Small victory over chaos

Two years later, Claude Calixte installed the solar panels on the roof of his small school.

It is a tiny event. But these days in Haiti, it takes a lot of hard work to make even the smallest things happen.

I spoke to Claude Calixte the first time in the spring of 2021. He was trying to clear the panels, which had arrived from Quebec by boat in Port-au-Prince.

It was a professor from Val-Bélair, in the suburbs of Quebec, Jean-Philippe Payer, who had sent them to him. Payer had seen Claude Calixte in an interview with Sophie Fouron, at To each his own islandon TV5.

Impossible not to be impressed by this pedagogue. He earns his living as a professor of philosophy at the State University of Haiti. But he has given himself the mission of founding a school in his town, Croix-des-Bouquets, not far from Port-au-Prince.

A school that has this originality: teaching is done in Creole.

Nothing surprising in that, in appearance, since it is the mother tongue of almost everyone in the country. However, the Haitian school is “French”, even if barely more than 10% of the population speaks French. The manuals are in French. The exams are in French. Even if the teachers “are not very good in French” or sometimes do not speak it themselves. “Orality is in Creole, but writing is in French,” says Calixte.

In a text published recently in the New York TimesMIT linguist Michel DeGraff describes this system, a strange colonial legacy, which largely contributes to the under-education and impoverishment of Haiti.

Calixte, who describes himself as “a survivor of the Haitian school system”, wanted to do his best to stop the school going on its head.

Arrived at 6 years old not speaking French, little Claude found himself in a class where all the books were in French, a language taught without being understood by his own teachers. He had to work hard and repeat to finally get his diploma – and, one day, go and do his doctorate in France.

It must be said that man is himself a kind of solar panel. It obviously generates a lot of heart and head electricity.

This paradoxical school system creates “massive school wastage”, says the pedagogue-philosopher.

Haitian literature itself is almost entirely in French, and good luck finding Dany Laferrière in Creole. The language of scholars is French.

“There are very few translations into Creole, and they are expensive. I have in mind the stranger, The little Prince, The prince of Machiavelli…” He is doing his part: he is in the process of translating the Discourse on Method of Descartes.

In principle, the Joseph Bernard reform decreed in 1982 that teaching would be done in Creole in Haitian schools. In reality, he says, it is not really applied.

“The elite don’t want education in Creole, and I’m sure that if there was a referendum in Haiti, people would want their children to study in French. French is seen as the tool for success. »

In his little “akademi”, everything happens in the language of the country. Biology, mathematics, history are taught in Creole… and we learn French as we learn a foreign language. With, according to him, much better results, both for basic subjects and for French. Because its goal is also that the students learn French. But in a good way.

When he came into contact with Claude Calixte, Jean-Philippe Payer had just received several distinctions, including a Governor General’s Award in History, for his integration of multimedia techniques at school. He developed the “museum class” for his secondary 1 students in Val-Bélair. It’s a kind of laboratory where 3D technology and “augmented reality” allow students to virtually enter ancient civilisations, in the corridors of a pyramid or on the cobblestones of a Roman forum. He has translated his educational sheets into several languages ​​and collaborated with schools in other countries. He wanted Claude Calixte’s Open Liv Education Academy to benefit from it. At the time, the school had barely 40 students in six grades.

“We don’t even have a radio, so imagine the computers,” Calixte explained to him.

“We’re going to fundraise and send some to you.

“We don’t have electricity either…”

Hence the solar panel project.

Payer went to see a distributor, Ecosolaris, who gave him a friendly price, packed the panels and sent them to Haiti, along with some computers and tablets.

It was then in April 2021, and I was about to write a very small story of mutual aid on a human scale, from teacher to teacher. It seemed as simple as sending a package.

It was too simple, of course.

The sequel is a summary of a life in a territory where the rule of law has been crumbling day after day for two years – for much longer, in fact.

First, we had to wait two months to get the goods out of the port – which meant paying all kinds of more or less official “taxes” to all kinds of more or less official people.

Then, Calixte understood that he was going to have to change house for his school.

Meanwhile, on July 7, 2021, President Jovenel Moïse had been assassinated. In this country where kidnappings were already frequent, the gangs took control of the surroundings of Port-au-Prince.

Installing the panels and leaving them unattended was to risk having them stolen. Calixte must have hidden them at home until he found a solution – a night watchman, perhaps?

“Please don’t write anything yet,” he would tell me.

As if that weren’t enough, the following month an earthquake killed more than 1,000 people in the area where his parents live.

The more time passed, the more the Haitian state revealed its impotence, and the more the gangs took control of Port-au-Prince. The arrival of the goods was controlled. Gasoline, confiscated.

More than a year had passed and Payer wondered if these signs would ever be installed. He didn’t really believe it anymore. Each news was worse than the last.

In May 2022, Calixte wrote to me to tell me that a gang war had broken out in his neighborhood, in Croix-des-Bouquets. This is where 17 missionaries, including 15 Americans, had been kidnapped a few months earlier.

“I only go out to buy what I need when I can find it,” he said. The word “security” doesn’t even make sense, we are taken hostage. He knew Payer was doubtful. He sent me receipts, to prove his good faith, to show that he had really rented another house to house the school.

New post in August. It was no better. The start of the school year would surely be postponed.

These panels would never provide electricity, it was increasingly obvious. And electricity for what, by the way? We can’t even open the school.

Then, one gray November morning, I receive a series of unexplained sunny photos on my phone: men installing the damn signs on a roof.

Oh, it’s not much better in the country. You can’t cross the capital from east to west without facing armed gang checkpoints. Insecurity and extreme precariousness are such that many parents do not send their children to school. Out of 80 registrations, the Akadémi welcomes 40 children in its six classes at the moment, says Calixte. But at least the start of the school year finally took place, on November 7. It’s little, almost nothing, but it’s huge at the same time. To go to school when everything is collapsing is to still believe in a kind of better future, Calixte thinks to himself.

“We don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Impunity is total. In my neighborhood, it’s fine, but everyone is on their guard. We are at the mercy of the gangs. »

Should an international intervention be necessary? Claude Calixte is ambivalent. “It would allow cargo ships to arrive and the main boulevards to be freed. Trade could be done. I know, however, that it will not help the most vulnerable people. It won’t stop women from being raped and people from being tortured by gangs. But morally, I can’t be against it, because I have nothing else to offer as a citizen. »

The school started late, it works halfway, but it exists. With a stable power supply, teachers can use computer equipment.

“We can teach languages ​​better by making them heard. Natural science teachers can use online tools. These signs give me a sense of security for my program, it’s a great satisfaction for me,” he told me on the phone.

Jean-Philippe Payer has just retired from teaching to start his educational services business. He received a note from Claude Calixte last week. He wants to train his teachers in the “museum class” in January.

“We are in a country where everything takes a long time, it is important that we start very early. »

Everything takes a long time, even for the smallest things. But sometimes they end up happening, like an unlikely small victory over chaos.