Which, with my rudimentary Haitian Creole, translates as: Janbatis and Jozyann Get Well.

It’s the story of a boy and a girl living in the Haitian countryside. They get sick with a common parasite and the doctor gives them a pill to make the parasite go away so they can get better and play.

Then Jozyann and Janbatis learn how to prevent becoming sick with the “worm” again. Washing their hands, wearing shoes, using the latrine, keeping animals out of the house – even the very cute goat that’s always by their side.

“It seems so simple, but it’s not,” said Jean Mackay Vinson, a children’s author in Virginia Beach who penned the story to go along with illustrations by Beach artist Dawn Stephens. The Haitian Creole translation was done by Marie Helene Hall.

Janbatis ak Jozyann Refé is a coloring book – probably the first one the Haitian kids it’s headed for have ever gotten. It’s meant to go along with an anti-parasite program by Operation Blessing International (www.ob.org) in conjunction with the Haitian ministry of health, and Holy Family Catholic Church in Virginia Beach. Holy Family helped to give out the medicine (which costs pennies per child to cure them) in their twin Haitian parish of Batis late last year.

Jean said the day the coloring books were printed was the day of the earthquake. It seemed like maybe one little coloring book wasn’t so important given the enormity of the disaster.

But, of course, it’s as, or even more, important now. For one thing, parasites made a lot of kids sick before the earthquake and there’s no reason to think they would go away just because there was a tragedy of historic proportions. Parasites aren’t understanding that way.

 In fact, that problem, like many, is bound to become worse because of the even greater lack of sanitation with the destruction of already inadequate infrastructure.

And, kids are still kids. They still need to have fun, they still need to play. Maybe more than ever because there’s so much grief and hardship surrounding them.

There’s no denying coloring books are fun. I was tempted to color the one Jean and Dawn loaned me, but I kinda figure I should give it back so that an actual kid could color it.

Dawn said that when Jean first approached her about doing the illustrations she was thinking it would be a quick project – both were doing the work as volunteers – but it turned out to be more complicated.

Originally, the goat was to be a human-like character, dancing and playing with the kids, but they learned that was more likely to be frightening than cute and funny to the Haitian kids.

So, the goat’s still there, on every page (he makes me smile), he’s just doing goat things – including, by the end, staying outside the house so the kids don’t get the worm again.

Also, Dawn first drew a picket fence around Janbatis and Jozyann’s house. But they don’t generally have picket fences in Haiti, so, back to the drawing board. After doing some research on the internet, she settled on a more realistic cactus fence.

One of the main goals was to teach the kids, and their parents, that the medicine they were getting wasn’t causing the worm, it was getting rid of it.

At first, that may seem like the people there are backward, but then I’m reminded, with some embarrassment, of the time I thought I was bleeding internally because of a common, benign side effect of Pepto Bismal. I just needed some education – and that’s all they need too. This is unfamiliar medicine.

A thornier problem, and one Jean and Dawn wrestled with, is how to teach about hygiene, which is the way to prevent the parasite from taking hold in the first place. That’s not just a problem of education, it’s one of resources.

Yes, you can say you should wear shoes – but what if you don’t have shoes? You should use the bathroom, but what if you don’t have a bathroom ? You should wash your hands, but what if you don’t have clean water?

With such extreme poverty, the answers are not going to be perfect until the people have what they need -- but you do what you can. In the case of the kids of Batis, they now have clean water thanks to the pipeline project you’ve read about here last year.

The 2,500 copies printed the day of the earthquake are still waiting to be colored in by the kids of Batis – that will most likely happen in the early summer when the next round of medicine is given out.

Janbatis and Jozyann’s story is not Jean and Dawn’s first coloring book for children in faraway lands. The first was a Spanish translation of their children’s book “Little Tucker Two Sticks” which Jean took with her to the Dominican Republic on a church mission.

You can see Lillie and Antony, who are Dominican, enjoying coloring their books here.

“They color it and they make it their own,” Jean said.

Jean said Jozyann's and Janbatis' story has since been translated into Spanish to help the kids in the DR.

Spoiler alert, I’m going to give away the ending. Here’s the last page. The kids are healthy, they’re playing – even the goat can’t resist a little jig.