Katharine" on our bed (the covers for which they changed that morning to a silky, white sheet - perhaps their family's favorite). The petals continued to the floor, where a large red heart laid at our doorstep. So cute!

In the kitchen, a beautiful bouquet and an array of delicious fruits awaited us. Grapes, mangoes, avocados, bananas, kashima, and veggies too. They cut the fruit for us, as a hearty snack on our way to the basin. 

Our friends who were behind it all - Rose Angele in center, Lovely to her right;
Tadjini to he left and Lens in front (who was really just there for the picture :)

A lovely chalkboard design by our friend Rosie.

It would be hard to top that, but we definitely had some romantic dinner plans once we got back to Port-au-Prince! :)

Quartier Latin is one of the most unique spots we've seen here in Port-au-Prince. If you come visit us, we will probably take you! While there, you feel like you're on the bayou - mystical candle lighting, and chandeliers made from wrought iron and dangling silverware. We love their Saturday night jazz band and their amazing patio atmosphere, with kerosene lamps on each table and ornaments hanging from the trees. The singer dedicated a few songs to us, and the saxophone player kept making eyes at our table (I think he wanted to see some salsa action on our part buuut that didn't quite happen; not this time!). The chocolate desserts were amazing :)

Ready for our night out to Quartier Latin.

That same week, we even got to see a London Globe Theater performance of HAMLET, as a part of their Globe-to-Globe two year tour. I happen to be obsessed with this play. (More on this later.) You never know what you will come across here in Port-au-Prince!

Finally. . .drum roll please. . .Ted comes into our bedroom on Saturday night and presents me with this. Ted has never given a "regular" card in his life, and this one took the cake. As a final treat in commemoration of our anniversary, we got to play The Game of Oswald, 5th edition.

Opening the card, you are presented with a storyboard with special highlights from our 5-year journey marked along the way (I have showcased our three "homes" together below, along with the "game pieces"). :)

Behold:

As our pieces moved along the game board, different scenarios caused us to take steps forwards and backwards. It can feel that way in life or a relationship, but the point is that we are always hand-in-hand, and that God has us in His loving care.

Happy Anniversary!