The Students are Here!

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"Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't."
Lydia M. Child
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After spending over a month on a mostly peaceful, relatively quiet campus, 350 students ages 10 to 20 descended on LCS, and oh, did it feel like 350 students on the first day. Parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and neighbors all came to drop off their student on Monday. Okay, so maybe it was just parents, but the sudden bustle of activity made it seem like everybody else came too.

Monday was move in day and finished out as a work day. Tuesday we started classes, which was nice because Monday is my hectic day and Tuesday is my relaxed, easy day. Here's the run down: I'm teaching English to two different sections for two different grade levels--sisiem (the youngest class) and the next youngest class, sankiem. I'm not sure what happened to my art class...I think it might turn out to be just a club, but I've been too busy to worry about it for now.

Sisiem are the hands down favorite class of the volunteers, and I am very possessive of them. Only a hand full of these 65 students know English, but they are all so smart and so motivated to learn that I had trouble keeping up with them this week. I have a translator, but during class, students are always looking through their French/English dictionaries in order to formulate questions or answers. They are so eager to learn that it is honestly REDICULOUS. I don't think that I can communicate this properly, so I'm not going to try. In the future, I'll post some student work so that you can see how quickly they become fluent. It will probably be posted in a few weeks...that's how motivated to learn they are.

Okay, my favorite sesiem story: On Wednesday, I taught my second section of sisiem in two out door classrooms (a double block): one right next to the workshop and one on the basketball court. Now, there are two things you should know. One, Haiti is hot; you don't stand in the sun or on a basketball court when the sun is out. Two, power tools are loud. Before the day started, I emotionally prepared myself for a nightmare. So, yes, I had to yell most of my first lesson, (My name is ___. I have two brothers and one sister. My hobbies are English and read...) and the kids complained a little bit about it being hot on the court. However, they loved class. For our second block, we went over rules and the kids had to pick four and illustrate them. They just recieved new backpacks stuffed with school supplies: rulers, glue, and...crayons. I, very sternly, made sure that the students knew that they had to use their new crayons. They ate it up. After explaining the assignment, I let the students spread out anywhere they wanted to so that they weren't in the sun. Some laid on the court, some sat at the tables, and some stayed by the posted rules. They all constantly asked me to look at their illustrations. Adorable.

Sankiem is my challenge class. While some of the students are very advanced, others are new and haven't had an English class before, so I'm still figuring out how to teach them. However, the students are very bright and I expect them to keep me on my toes. Once I get a better handle on the class, I will be able to write more about them, but for right now, they are a conundrum to me, so I'll put off sharing stories about them.

Something else that is worth mentioning from this past week is the bull that was living on our soccer field for a few days. In order to cut costs on buying meat, the school just buys a bull and makes it meat. While I had heard about this in passing, I had not thought about it much until last Friday when I walked out to the incinerator with a student and saw a huge bull with equally large horns. Momentary panic hit me as I walked onto the field and it looked up at us. Don't worry, though, it was tied up and it was very docile. The neighborhood kids even played soccer around it...very nerve racking for me, but the animal hardly moved. Anyways, as you can imagine, the bull wasn't there as a pet. All of the volunteers made plans to go out and watch the bull get turned to meat just so that we would know what we were eating. However, the animal was killed at five a.m. at which time the only person who was up was the group's vegetarian who runs on the soccer field. She said it looked humane, so that's good. So, the bull was killed and all day we were reminded by the dead animal smell that hung around the back of the campus and the cafeteria all day. I don't think the slaughtering would make me a vegetarian, but the smell might. We'll have to see.

So, it's been a great week. It was extremely exhausting, but I still can't wait for another week of teaching. Until next time,

Kristen

Ten things you should know

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The more that you read, the more that you know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.

Dr. Seuss
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Five things you need to know about Haiti

1. It’s hot.
It’s so hot that you literally never stop sweating. When we first arrived, we were taking three to four showers a day. Most of us have gotten used to the heat by now, so we’re taking about 2 showers a day. But it’s still hot.

2. It’s noisy.
People here love to laugh and talk loud. After my first night here, I woke up hearing a group of people laughing away right under my window, at 5:30 am. Around Santo 5, our neighborhood, there’s a water truck that drives around playing Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” or “Here Comes Santa Clause.” It’s pretty hilarious. I still haven’t gotten used to the baby goats that sound like children crying. My favorite sounds: fans and generators. My least favorite sounds: the 2, 3, and 5 am rooster calls and the dog fights.

3. Haitians love to sing.
It’s amazing! People walk around busting out in song. One of my favorite experiences so far happened while painting a classroom with some students. The kids come in during their summer to help get the campus ready for school. On this particular day, I was working with some young students who didn’t speak much English, so we couldn’t carry on a conversation very well. Pretty soon, they were just talking to each other in Creole, and I was getting bored, so I asked them if they knew any songs and the two boys and two girls started singing “Sing Alleluia to the Lord” perfectly with harmony. I felt like I was in a movie. Another night, at dinner, some of the Haitian surprised us with a live concert of guitar, drums, and ketchup bottle percussion. Then there was dancing. It was incredible.

4. Spaghetti for breakfast
Meals in Haiti aren’t the same as meals in the States. First of all, they eat spaghetti for breakfast and oatmeal for dinner. Breakfast and lunch are the largest meals here, and by large, I mean we usually get a heaping plateful. There’s also a big difference with social classes in Haiti, and people get really upset when they think they’re being treated differently than others. In order to treat everybody equally, we’re not allowed to ask for larger or smaller portions of food. It sounds ridiculous because it is, but unfortunately, it’s necessary. Not many people can finish their portions because they’re so big, so the volunteers and staff have started portioning out their food before eating and serving the extra food to the neighborhood kids. Since the food isn’t technically leftovers, the fight which Christina had earlier in the month over feeding the children wasn’t an issue anymore, so the kids still get to eat. Slowly, the staff has been joining in with this project. Some of the junior staff will help organize the kids and even the cooks have found ways around the rules in order to supplement our extra food so that the kids all have enough. It’s very inspiring to see since at first everybody seemed to be against the project or just afraid of joining in.

5. There’s more to the story
Put simply, Haiti has a past. Dictators have reined terror on Haitians; instability and poverty have created dejected citizens. Sure there are corruption, chaos, and injustice, but as Christina put it: if you kick a dog enough, it walks around with its tail between its legs and attacks out of fear when it feels threatened. I’m not saying that Haitians are like dogs, but the level of mistrust and dejection are so foreign to what we know in the states, that it is impossible to explain any other way. The dictators ruled with fear, murdering its citizens and leaving their bodies in their neighbor’s yards. They effectively eliminated any trust that Haitians had. Now, the only sure thing that Haitians know is that people are out for themselves because nobody else will stand up for them. On the roads, the only law is to do what’s best for you. If you are timid or considerate, you throw off the system and put yourself and those around you in danger. The fact is that it works. It’s not a safe system, but it works.

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Five things you need to know about LCS

1. Yes, it’s dirty in Haiti, but LCS is a step up
As the weeks go by, we are continually given a little more freedom. We are not allowed to leave the school without permission, but if you are in the right place at the right time, you could be assigned a task that requires you to go out to the neighborhood or town. Last week, Patrick asked me, two Haitian staff, and two of his kids to go buy some stuff from the store. It was a mile walk and dusty the whole way. We avoided the piles of trash and areas that smelled like urine and quickly got to the store, which was pretty much empty. After leaving the store, we were able to take a tap tap back. Tap taps are colorfully painted covered trucks that individuals drive around, charging for rides. Pretty much, they're crowded taxis. When you get to your stop, you tap on the window, hence: tap tap.

Well, we returned to campus and I had a new found appreciation for the order and cleanliness that we have inside the walls. I really appreciated being able to get out and see the real Haiti, but at the same time, I'm glad that I live closer to American standards than most Haitians. So, I appreciate my new home sweet home. Thanks for the adventure, but I'll stay on campus.

2. We don’t change systems; we support individuals.
As I said before, Haiti has a past. In our first week of being here, Patrick so eloquently told us some sobering information: “You and I are not going to change Haiti by being here. This year is going to be a waste of your time because you’re not going to change anything. Our work is like peeing in a bucket and throwing it into the ocean. It doesn’t matter.” It sounds depressing and might even make you angry, but there is truth in his statement and peace in knowing where you stand. No matter how well I teach my sisiem and sankiem students their nouns and verbs; no matter how much of a work ethic I am able to instill in them, Haiti has too many problems to fix in my lifetime. Sometimes reality is bleak, but it’s still reality.
However, Haiti’s depressing reality is no reason to keep to yourself. The nation is still made up of individuals, and if you truly believe in human rights, then you cannot walk through Haiti without wanting to help. Our job as volunteers is to give the Haitian staff, students, and any one we interact with insight into security, charity, and order. We were asked to keep our US American standards of cleanliness and justice and to act on them because all we can do is introduce what we know to be true and demonstrate a firm belief through action. In short, we do what we think is right. We can’t force beliefs or necessarily even affect change, but we can show another way of living and thinking. If it is right, hopefully people will adopt it and affect change. If not, then oh well.

3. Oh! Listen to the languages!
Time to let you in on a little secret: the staff and students here are brilliant. Not only do they speak their native Creole, but school is also taught in French. Or students add Spanish to their repertoire of languages, and of course, we teach English. LCS is a very special place for many reasons, one of them being its distinct difference from other Haitian schools: our students are expected to speak four different languages. They also are introduced to the American style of teaching, which has more interaction and less memorization. We also don’t let the staff hit the students, which apparently is an ordinary occurrence in Haitian schools. I can’t personally compare the output of students from LCS and other schools, but I do know that last year, we had a high 90% pass rate of the baccalaureate when the national average was somewhere around 40-50%. On top of that, the staff who we have been living with for the past month are all very well spoken and interested in social justice and human rights. In short, there’s something going on around here.

4. Working for justice, living for weekends
So, weekdays are busy. Here’s our schedule right now:

5:30: wake up (earlier if you cook...luckily I have Sat. so it’s the same time)
6:00: prayer in the chapel
6:30: breakfast
7:00-11:30: work hour
11:30-12:00: lunch
12:00-1:30: feeding the kids, playing with the kids
1:30-2:00: free time: wash yourself because you smell
2:00-4:00: teaching seminar from Betsy, our 10 year Boston teacher
4:00-6:00: free time: lesson planning/finish projects
6:00-7:00: dinner
7:00-10:00: free time: wind down/build community/volunteer meetings
10:00: lights out

This Monday, our schedule changes completely because we turn from workers into teachers. Students arrive on Monday (which will be an all day work day) and classes begin Tuesday. I haven’t wrapped my head around the school day schedule, so I’ll share it with you later, but compare our weekday schedule to the weekend schedule:

Friday:
2:00: work week ends
2:00-6:00: free time
7:00-10:00: free time
Whenever: lights out

Saturday:
5:30: wake up
6:00: make breakfast
7:00: breakfast
All day: free with lunch anywhere from 12 to 2 depending on the cooks, dinner around 6 to 8

Sunday:
Breakfast usually around 7
Lunch around 2
Church at 4, eat with the seminarians
Free time till bed

In short, we don’t do anything on the weekends unless you have catch up or planning work to do. It’s really nice.

5. The campus is all clean!
I know that I said that campus is cleaner than the streets of Haiti, but in all reality, that wasn’t saying much. When we got here, paint jobs were rough, gardens were overgrown, there was trash in nooks and crannies and hidden behind buildings, classrooms were rough, and the whole campus just needed a cleaning. We didn’t really figure out how much work the campus needed until all of the work was done. We worked five hours a week all week from August 10th until last Friday. Plus, the staff’s work day went until 2 or 4 everyday. So, we’ve been working hard. And now, it looks nice around here. Bring on the kids!