Meritesse and Wilson

 

  Here is a picture of Meritesse and Wilson, the caretakers at the school.  They rely on these two, especially on Meritesse, for pretty much everything.  If I ask him for something and he doesn't know what I mean, he runs up the street and gets Dr. Mortel's sister, Dinah, to come over.                

   Meritesse only speaks Creole, but if I speak French slowly we can usually get along pretty well.  For example, when I asked him to get the ladder to help me put up the mosquito net, he went over to the closet and got it right out, no problem.

   There are big iron gates in front of the school, and one of the guys is usually always there on duty, or else they have it locked.  One of the first nights, when Jeff was still here, we met so many nice people at Foun's around the corner, and talked and talked.  We forgot to say we would be late.  We had to bang and bang on the gate to wake Wilson up and let us in.  So now I try to tell them what time I am coming back if I go out at night.   

   On Friday morning I went to the market and I bought two carnival masks.  "How much were they?" Elizabeth, the secretary, wanted to know.  They were 250 Gourdes each.  Her eyebrows went up and she shook her head.  "Maybe for both of them, but not for one!  You must get Meritesse to go buy things for you."  I had a fruit in the bag, too, something like a grapefruit.  They call it 'chaday' or something like that.  I had to admit that I gave 10 gourdes for the chaday.  Elizabeth looked at me and I could see the disappointment on her face.  "You should never pay more than 5 gourdes for one." (Which equals what they call 1 Haitian dollar.)

   A little bit later Meritesse brought me a glass of juice that Sister Marie Bernard, the principal, had sent up for me.  It was yellow, and I asked him if it was juice from the chaday.  "Yes," he said, and could not resist raising a finger and adding, "One dollar!"-- so I knew that Elizabeth had been filling him in about my shopping excursion.

   

Saturday Market

The market directly in front of the school is open every single day, but it's busier on the weekend. The people can buy everything here, all their food, and household goods and even little furniture, clothes, shoes, everything. Even charcoal stoves and charcoal to cook with. Across the street from the school, behind where the charcoal sellers sit, is the mechanics' shop. I believe they store their tools in the house behind them, and they work on the cars and the tap taps and motorcycles right there in the street.

I went out on Saturday to buy a few vegetables. They are often arranged in little pyramids, little piles, on the ground. I tried to buy only three tomatoes out of a pile, and was not getting anywhere with that. I think if I had known some creole I might have been able to speak a little more. Eventually I did get a lady to let me buy two little eggplants, instead of five, but I did wind up buying more tomatoes than I wanted. Plus, I am sure I paid too much; Jeff said the ladies were winking and smiling at each other. As we walked away, he said that tomorrow there might be a crowd of women waiting at the gates to sell me tomatoes. I may ask a student to do my shopping from now on.
A note about the ladies, carrying everything on their heads. Just this morning I passed a 

woman on the street carrying a basket of green beans on her head. It was loaded up so heavy, the beans were piled high and hanging over the sides; it was probably two feet tall and two fe

et wide. And she was walking so elegantly and smoothly not one bean fell off. No hands. I just read a post by an American woman who is a mother of a one year old. They live near St. Marc and build clean water systems in the mountain areas. She said her daughter is beginning to walk- and she is trying to carry things on her head. How cute is that? Her mom wrote that she never does it; her daughter must be watching the women she sees around town. The men all use wheelbarrows to carry their stuff. You never see a man balancing anything on his head.

Ma Moustiquaire

Here is my moustiquaire, or, as they say in Créole, mustiké.  Créole is totally phonetic, like Spanish, and sounds a little choppier to me than French.  On Saturday night there was a storm, into Sunday morning, and this awakened lots of mosquitoes. In addition, I would leave my bedroom door open.  As there are doors left open downstairs during the day, a lot of flying bugs can come in. At any rate, Saturday and Sunday night were big mosquito nights.  Think Canada on our summer fishing vacation. So Monday I went out looking for a mosquito net. They were right on the shelf in the grocery store. This is actually a really big one, for a whole family to sleep under, I guess. I think I could put the other twin bed in my room under it as well.  

Meritesse, who is one of the caretakers here at the school, and practically lives here, installed it for me.  Just as he was bringing the ladder up the stairs (I'm on the third floor) Dinah and her cousin Nancy came up to say hi. So you can picture poor Meritesse high on a ladder, and three women directing him, a little to the left, make the string looser, not near the fan. He was cheerful through it all, however, and the result got pretty nice, don't you think? 

The Kindergarten

In my first kindergarten class this morning, the teacher was saying prayers with the kids as I entered. They had their heads down on the desk and they were reciting and answering. At the end she said something like, thanks be to God who is so good to us. And they said some response like, yes, thanks be to God. And the little charismatics in the class raised their hands up and waved them. There are a lot of evangelical churches here in Haiti. I noticed people in the Catholic church, too, raising their hands in prayer during mass.
It really gave me pause to hear and see that. Our students might not feel as though God had smiled on them. In the kindergarten there are 49 children in one classroom no bigger than 25 feet square. They fit three or four to a bench that two sit at in the upper grades. They get breakfast and lunch here, and an education to be envied, even among kids who do get to go to school. And especially envied by those kids I see walking around in the street during the day who do not get to go.
Today I taught the colors. I only had 15 minutes, so I made flash cards of the crayola 8 plus grey, pink, and white. We sang, to the tune of London Bridges Falling Down,
I know all my colors,
Red, purple, orange, brown.
White, grey, black, blue,
Green, pink, yellow.
They were able to sing along by the end of the 15 minute class; we will see if any sticks till next week. I need to go out into the schoolyard during recess, maybe some of us can sing it there. It is daunting for me to go out during recess; the kindergarten and first grade (96 students and 87 students respectively) are in the inner courtyard during recess so they don’t get mowed down by the older ones. They do not get out the jumpropes and balls and things like we did this summer during the camp I attended. I think there might be a theory that it is not good to get them too wound up if you are going to expect them to be orderly 10 minutes later. So they pretty much stand around. When I come out they surround me. Truly mob me, I mean like 10 or 20 all very close. I remember Jeff saying, tiny and well-meaning as they are, they can pretty well knock you over if you lose your balance. They are very fascinated by my skin, and will touch my arms.
Yesterday I went out and suggested to a teacher that we play the circle game, “Here we Go ‘Round the Mulberry Bush.” Without even knowing what I wanted, she very kindly offered to help me. I was thinking we could mime the ‘brush teeth’ and ‘comb hair.’ I thought maybe 10 or 20 could participate, but of course all 90 were interested. If you have ever tried to get ninety 5-year-olds to form a circle in another language (I don’t think their French is very good yet at this stage; they are mostly thinking in Créole) then you can imagine the mess. I am sure it looked exactly the same to an onlooker as when they simply mobbed me and we stood and smiled at each other.

New Life Village

This is a little group of houses that you pass out in the country just before you come into St. Marc. Someone told me that about five years ago, during the flooding season, the river here in St. Marc backed up and made a deadly flood that killed a lot of people and destroyed a lot of homes. Nothing like what happened in Gonaives last summer and fall, but terrible nonetheless.
Food for the Poor collaborated with Broetje Orchards (I have no idea if that company operates here or just overseas. There are a lot of European Union countries that run projects here.) and they built this little development of houses. I know a couple who gave money to build one of them, and I wanted them to see it.
It looks like a nice place.

Too Much Food

     It is a sin to say it, here in Haiti, but I have way too much food.  First of all, Dinah, Dr. Mortel's sister, is a fabulous cook.  So she sends food.  On Sunday, when Jeff was leaving, she made a special soup and sent it for breakfast.  We were at church a long time (services are usually at least two hours long; Dr. Mortel says a Haitian feels cheated if he gets any less) and the ride to the airport came before he could eat very much. So I have some very good soup in the fridge, in addition to some of the other meals she made for us in the past 5 days.  Pasta and rice and meat with sauces, especially bean sauce, all a little spicy with clove and other things- but not too spicy. It's very good.

Then there are the lunch ladies. They come Monday to Friday and make huge vats of soup or rice and beans, or maize, like yesterday.  Really good, stew-type things I happen to like.  So I give them a saucepan and say, "un petit peu, s'il vous plait," and they send that up, full.  So now I have around ten containers full of meals in my refrigerator.

Meritesse, the caretaker here, just came up and asked me for a plate so he could bring me some lunch.  I showed him my collection in the fridge and told him to tell them thanks, but not for a couple of days at least.

Jeff said, "Every time I come to Haiti I think I am going to lose weight, but I never do."  I can easily see why.

Mornings at les Bons Samaritains

Every morning the students line up by grade and slowly raise the flag as they sing the national anthem. After that they say prayers and then walk into school. It's solemn and serious. The school has gotten so big now that they don't all fit in the courtyard; the little ones in kindergarten and first grade are in the courtyard behind me.
They all wear uniforms; the boys have blue plaid shirts and navy pants, and the girls wear blue plaid blouses and navy jumpers and blue hair ribbons. The kindergarten girls wear a plaid dress- and a starched handkerchief is often pinned to the front.
The Mortel Foundation has just bought some adjacent properties and they are going to increase the size of this courtyard so the kids will have more space for activities.