A Black woman looks at the camera. We see her brown eyes and brown skin.

When We See Them

I’ve come to know many Haitians who are delightfully unique in their outlook on life as they are in their accents and vocabulary, which gives me no end of headaches as I try to figure out yet another idiom or unique word play I need to understand so that I can grasp their meaning.

Man wearing hard hat and orange safety vest is tying iron construction rods together.

Chèmèt chèmètrès

Adventures in translation This was my “wrapped the chain around the axle” moment today. My assignment this month is to…

White cat stretching on a brown wooden plank

Two Things

Back in July or August of 2023 my left thigh started bothering me. Certain kinds of clothing irritated the heck out of it, but even without anything touching it, I’d have this numb-prickliness

avocado, split in half. The bottom half is the entire avocado, and the top half shows the top part of the seed.

My Year So Far

My previous post was in January of this year. It’s just turned June. Where did the time go?

Two Haitian children carrying yellow plastic water buckets on their heads. Behind them is a small water supply building with its door open. In the background are more people carrying yellow plastic water buckets on their heads.

Great Unexpectations

Why does the world exist the way it does that a people confined to a third of an island in the Caribbean are seen as less-thans? How do they grapple with the faith that comes from white people to their land, given to them to give them hope, and yet used as a tool by those same white people to call them despicable names and degrade them?

Man sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper

What I’ve Learned in 2023

I wanted to reflect upon what I learned this year, and also think of how my knowledge will affect my choices and behaviors in the new year…

My First Foray into the Field

I had already decided to make my order entirely in Haitian Creole. Which was a good choice, because the staff at the restaurant were not speaking English.

AI generated image of a black tea kettle and several black pots

When the Pot Gets It Wrong About the Kettle

The oppressing side in its acts of oppression is doing wrong by nature. There is no “just” oppression. Whether it is cruel or superficially “kind,” oppression is wrong and cannot be redeemed either by language or a reduction in cruelty.

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.

Seeing with a New Tongue

in those decades of following Jesus, I’ve listened to uncountable sermons and Bible studies, often led by people with great earnestness, who have said “oh, if you only knew the Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic you’d see stuff in the scriptures that are hidden to you because you only know English.”

Ki kote m ye?

It is weird to me that I can read these materials and kinda get the gist of them, but golly they are way more complex (to me) as an English-speaking student who has so little comprehension of Haitian culture and idioms.

Food Is Family

You just can’t get into Haitian culture if you don’t try pikliz. It’s colorful, flavorful, with a kick of spice, & epitomizes Haitian cuisine and culture.

An ocean shore in the tropics. A line of palms stretches from the lower left to the middle right.

When you think you want to help

If you see Haiti and you have the urge to “help,” I would suggest that Haitians don’t really need you to come help them. Haitians, like all humans, have great intelligence, drive, creativity, and their own sense of self-worth. If you want to help, find and support Haitians who are doing that work. It doesn’t give you a place to be centered and it won’t provide photo opportunities of you “helping” Haitians.

But it will help Haitians by letting them do for themselves.

When it is too much to bear but must be borne

How do I make my faith work anymore (and maybe it never did) when such a very Christian nation seems incapable of seeing the violence we are initiating, celebrating, and dismissing, often while claiming the name of Jesus?

protest march with a sign that says "No Justice No Peace."

When we resist, we resist completely

You want to terrify politicians? Take away their signs of power which are “respect” and obedience and decorum and complacency. Trip them up, make a point to oppose them at every turn, continuously point out their failures, and continuously refuse to accord them the power to silence you.

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 montage of human faces overlaid by various color filters.

What makes someone a human?

Rather than seek to deny the humanity of gay people and trans people, what about using your religion to help you decide to know more about them so that you can love them better?

An inflated semi-circle arching over a racetrack. It is labeled FINISH

It’s Been a Minute…

It was 365 days ago I first started using #Duolingo to begin my journey learning Haitian Creole (#kreyol #ayisyen).

Why?

A person climbs a sheer cliff.

Day 360 : Se Papa Li, Se Pa Pa Li

There are times when I feel pretty good about my abilities, and then there are other times when I think I am the most ignorant and ill-taught student ever.

A spider web, close up, illuminated by the morning sun. Behind it is a forest.

The Subtle Traps for the Unwary Learner

But then you start constructing your more complicated sentences and paragraphs, and it seems that every phrase has another chance to pick the not-quite-right grammatical construction or phrase or word

Bogs and marshes and slogs oh my!

Yesterday in class I read two pages of text, out loud, and then translated them on the fly, to the point where I was laughing out loud at some of the more ridiculous events in the story.

A blue police light shining in a dark background.

Safety monitors

That Good Samaritan did a good thing to someone in distress, and if the story stops there, then we have learned a good lesson, right?

But what the story doesn’t tell us in the background, and doesn’t tell us “the rest of the story.”

Two matching windows, side by side, with matching shutters. There is a flowerpot in each window.

De Kestyon, Reponn (Two Questions, Answered)

This kreyòl version is blunt: “Lè Josèf leve nan dòmi an, li fè sa anj Senyè a te di l la. Li marye ak Mari. Malgre sa, li te tann jouktan pitit la fèt anvan l te antre nan zafè sèks ak mari. Li rele pitit ki te fèt la Jezi.”—“When Joseph woke up from his sleep, he did what the angel of the Lord told him. He got married to Mary. Despite this, he waited until the child was born before entering into sex with Mary. He called the child that was born Jesus.”

Short stories and lengthy processes

This week’s follow-up assignment was to write my own story, in Haitian Creole, using the grammatical constructions, and build out a similar example of dialog, interaction, and choices. Then, after writing it, I had to read the story and record it, and send the recording to my instructor.