Dream Builders, Dream Killers: Voice of an Immigrant from Haiti

Copyright © 2010 by Berteau Joisil.

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Dedication

For my wife, Marie Carole Joisil

For my daughters: Carla, Vanessa and Jessica Joisil

For my mom, Marie Anna Exile Joisil and my dad, Joseph Hermogène Joisil

For my country, Haiti

In memory of my great grandfather, Joisil Estimé

Contents

PROLOGUE

PART I

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

PART II

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

PART III

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1

APPENDIX 2

APPENDIX 3

APPENDIX 4

APPENDIX 5

APPENDIX 6

APPENDIX 7

APPENDIX 8

APPENDIX 9

January 12, 2010. The draft of my manuscript is already in editing review at the publisher. By 6:00 pm, I hear the news: a severe earthquake of 7.0 magnitude hits the Caribbean island of Haiti, my country, where I lived the first half of my life. I am stunned. Another dream killer? I feel like scrapping everything I’ve written. Maybe, all the positive things I’ve said about Haiti are no longer relevant or unworthy. But then, I changed my mind. Maybe, I should let the reader decide.

This is my first book, a long time project. It probably contains many flaws, so I welcome all positive criticism to do better in future editions.

Thanks.

Berteau Joisil, MSEE

PROLOGUE

What comes to your mind when Haiti is mentioned?

Expressions like "the poorest country in the western hemisphere" and "the impoverished Caribbean island off the coast of Cuba" are likely to be evoked instead of "the pearl of the Antilleans," "the richest French colony in the 18th century," or "the first black republic in the western hemisphere."

Maybe images of dire poverty flash in your memory amid thoughts of macabre voodoo scenes in which poor souls are getting possessed by evil spirits of unknown African gods. Scenes you might reminisce from Hollywood horror movies.

Do you envision floods, hurricanes, illiteracy, and economic chaos translating into astronomical unemployment rate or falling GDP? Do you recall media coverage of political instability? Mobs of angry black folks marching on dusty streets? Streets where cars were still burning like sordid torches in broad daylight? Strange presence of UN personnel or military guards dressed in their distinctive uniforms? UN soldiers branding heavy machine guns while making threatening gestures aimed at intimidating unruly crowds chanting strange slogans in the local Creole language?

Do you remember pictures of concrete buildings lined up along narrow streets and defying structural engineering principles or urbanization regulations?

Or do you see images of traumatized dark-skinned folks? Men, women, young children, even babies. Dark-skinned folks being rescued from sea by U.S. coast guards? Unusual cargo of humans caught by the marine police while patrolling the waters of Florida’s seashore lines of Dade County, Homestead, Key Largo, or Key West, at the southern tip of the peninsula? Unwelcome boat people who just arrived on flimsy vessels unfit for high-seas trips?

Their looks clearly reveal their traumatic state of mind while being processed by impatient immigration agents. Questions are fired at them in a language most of those refugees are foreign to. Taking to the open Caribbean Sea has been their only mistake at breaking immigration laws. But they are unable to explain why they have desperately put their lives at stake. They are unable to justify that the sole purpose was to try to escape the chronic miseries of the hellish slums around the overcrowded Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, or the desperate life of the deep countryside.

Which image has stayed with you?

Although I would admit that a lot of that is, at least in part, true of Haiti and of a great number of its people, I have decided to break away from that usual perception of Haiti and Haitians. I have tried to present a different, yet true, picture from which people can learn something less heartbreaking about my beloved motherland and its people.

I will be relating certain biographic accounts in direct relation to my own upbringing in Haiti. My personal experiences while growing up there have been for the most part, completely different from those traditional images of poverty, unhealthy environment, violence, and hopelessness. Things might have changed a lot during the past two decades since I left in 1987. I have learned of certain transformations through occasional media news reports, word of mouth from relatives or acquaintances. During my two most recent visits in 2004 and 2005 I had my personal experience with some of those changes. But overall, the country is still living and breathing. Haiti and Haitians remain an anomaly, if not a mystery that few people, even our close neighbors in the United States, are able to fully grasp.

Have you learned about the participation of Haiti-- back then the richest French colony for the production of sugar, coffee, cotton and indigo-- in the war for the independence of the United States of America?[1] Do you know about the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte’s army in 1803, giving to Haiti the status of the first black republic in the New World? Through the accomplishments of many Haitians at home and in the United States as immigrants from a third-world country, Haiti remains a land of contrasts that have defied the imagination of many. And it might continue to surprise even more.

Would you be inclined to believe that one of the major exports of Haiti since the 1950s has been gray matter?—yes, brains! Indeed, there are probably more Haitian doctors, engineers, scientists, lawyers, nurses, teachers, and other professionals, outside of Haiti than there are inland. They are in the United States, Canada, and many countries in Europe, Africa, and South America. A great number of those skilled Haitians are products of the State University of Haiti (SUH) founded as early as in the 1820s.

To this day, despite the massive exodus of skilled Haitians to foreign lands, mostly to the United States and Canada, there are still many Haitians, inland and outside, who are trying hard to change the image of the country. Even more considerable is the contribution of Haitian talents in many fields right here in America. But the media usually doesn’t bother to report such facts.

I will be talking about many friends and acquaintances. Some who have not left the country to immigrate to the United States or to other foreign lands. Others who, like me, have moved to various places in America where they are living their version of the American Dream. They are doing so in ways that most Americans and many other folks would not think plausible in their case, due to the stereotypes that might be engrained in people’s minds by the media clichés.

Many will be surprised about the things they might learn of Haiti and Haitians. Things such as the progressive migration of Haitians to the United States since the 1950s, in waves comprising immigrants ranging from well-educated professionals, to low-skilled blue-collar workers, to unskilled illiterate low-wage workers. Those Haitians have scattered in different levels of the U.S. society, from upper middle class to the inner cities and ghettos of America. That in itself might be contrary to the common impression of a sudden appearance of boat people from an impoverished island. People who were intercepted in the territorial waters in close proximity to the Florida beaches, some time in the late 1970s. Let’s not mention the unfounded and hasty conclusions drawn by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) about Haitians being the carriers of the AIDS virus to the United States—by a rather audacious twist of reasoning connecting Africa to America, for the worse, through the Caribbean island of Haiti, an easy scapegoat.

A great number of people might not expect to read about Haitians that their lots are the same as those of other immigrants and of many U.S.-born citizens. That besides other issues for some, they grapple with the same challenges of living the American Dream, whether they belong to a section of the U.S. population identified as the American middle class (AMC), or are relegated to the poor working class. Many, like their American counterparts, are also feeling more and more the grips of the squeeze on the middle class that so many sociologists talk about. The issues dealt with by the great melting pot,—a term that so fitly describes the United States of America, are problems that are also concerns on the minds of Haitian expatriates like me. Yet, despite all odds, we have managed to have a relatively successful integration in the American society. We have done so by using certain assets that we have brought with us, yes, from Haiti: family values, education, self-respect, respect for others and legal authorities, etc. And with all that, a conviction that through self-betterment and hard work, one is entitled to claim one’s share of the prosperity of this country. Yes, entitled to pursue the American Dream to the best of one’s ability, not letting oneself be marred by the negative effects of racial prejudice, one of many obstacles an immigrant might face.

Originally, the topic of this publication was the fruit of an inspiration that arose from an experience that my family underwent, when a change of plans came to interfere with some of our personal projects. By that time, we had been established in Round Rock, Texas for ten years. We were delighted with the atmosphere of that suburban town. It was growing at a pretty fast pace due to the economic boom of the mid-1990s and the hype preceding the advent of Y2K. The kids were happy with their schools and our oldest daughter, Carla, was a freshman at the newly opened Stony Point High School. She was enrolled there in a special Science Academy program. With a 4.0 GPA at the start, she was promised almost certainly admission to the University of Texas (UT) at Austin that she dreamed of attending.

And that’s one reason why I’m talking about dreams, dream breakers, dream builders (dream makers, dream killers), etc. Not only her dreams, but also ours were soon to be dashed by a decision made at the headquarters of Nationwide Company in Ohio. As my third employer in Austin, after Applied Materials (AMAT) and Computer Science Corporation (CSC), Nationwide is what I consider a part of corporate America, whose influences on our lives can be extremely powerful.

Many of us depend on those companies making up corporate America for our livelihood and our dreams. The way we often project to live the American Dream are in the hands of those enterprises. In that sense, they can be both our dream builders and our dream killers, depending on the impact they may have on our lives and that of other people we interact with, directly or indirectly. Corporate America’s companies can contribute in a positive way to the prosperity of a particular area and that of its citizens. It can also reduce that area to a land of despair where the audacity of hope can vanish from minds and hearts.

The reality is not always extreme, and I am thankful that so far I have not been exposed to the harshest outcomes of those happenings. I am happy to share this good fortune with many others who have been equally blessed. That should not prevent us, though, from thinking about the vast number of those who have been innocent victims of mishaps in their dealings with corporate America. Those who are unable to make their voices heard or don’t dare to.

Most of us, in our lifetime, will have a story with corporate America, good episodes as well as bad ones. Sections of a population, certain geographic areas, will have a story with corporate America. Also, race, ethnicity can be part of the equation for good or for bad. Corporate can be the entity that is defining the makeup of a country’s society by its policies and the direction it can coerce that society to follow. But no matter the scale of the impact on societies, it is always the individuals and the families that are at the bottom of the receiving end. It is the individual’s dreams that are built up or shattered, with positive or negative effects on immediate family members and on the relationships between individuals.

In January 2006, we (my wife and I) signed up on a contract with Legacy Homes Builder, to have a house built in Teravista. It was a middle-class golf community that was being developed in Round Rock, adjacent to I-35 north toward Dallas. For the ten years we were there, we had been living on Cheyenne St., in the Eagle Ridge community located not too far from Teravista. We had been very happy and pleased with the house that Buffington (later Wilshire Homes) had constructed for us in the summer of 1996. Buffington was one of the several builders in the area at the time we moved from our townhome in Lehigh Acres, Florida to Round Rock. I had back then a pretty good offer to join AMAT, a leading manufacturer of semiconductor equipments, headquartered in Santa Clara, California. AMAT had a branch in Austin, Texas; a huge assembly plant off highway 183 and a technical training center on Alvin Devane Boulevard. Our two-story, red brick house, with three bedrooms and a nice living room with vaulted ceiling and fireplace, had been ideal for our family of five. The two thousand square feet of living space were more than enough for our girls, ages six, four, and two at the time. Moreover, the Round Rock suburb boasted a Blue Ribbon school district that was attracting many families desirous of well-funded and good-quality schools.

After ten years though, we were outgrowing our home and the girls were in want of becoming more independent. So they and my wife were claiming their dream house in the newly opened Teravista subdivision. The development offered larger homes at fairly reasonable price, a nice resident clubhouse with tennis courts, swimming pools, etc., amid lush, green golf courts. Another clubhouse endowed with a fine restaurant was also opened to residents and to the public.

I was at first rather reluctant in my moves due to the uncertain economic climate of the years following September 11. But finally I gave in to their demand, more so to have some peace of mind from the constant complaints.

In fact my mind was more focused on business ideas I had been thinking about for a long time. I wanted more than anything else to put my money into some kind of investment with better growth potentials instead of getting a new and bigger house. That would follow later, I was saying to myself constantly, if I am successful in some business venture! It was a concept hard to sell to the family, I realized, as I put the vision aside momentarily.

However, barely a month later after the contract sign-up, the news came that my employer, Nationwide Company, wanted to consolidate its operations at the headquarters in Columbus, OH. It was hard to announce to the girls, who had already picked up their rooms in the builder’s model we’d visited frequently, that their dream was going to be shattered. Even though we moved instead to Powell, Ohio into a home almost the same size and in a pretty decent subdivision in the Golf Village, their feelings remained hurt for quite a while. Powell was no substitute for Round Rock. No comparison between Olentangy Liberty High in Powell and Stony Point High in Round Rock. One day, my patience grew thin. I mentioned to one of my daughters that they were also hurting my feelings. I had no grudge against Nationwide Company for the change of plan. To the contrary, I was very thankful to the company for keeping me employed and assisting us graciously in our move. I was trying to make her understand that life wasn’t so bad when one unfulfilled dream could be replaced by something almost equivalent. I realized it was useless when she blurted out:

Maybe you should write a book about it, if your feelings are hurt so badly!

Her tone of voice was tearful. It signaled she was about to lose control of her emotions.

But don’t you realize that it could have been worse? I reasoned. Think about what it would have meant for all of us if I had taken a chance and stay to look for another job in Texas. Maybe we would have been worse off by now, instead of moving into ‘your dream house.’ As if I didn’t try hard enough to make it happen!

It is not that! she lamented. It is that I have to go now to that school with those weird kids. A bunch of white kids who have a strange attitude! It is not really prejudice. It is some kind of snobbish attitude I feel at times all around! You need to wear certain brands if you want to fit in . . . That kind of stuff . . . Not that I wasn’t around white folks in our school in Round Rock, but it was different. They weren’t so aloof. I had several white friends at school. But it was more diverse. Some of those kids here in Ohio, they are really ‘different.’ It’s a different world. You can’t understand that!

I can’t understand that? I pleaded. What do you think I do at work? Spend the day complaining about being the only black person in my group! Listen, you just have to learn to cope with these things! I experienced some solitude when I was in Germany. I got over it. I made friends. Germans, Africans, Asians, Latin Americans, anybody at the university who wanted to be a friend. I opened up and it worked. Even in Haiti, I attended high school with kids who were well-off and didn’t live where I lived. Some drove to school in nice cars. Some had a ‘little attitude.’ It didn’t bother me much. It was OK that I didn’t share in all their fun. I felt isolated at times. I took advantage of it. It meant less distraction for me. I concentrated more on my studies. And many now remember me as one of the best students. They don’t remember me as the guy who used to dress in fancy clothes or drive a nice car to school as some did! You need to learn to cope! That’s all life is about!

Oooh! You will never understand. It is not the same! she continued, her disappointment creeping up.

Fine! How about having to leave your country and accept to live in another? I replied, I am not even at home! And it’s OK! It could be worse! At least I didn’t have to run away to save my life like it’s happened to some people. Now I am just thankful to have to move from one state to another. And on top of that, to have a nice house in a nice neighborhood, in one of the best school districts. What more can I ask for? It’s an inconvenience your dream couldn’t be fulfilled as all of you had wished for: a larger home in Teravista. The same friends around. The same school. It’s just an inconvenience, not a problem. A problem would be: no roof on our heads, no job to put food on the table, and not being able to go to school. After all, Texas isn’t either home for me. If I could live in Texas, I will also live here in Ohio! Plus, I am not stuck here for the rest of my life. Who knows what’s next? I hope, in your life, you will be able to choose easily where you want to live and work. As for me, I don’t know how many dreams I had to give up! I dreamed of so many good things for me in Haiti. But here I am!

She threw her arms in the air. There was a hint of impatience in her voice, and I sensed that she was about to explode.

Why don’t you leave me alone? Why don’t you write a book?

Fine! I will write a book! I said.

I said it without thinking too much about what that meant. That was the end of the conversation. She had a broken dream.

Later, I realized I could have cried out loud: Eureka! I found the title of my book!

Dream Breaker!

A book title flashed in my mind. Maybe I had seen it somewhere before: Dream Makers, Dream Breakers.

I googled it. It turned out that Carl T. Rowan had already published the title with "The World of Justice Thurgood Marshall."

Everyone has dreams; dream house, dream car, dream job or dream career, dream project, etc. Some people or circumstances contribute directly or indirectly to the realization or non realization of those dreams. Such was my case.

So, I started to think about it. I decided I would write instead: "Dream Builders, Dream Killers, Voice of an Immigrant from Haiti."

I have not always felt the need to write about my feelings. Some people write in their journals every day. That’s not my style. I know I have failed on many occasions to capture my thoughts, especially after feeling the adrenaline rush of strong emotions experienced from meditating on certain topics. Sometimes, I have had such opportunities while jogging on a cool early morning. Other times, it has been when making a stop to rest and enjoy the soothing spectacle of a magnificent sunrise after dawn. I usually have no record left to recall those moments and whatever conclusions I might have come to.

Progressively though, I started to realize that those feelings I have had while thinking about past and present experiences could be a source of inspiration. The topics I have read about in different publications, from history to science to sociology, etc., my personal conclusions, maybe all that could form enough substance to talk about. And like my daughter had said, my disappointments, the disappointments of others to whom I feel a connection, maybe I could express all that in writing. Maybe I could try to link together many subjects that at first might seem to stand as disparate elements but in fact could have meaning when sewed together in some sort of logic. So I started to go along that line of reasoning.

Not much about what I say in these writings is original. I talk about myself; my personal experiences back home in my native country of Haiti. I relate my dreams whether fulfilled, shattered, or still in my heart. I talk about family, family history, friends and acquaintances, classmates, coworkers, etc. Some are Haitians. Others are Americans, or people from other countries like France, Germany, etc.

In my accounts, I tend to digress from time to time from the subject to delve into episodes of history. I talk about particular figures and historic events, as I feel that those people or those historical passages somehow relate to the context. The reader who is not very familiar with Haitian history or Haitians might appreciate those supplemental details for a better understanding of my persona. My perceptions of things reflect some of the inner thoughts of a Haitian immigrant, still nostalgic of his motherland, even when fairly well integrated in the United States.

Though not original, altogether those considerations might help many relate to the immigrant experience. Those who have not been immigrants in some foreign land might have the opportunity to learn something about that experience. Those who share with me the same immigrant status might get some comfort in relating to our commonalities. These writings might also be a source of inspiration for sons and daughters of immigrants or even for future immigrants in search of an anchor.

I have nothing illustrious to say about myself to call this an autobiography. But I think that some Haitians I have known in school or other walks of life are worth mentioning here, to illustrate our journey as immigrants in the United States. I also touch on many topics that at first glance might seem to be out of context. Topics like Corporate America and the American Dream, the American Dream for Haitians, for African Americans and other aliens, the Global Village, etc. I found them to be not only of greatest interest, but also fittingly appropriate to the main theme. In my mind, I have seen in all those things a strong connection with dream builders and dream killers

What might have a certain degree of originality in itself is to hear about all of those topics in one place, related by someone originating from Haiti, but with strong ties to all the issues that will be considered. Even though there might be a lot of subjectivity in my personal observations as an immigrant who has lived in the United States for quite sometime now. I might not have completely grasped all the subtleties associated with those issues that I came across in my readings of works published by such a diverse collection of authors. However, the composite value of what I gleaned from all those sources resides perhaps in the synthesis to which I have added my personal touch. Linking all of those ideas and opinions together constitutes maybe a certain approach to understanding how all of those topics could be interrelated. My cultural background has been one of the driving forces helping me to envision the whole picture in a way either surprising or unexpected.

I raise many questions concerning the future, based on my personal observations of the present. The future of the American Dream not only for native-born Americans, but also for those like us Haitians who have come here with our own dreams as immigrants. As people hoping to fulfill those dreams to the best of our abilities, in the context of what America has to offer.

I expose my personal reflections on how I perceive globalization forces have influenced life in the United States and its neighboring countries like Haiti, while raising a lot of challenges for the continuity of living the Dream.

I share my personal thoughts on issues like racism and prejudice as I have dealt with them, trying to be as objective as I can. I see both racism and prejudice as issues that are far from being exclusive to the United States, but are also rampant in my own country of Haiti, and as present on a global scale throughout mankind’s history. My observations have led me to reflect on the obstacles that individual or collective attitudes adopted on the basis of racist viewpoints, can represent for the realization of our dreams. Such obstacles arise, when they influence national policies’ or societies’ biases. My views on those topics stand as my own best assessment of the many issues related to my personal dreams and those of others—based on my experience as a Haitian and an alien citizen in the United States.

To be more specific about how the book is organized, let me say that I have divided it into three parts.

Part I opens with introductory information that explains some of my hesitations to launch this undertaking, knowing that I am far from being a professional writer. I also included in the introduction chapter a consideration of the decisive factors that have helped me overcome my hurdles.

The subsequent chapter could be considered as biographic material covering my formative years in Haiti. From my happy childhood in the small coastal town of St. Marc, to my high school years in one of the finest institutions in the country where I rubbed shoulders with several classmates from the upper class, to my experiences abroad. Mostly in Germany and in the United States.

I conclude this first part of the book by relating dreams from my great-grandfather, my childhood dreams, and my visions as an optimistic young man, in the form of dreams that have materialized for some, or remained in my imagination for others.

Part II is composed of a chapter on Corporate America and the American Dream, followed by a chapter on the ‘American Dream’ for Haitians. Those two chapters explain how I relate to the American Dream in general from the standpoint of a native-born Haitian and of an immigrant to the United States.

As a person of black ethnicity, I have devoted a lot of attention to the topic of the American Dream for African Americans. It is not just for a mere expression of solidarity, but because it is inevitable for me not to view the American experience through the lens of a black man with a mixed heritage. A genuine part of that heritage is deeply anchored in my socio-cultural background brought from Haiti, on the one hand. On the other, there is a pre-assigned part bestowed upon me by a society in which still stand erected some vestiges of social barriers on the basis of skin color.

Thereafter, I address the question, what is the American Dream for other aliens? This is the topic covered in the last chapter of part II.

In part III, the first chapter contains miscellaneous thoughts on the Global Village, and on the Media which I see as The Invisible World Power. The media is a powerful force which exercises a lot of influence on people in the way it is able to shape their thinking and attitudes for good or for bad. Thus it affects our dreams and aspirations.

I then expand on certain considerations regarding the potentials of Africa for which I use the metaphor, the neglected world power. Africa’s potentials have not escaped though the attention of the yellow tiger, China, who is already exploiting to its advantage the many resources lying down in countries like Nigeria, Angola, Congo,—a phenomenon that some sociologists coin as Chin Africa or Chinafrica. My vision of a peaceful, prosperous and united Africa is a dream of a utopian land. It reflects a certain attachment I have, to an unknown and distant motherland that has always fascinated my imagination and for which I wish to see a better future. I have dedicated the last chapter of part III, Conclusions and Final Reflections, to express my personal opinions on subjects such as Race Relations in America, Affirmative Action, which, I also think, can have a great impact on the realization of our dreams.

It is my sincere hope that the reader will find here substantial matter to help one see Haitians and Haiti under a light different from, as I mentioned earlier, the usual and simplistic media clichés.

May I also find some sympathy from you for the expression of my ultimate dream in the final section, The Dream Continues!

PART I

From St. Marc, Haiti to Powell, Ohio

Chapter 1: My Decision to Write This Book

Chapter 2: From St. Marc, Haiti to Powell, Ohio

Chapter 3: Dreams and Dreaming

CHAPTER 1

My Decision to Write This Book

1.—Genesis of an Idea in the Midst of Personal Doubts

The idea of writing a book has always haunted me for a long time, perhaps as early as when I was fifteen years old or younger. As far as I can recall, my first success at composition dates back to elementary school days (Ecole Primaire in French) at Ecole Frère Hervé, Frères de l’Instruction Chrétienne (FIC), in my native town of St. Marc, the second largest town in the Department of Artibonite in Haiti. My teacher, Maître Moriland (Master Moriland, as in those days we always had to address our teachers in school or on the street with all reverence), read one day one of my composition to the whole class, because he found it to be the best work for the assignment we were given—write about Comment faire une omelette (how to make an omelette), as I recall. That was what we called redaction in the elementary school curriculum of our French-Haitian or Haitian-French school system back then.

In addition to being the best school in town, Ecole Frère Hervé was rather selective and competitive as part of a chain of private or semiprivate schools established in many towns of Haiti including also the country’s capital city, Port-au-Prince. Those catholic schools, though under the jurisdiction of the National Department of Education, were administered by the Frères de l’Instruction Chrétienne of the Sacred Heart Congregation (Brothers of Christian Instruction of the Sacred Heart Congregation.) They accepted only boys from the age of five or six and offered both primary and secondary education following a curriculum more or less emulated from the French school system. Many of those brothers were in fact French natives or French Canadians from Quebec. A few of them were from Spain or Belgium and they had moved to Haiti as young teachers to obey the edicts of the French-born founder of their order, Venerable Jean-Marie de Lamennais. One such school in Port-au-Prince, Ecole St. Louis de Gonzague, where I transferred later on to complete my secondary education, has formed some of the best minds Haiti has produced. The majority of them unfortunately have emigrated to the United States, Canada, France, Germany, etc., after receiving the finest academic instruction. The result has been a severe brain drain which has plagued the country in the past decades and until now. This sad state of affairs has had a devastating effect on the country, especially when considering the urgent need for competent and well-educated people, in the present as it was in the past.

Maître Moriland is one of the lay teachers at Ecole Frère Hervé, who has left a lasting impression on me. Jet black, of slightly under-average stature and with advanced receding hairline revealing a protruding front, he was a figure I used to associate with a picture of our famous ancestor "Toussaint Louverture.[2] That same picture hung next to that of another glorious leader of the past, Jean Jacques Dessalines,[3]" in all sixteen classrooms of our yellow two-story school building located on the wide Boulevard-de-la-Liberté of the town of St-Marc. Maître Moriland’s typical Negroid facial features included broad nostrils that were matched with thick lips and bright eyes. When he talked to the school principal, his French came out fluidly from his mouth, revealing in some way how smart he was. He would peek at you with this piercing look whenever he was inquisitive about something. He was very strict, demanding at times, but taught with great pedagogic dexterity. He could be even harsh at disciplining one hour and be mellow, almost paternally affectionate, the next.

At the time, I was a shy little boy who could at times be lost in daydreaming while in class. But also, I used to surprise Maître Moriland by my good academic accomplishments, as in the case of that composition we had been assigned. Or sometimes, I would be the one to give answer to a difficult question asked to the class of about thirty pupils. He would put on a broad smile and say, You’re not dreaming, Joisil . . . ! calling me by my last name, as the habit was in those days. (It was customary in my school days, as it is or was in the French culture, to call students by their family name.)

However, back then and later, I had never thought that I had any special ability, talent, or gift. And I still don’t to this day, especially when considering the many smart people I keep encountering in books, magazines, documentaries, TV programs, or just everyday life. After all, I always say to myself, What is it that we have, that somehow we have not received at birth? And isn’t it that we just use what we have received, at times to the best of our abilities, at times, not?

I used to enjoy school, learning in general, and I just knew that I could do well in all school subjects if I wanted to and applied myself. I managed to be most of the time of the top three students in my elementary and secondary classes. How I did it? I am not quite sure! To me it was mostly through self-motivation more than anything else, I believe. Also I think I was blessed to have had some good role models such as my uncle Dr. Joseph A. Joisil or my great-cousin, Agronomist Charles Joazil. Both represented for me in a way the first generation of university graduates in the immediate family circle. They stood as models and mentors for me, as I strove to get where they got and to do as well as they did.

I have never thought of myself as smart. Instead, I have always had a lot of admiration for other classmates of mine that I have considered as smart: Gary Augustin and his cousin Tertulien Augustin; Farnel Jacques-Louis, Odény Morisset, etc., from Ecole Frère Hervé in my native St. Marc.

Later on, at St. Louis de Gonzague in Port-au-Prince, my admiration would turn to other classmates and comrades like Hubert Cantave, who inspired me to learn German; Patrick André, a happy fellow, who, between a lot of partying, could still be getting the best grades in school for all subjects; Rony François, a disciplined and studious fellow, who was to become later health secretary of the State of Florida with the distinction of detaining two doctorates in medicine; Jose Schutt-Ainé, presently a distinguished research professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Daniel Dorsainvil, serving now as the finance minister under the actual Haitian government and who also was part of my Spanish practice club at St. Louis; Dufresne Auguste, a quiet but sharp mind, who became later principal at the same St. Louis de Gonzague High School, etc. And the list could go on.

Though maintaining the best camaraderie, we competed at times fiercely for the best rank in class. I still have vivid memory of a Gary Augustin beating me in an open competition in English vocabulary on school playground before starting the school day. The challenge was to memorize the English translation of a long list of French words making up the week’s vocabulary for English class. I was able to answer quickly to any word that another classmate acting as referee was calling, and so was Gary too. But I had to give up when Gary started to recite the whole list, in order, English word for French word. I am thankful to this day, that I had such competition in school to help me push myself with self-motivation.

My second success at composition came later on when I received a presidential award with a $25 cash prize (serious money for me back then), as my paper was selected to be read during the celebration of Le Jour de l’Arbre (Day of the Tree), organized in the spring of 1974 by the then Haitian Department of Agriculture. On the occasion there was an open contest involving students from all secondary schools in St. Marc. It was an initiative for the reforestation of Haiti launched by the Jean-Claude Duvalier’s government in the early 1970s, in an effort to gain some credibility on the international scene and attract monetary donations from foreign countries willing to aid Haiti become self-sufficient in agriculture. Those efforts dwindled rather quickly and came to a stop in the following years, as a proof of failure of the government in its attempt at counteracting the great problem of erosion that the land as a whole has been suffering from. The showy display of those good intentions in past times never translated into positive results. (I will expand on the subject maybe in a future publication, if this one makes it successfully to the public.) Nevertheless, this paper I wrote on the topic of Day of the Tree was not my last success while going through what was called the first cycle of secondary education in St. Marc (i.e., the first three years of secondary school.)

One thing I learned later through one of my cousins who was still attending Ecole Frère Hervé after I left, is that Frère Jacques had kept a copy of one of my composition texts to read to succeeding classes after me. He was a native of Belgium who had joined the Sacred Heart Congregation and moved to Haiti as a young missionary. He had been my teacher in second- and third-year Latin, and for the last year in the first cycle of secondary education, the third-year, we engaged vividly in translating from Latin to French, the Roman conquest of Northwestern Europe: France, Belgium, England, etc. Part of the curriculum also involved translating the famous speeches of great historical figures such as Cesar, Cicero, etc. Br. Jacques also taught French composition later on. He, like other teachers on the school staff, had taken a sincere interest in me as a student having some good potential. The text he read to his class was one that I wrote for a year-end composition test on the subject of Bataille de Vertières (Fight at Vertières.) Our French teacher had shared it with him, and he had kept it in his records as reference for his French class. It was on the topic of a famous battle between a faction of the French Army of Napoleon Bonaparte, under the command of General Rochambeau, and the indigenous army of former slaves under Haitian-to-be General Capois-La-Mort. The battle of Vertières was fought during the war of independence of St. Domingue, as Haiti was then known back then as France’s most prosperous colony, ahead of Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guyana, etc., which have remained French territories down to this day. Maybe, we Haitians paid a heavier price for having fought for independence at an inconvenient time, refusing to remain under French dominion, as it had been from 1697 to 1803. Instead, for us, a bloody slave revolt was ensued by a fierce war for independence which culminated into the inauguration of the first black republic in the western hemisphere in January 1804.

Anyway, I was surprised that the school had kept my paper as a sample of good work on the topic. When I composed it, I was far from thinking that it would stay in the annals of our secondary third-year French class. So I gave no more thought to it. I used to be so passionate about history that it was relatively easy for me to retrace those epic moments of our national history in my own words. All I had to do was to try to emulate some of the French writers I read profusely in those days.

Even though later on at St. Louis de Gonzague Institution I continued to get good grades in literature (French literature and Haitian literature) and languages (English and Spanish as second languages), I became more passionate about science and math. This is most likely what would determine my choice of career as an engineer instead of becoming a medical doctor, as my family, my mom especially, had hoped for me. The idea of doing time in hospitals with sick people moaning and complaining gradually removed the taste of turning into an MD, as I had considered first until my last year in high school. I have felt sorry at times to have disappointed some in my choice but deeply I don’t regret it. From an early age, my heart was telling me that I had more inclination for technical stuffs. I used to spend hours making my toy cars, first with cardboard and later with tin sheets from milk cans, etc. I would watch cars passing by, take note of their shapes and proportions, and translate those measurements onto my projects. I enjoyed drawing. I never had much difficulty in plane or space geometry