Cluelessness

Last Sunday Mike and I were invited to attend 'English Club' by some of our translators.  This is a new venture that a few of the men have started within their local community to invoke discussions about various topics as well as practice conversational English.  Seems like a great idea to learn a new language, #CreoleClubAnyone?  Etienne and Wisley told us to show up at 3 pm ready to discuss the environment.  Piece of cake.  There's the sun, trees, dirt, and Al Gore.  What else would we need to talk about?  And I really didn't know what they expected with regards to Mike's and my level of participation.  Are we lecturing?  Are we correcting people's grammar as they talk?  Or are we just going to sit there and have a conversation about polar bears and the ozone layer while they listen?

We go.  And we're fashionably late #WhenInHaiti.  Introductions, a welcoming hymn and a prayer are all done.  All in English.  I can handle Haiti if everyone is going to continue to speak English to me and refer to me by my name.  #NoMoreBlan.  Then comes the topic, "Why men don't have a clue and women always need new shoes."  I laughed to myself.  This just got a little more interesting, and probably insightful for Mike and I.

They play a tape.  I have no idea where they got this tape from.  It featured a pair of British voices discussing their research on differences in men and women.  They tried to focus on relationships, but even that topic should probably take a couple lifetimes to properly research.  But they still managed to summarize the different perspectives in a relationship during the five minute clip.  The cliffs notes version, women like to communicate and have needs that most men find irrational whereas men often see the relationship in very concrete matters.  They dabbled in the historical/evolutionary forces that led men to be more like providers and protectors whereas women are family oriented, nurturing, etc.

Full disclosure.  I'm probably as clueless as the next guy when it comes to relationships with the opposite sex.  But this isn't a testimonial on my experiences or opinions regarding relationships.

Keep in mind that this was a club full of only men.  There was one female, the fiance of my current translator, but she doesn't speak English.  Everyone else was an XY.

The conversation focused on why women want shoes for the first half hour.  "Why do they like shoes?"  "Haitian women just wish they had the possibility to buy shoes."  And so on.  At some point they asked for my input.  I wanted to try and redirect them to get away from the concrete thinking of shoe-philia.  I pointed out that the title refers to perspectives about relationships.  Men don't have an idea of what it takes to be in a  relationship whereas women get worked up about stupid stuff like shoes.  I tried to get the focus on what a healthy relationship is.  Discuss the different needs for men and women.

It didn't happen.  But we did end up re-directing and talking about relationships instead of why people want to buy shoes.  We took a survey of how many men were in some sort of relationship.  Mike and I made up almost half.  My translator was with his girlfriend and two others were married.  No one else would claim a relationship.

The topic turned.  Suddenly we were talking about trust in a relationship.  The gentlemen were discussing what was an appropriate level of trust.  This ranged from, "I don't want to know what she's doing" to "I am always honest with her if she asks me where I am" to "I don't need her asking me a lot of questions."  These three did most of the talking.  One was married.  He made it clear that he should know where she is at all times and vice versa.  He said he often calls her just to see where she is and sometimes he will follow that call up with a random visit or talking to someone else in the same area.  He was perfectly comfortable if his wife would do the same.

The other two were far less forthcoming.  One was my former translator who had to resume his job as an English teacher.  He made it clear that in any relationship he had, he wanted boundaries.  He didn't want to have to tell his "girl" where he was going, who he was talking to, or what he was doing.  "Sometimes you are talking to a girl and she [his girlfriend] don't need to know about it.  You aren't doing anything more than talking, so you're fine."

The other gentleman, who clearly learned most of his English from America's hip hop culture, took the same stance from the opposite perspective.  He didn't want to know what his girl was doing.  If she was cheating on him he didn't want to know.  He was perfectly comfortable pretending that everything was going smoothly.

I truly wish I could have live tweeted the action from the conversation.  The insight into their culture was great for Mike and I.  From stories I had gathered that many relationships were male-dominated with the woman tending to the family at home.  Also, it seems like sex is less of a commitment than in our culture.  I don't know how they do it.  Up to ten people live in the same house with only one bed, yet people still find themselves pregnant.  I already discussed going to the ocean and maybe that's where everyone is.  I don't know.  I hope to take these last couple weeks to learn more about the local culture.  I have assumptions, but they aren't always correct.  I walked away from that meeting with more questions than answers.  But I did discover one thing, only one man in that group had a "clue" and he is currently set to be married in May.