Apparently this is the first time the BBC is broadcasting in Creole, Haiti's national language and the new programme "is being produced in Miami by a multilingual team assembled especially for this task."
Nicholas Laughlin has also drawn my attention to "a Creole-language humanitarian information broadcast" by Internews which you can listen to by clicking here.
The program,Nouvelles-Utiles(News You Can Use) will be produced daily and distributed to local radio stations, which are eager to air it.
Thursday’s program included stories refuting rumors that there was an imposed curfew in Port-au-Prince, and notice of water distribution locations, bank re-openings, and waste management services. Information from the Red Cross discouraged hasty and uncoordinated disposal of bodies, and dispelled rumors that dead bodies cause disease.
Late last year when i arrived in Miami for Art Basel Miami i noticed while waiting to be processed by US Immigration that instructions were displayed in four languages. English and Spanish were easy to recognize, the third was either German or Italian, i really don't remember, and the fourth language i thought was Dutch. But as i stood there staring at the sentences in different languages (what did they say? I don't remember. Probably things like No Photography allowed. No Cellphones etc) i started to have a doubt about the language i thought was Dutch. i noticed that it seemed to take less words in that language to convey the same information as the sentences in that tongue were always shorter than the others.
Slowly something about the way the words looked and the sound they made when i tried to pronounce them made me wonder if it was Haitian Creole.
Fortunately i didn't have to wait long to find out. I was after all en route to Little Haiti and Edouard Duval-Carrie's studio. As soon as i arrived i asked if the fourth language was Creole and found out that it was indeed 'kreyòl ayisyen' and that the French had been quite miffed when the US decided to substitute Kreyol for French at the Miami airport. Of course it makes absolute sense as more Haitians use that airport than do the French.
Meanwhile locally the Haitian earthquake victims are very much on everyone's mind. Jamaicans from all walks of life are gathering together to do what they can to aid their neighbours. One of the best conceived efforts has been a massive shoe drive:
ODPEM [Jamaican Office of Disaster Preparedness] has forged an alliance with Well Heeled Jamaicans to stage a massive drive and sorting two day exercise this weekend. Target 10,000 new or slightly worn shoes. "You can bring other donations. We were moved like many other Jamaicans to extend a helping hand in to the people of Haiti - From our Soles to THEIRS"
The National Gallery of Jamaica is planning a fund-raising art auction and Roktowa, Melinda Brown's initiative in downtown Kingston is raising money to bring a group of artists here for a three week stay out of which a limited edition book of the work they produce here will be published and sold to raise money.
The Haitians have a tradition of painting and carving as renowned as Jamaican music. If its music put Jamaica on the map, equally "Haitian art is what makes the international eye see us," as Joseph Gaspard, a member of the board of directors of the College Saint Pierre museum, said recently. Significantly both traditions are by and large the products of Patwa-speakers and the oral tradition in their respective countries. The news that Haiti's Centre d'Art has been destroyed along with several other art institutions that have suffered extensive damage is not to be dismissed lightly. While it's true that artworks can never be as important as a single human life, it would be a tragedy if Haiti lost its visual heritage as a result of the killer quake.
As an LA Times article put it:
"Inevitably, art has caught up to reality. Frantz Zephirin, whose work graces the cover of this week's New Yorker, has already incorporated the earthquake in his art.
He ambled into the Monnin Gallery, his newest creation tucked under his arm.
It is a swirl of blue and green, with lots of eyeballs peering from the canvas, and a collection of outstretched hands reaching for help.
"I wanted to show Haitians in a sea of blood," Zephirin said. But amid the hands in the sea of blood, Zephirin has painted "Haiti will reborn.""
Viv Ayiti! (Long Live Haiti) -- I'm indebted to @carlpedre for these Haitian phrases
Mavado and Wyclef's dubplate for Haiti is a remake of a tune called that had been released a few months ago. Indebted to @cucumberjuice and @touchofallright for drawing my attention to it.
Posts
