Today I spent more time with Professor Enock and some of the other 10-16 year old boys. Using our English-Kreyol picture dictionary we covered alot of ground in for both learning English and Kreyol. One of the more difficult concepts that we had to work through involved learning about the different words for shirts. In Kreyol pull over shirts are called "mayo". Button down dress shirts are called "chemize". It took awhile to figure out the difference. At first I thought that the collars made the difference but found out I was wrong. Learning the difference was like a warped version of duck-duck-goose. It went mayo, mayo, mayo, chemize. After I thought I had shirts all figured out, I was testing my new knowledge then they sprang "Kòset" on me which is blouse.
The other exciting event for the day was teaching the Haitian kids called "Right-Center-Left" which is a simple dice game where tokens are moved according what shows on the dice. With some help from the professor the game was renamed "Dwat-Mitan-Gòch". Of course the dice are marked "C", "R", and "L" so we had to in game translate until everyone caught on. I think we played for hours with players constantly coming and going in between games. It was great fun.
We had some French women visiting the Eveline's this evening. Many of the orphans get placed in homes in France. One of these women had adopted one of Eveline's children two years ago. They gave us the traditional French cheek kiss greeting. We had to explain to Ben what to do. I think he was a little shocked.
On the downside, tomorrow is not going to be pleasant. We have already had some tears from Petoucheka this evening when she realized that we would be leaving soon. It is going to be hard to leave our little girl here for the next several months before everything get worked out and processed. She and Heidi have already tightly bonded. Ben is going to miss her along with several of the other boys he became friends with. Simon hasn't said much about leaving Petoucheka but I think that he is sad to leave her behind. Right now I'm trying hard not to think about it. Yes, I'm looking forward to going home but I can honestly say I not looking forward to leaving Haiti.
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