At Last!

The Creole classes wrapped up nicely, though our teacher wasn’t anything to write home about… and yet, here I am, writing to readers at home, about him. Still, my only real goal for the week was to learn some greetings so I could properly acknowledge Haitians on the street of my community. I’m pleased to say that I was able to achieve this goal. I spent a lot of the week looking forward to seeing the facial expressions of Haitians here when I shot them a “bonjou” instead of “hola.”

I got to do this today, my first day back from the course and one extra night in Santiago. I said “bonjou” or “bonswa” to every Haitian I passed today and got smiles from everyone, and one group called me over as I was passing to ask me where I’d picked up Creole. I was thrilled and had a huge smile from ear to ear. They laughed when I threw out the fun, slang expressions our teacher had taught us (as I’d hoped they would) and FINALLY were super eager to engage in conversation with me. SUCCESS! Even if that is as far as it goes (which I know it won’t be because I haven’t even greeted every Creole-speaking member of my community yet, and, I have plenty more to learn and impress them with…) I’ll be a very happy girl. Also, I had a guy offer to work with me on Creole if I’d teach him English. Funny how one greeting could have potentially landed me a language tutor. Interesting to note that that hasn’t happened with Spanish-speakers, even when I’ve asked for help.

After giving an English class to a group that went in 3 months from 20 participants to 4, I attended the women’s group meeting. I was excited for the meeting because I hadn’t been to one in over 3 weeks and we were finally going to celebrate March birthdays. It ended up being the most dramatic, tense-filled event I’ve attended here, if not everywhere I’ve ever been. My project partner, another woman and I were the March birthdays. The other woman suffers from epilepsy and I’ve seen her have convulsions once before and get the feeling they are pretty rare. Well, she got one at her own birthday party. I wish I could say that was where the drama ended. The woman who’d just watched my puppy for the week (in which time Lina got significantly bigger and I’m so sad I missed those few days) got very upset over the bank account my dona and the other leaders of the group opened to keep the groups money. No one here is particularly rich but the woman who watched Lina is a bit worse-off than most in my community. It’s hard not to be 100% sympathetic to a poor person’s concerns about their hard-earned money, even if that person is perhaps confused about the situation and is taking it out on your dona. But, my dona was respectful, mature and on the ball. After a few minutes of screaming, some crying, threats to quit the group by more than one member, and everyone telling everyone to calm down, my dona (who I should probably mention is the president of this group) was able to not only get past the tense moment, but also get the meeting back on track. We had some cake and red-soda and went on our ways after a bit.

On my way through Santiago on the trip home I got a call from a friend who wanted me to stay in Santiago and have lunch… as will often happen, lunch turned into spending the afternoon, calling the community to pass the word along to the woman watching my puppy that I’d be back a day later, and then spending the night. What wasn’t so inevitable was what we did for dinner. We went to a huge grocery store looking for steak, a type of food I haven’t had in well over 7 months. We ended up coming out of the store with steak, veggies, couscous, crackers, fresh spices, bread, fruit, salami and cheese. The meal cost $9 each (also known as 3% of our monthly allowance) and had already been heavily subsidized by the expense account of a businessman from the US who might start to work with a volunteer who was also there, so you can just imagine how much food, how expensive, and therefore how delicious, it was. We appreciated it anyway, and that is what truly matters.

Did I mention that I’ve found the way to bring the Dominican and Haitian cultures together? On Easter Sunday, the day I went down to the capital for Creole training, I rode in a rather full bus (it’s a very large travel day here.) The man who collects the money (known as a cobrador) addressed the group about collecting the money depending on where we were being let out. My ears perked up when he mentioned my stop and when he looked at me to verify my stop he said something quickly that was hard to hear over all the other noise in the bus. I did my noise to signify “what?” that a lot of Dominicans do and here’s where the fun started. He clarified, I nodded and then he launched into a tirade to the bus community, “say what you will about Haitians, at least they learn the language, but these Gringos, they don’t have no respect and don’t care to spend the time to learn the language.”

Wow, huh? I sat in disbelief as this guy went off like that and looked between him and the woman sitting next to me who seemed to be trying to tell if I really did understand the language and comprehended what he was saying. The other patrons on the bus either laughed or nodded along to what he was saying. When I related the story to some volunteers later that night, one who has a bit more experience in this country than me, they agreed it was terrible and that one with more experience said that’s when you’ve got to use the swear word that only Dominicans use (thus proving you not only speak the language but also have been here long enough to pick up Dominicanisms), shake your head disapprovingly and look away from everyone in a very dramatic way. Another option that I thought of was just to go ballistic on the guy-take out all my built up aggression against Dominicans on him. Say things like, “Do you even know who I am? I am a volunteer, working with the youth and the poor in this country-your country, and who are you? A cobrador? You collect money on a bus.” Boy to I wish I could relive that moment and do one of those two wonderful things.