This is a Creole proverb that literally means, "Speak Creole, understand Creole." Crisman says it to me when I pronounce a Creole word differently than she does, but she can still understand what I am saying. I may be totally off on this, but I think she is just saying, "You are speaking Creole, so I can understand you." (maybe using context clues)
My new word Sunday was "maringuen" which means mosquito. Sunday afternoon when we returned from church, there were mosquitos chasing us all over the living room. We moved from one place to another trying to get away from them, but there were too many! Finally I went in search of a "mosquito zapper," a device shaped like a tennis racket which gives mosquitos an electric zap with the push of a button.
Stores here are only open for a few hours on Sundays, so I raced up to Eagle Market, which is less than a mile away. They were still open but did not have what I was looking for, however the guy that helped me told me the word I need to use....raket. I headed on to the gas station we typically use because there are ALWAYS guys out there trying to sell you these things. There was only one helpful guy selling steering wheel covers. :) Back up Delmas (the main road we travel) on the way to Caribbean Market where we also shop, I found a little guy on the side of the road with all kinds of gadgets. Right in the middle of his wares was a raket!! It was the last one, so the plastic packaging was torn and dirty, and the zapper itself was a little bent. The machann (merchant) and his friend assured me most absolutely that could still kill the "moustik" (the word I had always used) or "maringwen." I repeated that new word over and over, asked him to repeat it. He inserted two batteries which he just happened to have there for testing purposes, and the light came on. That was promising, but I was still not certain that there would be current flowing from the handle to the racket part of the zapper. I ended up getting it, mostly so that I would not go home empty-handed, but also trusting that Todd could fix it if something was wrong.
Once back home, Todd opened the thing up and reattached a dangling wire, so it now works like a charm!!
I have not known the word "kill" in Creole until this morning. I have always worked around it using the words "fini" (finish) or "mouri" (dead/die). I was trying to tell Crismen that I was trying to kill another pesky bug. She told me the word for kill and then used the maringwen name for mosquito. That is when she used the proverb, "Kreyol pale, Kreyol konprann." Now I can clearly say that I killed the mosquito! ....I think. :) (M' te tiye maringwen an.) Love it!!
