Petit Trou De Nippes on Saturday

Teresa and I drove to Petit Trou on Saturday and visited the farmer's market.

The "parking lot" of donkeys and an occasional motorcycle bring people with their produce from around the region to sell at the market. Small fish being cleaned and fresh fruit including bananas, avocados, oranges, limes and granadilla......As we entered Petit Trou, we found a construction project underway...Haiti-style.. Workers from both Port au Prince and Petit trou are mixing and moving concrete to the top of this house they are doing an addition to.

Dot's Birthday Surprise!

On my birthday I spent the morning observing the 4 yr olds class. The group lessons included prepositions (in front of, behind, etc.) and the fruit of the week: the "fig-banana" (as distinguished from "banana", which is "plantain"). I was enjoying watching the children during class and patiently waiting during a transition when in walked the entire class of 3 yr olds followed by the 5 yr olds, each holding a drawing they had made. I suddenly realized that they were all being lined up to face me, and that I was about to enjoy a very special birthday celebration. After singing "Happy Birthday" in French, then English, each of the six preschool teachers gave me a handmade card and a kiss on both cheeks. Then I received a kiss and a crayon drawing of a flower from each of about 45 5 yr olds! (58 children are enrolled in the K-class)

What a lovely day!!!!

There is no better way to understand a subject than to teach it!

Judy shares what it is like to teach Social Studies to the Haitian teachers:

I am learning all about the globe, projections, imaginary lines, coordinates - all the technical part of geography as I try to teach it to the St. Paul's teachers and try to explain how to make a map of the classrom or school to a group where no one has ever seen an architect's blueprint! The bird's eye view (from above) vs. an elevation (the building seen from the side). I don't think they appreciated my tree as seen from above, the circle of the trunk with squiggly branches. But everyone is very willing to try.

The next day we struggled through finding places on the world maps and our time was up before we knew it, with only the first set of coordinates found (for Port-au-Prince). We had to go back to the beginning and start with 0 degrees at Greenwich and 0 degrees at the equator.....
I'm more comfortable teaching about countries, and will go into some depth about China and South Africa, with our photos and anecdotes. But as on previous visits, we have the most fun singing. French folk songs take on more life here!

We Are So Close

Haitians live in a very different world then Americans. Their sense of personal space is different then ours. Where Americans need about 3 feet around themselves, Haitians need about six inches, especially children. As we work, there is always a “Paket Timoun” (Group of children) crowded around. It is delightful to feel the closeness and companionship of so many. (Just wish it weren’t so hot!)

Lunch is shared with all the teachers in a small dining room with approximately 35 people gathered round. It is a very different experience then most of us are used to. But no one is bothered by the tight quarters and comarderie and fun are apparent.
Maureen and I have been assigned photographing all the children. We line them up in alphabetical order and parade them out to the platform in the middle of the courtyard. We take a class picture and then individual shots and then hope and pray they haven’t mixed up the order. Actually, all the teachers have been very helpful in making sure we get it right.
We can see that it is a big deal to the teachers and students as they fix collars, flatten hair and straighten up! As Friday progressed and we started working with ten, eleven and twelve year olds, the kids had more and more fun with the project. They would stay after their photos and try to get their classmates to laugh. At that point, the poor student had trouble not smiling!
PS. Remember what I said in the beginning about closeness? Well, as I write this, there is an eleven year old playing with my hair and sitting in my lap! Teresa

Old Friends and New Ideas, Friday Nov 6th, 2009

I had been looking forward to seeing the friends I made during last year's education mission, and as soon as I arrived I was greeted even more warmly and graciously than I could have imagined, by old friends and new acquaintances alike. Yesterday, I renewed acquaintances with Anne Julie, who is now eleven and in the third grade. Like last year, she helped me count and sort some of the materials we had brought, and I even slipped in a little math instruction while she wasn't looking. Anne Julie is an orphan who lives here at St. Paul's, so she is often with us in the afternoons after school hours. She is a delightful young lady who finds all kinds of ways to help us out, and she is very patient with my tortured French. Though I feel we have become friends in a very genuine sense, there is still no escaping the cultural chasm that is an undercurrent to all of the friendships I have formed here. When we met last year, the first thing Anne Julie said to me was (in French), "My mommy's dead, my daddy's dead, will you give me something to eat?" And this year she began with, "Cadeau?" meaning, "Will you give me something?" (It is a policy of the Colorado Haiti Project that we not give gifts to individuals, and we have done our best to stick to this.) All of this is said in a cheerful and matter-of-fact way, and it is easy to move on quickly to other topics, but still it's there.

I have enjoyed teaching math and also participating in the French, Social Science, and Preschool seminars. Yesterday I distributed the materials I brought for the teachers, which were purchased with an Outreach grant from CU. Notebooks, writing implements, and textbooks in elementary math pedagogy that I had ordered from France. Today we had a lively discussion about the question, "Can you have a mathematical operation without a computation?" and I got to sit in on Dot's preschool seminar. Well, "sit" isn't exactly the word (see photo).

It has been a great few days so far. We are well fed and sleeping in comfortable beds with fans running all night long. I'm looking forward to continuing the math discussion tomorrow, to church Suday morning, and--I hope--swimming Sunday afternoon. But for now, the "Prestige" is calling my name...

~Greta

The teaching begins!

Thursday began our first full day of work. As usual our morning began with morning prayer and breakfast. The teachers began their day observing classes in session, doing a little co-teaching (Greta and Judy) and preparing for the afternoon's seminar. There are three seminars for the Haitian teachers each afternoon with Bev teaching French, Judy teaching Social Studies and Greta teaching math. For that entire three hour period, Dot will be teaching non-stop for the preschool teachers!
This morning, Maureen and Teresa photographed the first two classes. All together, 93 four and five year-olds! What a tough job but someone has to do it.
Mike slugs away on the computers with Guilot and Lunise. They are making great progress. So far there are three working computers and Guilot and Lunise are learning alot about computer repair.
Fun Fact for today: Greta thinks conjugating French verbs is "relaxing"!

Pictures of the journey and our first day here