Kwéyòl

A new country poses new challenges, such as different currency, customs, driving patterns, etc.  I was grateful that, at the least, I was moving to a country where English is the national language. Phew!  Communicating should be easy.  I couldn't have been more wrong. 

The locals speak a dialect called Kwéyòl.  Think Creole without the R.  Just kwazy!

Like the Creoles in New Orleans, many St. Lucians may be descended from the French colonizers, who battled back and forth with the British to lay claim to beautiful St. Lucia.  The language is not English, and it's not French. Words are unlikely mutations of French. For example: peas are pwas, boys are gasons, and the number 4 is kat.

To further confuse communication, two new hires at the music school are graduates of the El Systema program in Venezuela.  The trumpet and percussion teachers emerged successfully from this world renowned social immersion program in music, that, unfortunately for me, did not include English lessons.

So, as we prepare for our Friday night symphony rehearsal, a wedding gig, or faculty meeting, among the personnel are Google Translate on the ipad and the  Kwéyòl Dictionary.