A Trip To Haiti Narrative

593 Words2 Pages

Blank faces staring at blank faces. Both utterly frustrated by the immense barrier stopping them from communicating.
Not being able to express yourself is the most frustrating feeling in the world. It’s like when you’re in a dream and you can’t scream even though one simple sound could save your life. Your lungs are completely empty.
This anxious feeling enveloped my trip to Haiti.
People only ever tell the happy stories after coming back from a trip overseas. People never talk about the heartbreak and mental challenges of submersion into such a different culture. A culture so different that in the end, the only thing that really connects people from different parts of life is conversation. It’s how we tell people what we’ve seen, what …show more content…

The limited number of translators were helping with the younger children while the high schoolers were left to hang out by themselves. I decided to reach out to a girl my age and attempt to speak with her. I knew few phrases in Creole; she knew about the same in English. We went through what each other's names were, how old we were, how our day was, and then we were stuck. Restrained by words and sentences that we didn’t know. She kept repeating the same phrase in creole over and over, slower and slower. I stared back feeling stupid and upset. I wanted so bad to know what she was so passionate about relaying to me and all I could do was stand there and do nothing. The frustration was inexplicable. I can still go back to that exact moment and feel failure, annoyance. I can even feel the incredible heat and the beads of sweat dripping down my forehead.
I was a blank face staring at another blank face.
Later in the week I encountered a similar experience. It completely and utterly tore me apart. It was my last day hanging out with the boy my age that I had spent the entire week getting to know. He spoke zero English and it was the same thing. He would say something, I wouldn’t understand, and we would both be insanely frustrated. He kept repeating one phrase to me: “Mwen vle pale avèk ou.” All I could do was shake my head; I had absolutely no idea what he was saying. That same feeling of stupidity and hurt returned once again.
We had to say goodbye that day and I later went and asked one of the translators what he was saying: “I want to speak with

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