SE POU NOU MANJE! (LET'S EAT!)

One thing is for sure: When you go to Haiti you want to know what is on the menu.  A food vocabulary is really important, especially if you are one of 20 people trying to figure out what is on the menu.

Learning some Kreyol by reading a menu seems practical and essential.  So, I've made the following menu from a compilation of items on various lists I found.  Take note: Spelling varies in Kreyol. We'll just have to deal with that.

MENU

Appetizers

• Akra (Black-eyed pea fritters)
• Lanbi Pike Nan Ji Sitwon  (Spicy marinated conch)
• Plat Fritay  (Fried platter, okra, conch fritter, sweet potato and plantain w/ ti malice and watercress sauce)

Salads

• Chiquetaille de Morue (Saltcod salad)
• Salad Pomdete (Potato salad)
• Salad Zaboka (Avocado salad
• Salad Tap Tap  (Mango, watercress, carrots and mixed greens)
• Salad Zaboka Ak Tomat  (Avocado and tomato salad with onions, house dressing)
• Salad Chiktay  (Mixed salad and avocado topped with herring

Soups

• Bouyon (Meat and vegetable stew)
• Soup Joumou (Squash soup)
• Legim   ( Stew vegetables)

Poultry

• Poul neg Maron ak Kalalou (Chicken with okra and mushrooms)
• Tassot de Dinde (Dried turkey)
• Poul Nan Sos   (Stewed chicken)
• Poul Boukanen  (Grilled chicken)

Meats

• Bef Salé (Dried and fried beef)
• Boeuf á la Haïtienne (Beef with tomatoes and peppers)
• Bef Kalalou Ak Mayi Moulin  (Stewed beef and okra served with cornmeal)
• Aubergines à l'Haïtienne (Eggplant stewed with beef)
• Boulet (Meatballs)
• Griots (Fried pork cubes)
• Kabrit Boukanen  (Grilled goat) 

Seafood

• Krevet (Creole shrimp)
• Lambi (Boiled conch)
• Mori ak Sos (Saltcod with sauce)
• Kribish Nan Sos Kokoye   (Shrimp in coconut sauce)Pwason Gwosel  (Whole fish in lime sauce)
• Pwason Neg   (Fish in lime sauce or blackened)
• Spageti Kreyol  (Spaghetti with tiny shrimp and mix vegetable in creole sauce)

Vegetables and Beans

• Banan Peze (Fried plantains)
• Diri ak Pwa (Red beans and rice)
• Labouyi Banane (Pureed plantain)
• Banann Peze  (Fried plantains)
• Militon Gratinen (Chayote gratineed with cheese)
• Patat Boukannen (Baked sweet potatoes)
• Sos Pwa Frans (Sweetpeas)
• Zepina Nan Sos Kokoye  (Spinach in coconut sauce)
• Mayi Boukanen   (Grilled corn)
• Mayi Moulen (ak sos pwa ou kole) (corn meal with mix bean or bean sauce) 
• Sos Pwa Rouj (Red beans in sauce)
• Veritab Fri (Fried breadfruit)
• Aubergines à l'Haïtienne (Eggplant stewed with beef)
• Pikliz (Spicy pickled vegetables) 

Breads and Grains

• Diri ak Djon-djon (Rice with dried black mushrooms)
• Diri ak Pwa (Red beans and rice)
• Makaroni Gratinen (Macaroni and cheese)
• Mayi Moulen (Cornmeal mush)
• Pen Mayi (Cornbread)
• Pitimi (Millet pilaf)

Sauces and Condiments

• Confiti Mango (Mango chutney)
• Sauce Ti-Malice (Hot pepper sauce)
• Zepis (Creole spice blend)

Desserts

• Benye (Banana fritters)
• Diri Olé (Rice pudding)
• Kok Graje (Coconut candy)
• Pen Patat (Sweet potato bread)
• Plat Eri Twopical  (Fresh tropical fruit plate)
• Gato Zannanna (Upside down pineapple rhum cake)
• Pudin (Bread pudding)
• Blan Mange  (Traditional coconut dessert)

·       

·       Beverages

• Godrin (Fermented pineapple beverage)
• Ji Chadek (Grapefruit juice)
• Labouyi Bannann (Banana cream)
• Sitronad (Lemonade)
• Te Jenjanm  (Ginger tea)
• Te Kanet Ak Anis  (Cinnamon and star anise tea)
• Kaff Ayisyen  (Coffee)

B  Bon apetite!

----kjl

LET'S HEAR IT! KOMON OU YE! MWEN BIEN. MWEN RELE KERMIT.

The Haiti traveling team is speaking Kreyol.  More importantly, we are hearing the language so that we can listen and understand.  This is for most of us no small thing.  I, for one, need lots of help.  We are blessed with Carline's teaching skills and patience.

At Carline's suggestion, I use Mango Languages to get started. It is free, but you need to access it through a participating library using your library membership number.  I go to the CH-UH Library site here.  At the box labeled "Heights Library Site Search," type in "Mango" and click on search.  That gets you to a Google search result for the CH-UH Library that you click on and get to this page.  Looking down the page you will see . . .

Mango Languages 

Mango Languages is variety of resources to help you learn practical conversation skills for languages spoken all around the world. It is completely self-paced and provides a quick introduction to a language and culture through the acquisition of simple conversational skills. You will need to create a free online profile to use this resource.

That gets you to the Mango site where you register, log in and begin your tutored classes.

Haitihub is another internet source I looked at.  It has a different approach and a larger array of teaching tools designed especially for professionals in short-term service projects.  Some of it is frehttp://www.haitihub.com/youtube-videos/e, most is not.  You can find a YouTube video teaching the Lord's Prayer.  Some of us will also want to learn the Hail Mary.  Extra credit for those who try the Apostles Creed.  I found Gestures and Body Language worth a look.

Here is a link to a list of handy phrases.  At the bottom of the page is a list of web sites with more help.  For those who want to use videos to experience listening and learning, YouTube has an array of videos.

Here is a site advertising children's books in Kreyol.  That could be of interest for those of us preparing to spend time at the orphanage.

For the medical team, there are special language lessons and aids for medical terms in Kreyol.  Apple has an app for health care providers that works with iPhones and iPads.  A booklet of medical terms in English and Kreyol can be downloaded from here.

For those of us expecting to work at gardening or construction I find fewer specific aids.  Here is one site that has some specific information along some language training.

Carline emphasized the importance of learning at least a few phrases of greeting because greeting people in Haiti is culturally important.  We must overcome the fear of making mistakes and convey our sincere desire to be present with those we will meet in Haiti for whom English is a foreign language.  The gesture is more important than precision.

--kjl

PARTNERSHIP WITH THE COMMUNITY OF THE INCARNATION

Our primary destination in Haiti this fall is the Community of the Incarnation based in Pandiassou, a village near the City of Hinche in the Central Plateau.  Plans are being made now for our short visit.  Learning about The Little Brothers and Sisters of the Incarnation is an important part of the preparation for that visit.

Let's start here with their web site and their story told in their own words.  There is an English version for us who are linguistically limited.  Notice especially the large list of projects.  Two recent short articles about Brother Franklin Armand published by The Haiti Observer, a Haitian news blog, can be found here.  It is a convenient source of news about Haiti.

The Little Brothers and Sisters have decades of experience working with North American partners.  While their resources are gathered from many places, their connection to church-based partners is special.  Look, for instance, at their 20-year partnership with the Church of the Incarnation in Richmond VA.

One of the main reason we are attracted to the Little Brothers and Sisters is their approach to the mission of community development.  Notice that it is a holistic approach that includes both material and spiritual sharing.  It is not a one-way delivery of resources from the rich to the poor.  It is about building community and capacity together.  It invites a mutual sharing experience of solidarity in which all those involved can be transformed.  Certainly that is the testimony of those who made our first visit last year.  We have a new vision of Haiti . . . and of ourselves.

May I suggest that going to spend a week in Haiti -- or any place challenged by hunger, thirst, and insecurity -- is not a justified use of resources when measured only by the limited benefit of those in need and peril; more is required of us.  The trip is about being open to the prospect of our own transformation from being remote observers to being engaged partners.  The trip is about getting new, corrected vision. It is about what happens and what we do when we return.

Will we be partners instead of patrons?

--kjl

SEE WHAT RALPH HATH WROUGHT!

Ralph Jean-Mary

This blog site and everything it describes about Forest Hill Church in Haiti is a product of a vision from Ralph Jean-Mary, a Haitian member of the congregation.  I want to share how this all got started.

Ralph and I were part of a small group of people who went through a 26-week course of exploring and developing faith.  The program is called Faith Leaders and in 2011 we were in the 5th annual class.  At the end of the course we were all invited to develop a vision for a personal ministry that would express what faith meant to us at that time.  

Ralph announced his vision of starting a program of medical service in Haiti, a program that would be developed in partnership with Haitian people committed to building the capacity needed to sustain it.  This was at a time when criticism of the relief and redevelopment of Haiti after the earthquake was pointing out that well-meaning efforts from outside Haiti ignored the people and the realities of conditions in Haiti.  (I wrote in an earlier blog about the problem of helping people in ways that hurts and about "toxic charity".)

This vision electrified me and many others who heard Ralph describe it; things began to happen.  Within the year, the initial exploratory trip to Haiti by eight of us was organized.  For obviously practical and logical reasons, we went to L'Ermitage, the home and hotel owned by Ralph's parents in Pandiassou, near the city of Hinche, in the Central Plateau region.  This mountain region is several hours drive from Port Au Prince and the area devastated by the 2010 earthquake.  It was a haven for many refugees from Port Au Prince who has lost their way of life.  It is poor, to be sure, and severely challenged by disease, poor living conditions, poverty, a lack of civic life and organization.  Yet it has potential to grow good food and to provide a good home and be self-sustaining.

Ralph's family were educated and were practicing professionals in the US for a number of years before his parents moved back to Port Au Prince where his father, a physician, practiced and taught medicine and his mother became a successful businesswoman.  They developed inherited family land near Hinche used initially as a camp and retreat from urban life in Port Au Prince to a guest house, a hotel and a nearly completed 24-bed conference facility.  Dr. Kyss and Nicole Jean-Mary, Ralph's parents, are well-known and highly respected people in Haiti.  What they are developing in the country near the third largest city in Haiti is an amazing expression of their faith and resilience.  It embodies a hope for what Haiti can become.

Ralph, Nicole and Dr. Kyss Jean-Mary

With Ralph as a guide, our team visited several places where community health and development institutions near Hinche with track records of success were presented to us.  When we returned at the end of April last year we began a process of discernment about whether and how we might add our support to one of those groups.  That was not easy.  Ultimately, we committed to reaching out to the Little Brothers and Little Sisters of the Incarnation.  We began planning for a "working trip" and a fundraising campaign to offer both a personal presence and financial resources to our Haitian partners.

In June while we were firming up our plans for these two big efforts, Ralph informed us that the Cleveland Clinic, where he is employed as an administrator, had invited him to move to its new hospital in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.  He is leaving with his wife, Michelle, in September.  Panic!  Could we act on this vision without him?

In the end, with some help that is nothing short of miraculous (More about that another time.), we are persevering and the vision lives on.  In fact it thrives!  There are 18 of us headed for Haiti in October and the fundraising campaign proceeds, now amounting to more than $7,000, are still coming in.  

The vision of one man, Ralph, is spreading to many here and in Haiti.  Who can predict how it will turn out!  It is gaining in strength as it is shared with more people.  Those of us who see it consider ourselves blessed and follow it in gratitude.  Yes, we feel we are going to Haiti in a spirit of gratitude! 

Thank God for Ralph Jean-Mary!

--kjl

EDWIDGE DANTICAT: SEEING HAITI THROUGH THE EYES OF A WRITER

This is an introduction to Edwidge Danticat.  She is a contemporary Haitian writer.  Read her!

She is currently at the pinnacle of a stellar career receiving the most prestigious awards, honorary degrees and critical acclaim.  For anyone who wants to learn about Haiti, taking the beauty and the tragedy in together, this is who you want to read first.

By way of her introducing herself, I offer links to a series of video interviews:

• PBS Newshour in 2010
• Democracy Now in 2010
• A short PBS interview in 2011

The first of her books I read was Krik?Krak! a collection of her short stories.  She reaches into the story of her own family for Brother, I'm Dying, an illuminating exposition of the tragedy that can accompany families who fled Papa Doc's tyranny for the risks and opportunities of the United States.

The interviews above were done in the wake of her 2010 collection of essays, Create Dangerously, reflecting on her experience as an artist in exile.  These 12 essays are powerful and are essential reading for those of us who want to absorb a Haitian point of view.  I emphatically recommend it!

Just this week on August 27 her latest book came out to lavish reviews suggesting it is her best work yet.  Claire of the Sea Light, is on my reading list.  Here is an interview with Danticat about her new book.

Jacques Roumain (1907-1944) is another writer of great significance in Haiti's literary history.  He became known in the English speaking world because Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, among other American writers, spent time in Haiti, learned of his work and translated it into English.  His work reveals peasant life in Haiti in much the same way as Zora Neale Hurston portrayed the lives of poor African American farmers in the early 20th century.

Graham Greene's The Comedians is a source of Haiti's reputation for many English readers.  It is an entirely different viewpoint.  Set in the time of the Duvalier regime, it paints a picture of life in a failed state and the exploitation of Voodoo as a tool for control of simple people through terror.  

Voodoo is a topic for another time.  Take my suggestion.  Read Edwidge Danticat first.

--kjl

HAITI HIGH!! WHAT A GREAT PARTY!!

There was a full house at SOHO.

There was laughter, conversation, new friendships and connections.

The fabulous food was a huge hit and drinks for everyone's taste.

The ambiance was festive and accented with Haitian flags.  

Even the weather was made to order!

The party planners were grinning with delight all evening watching and listening to friends having a great time.  Those from Haiti and those of us who have been to Haiti shared stories and answered questions.  I loved the questions like "Do you have room for one more this fall?" and "When will you be organizing another trip?" It was all about supporting opportunity and hope in Haiti

Then there was the auction!  A link must connect good preaching and auctioneering.  Pastor John Lentz certainly has a gift for both.  Assisted by Barb (Vanna) Lind with her spotlight, bidders were seduced into bids at and above what they expected to spend.

The contributions of quiltmakers Patti Falk, Lynn Kleinman and Barb Lind, and the glass perfume jar by glassmaker, Brent Kee Young, produced a total of $2,625 in sales to be added to the funds for the use of the Little Brothers and Little Sisters of the Incarnation at Pondiassou, Haiti.

The team who put this all together consisted of Steve Sedam, Deanne Lentz, Barb Lind and Laurie Logan.  They got some very important  help from Ralph Jean-Mary, Jeff and Anne Smith, Carline Paul-blanc.  Many others pitched in.

Key to the event's success was the SOHO Kitchen and Bar, its wonderful staff, and owners, Molly and Nolan.  The Kreyol buffet they put together just for this event was amazing.

Nolan and Molly are the youngsters in this picture.

The financial proceeds for this fundraising project are still being calculated.  Needless to say, though, it was a huge success for a first time effort.  In the end, financial success is not the true measure of what was accomplished through this event.  What matters more is the expansion of interest among people who have the will, the energy and the resources to support justice for Haiti's most needy.  Building capacity and community with Haitian partners requires a sustained movement, not just successful fundraising.

That is my take on our first FHC Haiti celebration event.

HAITI - A CELEBRATION OF SHARING WITH FRIENDS, JULY 14

With just a week left before the Haiti celebration the news is great!  More than 100 people have reservations and only a few places are left.  Cost is $50 per ticket.  The time is 5:00 to 8:00, Sunday, July 14.  Last minute reservations can be accepted by calling the Linds at 216-371-9004 or by emailing me at kermitlind@gmail.com ASAP.

And there's more!  The menu will include a sampling of Haitian appetizers and delicacies, with an assortment of beverages.  There will be music, laughter, mingling  and fun.  Speaking Kreyol is optional.

The benefit auction got a boost with a fourth wall quilt added just this week.  Here is a look at it.

If that is not your color scheme, here is another quilt that will be auctioned.  (Barb's legs not included.)

The really big item is the art glass shown below.  It is a work by Brent Kee Young, an internationally renown glass artist. Brent lives in Cleveland Heights and is Head of the Glass Department at the Cleveland Institute of Art.   To see more about him and his amazing work, go to this site.

The folks at the SOHO Kitchen and Bar are really wonderful!   Their help with preparation for this event on a night they are normally closed has been spectacular.  Thank you Molly and Nolan!  For those crossing a river to get to SOHO at 1889 W. 25th, this event will introduce you to a delightful West Side bistro to remember for fine dining.

To sum it up --

• Celebrate Haitian hope and resilience.  
• Help Forest Hill Church raise funds at SOHO, July 14, 5:00 - 8:00 PM.
• Call Linds at 216-371-9004 or email kermitlind@gmail.com for reservations now.
• Reservations are $50 each for food and two drinks. ($30 tax deductible.)
• For those needing it, a car pool is being organized to and from Cleveland Heights.
• Can't make it?  Contributions gratefully accepted by Forest Hill Church at 3031 Monticello Rd., Cleveland Heights, OH 44118.  (Website here.)
• Payments should be made to Forest Hill Church/Haiti Fund.

A promise: This is my last shameless plug for this event.

--Kermit