a341: Mesi Bondye (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JHUDICOURTB@aol.com

I have found the song in a compilation of songs for educators put together by
Guilene Wolf and the Centre d'Education Speciale.  According to that (it is
not a book but a group of numbered cards) it says that the words and music
are by Frantz Casseus.
I will add 2 things:
1) There is a text from the Bible translated in Creole appearing in Jean
Claude Bajeux' Anthologie de la litterature Creole Haitienne/Mosochwazi Pawol
ki ekri an Kreyol Ayisyen, which looks a lot like the song:
Izayi 55
Men lapli pral vini timoun yo, men lapli
Se pou nou reyini pou n di Bondye mesi
Lapli a  se fave Gran Met la voye ban nou
Li voye di n konsa prepare jaden nou, netwaye rigol nou....
    words by Andre Philippe and William Smart
2)  In December 1979, I was at a activity organized for international
students who were not going home for the holidays, in Michigan.  A young man
from India was singing a song in his language that sounded just like Mesi
Bondye.  I told him that song was from Haiti and he thought I was crazy