I am SO on fire here!

Research has picked up significantly lately here; which is great. In fact, my good friend, the Dr from the DR, has come onboard and really spear-headed our efforts. He’s brought tons of energy, which I needed. So we have some nice work on HIV vaccines that should be out soon.
I wish I had some deep, philosophical commentary on the country right now but I don’t. So I’ll keep this short. It was recently “match day” for new MD graduates. Basically, programs rank MDs for residency and vice versa. Then the results come out. My best bud Kevin matched at his number one choice – the Mayo Clinic! Pretty impressive. My good friend (Dr from DR) matched in U of Chicago, which is a huge deal because it’s extremely hard to match in the US as a foreign grad, much less in a good program. And my roommate will be my boss up at Cornell in the fall! So it’s been exciting.

Just when I think I am getting a handle on Creole…I find out I can’t speak it at all. Today I was in the grand clinic and a colleague walked through and said very quickly “ou ka we pasyen malad yo paske ou pale creole byen”. And I just looked at her and said, in English (just out of frustration), “yup, I cant understand that.” I was just tired. Tired because I know how to say that, but I know it as “ou kapab we…” But Kapab can be shortened to “ka” which can be combined with words around it…so it sounds like “oukawe”, and I don’t know what “oukawe” is.

I also realized that I say things in a strange manner. Being the anal grammar nazi that I am (yes, now you can e-mail me about my mistakes on here), I have trouble understanding how things translate sometimes. For example, a common greeting is “m’ap boule!” This means “I am hanging in there”. But when I learned it I knew “boule” meant to burn. So, naturally I thought it meant “I m on fire, yeah!” Kind of like, “I’m kickin ass here, getting stuff done, etc”. So the next day in the lab when asked how I was doing, I said “m’ap boule!” like, “yeah, I m getting it done.” Of course, I had been using this expression for awhile. But this time there was an English-speaking Haitian in the room. And I followed up the saying with “yeah, I am on fire!” He didn’t even laugh. He paused and looked at me and said “No, what are you talking about? You’re on fire? That’s not right”…And thus I learned that it refers to the “fire within that is burning”; it means “I’m hanging in there” or “I’m still fighting to stay in there”.

SO, all this to share my favorite saying “M’ap boule anba mechann-yo.” Literally it means “I burn under the mean people.” But a more accurate translation would be “I’m hanging in there despite all the haters.” Finally, I was told by my Iranian friend that my US passport was like gold – I can go anywhere I want with it. Ironic to me because most people with US passports don’t speak anything besides English. But many people with other passports speak all sorts of languages. She speaks Farsi, Arabic, Turkish, English, and some Creole and French. I speak English. "M'ap boule."