I’m always the first to complain about people’s stereotypes regarding Haitian culture. I hate it when people say “you don’t look Haitian” or “you speak very well ‘for a Haitian’”. I realized that I’m so irritated by these comments that I miss an opportunity to teach others about what makes my culture so great. Better late than never, right? First lesson: how we eat.

Haitians (in general) eat three meals a day with very little snacking in between. Breakfast is usually something pretty heavy like eggs and boiled plantains or even spaghetti. Kids often have a lighter dish like bread and café au lait (yes, we drink coffee as children) or hot chocolate. The picture below is smoked herring (chiktay in Creole) which is sautéed with onions and hot peppers (we mostly use Scotch bonnet). You can eat this with bread or boiled plantains. I like it so much I can eat it throughout the day as a snack with crackers.

Lunch is a pretty heavy meal, as well. Most dishes will consist of rice and beans in some form and meat. Some people also like to include a vegetable such as yuca, plantains or bread fruit. The dish below is red beans and rice, fried pork and plantains. Fried pork (griyo in Creole) is a very common dish sold by street vendors all over Haiti. It sounds easy to make, but there’s a trick used to prepare it that makes it nearly impossible to replicate at home. I think it has to do with the cut of the meat and the spices used.

Dinner is usually the lightest meal of the day. In my neck of the woods, we never really ate any rice or meat after 6 PM. It’s very common to have a porridge like the one pictured below made from grated plantains (you seeing a theme here) with some toast. Or, we sometimes had hot chocolate with a baguette. I must note that Haitian cuisine is very versatile in terms of porridges which can also be made from yuca, millet, and cornmeal.

This is of course a brief explanation and there’s a whole lot more to Haitian cuisine. Don’t worry, I plan on sharing more in the future ; especially the many uses of some of the vegetables I mentioned here. Any fellow Haitians who eat/ate differently at home, please feel free to share.

If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders. ~Abigail Van Buren

When I was 8 and my sister was 12, my mother would leave us home alone with my sister in charge. Though this may sound crazy to some people nowadays, it had a positive impact on my sister’s maturity. Granted, it was only for short periods of time – while running errands, etc. – but, nothing bad ever happened. I am always saying that each child is different (one size fits all parenting rarely works), so just because it worked for my sister and I doesn’t mean that I in turn would’ve been ready at 12 years-old to babysit a younger sibling.

My soon-to-be 8 year-old daughter is responsible for brushing her teeth, eating breakfast in a timely fashion, getting dressed and ensuring all the things she needs for school are in her backpack. There are good days and there are bad, but I want her to start learning accountability for her actions. If she doesn’t take care of business as she should, there are repercussions.

Even while writing this, I struggle with the feeling that I’m being too harsh. In the picture above taken in Malaysia, the little girl is not only responsible for her sibling, she’s also ensuring that her family has drinking water for the day. Now that is a harsh reality. The thing is, I think that this situation – which is occurs every day all over the world – will make her all the more resilient. Should her financial circumstances improve, she will be much more appreciative of what those born with money take for granted.

I guess as a parent you’re always teetering between what’s too strict and what will put your children on the path to delinquency. We are very fortunate that I don’t have to place the weight of the world on my kids because our livelihood depends on my daughter marrying into the right family or my son getting a better education than her so he can later support us. Because of all the luxuries we have been afforded, I think it’s necessary to continuously place a little more weight until they are all of the following: trustworthy, conscientious and dependable.

After all, isn’t that what a responsible parent does?