I’m preparing for my third trip to Haiti, and while I’ve kept journals both electronic and paper on my previous trips, I feel more inclined to keep it up this time. Writing, for me, is more a way to keep myself company and sort out my thoughts than it is a way of communicating with an audience, so writing online has always been daunting. A few family and friends are interested in what’s going on with me, so I’m giving it another shot.

This trip is to celebrate the sixth year of SOPUDEP school, a project of my friend Rea. I met her first in 2002 on a Global Exchange trip to Haiti. I’m dusting off the old Web site I published for her back then (http://www.sopudep.org) in hopes of getting a tri-lingual site that she can update quickly. (Note: a new donor has stepped up and updated it! Woohoo!) I’ve purchased some medallions that she asked me to bring to recognize students for their academic work, and I’m trying to figure out the most useful things with which to fill my luggage.

I’m studying Kreyòl texts from the previous visits, but it’s much less familiar than all those years of college French that I feel like I’ve completely forgotten until I realize how much I can say in French that I can’t even begin to express in Kreyol.

I’m also trying to find the words to describe what I’ve been doing lately. Dance (danse) that combines mind (espri), body (kò), spirit (lespir), emotion (emosyon). I’m trying to keep my question words clear. For some reason, they just don’t want to stay in my head. I don’t like to think it’s getting older, but it it. That and the threshold where you’ve really interacted with people enough to have the words make sense.

Ki jan ou ye? Byen, mesi, e ou mem?

I’m thinking it’s okay to quit trying to remember how to spell things and focus more on just remembering the words outloud since that’s what I want. But it still bugs me to know I’m spelling something wrong.

Ki jan ou rele sa en Kreyol?

Ki le li ye, souple? Twa.