You came to the States without a single English word to call your own. Mere days afterwards, you found yourself in a classroom full of eyes that appraised you. You were the new kid. The alien du jour.
Your own eyes blinked back hot tears. You wanted to run home, but knew that home was now another world away.
You stood statue-like in the doorway. The well-meaning teacher’s lesson plan would never include the level of differentiation you required. Yet, she/he cried out: “Good morning, class! We have a new student among us today. Can everyone say hello to Dja-vway-leen!”
You mumbled under quivering breath: “Ki moun ki rele Dja-vwe-lin nan?” Ah, but having your name butchered would become the least of your troubles. You had learning to do. Quick, instantaneous, emergency learning. Manman didn’t give you loofah for brains; so, every lesson would stick.
School administrators greeted you with test after test and freshly sharpened #2 pencils, expecting you to perform as well as “native-speakers.” Newcomers need years to be able to do well on those test. The research god said so. Oh, but “Here you go, kid! I know you can speak English. Stop pretending already!”
Manman had done her own research. According to her findings, you would speak English in less than six months. By the time you received your first report card, you would have served as interpreter, accountant, job-applicant, and pharmacist for family members who feared their own tongues would never be strong enough to lift clunky foreign words.
Manman’s research also said you would graduate with honors. You would go to high school, college, grad school, and earn a doctorate in about the same amount of time it would take to boil her pot of red beans. There were months when you doubted Manman. You doubted yourself.
All that’s behind you now.
Today you stand inside a packed auditorium with royal-blue velour curtains. You look good in your cap, gown, and cumbersome sache. Your tassel hangs on the left now. Merci Eternel, graslamizèrikòd, adjyebondye, you fout did it!
Hands clap and feet stomp in your honor today. The dining table bends from the weight of griyo and diri djondjon, but Manman is still in the kitchen with that dishrag thrown like a Hermes scarf over her shoulder. Guests file in and out, kissing her on both cheeks: “Konpliman, pitit,” someone reaches for the jar of pikliz.
Manman thanks them for their kind words, but as soon as she’s alone in that kitchen she goes right back to serenading the stack of dirty dishes with a Kreyolized rendition of “You Ain’t Seen Nothin Yet!”
——————————————————-
Hey. . .
A heap of congratulations to grads worldwide! VoicesfromHaiti celebrates the creative Haitian spirit of Naima F.; she graduated from 8th grade last week.
Naima looks forward to a successful academic career in one of the best High Schools on earth. Go girl!
Naima’s poem, “Where I’m From,” is an awesome gift to all Haitian children born in the Diaspora.