Did you ever stand still by the things in your life that have always been there or that you have always known? I am talking about simple things like how to open and close a water tap. How to screw in a light bulb. How to flush a toilet or how to take a warm shower. These are all things you learn from your parent(s) when you grow up.
When I was four years old I went to kindergarten. Not that I particularly liked it but I went. From that time until I finished high school it was a recurring activity in my life. No choice, whether I liked it or not. I never once thought about the expense of school. That was not my problem. Mostly the schools were free, you just had to buy some stuff for it. My parents paid for the stuff.
Now imagine growing up in Haiti. Your parents have no money. They have no paying job, they just work hard in the garden to grow some food. They might have a pig or a goat and hope to sell it when they need money urgent like for medical help or for school. Not for all of their kids, are you kidding! maybe just for one.
Schools costs a lot of money. You cannot go if you have no shoes or uniform. You have to pay tuition, got to buy books and stuff. The government does not pay for that. So if the pig lives and gets sold you might, just might, go to school. If the rains don't fall there is no grass for the goat or much for the pig to eat. They'll die or get sold for very little money. Forget about school that year. Someone needs to go to the hospital: Oh well, now school is beyond the horizon.
This is why I run into people of all ages, all the time in Haiti who have virtually no education. They break the light bulb when you ask them to change it. They destroy a nut while trying to loosen it. It does not occur to them that they might have to turn the other way. They break off a door handle because they don't understand the working of it. It drives me nuts sometimes.
And yet the solution for the problem is simple. Education! From when they go into kindergarten until high school is finished. Maybe even college after that. I'm dreaming, I know.
And all that lacks to do it is money. Just a little money.
One thing I never learned in school. Why was I born in a country where that problem did not exist.
