A Class on Culture

I seemed to have accepted my new culture so much that I forget how interesting it would be to you to hear about it. So last week I paid attention to things and tried to notice things you might be interested in.

Thursday afternoon I got a few kids and we went down to our bridge to clean out the water for some baptisms that are coming up. It hasn't been cleaned since the end of mango season and was full of rotten mangos. Well, I took off my skirt (I had shorts underneath) and jumped right on in with them and helped. But after a few minutes I had been stuck in the finger by a thorn, I was gagging with that smell, and well, I was just tired of working in all that muck. So I got out. My 3 kids, who were maybe 14, 11 and 9 kept working for almost 2 hours! I hadn't even offered to pay them. Even after I suggested that was good they kept on working. They were laughing and playing and having a good ol' time. A few more kids came and joined in the fun by the time the kids were done. I gave them each a little bag with some candy and a jump rope or toothbrush and 10 goodes, about 35 cents. I was so ready to come bag and jump in the shower because I felt gross after playing in that stuff. But then I was hit by the fact that that is as good a bath as they usually get. In fact, in dry season it wouldn't be that nice.

We travel up and down the road quite a bit to our different areas where we work and we are always willing to pick up any of the Haitians that wave us down or seem to have a heavy load. (Come to think of it, that in itself is pretty different from home, huh?) But we always have a time trying to explain to them how to open the door without me crawling over the seat to open it for them. I figure that 9 out of 10 of the people that we pick up have no idea how to open a car door. Can you even imagine an American adult, or child even, not being able to open the door?

When I do my English class in Savan Plat we have been having a packed house (even if the house isn't so big.) The interesting thing is the people. You can tell that all the girls have rebraided their hair just to come to class and they have on their best outfits and dress shoes. A married lady came in and she immediately took a guy friend's hat off his head and sat it on hers because it is disrespectful for a married lady to have her head uncovered in church- even if it is an English class. And the little kids come and pile in the back of the class. Most don't listen and sometimes even sleep but they always come and they are always respectful. And most of the time their parents aren't there.

In this same English class we were discussing feelings. We had a picture from my picture dictionary about feelings. One of the feelings was bored. The Haitians had no concept of boredom. This is a country where the kids have no television, cars, playgrounds, books, toys, music- and they are never bored. I can't imagine an American kid in the summer never complaining of boredom even with our TV's, Play Stations, T-ball or softball games and all the other things we have for kids.

Paying attention I noticed lots of instances like these but that's probably long enough. It gives you something to think about, huh?