Family and Friends,
Happy Easter!
Day 167 of our Haiti Adventure!
This is a continuation of our series on neighborhood characters. This time you can read about three more of our friends from the neighborhood. Please pray for these individuals after you read this post.
Tatsi
There is a cute little 8-year-old who spends many of her days in our yard. Her name is Tatsi. She lives down the street in a home with a variety of characters including her aunts, an uncle, various elderly people who can’t care for themselves, and the head of the household, her grandmother. Her dad doesn’t live there, and I don’t know who her mom is. The kids in the orphanage tell us Tatsi gets beaten pretty badly at home, so we don’t mind when she escapes to come here and play with our kids.
It used to be Tatsi would come to the orphanage compound to steal stuff. She has behaved herself during the time we have lived here, however, so we don’t worry too much about that anymore. She plays nicely with Elizabeth and Alexandra, and actually she is bigger and stronger than Kester, so she makes a good playmate for all three. They invented a funny game where our three kids have to chase her around the yard and capture her. Then after awhile they set her free and catch her again. I’m not sure what Harriet Tubman would have thought about this game, but they’re just kids having fun.
What makes Tatsi cute is the simple way she picks up English words and phrases and uses them with us and the kids. It is amazing how kids can do that without even really understanding what they are doing. Tatsi uses her new skills to ask for water, snacks, and other things, but at least she is learning a new language and having fun. The playful smile on her clown-like face always keeps us laughing.
Elose
There is a woman in the village whom I always call “cheri”, which means “Darling” in French and Creole. I do this to crack her up, because clearly she has had a hard life and needs a good laugh when she can get it. Elose is probably 45 or 50, but it is hard to tell due to her lifestyle. She is a severe alcoholic who doesn’t seem to care too much for actual food anymore. I’ve been told she has been to some kind of rehab before, and has almost died at least once, yet she can’t or won’t shake this lifestyle.
So Elose spends her days roaming the streets of Ti-Rivier. She walks around and talks to people in a crazy sort of way, and I can only assume she is bumming drinks off of others as she goes. She always asks me for rice. I explain to her each time that the boxes of rice are for the children in the schools. She just laughs and keeps asking.
One thing I love about Elose is that she is determined to teach me Creole. In fact, she is pretty sure I am fluent and my problem is that I’m just not hearing what she is saying. So she will repeat whatever it is she is trying to get across over and over, each time speaking slower and with more enunciation. When she is doing this some onlooker might try to explain to her that I don’t understand. This makes her angry. She snaps at them, “He speaks creole! He understands me!” I just laugh and eventually excuse myself from the conversation and keep moving to wherever I’m headed. I say, “Goodbye, Cheri!” Then I say a little prayer for poor Elose and all the others stuck in that kind of life.
Baby
Most people who have come on short-term trips with Mission Haiti would probably remember Baby. His actual name is Ronal, but he is called “Baby” because that is the only word he ever says. He just says, “B-baby, bay, bay, b-baby” over and over, in kind of a high, falsetto-type voice. He is very expressive. Ronal is deaf, but he tries to communicate in other ways, especially hand gestures and the baby-talk.
If you watch and listen closely, you can understand Baby. Most of the time he is just describing the work he did that day, including all of the regular farm work and gardening. So one time I was at a hang-out spot with other Haitians and Baby. Baby started telling his story, and someone else there said, “He just talks jiberish. It doesn’t mean anything.” I quickly replied, “No, actually this is English he is speaking.” Then I proceeded to translate it into Creole for them:
Baby: B-bay, b-baby, b-bay, b-baby
Cory: I climbed high on the mountain to work.
Baby: B-bay, b-baby, b-bay, b-baby
Cory: The work was very hard, and the sun was hot.
Baby: B-bay, b-baby, b-bay, b-baby
Cory: I did a lot of thinking about the meaning of life.
Baby: B-bay, b-baby, b-bay, b-baby
Cory: I figured out the meaning of life…to work hard and be happy.
We went on like that for a little while and the others were hooting and hollering. Baby laughed, too. I think he knows that we can’t understand his words, yet he appreciates the opportunity to be heard. He truly is a hard worker and obviously knows what he is doing on the farm and in the garden. Sometimes I wonder what his life might have been like in the US, if he could have utilized sign language and other tools for the deaf, but his life here is good, too. I also wonder what he knows and understands about God and Jesus. That would be quite a challenge to find out. Maybe someday a specialist in this area will come down here and work with him.
Have a wonderful week! May it be an adventure!
-The Grimm Family Adventurers
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