By the book: How to organize a birthday party in Haitian #Creole

An exciting innovation in kreyol class.

Genyan senk liv timoun pou assiye etidye mwen. In other words, I have five children’s books to help my studies.

The first, with all of 47 words, is titled ‘Oganize yon fet’ or (organize a party). Reading this helped more than weeks of on-off kreyol lessons.

Mo kle, at the outset, clarifies various words.

And then it tells the simple story.

Ou kapab organize yon fet (you can organize a party), it exhorts. Pou anivese yon moun (for someone’s birthday). Pou setyem anivese yon timoun (for a child’s seventh birthday). Pran yon gato (take a cake. Pran set bouji (take seven candles), youn pou chak ane (one for each year). Pran yon plat vid (take an empty plate), pran kek ti bonbob (take some biscuits). Ale sou plas piblik lavil la (go to the city’s public square), mande ekip foutbol la pou l vini (ask them to come with soccer stuff), amize nou (amuse/entertain yourselves).

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life”
– Jack Kerouac