Good Chefs Speak Creole!

Today I had a little sit down with about 5 of our nannies.  They informed me that good Chef’s (bosses) speak Creole and that if I want to be a good Chef I need to learn to speak Creole.  I tried to deny that I was a Chef, but they insisted that I was, so I told them that they needed to teach me to speak better Creole.  At first they all said no because they weren’t teachers, but then one of the nannies pulled a chair over (it was a plastic children chair which is about 8 inchs off the ground, but it worked) and told me to sit down.

I didn’t have anything that couldn’t wait awhile to be done, so I hung out with the nannies for almost 2 hours speaking Crenglish to them!!  Luckily several of the nannies that worked today understand a little bit of English so they could translate when I couldn’t figure things out.  None of our nannies will admit that they understand English, but occasionally they will slip and I will find out.  The other day for instance, I kept trying to talk to one of our cooks in Creole and she couldn’t figure out what I was saying.  I muttered it under my breath in English and she responded back in perfect English.  I then asked her is she speaks English and she got all embarrassed and swore that she didn’t.  Most won’t speak English, but some can understand some of it when it’s spoken to them.

The two hours mainly consisted of them laughing at me every time I either couldn’t say something or said it wrong.  I’m ok with them laughing at my expense!  It was definitely beneficial.  I learned all the words for family members and can now say grandma, aunt, nephew, etc.  It was fun hanging out with the nannies and getting to know them a little better and letting them get to know me.  It’s hard because I don’t know enough Creole to have conversations with them, so most of our interactions are all “business” related!

Theres a possibility that there was a bit of a translation issue and now some of the nannies think that I’m going to divorce Nick and marry someone else in 2 years.  Not really sure how this happened.  They were asking me how many kids we want and if we are going to adopt.  I was trying to explain to them that we wouldn’t be adopting from Haiti because you have to be married for 10 years and Nick and I have only been married for 2.  I’m still pretty sure I said the phrase right, but I think they were more confused with this rule than anything.  Anyways, after several minutes of going back and forth trying to figure out what I was saying, one asked me if I was going to divorce Nick.  Luckily a different nanny understood and helped translate.  Hopefully we got it all cleared up, but for the record, I have absolutely no plans on divorcing my husband and am definitely not marrying anyone else in 2 years!!