Mademoiselle Tchaina

"Tchaina" was one of the names I had the most trouble with in the beginning. I would say ChaIna. Really, it's pronounced just like China, the country with a little emphasis on the 'i'. I liked her from the beginning because she was bright, got bored easily, but had a little spark, a little mischief. I liked her even more after the first parent conference because her dad came and he was the only one to approach me and ask how she was doing and how her work was and to see what she has done so far. So, I knew he was involved and wanted her to do well, which, in turn, wanted me to make her work harder; especially because I knew she could.
School is easy for her and I can tell she is becoming more and more comfortable in the class because she acts up and lets herself cut loose more often than before. However, it's hard to get agitated at her because everything she does is so clever so in your mind you think: yep, I would have done the same, way to go Tchaina, oh wait, that was wrong, I need to discipline you.
Yesterday she came up to me, pulled me down to her level and started whispering this song to me. Whether she wanted to show off, impress me, or just give me a little piece of her, I won't know. But, I immediately took her outside and made her sing it again to film it. I made two clips and had to post both. In the first one, she is very quiet but so pretty and in the second she sings a little louder. Hold on to your heartstrings...

(and I forgot to post the video from the soccer field in the last post, it's below)

Last Week Before Vacation, YES!

C'est Halloween, c'est Halloween, Hey!
C'est Halloween, c'est Halloween, Hey!

Any teacher here has that song emblazoned in their brains right about now, and for the past two weeks. Walking around the school, you can hear it blaring from all classrooms at various points in the day; particularly on French days.

The pictures have been sent to Lycée Francais of NY, the classrooms coated in orange and black, the cafeteria decked out, and everyone is preparing to trick or treat between classes tomorrow. Eye doctors are also scheduled to come visit from Miami. The kids won't know what to do. I've thrown my hands in the air, day libre!

Week libre in my book. English days were MWF. I don't even remember Monday, we did something else with pumpkins I'm sure, but Wednesday I had to get out of the classroom and out of the routine. It's so hard doing anything when you know vacation is lurking around the corner. I checked with Felipe and we took the kids to visit the soccer-field-in-progress; a mini field trip. I was a little nervous that a few (Karlens) would take the opportunity to run completely amuck, especially since we aren't allowed to walk on the 'field' because it's being prepped for the astroturf; we could only walk on the track. But, I wanted them to see what it looks like before the grass goes down. Otherwise, they would have just gone to play soccer and had no visual idea of what went into it. Plus, I really couldn't take painting, coloring, glueing and cutting orange paper anymore. They were amazing. Preschoolers do so well when they feel that you're trusting them with something, even if you aren't fully. I drew a picture of the field on the board and showed them where we were walking, emphasis on the walking part and that we were walking (again, emphasis) to the field from the class. There aren't really any savage animals in Haiti so as we approached the field and they were surrounded by the tall grasses I heard them whispering amongst themselves, "Watch out for the devil (jab), the devil lives here!" As other children would be scared of bears or lions or tigers. They have no idea what those animals are or that they even exist. They had a great time on the track and especially saying hello to all of the workers, who, I think, were really happy to see any other human being other than their co-workers on the field. They felt the turf that will go down after the vacation and they next time they see it, it will look completely different. Where else can we go...

A Walk...well ride, in the Clouds...

Last weekend I was pretty ill so I stayed in a lot. Luckily, a lot of people left for Port-au-Prince so the compound was pretty silent; not a lot going on to pull my attention from my pillow. However, Felipe "the contractor" was around and he has a bike AND a truck so I  got spoiled and taken on dusty rides on the back roads of St Marc (great remedy for mucus in the lungs) and then here:

It's behind St Marc, in the mountains. He has been wanting to go to a place called Terre Blanche. He was told you could only get up there by bike (moto, not bicycle) but we took his truck. It was so high up he couldn't get up because of the dew. We decided to go back in the dry season or try again with his other truck that has 4 wheel drive. I only doubted his driving skills once, when we had to turn around on a road as wide as the truck with no turnouts to turn around in. All the way up, women were carrying large metal tubs of goods from St Marc below and men were sitting next to their motos. I decided that women do all the work around here. I'm not quite sure yet what the men are good for...

Two Weeks of Pre-Halloween...

Our school has a partnership with Lycee Francais of New York. This year we had an exchange with them for Halloween, only, their fall break is before and ours is after. So, for the past week, and now this one, I've been digging around for other ways to entertain 3 and 4-year-olds with pumpkins, cats and spiders. I thought it was useless to teach them ghost and witch because it most likely will terrify them because they've never seen anything like it before (although Voodoo culture believes in Zombies so they may be more advanced in that field than most American preschoolers) and when will they ever use those words again in their little daily lives. I do have to admit that my English days are full-on craft days. There isn't a 'craft time' or a day when we 'use glue'. It's pretty much daily. Basically because, for me to teach something like sorting or big and small or up and down, I can show it during circle, but it is literal torture for me to sit at a table with six other kids and have them repeat 'up' 'down' for the twenty minute group time and show them little images of up and down. Torture. So, I'd rather have them cut and paste small things in a small circle and big things in a big circle, or paint a bird and put it 'up' and a flower and put it 'down'. There is glue and paint all over our tables daily and scraps of paper cover the floor. My co-worker told me today, "Emily, we have aprons for the kids for the next time." I said, oh, I didn't know. And she said, yes, I know you didn't know. Sniper.
Last week we had Thursday off to celebrate Dessaline's death; one of the many presidents of Haiti's past, this one however, was well-liked; one of the handful. My co-worker asked me if I was going to talk about Dessaline since my English day fell on a Wednesday. I said no. And she proceeded to respond with, "Why? Because you don't like black people?" Ha. I couldn't even get defensive it was such an un-founded comment. I said, "Yes Venine, I came to Haiti to work because I'm racist and I can't stand black people." Her reasoning was that last year there was an American teacher who was always, always, always in a bad mood, so, she assumed it was because she was surrounded by black people, all of whom she detested. Did she ever ask the teacher why she was in a bad mood? Of course not. Venine, Venine. So I said, "Venine, yesterday was Christopher Columbus Day in the US, are you going to talk about that?" (CC came here too, they celebrate it on Dec 5th). And she said no. And I said, "Why not? Because you don't like white people?" Give me a break Venine. Oh, and she is like the godfather at the school. She asked me for about $250 when we started working, I thought it was for doctor bills; I didn't give it to her. Actually she is starting what is called a 'sol' in Haiti and she is the 'mama sol'. I don't really understand it, my roommate tried but it doesn't really translate. Basically, Venine gets a group of people together who want to give her about $250 at different times, as if to invest. Depending on when they invest, their turnaround in 6 or 8 or 9 months will be $300 or $500 or whatever, I have no idea how. Apparently, Venine did this before but she SPENT all of her investor's money. So, first she needs a new group of little investors so she can get their money to pay back her first group, who must be banging on her door. Then, I don't know how she plans on  paying her new group back. She's also had the insight to create a phone credit program called a 'padapap'. So she spent most of her time in the class handwriting little business cards with her number so if anyone needs minutes on their phone, they call her and 'padapap' she puts minutes on their phone, at a small fee in her pocket I'm sure. Before that most of her time was spent making 'Avis' for her new group members, who met in our class in the afternoon. Today, her time was spent on a mattress on the floor, until the assistant director came in inexpectantly. Then, she cut pumpkins out that I had used in my activities today, for some reason she and our assistant proceeded to cut more out, I have no idea why, for the rest of the afternoon. It's great. I can come to Haiti, teach 3-year-olds English and be involved in local racketeering. Now that's something you'll never get from your history books; if you learn about Haiti at all.
We'll continue with Halloween (yawn) this week as well. The weekend was pretty quiet. I diagnosed myself with bronchitis. Although I looked up whooping cough I decided that I didn't actually cough until I turned blue so it couldn't be that, although it felt like it at times. The school's doctor was actually here last week and I saw him, he is about as useless as the nurse in my completely learned medical opinion. But, at least he actually listened to my lungs. He asked my daily schedule and when my breaks were, I think he was just trying to make conversation because he had no idea how to diagnose me. Then he asked if my 'nose was leaking' and I said no, it isn't in my sinuses, it's in my lungs. So, he listened to my lungs then proceeded to ask me if I knew where my lungs where. Ha, this is hilarious. If you're reading this and you know me, you're laughing to. Do I know where my lungs are. Hilarious. Of course I know where my lungs are, I'm a 32-year-old recovering hypochondriac, I've already diagnosed myself and looked up which drugs I need, I don't even know why I'm sitting on front of you right now. He prescribed Vitamin C, what shocker and some cough medicine that was basically candy in a bottle. It did nothing as you can imagine so I asked my roommate to pick up the real deal, a cough syrup with codiene in Port au Prince and started taking the antibitoics my REAL doctor in the States sent with me and am already feeling better. I can't wait to go home and have a physical and get the cotten taken out of my ear and whatever else my body as accumulated here out.  They keep taking my temperature under my arm which drives me crazy because I am on fire and according to both of them I have no temperature. The nurse took my blood pressure and pumped the cuff so tight I thought my hand was going to fall off. She then said, your pressure is really low, is that normal for you? Well, usually, my blood has a bit of an easier time making it through my veins so it probably goes a little faster.
Anyway! Here are some pictures from our Halloween adventures so far...

Weekend Hike to Fort Diamant

I love it when people stay on the weekend...
A 20 minute hike (felt like more) with great views of St Marc and the bay. A zip line is in the works. There are grants for that, right? "It's for the children..."