We're going to need a bigger hole...

This is life in Haiti, or at least my life. Plastic bottles, burning large quantities of trash by igniting tires, raking and sifting mounds of dirt-trash, and digging holes. This is life out on Route National 3 where Louverture Cleary has decided to make it dedication to community service visibly present. For over a 1 miles stretch of the highway, our students have cleaned, sifted, burned, and buried trash, making the roadside look like it was in the USA. I know I've mentioned this before, but it truly has become part of our daily lives here at LCS. Never would I have imagined the skill it takes to burn trash (until you decide to just light a rubber tire on fire...man, those things burn...)

Anyway, outside of trash, life is moving pretty quickly. The second quarter is off and running, with Thanksgiving just around the corner. We even have visitors coming next week! A group of high school students from the USA who will be coming next week and they have even generously offered to teach some of our classes. In addition, they will be joining us for our traditional "American football" match on Thanksgiving day. I can't wait to see our principal go deep on a hail mary...

I am losing four classes that week, on the agenda is some poetry by Langston Hughes, but I’m not exactly certain how it will all work out…


Also, just in case people forgot, the students here are like teenagers across the world. Two of the most important things in their lives are music and sports. So naturally, we’ve had a series of “rap” contests based on “morality” themes.

Pretty funny stuff to watch. In addition, there is currently a school wide soccer tournament, with each class playing each other. It’s amazing what the students are capable of doing when it involves soccer. Overnight, the grass on the soccer field was cut, the rock pile moved, and even the odd lumps of dirt in the corner were removed. In addition, before each game, the students bouwet (wheelbarrel) out small stones from which they construct the lines of the field. Remember, the soccer field is half grass half dirt, surrounded by 10 foot high cinderblock walls with broken glass on top, and the field shares a space with our incinerator and compost. Still, the games have been pretty incredible to watch. The energy from the kids is addictive and it makes me nostalgic for the days (it seems so long ago) that I played high school soccer.

In other news, the cow we ate on Monday was a bit, let me say, disturbed? Frisky? Crazy? Anyway, like some of my students, he had a bit of an attitude problem. He didn’t like being tied up and when some of the neighborhood kids untied him to move him off the soccer field, he refused to be retied. Needless to say we had several nights of him roaming and rampaging throughout campus, he defecated on the basketball court, and he scared little children. He also provided for many laughs

When I’m not watching cows scare people, I’ve been reading books. I finished Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, The Things They Carried, and Night. I’ve also started Life of Pi and The Book Thief. Some of these books are just for fun, others are for classes (trying to figure out which books to teach in the future), and others are to help tutor two of the President of the project’s children, who would both be in high school in the USA. I’m actually enjoying the structured reading, as it’s forcing me to read books I’ve always wanted to read but never had been able to.
I’ve also begun teaching American football in my sport classes. Pretty fun, really.

I know I’ve mentioned that language is an essential component of the school, but the language of the day program is really pretty special. Each day of the week is designated as a different language of the school. Sunday-Kreyol, Monday/Wednesday-English, Tuesday/Thursday-Spanish, Friday- French. On these days, when you speak the language of the day in a significant conversation with staff, one of the volunteers, or the older students on the language committee, you can earn tokens. These tokens can then be traded at the “store” on Fridays for prizes and other goods. Naturally, the younger kids love this and I have been swarmed and attacked by 7e and 8e students who demand to speak English with me. Similarly, when they learn I know some Spanish, we often converse in both languages.

Speaking of languages, it is common (this had happened repeatedly) that someone comes up to me, tells me a French word, and asks how can they say that in Spanish. I usually use a third translator, I have someone translate the French to English, and then I translate from English to Spanish…Craziness. Learning in four languages has got to be pretty crazy.

Finally, here is a writing excerpt from one of my Philo Students, Elisabeth.

“Being a Louverturian not only means being educated at LCS, it’s more than that. At Louverture Cleary we work hard every day to see our dreams become reality: Rebuilding Haiti. Living in a community based on respect and love, work and education, we are striving to make this possible.

A true Louverturian is someone who lives everywhere and, at the same time, nowhere. We are adaptive, as we will need a variety of skills and knowledge to correct the wrongs in our country. We respect all people, from the sizyem student to Deacon Moynihan. It is in this way that we prove that we are worthy of being members of this great family, LCS.

In addition, being a Louverturian requires love, honesty, maturity, and a sense of responsibility. Trust, in particular, is essential. As Mr. Moynihan says, “If we can’t be trusted on small things, we will never be trusted on great things.” Each Louverturian is a pearl, a candle to brighten others’ ways. We shine everywhere we go, spreading our little specks of light throughout the country and the world.

At LCS we try to reconcile work and education because only together can we achieve our goal. Goals are important because they keep people alive, they give people hope. If you have a goal you will not be afraid of tomorrow. You have to dream, to challenge yourself, to have something that gives you a desire to see the future. It’s the secret of life. If you don’t know where you want to go, you will never know where to start. Life starts with a goal, a hope of being someone or doing something tomorrow.

We believe that we can accomplish our goals and that’s why they will succeed. It’s not something easy, and we are often discouraged. But we will never give up. Rebuilding Haiti cannot be finished today or tomorrow; it’s something that will last forever and everyday we will cherish working towards that goal. Hope is what gives us the strength to fight, to dream, to see the future. We will never stop dreaming because we know who we are and who we want to be. It’s a strong desire, and it keeps us alive by giving us strength to work.

Being a Louverturian means living each day dedicated to changing the situation of our country. We do this through our motto, “What we receive as a gift we must give as a gift.” This is my world, my life. Louverture Cleary is where I sleep, I eat, I work, and I receive my education. A world of happiness, where dreams, work, respect, education, and love mix freely. If we are united, we will change our country. That’s my hope, my wish. Welcome to my sunny world! “

It's been a while

Life has been busy. I have been slowly learning the lessons that students teach their teachers across the world. I have had much to do and a seemingly shrinking amount of time to do everything (my schedule fills up quickly). I haven't had as much time as I would have liked for free time, for things like soccer and pleasure reading...

*Note the 5 uses of the Perfect tense in the last paragraph. And, no, it's not exactly true. I have had more free time over the past week than I had had during the entire 6 weeks before. Haha...*

So, yes, my students not only read books but we get to have exciting grammar lessons as topics ranging from relative pronouns, to dependent clauses, to the Perfect tense. As much as I pretend to love grammar during class, the reality is that I never liked it much. But smile I do every day that we are fortunate enough to work on gerunds, prepositional phrases, and the differences countable and non-countable nouns. Fun stuff.

Anyway, in other news, the trash derby continues. Our zone of control has expanded and we are getting some tangible support from the local government and residents. As you know, we painted our own sign on the highway (Pa jete fatra la), but we saw some police officers this past week painting their own sign on the 10 foot high concrete fall affirming that there should be no dumping in this area. Encouraging, certainly.

An important item to note. Haiti turns youthful U.S. Americans into chocolate fiends. The arrival of large quantities of chocolate the other week lead to a 30 hour feeding frenzy where copious amounts of candy were consumed by the 9 volunteers here. Scary? Perhaps. But so so delicious.

In related news (not exactly), my personal bucket (a bucket I use for laundry, showering, mopping, etc...) was seen being used as a storage container for the biweekly slaughtering of a bull (to provide meat for all the students). Some things you just have to let go in life...

So, the first quarter of school ended last week with an entire week of exams. The number of exams depends on the grade, but the oldest students (the Philo students) took 11-12 exams in four days. Pretty intense indeed.

The students went home after the last exam finished Thursday, and since Monday was a national holiday, we had a four day weekend. I was catching a cold at the beginning of the weekend and I did what I do best, I attacked it with sleep. I napped from 2:45 (the kids left at 2:00) until 6, ate dinner, read for a bit, then went to bed at 9 and didn't wake up until 6:45 (pretty late for Haiti, the latest I have slept in over the last three months is 7:15). Anyway, when I woke up my cold was gone! I guess sleeping 13 of 16 hours did the trick.

So, I finally broke down during exam week and played basketball with the Philo students. They play basketball every day and I was initially hesitant to play with them. I had no real concrete reason, I guess at some level I didn't want to completely destroy the teacher-student barrier. Anyway, I joined two other members of the Haitian staff and we played all challengers, winning each time. Being the old men that we are, we called it quits after 3 games. But I'm certainly looking forward to next time.

This past weekend was exciting for a number of reasons.

First, it was a four-day weekend, our longest break since school began.

Second, it was Halloween. We (the volunteers and the Haitian staff) had a "party" across the street at the home of the president of the project. Watching the school principle dress up at Nietzsche just might have been the highlight of my evening. Myself? I choose to dress stylishly as Route National 3, the road we have been cleaning for over a month now. With a sash of garbage, dirty work jeans, a ripped CBA t-shirt (it lives!), and a sign taped to me saying, "Pa Jete Fatra La," or "No littering here." Good times.



The other adventure of the weekend was working at the Nuncio's (the diplomatic representative of the Vatican) residency on Saturday. A group of the volunteers and the Haitian staff traveled here and we helped with his landscaping the entire day, breaking for a picnic lunch, mass, and drinks/discussion after mass. Overall, a pretty amazing day. We were mainly clearing brush, but I took great joy in vanquishing trees with my scimitar-shaped machete. As I learned on Saturday, using machetes for hours and hours will leave you with what can only be called a "machete grip." This is the tired sensation felt in your hands when you have clutching a machete for dear life for hours as you hack away at brush and trees. Anyway, the residency was at the top of hill and we enjoyed a gorgeous view of the city of Port-au-Prince as well as the bay and the surrounding mountains. Beautiful. The Nuncio was an impressive man, originally from the Philippines, he speaks fluently 5-6 languages. The diplomatic language of the Vatican is French, he submits his reports in Italian, and he spoke English like a Native speaker. And he quietly mentioned that his native tongue is a local language in the Philippines...

Ah, book update. I finished The Idiot, Started and finished the Omnivore's Dilemma, and the Dew Breaker. I've now started the Book Thief (which is quite excellent) and I'm about to start The Things They Carried. I finally had this brilliant idea to have the person I'm tutoring read books that I've always wanted to read but never have. This way, I'm helping someone and checking books off my "to read list." Oh, and I'm going to be starting Life of Pi soon.

So many books, so little time...

Peace.