Haitian Training, Part 1

No, it’s not training to become Haitian. It’s training to prepare for the trip to Haiti. We have three 4-hour sessions lined up to get to know each other and to learn more about missions and Haiti. At the meeting this afternoon, we discussed the purpose of missions trips, we came up with a slogan for our team, we learned a little bit about cultural differences, and we finished by learning to speak a little Haitian Creole. The slogan we came up with is “Go”, as in don’t just sit around waiting for something to happen, go make something happen. I think it’s a bit simple, but it works. I thought something like “Building bridges” would be a bit better because we are going on a construction project, but we are also going there to build bridges across cultures and spiritual boundaries. As for what we learned about cultural differences, it was focused mostly on realizing that even though we are going there to build a school or church, the real reason we are going is to reach out to the people and make a difference in their lives. Learning Haitian Creole was interesting. It sounds a lot like French, but it is spelled quite differently. Kouma ou ye (pronounced koo-mah oo yay) means “how are you”. Mwe rele Nick (pronounced mway ray-lay Nick) means “my name is Nick”. Those are probably two of the most useful phrases that we learned. Also, Bonjou (pronounced bohn-joo) means “good morning”. Apparently in Haiti, if you don’t say bonjou to someone you pass on the street, they will think you are very rude.