Visitors from Afar: Wisconsin

For the next few weeks, I will not be the only American in Bayonnais. A group of four students from the University of Wisconsin are here for a week on behalf of "Engineers Without Borders". They will be conducting some surveys of the land that will eventually hold the Bayonnais Health Center and will be teaching some cost-efficient forms of building. Apparently, they have been conducting experiments back in Wisconsin to find the most cost-efficient ways to use concrete and rebar. They hope that they can help reduce building costs by 1/3 for OFCB, a lot considering the present classrooms are already very basic in design. Also, Aaron Price, a student at Appalachian State, will be here until late June. He came to Bayonnais with a group from his church in Huntersville, NC last year and wanted to come back for a few weeks and work with OFCB.

Today is my tenth day in Bayonnais, and I still haven’t started teaching classes. I keep trying to schedule a meeting with Demilsaint, the current head of OFCB while Actionnel is away with a broken ankle, to go over what kind of courses OFCB would like me to teach during the summer and how I go about starting them, but the usual response is “We’ll do it tomorrow night.” Everyone is really relaxed here, and no one seems to mind that I haven’t started what I came here to do. Sometimes, I feel like I’m mooching off of OFCB. They provide me with a bed and three meals a day (of delicious Haitian cuisine) and a chance to roam the beautiful Haitian countryside and a chance to learn another language, and so much more, but I am not doing what I was brought here to do. But, everyday, I go walking and I say hey to the same people and they always seem pleased to see me. Kids shout “Blanc! Blanc!” and when I turn and wave, they freak out and laugh.

I had a long conversation with Jacques-Elie about this and he thought the idea of mooching was funny (I didn’t use the term mooching). He told me that I am providing a great service to Bayonnais just by being here. From his standpoint, I am giving many OFCB students an opportunity to practice and improve their English (and maybe their Spanish) in conversation, which is reason enough for being here, no matter what else I do while I’m here. The people of Bayonnais have a different outlook on life. Despite living in dire physical and economic circumstances, the people of Bayonnais are some of the most compassionate, caring, hospitable people I have ever met. They live hard lives, but sometimes they seem more fulfilled and joyful than people in the States.

Whenever I set out to take a walk by myself, I am usually chased down by one of the students and asked to follow them somewhere. On Wednesday, Limares, Jean Juneul’s brother, asked me if I wanted to go with him to get papayas from his “garden” (I love that people call their fields “gardens”). We exchanged the Creole and English words for different types of fruit and different animals while walking through fields of corn and sorghum. When we got to the “garden,” he cut off a long piece of raw sugar cane and gave me some to eat. So, I learned how to bite off chunks of sugar cane, suck out all the sugar juice, and spit out the leftover cane. Later on, he cut two coconuts out of a tree and cut out drinking holes with a machete, and we shared a drink (fresh coconut juice = heaven). This place is surreal.

Aaron was kind enough to bring me an instructional book called “Creole Made Easy” and a Creole-English dictionary. So, this morning I began my Creole lessons. I can now say things like “John waits for him in the little house” (Jan tann li nan ti kay la!) and “Yes, I can give her a lot of soap” (Wi, mwen kapab ba li anpil savon!).