This morning I was planning on spending a few hours getting
ready for my first class and going down to the school with K. for the
afteroon, but L. ended up getting sick and K. had to cover for her 9:00
am class. Since I still don’t know how
to get to the school by myself, I quickly grabbed my things and left with her. Good thing I planned today’s lesson yesterday
so I wasn’t completely unprepared.
I sat in on
the English class that K. was subbing for.
The students are working on a lip sync to the Black Eyed Peas “Where is
the Love” to perform for a final project.
I didn’t know this at the time, and was really confused when the students
were asking K. to define Bloods and Crips.
K. is from the UK, so she had no idea what they were talking
about. Good thing I’m pretty savvy on American
gang culture. You never know when that
information will come in handy.
K. and I
found a corner at the side of the schoolyard to eat a lunch that M. and I
grabbed at a grocery store on the way to the school this morning. It’s a little uncomfortable eating there
because we know that many of the students often have to choose to pay for bus
fare to get to school rather than eat. We
did pack an extra cheese sandwich for one of the student translators because
K. said that he works so hard, but hardly ever has enough food to eat. She also said that when he does, he ends up
sharing most of it with everyone else, so we had him come and eat in the corner
with us.
There was
randomly a kid on the schoolgrounds wearing a Utah Jazz jersey. Of course I had to get a picture with
him. This is actually the second Jazz
jersey I have seen here. I wonder if
this is evidence of Deseret Industries in action? One guy at the school had actually heard of
the Utah Jazz, though.
After lunch
I met with the student council to get
them involved in the creation of the counseling center. They are so excited to be a part of this and
had a great conversation about what types of services would benefit the
students the most. This language barrier
things is pretty frustrating, though. I
wish I could just magically speak Creole so I don’t feel like such a speedbump
in this process.
I then
taught a 3-hour class on relaxation and coping skills for half of K.’s
health psychology class. We had a great
discussion on what stress looks like in Haiti, and what coping skills people
already use. Just like Ghana, the first
answers were singing, dancing, and religion.
I then taught them ten different techniques they could use when working
with their own clients as counselors and social workers. They really got into it and had a lot of
great questions about the purpose and effectiveness of each one. Their favorite (and mine) was the body shake. All my Judi’s House friends will appreciate
this. J
J., one
of the Creole students picked K. and I up from the school since he was down
in Petion-ville at the time. We ended up
picking up about 8 other ETS (university) students along the way and they just
kept piling in to the back of the pick up so we could drop them off at a taptap
station. K., J., and I stopped at
a grocery store called Giant before heading home. This place was the Walmart of Haiti filled
with all the American imports you could ever want. The constant socioeconomic extremes is
sometimes overwhelming, and it’s hard
not to feel the associated guilt.
I was
reminded again of the poverty perspectives as soon as I got home. C. told me of an interaction she had
with one of our friends who lives near our house. We walked to his house on Friday to see some
new piglets. There we saw the humble
shack he shares with his seven brothers and sisters and parents. A friend of C.’s had sent some money to help pay for a YMCA-sponsored soccer camp.
When he exchanged exchanged the American dollars to Haitian goude, he
ended up with an extra 30 goude (the equivalent of about 75 cents). Instead of keeping that money for himself
(which could have helped feed his family), he saw an old woman walking down the
road and gave the money to her because, as he explained, she needed that money
much more than he did.
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