One English student

When I first arrived in my site a year and some months ago I ran into a Haitian man in the colmado – convenience store – who asked me in English, if I would help him with his English. I told him of course but then I never saw him again until recently. Now, Tuesday and Thursday mornings he shows up at 8am on his beat up motorcycle, always on time and dressed in the best clothes I imagine he has...he looks very nice. The motorcycle doesn’t have a seat on the back because in the afternoons he straps a cooler on when he drives from community to community selling ice cream for 5-15 pesos (14-43 cents) a piece.

His native language is Creole and he also speaks French fluently, as both are spoken in Haiti, French more commonly by the rich. He learned basic Spanish and English in school as well. Haitian’s are known here for being great with languages. But he doesn’t know Spanish well enough to have an easy time translating for me the English that I test him on. But as we find ourselves here in the DR, somewhere between Haiti and the US, it is the language the two of us need to use as an intermediate to communicate since neither of us speaks the other’s native tongue. I spend an hour with him two days a week, learning new vocabulary, fixing his broken grammar and trying very hard to help him overcome his French/Creole language tendency to change Rs into Ws when he speaks. For example, in Creole, pre means close but it’s pronounced pwe.

Every time he comes he brings me breakfast of a combination cheese-filled crackers, chocolate milk and/or red (Washington) apple but other payment includes good laughs and learning a tiny bit of French and Creole. I’ll surely learn more when we get him a French to English dictionary!