8061: Examples on Manners (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Nlbo@aol.com

Dear Corbett friends,
I would like to share with you some recent incidents that culturally affected 
the parties involved.
A Haitian parent called me to express his anger regarding a classroom teacher 
who talked with him in the hallways about his child' s progress. He is not 
happy a bout that because he told me he had appointment , was on time and the 
teacher should not have remained in the hallways to talk with him.  He wrote 
a letter to the principal , the teacher and other school administrators. If 
that principal does not apologize, he is planning to go further.
This is one is personal. I have been in this country for 27 years. I still 
can not grasp the concept of private funerals. I have heard it, but dealing 
with it personally hurts .
A person I worked with for 20 years  passed away. She is one of the most 
caring, loving, good individual one can ever work with. I am having a hard 
time because I am not able to go to her wake, see her face a last time. Say 
good bye, put a closure. It's very difficult. 
They will have a memorial in the future. But as Haitian, a memorial is not 
the same as going to the funeral or the wake. In american setting, I have a 
sense most people tend not to go to the church. But I would have loved to go 
to this nice person's wake.
I am trying to imagine this lady' s funeral in a Haitian setting. In Haiti, 
they would have had marching band for her. In the U.S , the entire community, 
people who don't even know her would have gone.
I have gone to so many funerals of people that  I don't even know. Once I 
went to a wake of Haitian lady whom I read about in the paper. I went in at 
the wrong time.  So I asked the people in the mortuary to open the casket for 
me so I could just see her face because I was not going to come back. They 
had me go to the room where the casket was and opened it for me.  I signed my 
name in the book, wrote some words. People thought I was crazy to do that. 
But I felt happy.
Okay
Nekita