Category: education

Eighteen Months In

Well, I will continue my journey. It’s been a wonderful adventure that not only has helped open up a language and a culture and a people I never knew before, but also has changed me in how I see the world and understand those who live in.

A street scene in Jakmèl, Ayiti. (also known as Jacmel, Haiti) A colonnade with several open bays.

Maurice Sixto and His Stories

There is a lot to unpack here, and while the story is interesting, it’s difficult for me because I don’t understand some of the references to the local customs.

A book cover. A young boy holding his bicycle is kissed by a young girl.

Mwen damou pou Vava – a story

I could hear this young kid narrating this story. “My friends, you know me, and you know I wouldn’t tell you stories. But one day I met a girl—or maybe I just saw a girl—and I’ve not been able to remember what life was like before she existed.”

A Haitian man wearing a plaid tan shirt stands on a hillside looking over the valleys and hills below him.

Ayiti se yon lide—Haiti is an idea

It’s hard to overestimate the effects of that quake upon Haiti and Haitians. Twelve years later and so much has not yet been repaired. It was an earthquake that traumatized people—some who today cannot even handle being in a parking garage when a large truck drives by because the floors begin to vibrate and shake.

A book cover for "Chita Pa Bay". An outline of a man With one hand he is holding a conch shell to his lips to sound an alarm, and with his other he holds a machete.

I begin “Chita Pa Bay”

So I’m really loving this book because I have to read it and understand it to know what’s going on – but even better than that is that the story is engaging and challenging and funny. I can just see the interactions between the valiant Mannwèl, who’s curious and active in solving problems, Jèvilen, who carries the anger of his family towards Mannwèl and his family, and Anayiz, who’s seen as someone who “belongs” to Jèvilen but who will make her own choices!

One thing more

There is a glass bubble around white people in America and elsewhere, a bubble that lets us see through to the lives of others, but that protects us from questioning the wisdom laid down in our schoolrooms and homes and churches about what events “really mean.”

Day 270 of the Infinite Journey

What better way to find connecting with people than to learn their language well enough to listen to them, understand, and reply in their own language with the full context of their culture?

Do This in Remembrance of Me

There were some who could eat right at the altar of sacrifice and restoration with hearts so hard that they would deny food to their own brothers and sisters in community because “well, if they wanted to eat, they should have brought their own.”

The Purpose-Driven Lie

“The purpose of racism is to control the behavior of white people, not Black people. For Blacks, guns and tanks … More

#WakingUpWhite Chapter 24: Everyone Is Different; Everyone Belongs

We need to do the right things when we can, but it is critically important that we continually reevaluate whether we’re really doing the right things. We might not be able to wait until we have all the data before we try to make changes, but we absolutely must be willing to reexamine our efforts and even our understandings.

To Study Portuguese

When I was younger (well, any day in the past is when I was younger, but stay with me here), … More