"A learning oasis buoyed by a convert's vision; Amid Haiti’s devastation, Patrick Moynihan presses on" by Brian MacQuarrie, Globe Staff | February 9, 2010
SANTO, Haiti - The government has ordered all public schools closed in Haiti, but Patrick Moynihan is pressing on.
“The preservation of culture is the preservation of humanity,’’ says Moynihan, whose brother,
Then why is Israel trying to exterminate Palestinians?
The school’s $750,000 budget benefits from 1,000 donors, including Brian Moynihan, who once contributed $150,000 in Bank of America shares to keep Louverture Cleary afloat....
While most children in Haiti are struggling with survival instead of English classes, many of Louverture Cleary’s 350 disadvantaged pupils have returned to this academic oasis, where outdoor classes are cooled by tropical breezes and students toss basketballs at a hoop hung on a mango tree.
Tuition is free, admission is competitive, and the school offers a chance none of these children would have otherwise enjoyed: to escape Haiti’s grinding poverty. All the graduates are qualified to advance to university studies, Moynihan said.
So when is someone going to start caring about you, American?
James Coqmard Philippe, a tall 18-year-old, is grateful. If not for the school, Philippe said, he probably would be working in a factory, making just enough money to survive.
Americans should be so lucky.
Instead, he is studying languages and computer science....
Compared with the many collapsed buildings in Santo, a crowded suburb of Port-au-Prince, the school compound suffered only marginal damage. A few walls have toppled, support columns are weakened, and narrow cracks have opened on some of the buildings on its lush, shaded campus.
The quake terrorized the students, boys and girls from sixth to 12th grades, who ran screaming to the central courtyard where many of their assemblies are held. But the human toll was startlingly small: seven pupils suffered minor injuries.
After the Jan. 12 quake, the students slept on foam mattresses on the compound’s soccer field. Many of them retreated to their homes or what was left of them in the ensuing days. But 60 pupils never left the school, more than half of the total have returned, and the number grows by the day.
In a country where most people remain afraid to venture into buildings, the students have returned to their dormitories, which engineers have deemed safe. They eat well, including beef from cows slaughtered on site.
One of the few Haitians.
And they attend classes in French, English, Spanish, and religion, informal offerings described by teachers as a para-curriculum while the country’s schools remain shuttered.
In one class - a Spanish session taught by Betsy Bowman, a volunteer teacher from Somerville, Mass. - the 10th-graders are engaged, eager, and bubbling with answers for senora, their teacher. Dust blows about the floor, a dog dozes beneath the blackboard, and palm trees rock gently outside the second-floor room.
Amid the despair and grief that cloak Haiti, the scene at Louverture Cleary is colored by smiles, laughter, learning, and joy.
Sigh. I'm tired of the MSM putting perfume on a poop.
A school motto is never far from the consciousness of the pupils. Written on a prominent wall in Creole, above the courtyard where the students congregated in fear, the motto makes a nonnegotiable statement.
“We’re ready to rebuild Haiti. Are you?’’ the question asks. The challenge predates the earthquake.
So how come the place was such a s*** hole then?
“Some people say I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,’’ said Bowman, who threw herself to the floor when the quake hit. “But I think I was in the right place at the right time.’’
As he considers the yawning chasm of need, Patrick Moynihan says there’s no better place to be. He has decided to stay permanently.
It’s a decision, Moynihan said, that shows many of his brother’s fingerprints.
“My brother taught me this: It doesn’t matter how good a life you have. It doesn’t matter, as long as you treat someone better than you are treated yourself,’’ Moynihan said.
“That’s why I’m in Haiti.’’
Yeah, the lying banker brother inspired him.
