English Class

As I mentioned before, the clinic serves as more than just a medical facility, it also functions as an educational center. Learning English is an important thing in Haitian culture, both from a status aspect, but also, for potential employment opportunities. There are a number of Missions, NGO's and short term teams who come in that need interpreters. Those who can speak and understand English well have a good chance at making some income.
At the clinic, Eve serves as the Agronomy and English Teacher. He speaks well and is a very good teacher. He is strict! No one messes around in his class! I have been helping him on Fridays to work on pronunciation in the advanced class. It is really fun and quite challenging to me! I never realized how many exceptions there are to every rule! And since Creole is based on French, the sounds are different for the letters than they are used to. For example, r's are pronounced more as w's in French so "Row, Row, Row your boat", comes out as "whoh, whoh, whoh, youw boat". I had them growling like a lion to get the R sound. It was very difficult for them! (similar to how it is difficult for me to make the creole sounds!) They want to learn so badly. The students ages are everything from a 11 year old to a 60 year old. Most are in their mid 20's. Several of them have asked me to come and speak to young peoples groups on leadership. Many of the churches have organizations that are trying to mentor the young people into leaders for the community and country. It is very impressive. They all know their country has many problems and that the government is inadequate to take on those problems so they are starting with their own families, communities and themselves to take responsibility. These young people take nothing for granted and are very thankful for every good thing that comes their way.
Our class meets out under a very large mango tree with a chalk board that is nailed to the tree. We sit on rough, wood benches carried over from the clinic. Evidently, when the clinic was first built there was a VERY LARGE Boa constrictor that lived in the tree and everyone was afraid to go over there! At some point over this past year, someone was brave enough to "remove" the snake and now this tree has become the educational center for the clinic. It is a beautiful setting, so simple, yet so profound. The teacher writes everything on the black board and then the students must copy it onto a notebook. This means they must have a notebook and pen. It is a sacrifice for students to purchase those items to attend. Again, an example of the dedication to education that is prevalent in Haiti.