Keeping me sane, my friend Wood.

Last I left off I told you all I was in Cap Haitian. Tomorrow I will have been here for 2 weeks, on what Monica has accurately dubbed an island. My ride to Cap Haitian was accompanied by the superior of Cap Haitain, Sister Flor (Superior is the boss). The chafer's name is Raymon and he speaks a little English (emphasis little). We were able to make with the small talk. While small talk is not my thing it has been very useful to learn the small talk from Raymon. I'm since mastered enough language to tell people what i like, don't like, when I need to eat and that toilet paper is a necessity for life. Yet even though I can talk about poop with the hatians this doesn't satisfy my need for deeper conversation. I don't think I mentioned this but Raymon is the only person around who speaks English. My back up language is Spanish and I wish I had a dictionary. Although any of you who know my bull story know that I have the basics in that language too.

Day one was tough, and they just got harder. That first day I tried to ask what Sr. Flor wanted me to do. She handed me a drawing of the play ground. If I ever see the person who drew that I'm going to kick their butt. You laugh but I'm not kidding they ripped the sisters off. I could have got Wood (who you will hear about later) to give me a better drawing. Apparently Sr. Flor wants me to supervise the “realization of the drawing” ...crap. 2 days after giving me that gem of info she left for the US. That left me alone with Sr. Froslyn and Sr. Mary_SomethingOrRather, neither of whom speak English nor do they speak Spanish.


However polite I am to Sr. Froslyn and Sr. Marie_WhoJaMaCallsIts or vice versa, it can never be enough to overcome the language barrier that obviously frustrated them. This manifested in a exreem impatience for my Creole or Spanish and Me responding Mwen Pa Kompran a lot. Ahh dinner time, a time to converse and come together as a group. For me a time of reflection... But over the weeks my Creole HAS gotten better, I am now at the point that I understand when they would look at me and say something something Li pa kompran (he doesn't understand). This was good because they weren't talking smak but instead debating whether or not to attempt to open the tenuous lines of communication with the white dude at the head of the table.

Let me just address all you people who will ever encounter a foreigner trying to speak your language. Firstly, take it as a FREAKING compliment. They are trying. Secondly, when they ask you to slow down, slow the heck down. I don't mean slow down as in look at them for a few minutes slow to answer. I mean speak each word then pause. When speaking a word annunciate each sylable. Lastly and possibly the most important, if a foreigner asks you to slow down, DO NOT SAY NO. It's not nice and they will blog bad things about you later, take that Sipo (Sipo is the grounds keeper here and I actually adore him but I don't understand him...).

So needless to say I spend very little time talking to the sisters in the house. I usually go out to the courtyard and talk to or play with the kids. These kids crack me up. Especially when they want something outlandish. My 13 year old tutor (who is a girl scout) asked me to take her to America. Dumbfounded, I tried to pretend not to understand. Ahh, but this one knew better, because she has been tutoring me in Creole. Lucky for me I have a beautiful excuse in my girlfriend, Shannon. With a stroke of genius I told her I'm going to move to Ghana with Shannon. Now she wants to go to Ghana with me and Shannon...


Among all of this I've been able to develop a few amazing relationships. Mostly with the kids. They follow me around and say Eric Gade (which translates directly to a line from SNL “Look what I can do Look what I can do”). They say my name soo much Sr. Val (more on her later) made a comment on it. She said that I must wake up in the middle of the night hearing “Eric Gade.” I thought it was funny until I woke up in the middle of the night last night, and while that might be funny it is not a joke. Even with my mind playing tricks on me in the middle of the night these munchkins keep me sane. My favorite of the munchkins, who I have affectionately dubbed Munchkin King is Wood.


Yup that's his name, Wood. It means tree in English but to me it means kid who loves to be picked up. Among all the kids he is the one that doesn't seem to follow the crowd and talk to me solely because I'm the alien. He just seems to have fun hanging out. We played cards the other day, and he obviously doesn't know how. I wish I could teach him go fish, but my creole is not there yet. I also have a lot of fun getting him to say things in English such as, “I like farts.” Don't look at me that way he does!

In this pic we have Ose on the left (he stole my soccer ball *more later*) and Wood on the right. I don't know the girls names :-(

Ou Kompran?... Mwen Pa Kompran

Do you understand? And no I don't understand. The two phrases are the cornerstone of my Creole arsenal. Sometimes I get to use my big boy phrases such as, “I like ...”, “My name is ...”, “I want ...”, and lastly but not least “I have to poop.” Even though I've only been learning Creole for 3 weeks and I haven't really had anyone tutor me, it pains me every time I have to say, “Mwen Pa Kompran.”

You may be asking yourself, "why hasn't Eric had a real tutor?" Well there are a few reasons. First, in Port Au Prince I had the masterful interpretation skills of Monica. Who by the way was kind enough to interpret during a 2 hour meeting... This meeting was chaired by the most Italian woman I've ever met. I thought she was speaking Italian but alas it was just her accent. Monica is good, but apparently not Italian accent in French while talking about technical solutions to building earthquake resistant houses in Haiti good.

Second, the nun's have no interest in tutoring me to speak Creole... For some reason they think I should learn french. Quite frankly I don't like the french enough to use a capitol f. Yet, the stigma in Haiti is that you are more intelligent if you speak french. Well that's only because they teach french in the schools. If they were really smart they'd start teaching Chinese, Spanish, or English.

Thirdly, they keep moving me around. of my 3 weeks in Haiti I've spend at least 7 days going places in a car... (that's a story for another day) However, even among all this chaos, I have been able to find people willing to teach me Creole. In Port Au Prince that person was T Jack (a worker who lives on the grounds).

I freaking love T Jack. He does everything for the sisters in Port Au Prince and with a smile on his face. Everything includes killing poisonous centipedes for Monica. He has never asked me to give him anything but I would if he asked. I want to give him something more valuable than money. I want to teach him to speak English. So T Jack and I began studying together every night for about 2 hours.

We would take turns writing phrases on the board and trying to learn. 2 days after our first lesson Sr. Monique tells me I'm leaving for Cap Haitian. I managed to break the news to T Jack in my very broken Creole. While studying together before I left for Cap Haitian he wrote “Mwen vle Eric Pou Zanmi Mwen.” I want Eric for my friend. I told you all I freaking love this guy. I can tell he's got a great heart!

So jump ahead to new residence in Cap Hatian (where I'll be for 3 weeks). I have 20-30 pint sized tutors who fight to teaching me Creole. The best part is they love to play games like lets get Eric to say Kaka... I'm begin taught Creole by kids what do you expect? The nice thing about really young kids is that they love to ramble only stopping to make sure I haven't caught on to what they are saying. I thought the blank look would give it away. Luckily for me there are the best trait in my tutors is there patience for repetitions. They don't mind asking me to say things over, and over, and over, and over, and over. You get the picture? But it's fun. They laugh and even without being able to communicate I still make them laugh (To Laugh = Blag).

At least here I have a job. I'm supervising the work that they are doing to restore the school (HA!). I can't explain that I'm an aerospace engineer and I have no clue how to build houses, so I just said, “land a 767 here and teach school in that.” Yes, I do like to mix English in a little just to show them how it feels. I know the answer but I can't help but ask, “Ou Kompran?”

P.S. I'll add some pics of the kids and T Jack Later.

The race of a life time

Monica and I have been getting more and more daring. Tuesday we left the convent on our own! It isn’t as though it’s all that dangerous out there but we just don’t know how to communicate.

We started off at the little Haitian boutique shop that sells haitian goods from all over the country. It's an awesome little store and I go there to get cards for the states when we have visitors. After the store we walked up a street we'd never been down before. The key to this adventure is having the silly american grin and saying hello to EVERYONE. Yes I do mean everyone. Cars, cats, dogs, goats, and most importantly the Haitians who have some how figured out that we are crazy...

We always pick up a few Kineps on our walk (like a grape but with a skin). We eat a few and give the rest away as a bribe for people to get close to us. It isn't very hard because the streets are narrow and I'm fairly fast...

Today we managed to run into a few kids who live down the street. This made my day/week soo much better. For some reason kids don’t scare me. It might be their tiny stature... I mean it's like David and Goliath and these kids don't have a sling. However they do have a curiosity that sparks some crazy trigger in me and I instantaneously become fun. One of these kids wanted to race. Needless to say I started running up the hill and he just stood there watching… An expression crossed his face like… “WHAT HE WANTS TO PLAY?” So we ran, not far, not fast but it was a new connection for me and this kid. Hopefully the next time he sees a blan he is just as courageous as he was this time.

This moment will always mean something to me and I hope to him. It was a lesson in communication. When I can't use my voice I can always rely on my feet to get my message across.

I hope these pics work

Alright so I'm just posting a couple of pictures to make sure they all get up here I don't know how this is going to look when all is said and done but hopefully you can follow the links to my web album. Let me know if the pics don't work.

From Chaos in Haiti

These tent villages are all over the freaking place.

From Chaos in Haiti

More tents...

From Chaos in Haiti

This is why they are living in tents... This used to be a 4 story building.

From Chaos in Haiti

This is why you stand in a doorway during an earthquake.

What is Haiti like you ask?

Well Haiti is definitely going to be a trial for me. There is no doubt about that. Let’s start off with the good. I have running water. I have limited access to the internet. I have a bed. I have three meals a day. Yet I see how the Haitians live around me and I cringe every time my thoughts stray back the things I left behind: my bed, warm showers, air conditioning, Spiro's Pizza, and most importantly a washing machine.

Outside the convent it is chaos. There are children begging for water... The ones begging for money they offer to do whatever they can: wash your car, cut coconuts and search for shells for money. There is rubble, broken houses, damaged houses, and tents. I don't think any one building down here survived unscathed. By far worse thing I've seen so far are the tents. They have cities of tents here that offer little to no protection in the midst of hurricane season. I had the pleasure of seeing one of these storms in action and it wasn't pretty. Yet my words can't describe what I've seen to you and the pictures don't come with the scent of haitian sweat, the decay of the trash, or the weight of the air. Yet there is pride here, there is happiness, there are smiles that sprout as the city begins to grow again.

What am I doing? My job here is to assist in the rebuilding effort whatever way I can. Right now it’s editing proposals asking for funding to get 200 girl orphanage built. This new orphanage is to replace the devastated building which was home to 80 orphans. The 80 orphans had to be discharged to their remaining relatives where most are forced into the lowest class of Haitian society. Needless to say I'm trying to help even though I am in the stage most people call, "overwhelmed as hell."

Here are a couple of pictures of the tents and broken houses. These pictures aren't the exception they are the rule.

Life at the convent.

The convent is completely cut off from the outside by a 10-20 foot high wall. I feel safe here and yet I feel boxed in at times. Being protected from the people I came here to help.

Living among nuns is a strange experience. They are so gracious and yet so down to earth. They've been understanding of my confusion and laugh when I try to speak creole. They seem to be keeping their expectations of me pretty realistic even if I wish I could do more. Yet through it all I'm still recovering mentally. My communication is limited to the other volunteer (Monica) and my time on skype. She’s been great because she can translate the French but she doesn’t understand Creole either. I’m frustrated because I’m a talker you all knows this, yet for now I'm relegated to the use of body language.

Yet this has taught me that life is about the little connections. For example, Valarie, a nun from Brazil, doesn't understand computers and I don’t understand her. Communicating in my broken Spanish and body language we come to the mutual understanding that the internet here is slow. I proceeded to download a file for her that we couldn’t print… So we tried to put it on her thumb drive, which was full… She vehemently told me to delete everything but 2 folders full of her treasured pictures and it just wasn’t enough. When I told her it wouldn’t work she looked distraught. I gave her my spare thumb drive, which really seemed to make her day. I didn’t think much of it at the time being as I got if for free but ever since then she has greeted me warmly and been more patient with my Spanish than it deserves. These little connections are all I have here.