Some of Haiti’s Problems are Internal

        Now that I have lived in Haiti for 3 months, I am an expert. Right? But I want to share some thoughts and impressions.

        Much of Haiti’s ongoing economic problems are a result of other countries (e.g. France at the beginning, and the United States at various times ever since) seeing Haiti as a source of free, then cheap, labor creating large profits for these other countries. But that is not the only reason Haiti has never thrived. There are internal reasons as well.

        The biggest problem I have seen is poor Education. Only a small percentage of Haitian families can afford the meager (as little as $25 per year) tuition for school. There is a literacy rate of just above 50%. And, most of the less expensive schools are way below second rate. For example, there is a school next door to my apartment, and I listen to what is going on in the classroom while I am retrieving the sun and wind-dried laundry from my roof. From the opening bell, 7:30am, until the close at 2pm there is constant chattering among the children with the teacher’s voice barely audible above the din.

        Most of what I do hear that passes for teaching is rote memorization. The teacher says something and the children say it back. I am told, and I have read, that this is common except for the expensive “private” (as opposed to the missionary-run, or for-profit) schools. I am told that, in general, the children are also taught not to question anything, and thus, not to think for themselves. A Haitian friend of mine, in his late teens, was reading a book about American Superstitions (to learn English and about American Culture). I asked him what he thought. He said: “Well, I guess they must all be true.” So the children are not trained to think in a way that might lead to creative solutions to the social and economic problems.

        Another major problem is a result of the poverty and the small number of jobs available. When (if) you are looking for a job, it is not a matter of having skills needed for a particular position so much as who you know in the company who can give you the job. And, once you have a job, say as a secretary in a Notary’s office, in order to assure that you will work a full day, you stretch out the work to make sure there is enough. I sat in such an office for over an hour watching a typist prepare a needed document, typing by a very slow “hunt-and-peck” method.

        When I understood that the average pay for secretaries and bank clerks and others of that level is just over $5 per day, I could see the reason for this. You can’t live on “part-time”. You can’t really live on “full-time”.

        This is so much a part of the present culture, that when I asked “What would happen if Martelly (the present, and very good, President of Haiti) were to give speeches about how increasing productivity would help increase prosperity by making foreign investment more appealing?”, I was told: “He would be shot!”

        I don’t have any solutions, but we (GracePeople, a program I work with which provides tuition and school supplies to about 50 children in Montrouis and Leogane) are working with the teachers of these school to develop teaching programs that go beyond rote learning and develop the ability to think creatively, in addition to know facts. The children we sponsor are getting good grades, and hopefully, as the teachers develop better skills, the quality of learning will improve even more.

        My three months in Haiti have been a major education for me, especially about Haiti’s problems, but, by extension, about the global education problem. Now I hope to have a bit of impact on the remedies.