I know most of my close friends will remember this because we were probably watching it together, but does anyone remember that episode of friends where Chandler can't smile in pictures? He smiles just fine when he is happy, but as soon as someone points a camera at him he bares his teeth and his smile becomes an awkward pained look, like someone is tickling and pinching him at the same time? This was all I could think about the day I learned the word for smile in creole.
On my last trip to Haiti we spent a lot of time going to Christmas parties. We had them at the orphanage, at the school for the teachers, and we even go to go to one downtown at a preschool that was run out of Ernst Cassy's mothers house. On this particular occasion a few of the older kids from the orphanage came with us to help hand out food and toys to the children. At the end of the day we had to sit and wait for all of the parents to come and pick up their preschooler's. When it finally got down to the last child we sat and impatiently waited with a little boy who had received a ball for a gift, and was joyfully playing with it. Ashley as usual had been taking pictures of everything, and everyone around us and Brummaire, one of the older boys who had come along to help, must have noticed that when this little boy posed for a picture he would try as hard as he could to smile, and the smile would come out looking more like he was baring his teeth! Brummaire thought this was hilarious and began to say over and over Souri! Souri! to the little boy, who would in turn give us a goofy grin and Ashley would take his picture. Ashley probably took about 20 pictures of this little boy in different poses, and every time Brummaire would exclaim excitedly Souri! and then laugh after every picture!
Now up to this point, my week in Haiti had been a little disappointing, most of the kids from the orphanage who are normally happy to see us, and want to talk to us were either too busy with school and making money through odd jobs or were pretty much nowhere to be found. In Brummaire's case he had been around all week, but he had barely said a word to me, and i had hardly seen him smile, let alone laugh! So I am sure this may not seem like a funny story to those who were not there, but besides the fact that the word souri (pronounced sooree) was for ever etched in to my brain, it was a wonderful experience to see my friend Brummaire smile and laugh over such a simple thing.
Life is like a mirror, we get the best results when we smile at it. ~Author Unknown
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