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writing the journey

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  • Comment Policy
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  • Books and Other Works

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    Black Lives Matter,  education,  faith,  Haiti,  history,  justice,  kreyòl ayisyen,  language,  racism

    Language and Memory

    February 10, 2025 /

    Yesterday I was talking with my Haitian friends in Haitian Creole for about an hour as we were planning how to set up our class to teach Haitians how to speak American English. Per my request, they talked a little more slowly and with fewer idioms than usual (although they did throw in an idiom that I got right away with my brain rapidly connecting the imagery with cultural aspects of Haiti, and man did that feel good that I did that!).

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

    When the Pot Gets It Wrong About the Kettle

    September 23, 2023
    book cover. Brian Broome as a child, overlaid with the title of the book PUNCH ME UP TO THE GODS

    REVIEW: Punch Me Up to the Gods

    September 15, 2021
    Sihouette of man walking toward light

    Shadows on the Wall

    July 15, 2021
  • education,  Haiti,  kreyòl ayisyen

    M toujou ap aprann – I’m still learning

    January 20, 2025 /

    One day I’ll be good enough to interact with native speakers who don’t know me and who don’t give me grace for my mistakes.

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    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

    January 3, 2023

    To Study Portuguese

    February 20, 2019

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 24: Everyone Is Different; Everyone Belongs

    May 6, 2019
  • Seven hot air balloon in various colors float in the light blue sky.
    history,  Seattle,  writing

    Thoughts on My Last Day at Work

    January 10, 2025 /

    I had my retirement lunch today with my team, along with a few people who showed up unexpectedly from past, and it was really wonderful. I am just myself at work the same as I am in life. I put people first, mentor people and coach them, treat them as unique and wonderful and worth loving. I’ve done my job as a technical editor as a job that I loved, but still, it was a job. It used my passions and skills and talents. But the more important part was helping other people improve their skills, find their passions, and be released into what made them who they were. Not…

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    People standing and walking down the corridor of a brightly lighted shiny conference hallway

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 36: The Dominant White Culture

    November 21, 2019

    If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see

    January 26, 2019

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 9: White Superiority

    February 19, 2019
  • A Black woman looks at the camera. We see her brown eyes and brown skin.
    Black Lives Matter,  faith,  Haiti,  history,  racism

    When We See Them

    October 24, 2024 /

    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.

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    A blue police light shining in a dark background.

    Safety monitors

    January 28, 2023
    A man works to repair a church window.

    On Deconstruction

    March 17, 2022

    REVIEW: The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

    October 12, 2021
  • Man wearing hard hat and orange safety vest is tying iron construction rods together.
    Black Lives Matter,  Haiti

    Chèmèt chèmètrès

    August 11, 2024 /

    Adventures in translation This was my “wrapped the chain around the axle” moment today. My assignment this month is to read a long-form essay, understand it, and then read it out loud & record it for my professor. It’s not a terribly difficult essay, but it taxes my brain because it’s a lot of content to read with comprehension well enough to explain it. Then I came across this word: “chèmètchè-mètrès”. Having no clue what this might be, I looked it up in my dictionaries (plural). No entry. I used Google to search the web. In all the world, this essay is the only place where it occurs. I have…

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    book cover. Brian Broome as a child, overlaid with the title of the book PUNCH ME UP TO THE GODS

    REVIEW: Punch Me Up to the Gods

    September 15, 2021
    AI generated image of a black tea kettle and several black pots

    When the Pot Gets It Wrong About the Kettle

    September 23, 2023
    protest march with a sign that says "No Justice No Peace."

    When we resist, we resist completely

    April 8, 2023
  • White cat stretching on a brown wooden plank
    kreyòl ayisyen,  language,  musings

    Two Things

    June 29, 2024 /

    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

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    At long last, language

    June 1, 2022
    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

    January 3, 2023

    Bogs and marshes and slogs oh my!

    January 31, 2023
  • avocado, split in half. The bottom half is the entire avocado, and the top half shows the top part of the seed.
    challenges,  kreyòl ayisyen,  language

    My Year So Far

    June 1, 2024 /

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

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    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 22: Why Do I Always End Up with White People?

    April 29, 2019

    News and Updates

    April 13, 2019
    Six people participate in a close group hug.

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 25: Belonging

    May 14, 2019
  • 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.
    Black Lives Matter,  faith,  history,  justice,  kreyòl ayisyen,  language,  racism,  work

    Great Unexpectations

    January 28, 2024 /

    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?

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

    When we resist, we resist completely

    April 8, 2023
    Mixed Scrabble tiles

    Language and Memory

    February 10, 2025
    Man wearing hard hat and orange safety vest is tying iron construction rods together.

    Chèmèt chèmètrès

    August 11, 2024
  • Man sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper
    essays,  faith,  justice,  musings

    What I’ve Learned in 2023

    December 31, 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…

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    Cannon facing the harbor ready to fire

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 29: Intent and Impact

    July 24, 2019
    Man sitting on bench by church

    A Place We Cannot Enter

    October 14, 2019

    Feats of Clay

    December 31, 2018
  • Black Lives Matter,  Food,  kreyòl ayisyen,  language

    My First Foray into the Field

    November 16, 2023 /

    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.

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    REVIEW: Shoutin’ in the Fire

    November 10, 2021
    AI generated image of a black tea kettle and several black pots

    When the Pot Gets It Wrong About the Kettle

    September 23, 2023
    A blue police light shining in a dark background.

    Safety monitors

    January 28, 2023
  • AI generated image of a black tea kettle and several black pots
    Black Lives Matter,  history,  justice,  racism

    When the Pot Gets It Wrong About the Kettle

    September 23, 2023 /

    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.

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    REVIEW: The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

    October 12, 2021
    protest march with a sign that says "No Justice No Peace."

    When we resist, we resist completely

    April 8, 2023
    A white man in a hat smiles at a white woman who smiles back.

    REVIEW: Good White Racist?

    May 24, 2021
  • education,  history,  justice,  kreyòl ayisyen,  language

    Eighteen Months In

    September 19, 2023 /

    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.

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    Do This in Remembrance of Me

    August 25, 2022

    REVIEW: Urban Apologetics

    April 6, 2021
    A street scene in Jakmèl, Ayiti. (also known as Jacmel, Haiti) A colonnade with several open bays.

    Maurice Sixto and His Stories

    March 27, 2023
  • faith,  Food,  history,  kreyòl ayisyen,  language

    Seeing with a New Tongue

    August 27, 2023 /

    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.”

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    Gruff bearded white cowboy wearing a white hat

    REVIEW: Jesus and John Wayne

    May 19, 2021

    When Church Becomes the State

    September 27, 2020

    On the Public Death of a Suspect

    March 30, 2021
  • challenges,  kreyòl ayisyen,  language

    Ki kote m ye?

    July 23, 2023 /

    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.

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    If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see

    January 26, 2019
    Six people participate in a close group hug.

    #WakingUpWhite Chapter 25: Belonging

    May 14, 2019

    When the Past Tries to Reclaim the Present

    March 13, 2019
  • musings

    Update on the Language Journey

    July 15, 2023 /

    It’s been a while since I last updated what I’m doing as I’ve been on the journey to learn Haitian Creole. I started in March of 2022, just after Duolingo released its course in Haitian Creole, and after a month of daily practice I realized that I was just learning some words and some very simple grammar, but beyond that, the course was not as fully developed as Duolingo’s other, more mature courses. There were no stories, for example, and various other features were just missing. Plus, it didn’t go very far beyond some vocabulary building and some simple grammar. It’s good stuff, believe me, but it’s not going to…

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    The Voices Are Coming from Inside the House

    July 12, 2019

    REVIEW: Just Mercy

    July 5, 2020
    White cat stretching on a brown wooden plank

    Two Things

    June 29, 2024
  • kreyòl ayisyen,  language

    Pwofesè, tèt mwen chaje

    September 26, 2022 /

    Man, today was rough. My tutor and I talked lasted week about my lessons. (This is my third tutor.) I am okay with reading kreyòl—I can typically read a text and comprehend what I’m reading because I’m translating as I go, and I pick up a lot of context clues. But I’m seeing the words and phrases at a glance, and that helps me translate quickly. So I said to him, we should spend more time with you talking and me listening & then responding. That is, not using a text but instead listening to actual kreyòl being spoken. Now, all three of my tutors are very well educated, all…

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    A person climbs a sheer cliff.

    Day 360 : Se Papa Li, Se Pa Pa Li

    February 18, 2023

    Eighteen Months In

    September 19, 2023

    M toujou ap aprann – I’m still learning

    January 20, 2025
  • kreyòl ayisyen,  language

    Nou aprann nan kominote nou an

    September 25, 2022 /

    I think I’ve hit another wall. The first wall was after the first month or so of learning kreyòl ayisyen (Haitian Creole, or HC) when I realized that Duolingo wasn’t doing enough for me. It was helping, sure! I gained the essentials of vocabulary and grammar, and as I continue to use Duolingo (I’m on Day 214) my vocabulary continues to increase to the point where I now “know” about 700-800 words. (To be fair, many of them are reusable words that have many meanings, so “pa” and “konnen” and “fè” and “mache” are doing a lot of work to hide a lot of what I know. And don’t get…

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    Duolingo fini!

    November 27, 2022
    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”

    December 31, 2022

    Binary confidence (Binè konfyans)

    January 11, 2023
  • kreyòl ayisyen,  language

    Nou monte ansanm

    September 23, 2022 /

    Another update on my language journey: Last night I was given a text to read that I’d never seen before. I read it out loud to my instructor, then answered questions about the text in the same language. My instructor said it was a pleasure to hear me read out loud. I got most of the questions right—we’re getting into the territory of idioms and figures of speech, and let me tell you, there is no other way to harvest that field without rigorous plowing and tilling—and we ran out of time not because I got stuck but because we were so deep in the conversation. Totally not saying I’m…

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    2-3-5 are prime days for learning

    October 24, 2022
    A spider web, close up, illuminated by the morning sun. Behind it is a forest.

    The Subtle Traps for the Unwary Learner

    February 8, 2023

    Connections

    June 28, 2022
  • kreyòl ayisyen,  language

    There are so many more mountains

    September 21, 2022 /

    “Dèyè mòn gen mòn.” This is one of the very first phrases I learned in my Haitian Creole book. (In fact, it was on the same page as the other phrase, “Pale kreyòl, aprann kreyòl.”) As is with such sayings, there is the surface meaning (“Behind mountains there are mountains”) and then there are the more subtle meanings. Haiti, “The Land of Mountains,” has a history that is shaped by its physical structure as well as the underlying tectonic movements. Mountains and earthquakes have shaped Haiti, and still do. But it’s more than that. Behind the strong people you see, there are hidden people you don’t see. That’s another meaning.…

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    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

    June 1, 2024

    Liv kreyòl ayisyen fini!

    December 8, 2022

    Binary confidence (Binè konfyans)

    January 11, 2023
  • kreyòl ayisyen,  language

    Nou aprann kreyòl ansanm – we learn kreyol together

    September 19, 2022 /

    So I just had a most excellent lesson with my teacher today. We “met” on a Discord server in a group for people who are learning to speak and write kreyòl ayisyen. He was very kind, and suggested that we schedule a time to talk this week. Except for the unfortunately bad connection (there is just a problem with phone lines connecting during rough weather), we had good conversation. Apparently, I’m speaking a bit better than I thought. I want to work on my accent and rhythm, so we’ll spend about an hour a week. doing just that. That makes three teachers, with formal lessons three times a week with…

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    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

    January 28, 2024

    M toujou ap aprann – I’m still learning

    January 20, 2025
    A book cover. A young boy holding his bicycle is kissed by a young girl.

    Mwen damou pou Vava – a story

    March 17, 2023
  • kreyòl ayisyen,  language

    Tools for learning Haitian Creole

    September 18, 2022 /

    This is going to be a long post at the behest of some others who want to know what tools I have been using to learn Haitian Creole (kreyòl ayisyen). The first tool I picked up was Duolingo (duolingo.com, duolingo app on Apple/Android). This tool is an easy-to-use app that uses “gamification” to not just help you learn, but to get you to want to learn because you get points for consistency and accuracy, you find yourself in competition with others, and there are silly interludes that can make it feel like it’s fun to learn a new language. Duolingo has been around for a while – I first signed…

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

    It’s Been a Minute…

    February 23, 2023

    One thing more

    November 20, 2022
    A book cover. A young boy holding his bicycle is kissed by a young girl.

    Mwen damou pou Vava – a story

    March 17, 2023
  • kreyòl ayisyen,  language

    So much more

    September 14, 2022 /

    Listen, this is hard work. Not just the language. That’s hard because it’s new. Learning a new language means learning new sounds and rhythms, learning new ways to think about something because “they don’t say it that way” becomes more and more frequent. You don’t just assemble words and phrases to match English syntax and vocabulary. For example, there isn’t the idea of passive voice, so saying something in kreyòl ayisyen that’s expressed in English in the passive voice means rethinking what it is you’re trying to say. So learning the language is going to be hard the deeper you go because you’re going to have to learn how to…

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    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”

    December 31, 2022
    A spider web, close up, illuminated by the morning sun. Behind it is a forest.

    The Subtle Traps for the Unwary Learner

    February 8, 2023

    The Real 300

    December 19, 2022
  • kreyòl ayisyen,  language

    Thoughts about the past six months

    September 2, 2022 /

    More than 190 days now of learning Haitian Creole. A few things I've learned along the way, in no particular order: #AprannKreyòl #KreyòlAyisyen

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    2-3-5 are prime days for learning

    October 24, 2022
    Two matching windows, side by side, with matching shutters. There is a flowerpot in each window.

    De Kestyon, Reponn (Two Questions, Answered)

    January 26, 2023

    The Enchantment of Creole

    December 12, 2022
  • kreyòl ayisyen,  language

    I are progressing!

    August 28, 2022 /

    Learning kreyòl ayisyen is a challenge, no getting around that. But eventually, it does come together!

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    Food Is Family

    May 7, 2023
    Several Haitian schoolchildren line up for a picture.

    Sometimes our brains tell the truth while our emotions lie

    May 3, 2023

    Ki kote m ye?

    July 23, 2023
  • kreyòl ayisyen,  language

    To learn a language is to see a new world

    August 23, 2022 /

    Creole is the language of the people, made by the people. It's not a language that was developed by the elites. It's a language hammered out to help enslaved people from Africa find a way to communicate to each other as they were deliberately isolated from their own people to keep them incapable of resisting their enslavement by building a movement to overthrow their enslavers.

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    A person climbs a sheer cliff.

    Day 360 : Se Papa Li, Se Pa Pa Li

    February 18, 2023

    Bogs and marshes and slogs oh my!

    January 31, 2023
    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

    January 3, 2023
  • musings

    Am I fluent yet?

    August 18, 2022 /

    "Am I fluent yet?" The answer is, of course, "No, not yet." But I did have a good session with my instructor today. I am learning kreyòl and I am speaking kreyòl. And I will take that and hold onto it.

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    StephenJ Matlock 0 Comments

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    REVIEW: Just Mercy

    July 5, 2020
    Leaf floating on water

    When You Fall

    September 21, 2019

    Update on the Language Journey

    July 15, 2023
  • kreyòl ayisyen,  language

    Not so fast there!

    August 15, 2022 /

    Now, I'm not dekouraje paske mo yo se difisil pou m konprann, Ignorance is part of learning, and I look forward to it. But this stuff still surprises me. Well, I'll keep plowing/ploughing through this book, and I look forward to feeling ignorant again when the next book comes. And I know I would drown in any secondary school in Haiti. Tèt mwen anpil chaje.

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    White cat stretching on a brown wooden plank

    Two Things

    June 29, 2024

    The Real 300

    December 19, 2022
    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

    June 1, 2024
 Older Posts
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