Thursday, February 7, 2013

Little Girl Friends


I must admit I was pretty distracted on our village tour the first day by the following of little girls who accumulated as we went.  I think it started because I was trying to practice my Creole and asked one of the girls who was eyeing me as I was walking past her family’s hut what her name was.  (She was also darling and reminded me of a friend I have in Iowa City, Leara.)  Her name was Islan, and although I’m normally terrible with names, that one stuck.  I said “Au Revoir Islan” as I was walking away, and I think that was the spark that ignited our fast friendship.  She started walking with me, then a few of her friends follow suite; and soon they all started helping me learn Creole by pointing at things we’d pass and trying to teach me the word.  Some words were easy, like sheep is ‘mouton,’ and cow is ‘bef.’ The best for them though was teaching me the harder words, as they really got a kick out of my mispronunciations—sometimes giving them giggling fits that lasted minutes.  They also really enjoyed touching and commenting on my hair (if I’d known more Creole I would have told them something like “oh, girls, this ain’t nothing compared to my little sister’s locks”).  I really fell in love with them though when they started holding my hands as we walked (especially grabbing my hand to stabilize me whenever the road was steep or especially rocky.)  At some points on the walk, Islan (14), and her 13 year old best friend would be on either side of me holding both my hands; and then Manize, the most precious 7 year old I’ve ever seen, would just hold onto the back of my shirt, or even put her little hand on my hip as we walked, I guess so she could be physically linked into our little group too.  Towards the end of our walk Manize told me she loved me (in Creole of course, but luckily one of the other village kids that joined the group knew enough English to translate).  Amazingly I knew an appropriate-ish response in Creole: ‘Eh ou mem tu’ I said, meaning something like ‘and you also.’  Islan and co. were definitely the highlight of my first day in Haiti. 


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