On a Wonderful Compliment

Yesterday, Sherley, our family planning manager, sent me a document to review.  I went over the her office to talk it over with her - it was a terms of reference for a family planning hotline for young people that will be executed by a local NGO.  We worked with them pre-earthquake and had a few issues, so I wanted to make sure the terms of reference was as explicit as possible.

We then started talking about the form the telephone operators will be filling out for each call.  The old form we used didn't seem to cover the things we wanted to make sure we emphasized (like the dual protective role of condoms against pregnancy and STIs, the importance of getting an HIV test before trying to get pregnant) and included some extraneous nice-to-have information (self-esteem, masturbation, sexual violence) that wasn't going to really help us make useful decisions.  Sherley was a little hesitant to accept some of my recommendations for changes, then in the middle of our discussion she asked: "What is the name of that game with the colored squares that you turn and turn?"  "A Rubik's cube?" She wrote that down.  We continued talking.

Later in the afternoon, I was sitting next to Sherley during my farewell party.  She leaned over and said, "Do you know why I wanted to know the name of that game?"  "Yeah, actually."  "Because when things are confusing, I feel like I can go to you and you can help me put all the colored squares in the right place and solve the puzzle."

This might be the single greatest compliment I have ever received from a colleague. 

On Funny/Not Funny in Haiti

Funny: Expat drivers (like me) ranting about pedestrians who believe they can bring a 3 tonne car bearing down on them to a halt simply by ignoring the car, walking in front of it, and holding up one hand.  Funny, because they can.

Not-Funny:  When there's weird weather, or strange happenings, joking that it's the end of the world.  Not-funny because that already happened here.

Funny:  Jokes about zombies.  My Haitian colleagues' reaction: "Was it a real zombie?" Funny, because there are real zombies in Haiti.

Funny: Being told, "I need four Haitian minutes of your time."  Apparently this translates roughly to 11 other-people's minutes.

Funny/Not Funny: At my work going away party yesterday my colleagues were laughing uproariously at something in kreyol.  My neighbor translated for me:
   Crowd: Nice job planning the party Nathalya!
   Evens: You should go into the business of (I assumed he was going to say party planning) planning    funeral receptions!
   Bird: No, no!  Anick should plan funeral receptions!  She goes to two every week!
   Anick: But when people you know die, you have to go the their funeral!

Yep.  That was the hilarious conversation that had the entire group in stitches.  (By the way, whenever I hear of a funeral, I always assume the person was shot. I hear in other parts of the world, people die of old age).

Funny: Me in heels ducking and darting around the compound at work to avoid getting air-bombed by our numerous and enormous mango trees.