muffins and zoos

Teaching continues to be so interesting! Our students have had SUCH different upbrinings than us, and exploring the differences with the students is amusing, and sometimes sad. They are men and women (well, woman) our own age and in our own place in life: feeling called to take the Lord and the Bible to Haiti. Yet we are worlds apart!
On Monday, Stacey's class had a "review day." For fun, I decided to bring in muffins, espcially because the prior week had been such a hard one for everyone. At one point in the class, we worked through a children's book in English, and I passed around the muffins. I learned quite quickly that food is never "fun." It's not a "treat." It's FOOD. It's survival, it's an existence, a NEED.

I tried not to stare while I read the book, watching the students wrap their muffins in their napkins, carefully placing the parcel in their bags to take home to children, or to save for later. I told them they could eat the snack, but it wasn't meal time nor were they truly hungry, so they all saved it. Thinking back on it, Matt and I both realized that where food can be such a special thing in our culture, it is a true need in theirs. Matt likes his muffins with a mug of steaming coffee. We like to eat a muffin for a snack in the afternoon. But our students? They don't even have a concept of what tastes good with what, or having a snack.

Food is something they think about getting every single day, something they pray for, something they hope to give to their children. Even in a classroom, in ties and learning English and Hebrew, they are Haitians. We will never fully understand a NEED for food as they do...hmmmmm.

My English class is also learning about animals this week. We talked about Haiti animals first: pigs, chickens, goats. Then we talked about American animals, and then zoo animals. No student in the class has ever seen a zebra, a lion, an elephant, a monkey, etc. I asked if there were zoo's here, only to find out that there is not even a word for zoo in Creole. I then tried to explain what a zoo was. The students listened in wonder, but when I asked who would like to go to a zoo someday, I had no volunteers. Everyone thought it would be quite scary to see all of these animals they've never seen all at the same time. (and they are quite sure zebras are "evil". I'm not sure where this comes from...I didn't ask!)

Needless to say, we are always learning so much about Haiti just from our time in the classroom!