Monday, April 23, 2007
Learning Creole is becoming more fun as I understand more. A book called Let's Learn Créole by Dr. Edner A. Jeanty and Dr. O. Carl Brown has become my bible for learning the language. I carry it with me everywhere we go and read it while riding on tap-tap. I practice with my native friends. At this point I know how most of the syntax works, and I feel like I just need to learn more vocabulary. Learning a new language has never been this fun. After Creole, I'll have to tackle French, but I could always learn that when I return to the States. Besides, the way the people speak French here is a bit different from French-French (kind of like the way Kenyans speak English, I suppose), so I'd rather learn it properly. Anyhow, living in Haiti is definitely helping me motivate myself to learn. If only I knew what I know now back in high school... I despised French class back then, mainly because it seemed pointless to learn French (and maybe because I thought the teachers were a bit of psychos at the time).
I can't help but to compare myself with Paul Farmer. I don't really want to, but I keep doing it because I imagine he was in a similar situation as mine. He was 23 when he first came to Haiti, just before going to med school. That was 23 years ago, the year I was born (1983. Ok, 24, but I'm still 23). Now here I am, 23, first time living in Haiti, right before going to med school. (Incidentally, I have 23 pairs of chromosomes in each cell of my body. And today is April 23rd! And there's a movie called 23, of which I've only seen the trailer.) I'm sure he knew a lot more French back then than I do now, since, if I recall correctly, he studied abroad in France for a year while in college. Of course there's a lot more differences than similarities, but these similarities make me think how I'm doing what I'm doing. Honestly, I'm probably not doing as much stuff as he did 23 years ago. If I could, I would just go outside and start talking to people in the neighborhood, and see what I could be doing. But since I can't, I'm focusing on learning the language. Well, I bet Paul Farmer didn't have a blog while he was in Haiti 23 years ago... probably not even a computer. Wait, that puts me in advantage, which means I'm supposed to be doing better... Argh! No more comparisons.
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