Day 2- 5th Anniversary of Haiti's Earthquake

Monday January 12^th,

  Today is our second day in Haiti. The surprises have just begun. I am most glad that I had very few expectations because that has enabled me to take in so much of everything that I am coming across; the food, the people the music and just the vibe in general.  We discovered today that in the most unexpected situations are the best experiences. Originally we had anticipated starting to teach English classes at GASA EPD. However, due to the anniversary of the earthquake, today was declared a memorial day and most students stayed home. This gave us the opportunity to hear from Ramel, the founder and administrator at the school. Ramel was able to share with us about how original vision for the community of Dezamn and the country as a whole. His words resonated with all of us, were challenging, provoking and memorable. One of these inspirational quotes were “education is a manner, a behavior. It is a new way of thinking and not just a degree.” In his discussion, he explained how Haiti has a plethora of individuals who have gone abroad to Ivy league schools and gotten the best educations but then cannot make any significant change in the life of Haitians. He explains that his purpose is not to send people out of their native towns but to enable and empower Haitians to gain from the opportunities and resources they have available to them here in their homeland, to take action in making positive changes through community education and elevation.

Ramel also stated “Haiti needs actors that can change possibility into opportunity.” We have already seen the abundant possibilities, wealth and potential that lie here and his words helped us reflect on what might be disconnected between those resources and the current state of the country. Real change requires those willing to take on a hard, long journey full of challenges. Ramel is one of those actors who is truly creating opportunities through GASA EPD. He shared, “If I am giving my life to anything, I’m giving it to my community.” To be able to share in just a small part of his vision this week is nothing short of inspiring.

Today we were also able to connect with, reflect on and see the beauties that the country has to offer. In light of the 5th anniversary, this may contrast with what others are sharing. Yet we feel we are beginning to know that there is much more to Haiti. We went on an incredible river walk to caves through the lush Artibonite valley. This gave us a different view and story of Haiti than what is in international media. We are continuing to pay attention to what we are experiencing in order to form our own, true stories of Haiti and to erase the single stories that we have known thus far.

-Andrea & Courtney

Day 1

Bonswa! We finally made it to Ayiti! After a long journey with a few delays we made it to the beautiful island of Haiti. I have had such a great experience thus far and I am excited for what the next two weeks. One meaningful experience that I had was on the plane right from Miami to Port-au-Prince. I was able to talk to an older man and younger lady from Haiti. This was the first time that it hit me, the culture shock. While the conversation started awkward at first, with the different language barrier, we all started to talk throughout the whole flight. We talked about school, jobs, the weather, and of course Haiti! Once we landed, we all parted ways. As our team was waiting for our suitcases, the man approached me saying “It was nice to meet you. You we are very kind and I hope you enjoy Haiti” and he shook my hand. That moment there made my day and I realized the importance on creating relationships and understanding culture. I am excited for myself and our group to grow from this experience and challenge ourselves to participate to try new things and not be afraid of the unknown. In the end, we will develop our own perception of Haiti, and step away from the single story people think Haiti is known for. 

Wondering goats, curbside haircuts, warm faces and even warmer weather and boom, I’m an idiot abroad.  After a bit of organized chaos outside of the Port-au-Prince landing strip I’ve once again, found myself in something well beyond the scope of what I can fully understand. I don’t speak Créole and I’ve never been outside the comforts of the United States, but there I was, traveling through the busy marketplace in the passenger seat of a bleach white, fully packed, Adventure SUV. You know, the kind you’d imagine safariing through the Serengeti. My eyes glued to the window like a dog on its first car ride, the streets tossed us around from end to end while our diesel monster roared on, but nothing could have taken my eyes off of what lye outside. The country is hot and dilapidated, but that only serves to feed its people’s charismatic rhythm. Street vendors, selling everything from fresh fruit to that missing lugnut on your motorbike waved on and yelled, while swarms of laughing children run along side the cars. While I looked on in awe they too saw something inside of our jampacked tincan, something their warm smiles seemed to enjoy. An alien in a foreign land I was welcomed, unconditionally and with open arms. These are a happy people, and contrary to our horror novels, this land is rich in culture and in spirit. The circus rolled on, tossing smiles back and forth until we disembarked here, a pleasant home in the heart of Haiti’s nutrient countryside. Currently, sitting, the sun well past his shift, with howling hounds and insomniac roosters crying into the night I am humbled. I do not know what knowledge these two weeks will bring and am eager to learn, but as of now, I will remain, a humbled, idiot abroad.

-Michael & Melissa

Dégagé

On Friday, we left Désarmes early in the morning to come back to Port-au-Prince. We meant to stop at the hospital, but we couldn’t make it there because of construction along the way. Instead, we got to stop by Indigo Beach and stick our feet in the waves. However, it seemed weird to us to be at a beach resort because nothing there really exemplified the Haiti that we’ve grown to know- it was much more Americanized, a real "bubble" where blan can go without truly experiencing Haiti.

We arrived back in Port-au-Prince in time for a rice lunch and then visited CAH, a Haitian artisan shop, to buy souvenirs. With the wide selection to choose from, we ended up spending an hour in the store. We came back to the MCC guesthouse to talk about more formal advocacy efforts we can take in the future to act as a voice for Haiti and MCC. In the spirit of discussion, we continued to talk about our experiences in Haiti and how we’ve grown individually over the past two weeks. Each of us talked about a personal goal we’d set for ourselves and how we met it. Many of us stepped out of our comfort zones, reached a new level of mentality and clarity and found ourselves at home in a place that was foreign to us just two weeks ago.

Over the past two weeks, we’ve grown closer as a team through the sharing of experiences. So, tonight we each wrote something nice or that we found especially memorable about each person participating in our experience. It was so moving to read how we each thought about each other and built on each other to grow together. We hope that when we return to school these experiences will carry forth into our academic and personal lives as we can continue to advocate for Haiti- telling a new story of hope and resilience about an island that is often seen as hopeless. Dégagé, tout moun!

-Kristina & Annika

Teaching Day 2: Sharing of Cultures

Tuesday was our second day teaching at GASA. We got into the swing of things with our classes and became much more comfortable teaching English and interacting with our students. For the advanced class, teaching went much better our second day than our first. We taught our students how to say occupation names based on their own professions (plumber, agronomist, accountant, and other professions students study at the school) and taught them names of tools related to their occupations. Some students had told us on Monday that they wanted to be able to talk about their professions in English, so we hoped our Tuesday lessons would help them be able to do so. We played charades with occupation words, and our students thought it was hilarious to act out their occupations in front of the class. Each level incorporated interactive elements in their classes. In the intermediate class, our second day of classes enabled us to get the class to engage and participate even more than the first, when we played ball-tossing games to help students learn occupation words. We learned that the typical Haitian method of teaching is memorization, so we hoped we could show our students some interactive methods of teaching as an alternative.

Over our first week in Haiti, we met with community partners and talked a lot about the importance of mutual cross-cultural learning between ourselves and our students. Today was the first day we really experienced that interaction, when we asked our students to teach us some Kreyol and share parts of their culture with us. Our students were so excited to teach us while we taught them, and we felt the energy and happiness of being able to learn from each other and begin to understand each other more. We know that it is difficult for blan and Haitians to form real relationships, but by beginning to teach each other parts of our languages, we felt we were truly beginning to bridge the barriers of mistrust and misunderstanding formed between us for centuries.

-Annika & J.B.

Class is in session!!! (Klas la kòmanse)

          Today was our first day teaching English at GASA!!  Kristina, Meghan, and Anna are all teaching Level 1 ESL to GASA Students.  Courtney, JB, and Camila are teaching Level 2 ESL.  And Annika, Abisola, and Sharlene are teaching Level 3 ESL.  We spent most of the night last night working on our lesson plans and preparing ourselves for our first day of teaching!  We learned quickly that no matter how much you plan, you have to be open to last minute changes- this happened often the first day!  We still had a BLAST!  The first day we did greetings and introductions.  One of the best ways to introduce everyone in the class was to do the greeting song.  This turned into a big joke and we got everyone laughing by the end of it.  “My name is Wawa, Wawa, Wawa, my name is Wawa, who am I?” 

            Throughout our session we were able to notice differing styles in learning and teaching in the classroom.  We tried to incorporate a lot of techniques such as songs, games, and partner work to help the students retain new English vocabulary and phrases.  Before we started teaching, we heard that most schools and teachers in Haiti do not engage in interactive activities in the classroom.  Most of the time ‘learning’ in these schools is through memorization.  While we were trying to initiate interactive activities, we saw that many students were hesitant to engage in these activities at first.  But once we broke the ice, and got them laughing (at us!) they were more open.  By the end of the day they were clapping, singing, and being silly with us!!

            One of the best moments was at the end of the lesson, we asked that Haitian students to share a song, dance, etc that represents their culture.  While the Haitian students were very excited to learn English, they were very willing to exchange some of their culture with us!!  We had a few students share jokes in Kreyol, a slightly awkward poem (didn’t translate well…LOL), a welcome song and (our favorite) the Haitian National Anthem.  By the end of the day we were showing off our Kreyol to our students, acting like we could speak as well as Kristina.  Our students thought this was very funny, which allowed us to teach English in a welcoming environment.

“Teachers must learn from their students as much as their students learn from them.” –Kristina and Meghan (maybe?)

Bonswa TOUT MOUN!!!

Kristina and Meghan