Little by little, the bird builds its nest.
The Super Bowl in Haiti isn’t the holiday it is in the
States, or at least I hope it’s not. After waiting all day for an invitation to
a Haitian Super Bowl party, I bitterly went to the local bar/restaurant with a
few other expatriates to watch the game in French. While they're not any
commercials, one of my Haitian friends has taken it upon
himself to distract me from the game.
He is fifteen years old. Just looking at him, you’d guess
that he would be closer to eight years old. Just looking at him, you’d guess
he’s HIV negative too. Most days, his status has no weight on his annoying
little brother persona. Other days, you can tell the antiretroviral drugs have
taken their toll. Regardless, I appreciate his help with my Creole; he speaks
quite clearly so I can understand him.
My Creole-speaking ability has reached the point where it
has surpassed my Spanish-speaking ability. Whether this is due to Creole’s
simplistic grammar, my lack of enthusiasm in my 7 years of Spanish classes, or
the failure of foreign language education in the US is up to debate.
Nonetheless, until I stop inadvertently discovering innuendos and start
speaking in complete sentences without my fellow interlocutor laughing, I am
not much of a project manager.
My lack of language skills has not been an issue so far. I spent most of the day today with the team of doctors I flew down with yesterday. They'll be running clinics in
several of the remote villages around the Central Plateau this week. Word on the street
is that they need help dealing drugs…
Other than dabbling in the basics of pharmaceuticals in the
developing world, I have been trying to lay the groundwork for some more engineering-related
projects. I hope to have
the latrines at the local school finished, the Aquaculture fish ponds nearly
done, and the fountains in our current locations totally upgraded before Clemson's spring break.
It’s going to be a busy week dispensing drugs in four distant villages in four hiking-heavy days. I can’t say when I’ll post next; I hope to have weekly
updates in the future plus more pictures once I am totally settled.
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