No Reservations

If you've not seen the Haiti episode of "No Reservations" (a food TV show), you should.  To my surprise, they cover much, much more than food, and to my great and delighted surprise, they did a remarkably good job exploring Haiti.  A colleague of my sister recorded it for us, and Chad and I watched it tonight with the kids.  I had to keep my finger on the "pause" button, because Anna or Jameson would interrupt so frequently the narration with their own comments, and sometimes excitement, and occasionally some questions.  What an evening of learning it was -- for them to share their children's minds first-hand experiences as Haitians growing up in a Haitian home and then in a Haitian orphanage, and then in the other direction, me explaining to them aspects of what they saw in the show that adults would know -- Haitian adults or, to some extent what has been studied by blanc (foreign) adults (me).  It is humbling to teach to the kids their own culture, and I do so with full recognition that anything I will teach them is second-hand.  And so I continue reading and viewing to soak in as much as possible so that it's at least as top-notch of a second-hand as I can provide.

By the way, the chicken pate (shredded chicken in a folded bread covering, deep-fried) was their greatest food excitement and memory.  But there was also talk of the fried plantains, beans and rice, and pickliz (spicy, pickled cabbage, peppers, etc. -- shredded).

The show was filmed recently -- late winter 2011 -- interesting to see both the famous, old Hotel Olefson (sp?) and the famous, new, long-term visitor in tent city, Sean Penn, and so much else all in one post-quake look.  THIS is what I call "reality TV."  See YouTube link in the right column -- truly worth a watch -- if you've been to Haiti  .  .  .  if you've never been to Haiti  .  .  .  I'm not tech savvy enough to get the show where it will play directly on this page, but if you click on the link, you'll see the first fifteen minutes of the show, and then YouTube will VERY likely have the next 15-min. segment for you next, and so on.  If not, the middle and last segments will be easily found in the right column.