All the Right Moves at SAKALA

News for a better world from the SAKALA community center in Cité Soleil, Haiti

It was like watching a movie  from beginning to end– like Queen of Katwe or The Queen’s Gambit.

At the beginning you start with children facing seemingly impossible challenges and you end with…

Well, we’ll get to the ending. No spoilers.

A couple of weeks ago I was blessed to return to SAKALA. They needed me to bring some supplies, including parts to fix a solar water pump. I am always looking for reasons to visit beyond just my selfish one that I love it here, love the spirit of the place.

So far this year Haiti has had heightened political instability (and that’s heightened over an already very difficult situation over the last couple of years). One of the days I visited SAKALA we had to turn around and leave half an hour later because there had been a politically motivated killing in one of the neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince and the streets were quickly barricaded with burning tires.

I mention this because, unfortunately, this is a normal situation for the children of SAKALA and Cité Soleil now. They have to learn and grow and dream with these difficulties always in the background.

Too often these days, violence and its aftermath don’t even stay in the background. It bursts to the front of their lives.

So that is the context of this story of a tournament that SAKALA’s chess club participated in recently at Quisqueya University in Port-au-Prince.

I have written about SAKALA’s chess club before and you can read about it here. I think it was after watching the movie Queen of Katwe maybe three years ago, about a Ugandan girl who becomes a chess champion, that SAKALA leader and co-founder Daniel Tillias, thought “We should do that here.”

And not very long after that inspiration, Daniel saw that there was a chess tournament in Port-au-Prince in a few days and that SAKALA’s kids should participate. Who knows maybe they would win the whole thing, he said.

Only at that time there was no chess club at SAKALA. There wasn’t even a single chess set.

So when Daniel told me about this plan to compete in a few days time, starting from scratch, I was skeptical. Too fast, I thought. Chess is a complicated game, you can’t just go to a tournament after playing a few days, I told him.

What is the harm of trying? Daniel, who grew up in Cité Soleil, responded, as he always does. (You can see why he was named a CNN Hero in 2019.)

So they tried. A few kids did actually participate in that first tournament after only a few days practice on hastily purchased chess sets and You Tube instruction.

And, no, they did not win the whole tournament. In fact, they lost most of their matches – SAKALA’s top player at the time winning just one that day.

But it was a start.

There is a Haitian Creole saying, “Piti piti zwazo fè nich.” Little by little, the bird builds its nest. I try to remember this whenever I am facing a daunting challenge.

No matter what the challenge, the first thing you have to do is to start.

And the second thing you have to do is be prepared to make mistakes, to lose maybe all the time at first — which is no sin as long as you learn from it.

In fact it is the best way to learn. It’s just a hard way.

So SAKALA began building its chess nest with that unrealized dream a few years ago.

Almost immediately, if you came to SAKALA, you would see kids playing chess – sometimes in formal practice, sometimes just out in the garden playing for fun. They competed regularly in tournaments doing better and better each time.

Here is Daniel playing chess recently with some of SAKALA’s newest and youngest chess club recruits.

They competed in tournaments winning more and more. Once of the things I love about the chess program is that SAKALA’s players are role models, almost celebrities for the rest of the kids.

This picture is of a young photographer from SAKALA taking picture of one of our celebrities at the recent tournament.

Last year, one of SAKALA’s standouts, Merisena Cadeau, placed in a national tournament and qualified to play representing Haiti in an international competition in Russia. The Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc with that plan – as it has with so many plans – but that trip to the international championship in Russia is still in Merisena’s future.

So, she practices. And practices. And practices.

Merisena (playing at the front left in the picture below) was competing in the Quisqueya University tournament in late January, along with about 15 other SAKALA chess club members.

By that time, people already knew to watch out for Merisena as a chess force. They did not necessarily know to watch out for Geralson Simon. 

But, match by match, it was clear Geralson was a force to be reckoned with too.

This is not surprising to those of us who know Geralson.

Geralson first came to SAKALA four or five years ago asking if he could help with anything. His instinct was to help with cleaning at SAKALA because at home, where they could not afford to send him to school, he was essentially a servant – and so he thought maybe he could be a servant at SAKALA too.

But when Daniel met him he saw not a servant, but a student. Soon, with SAKALA’s help (and the help of SAKALA’s donors like you) Geralson was in school and pulling straight As. (Here is Geralson when he first started coming to SAKALA a few years ago holding a thank you letter to some kids in the US who had donated to SAKALA. I can’t believe how much he has grown.)

Now, Geralson is one of SAKALA’s great youth leaders, involved in everything. He is one of the captains of SAKALA’s environmental group and wants to study to be an agronomist to save the earth for all of us. 

He is, in short, amazing.

But Geralson had not done that well in chess tournaments.

Until now.

Piti piti, little by little, he played the right move after right move, winning match after match, until he had won the boys’ division across all age groups. (He is the player in the white shirt below.)

Back to Merisena. Her final match would decide whether she would come in first or second for the girls overall.

It was a tough one.

Watching Merisena’s match felt like most like a movie for me. Unlike SAKALA’s children, I don’t really know how to play chess and so am not sure what I am looking at.

But I do know good drama when I see it.

I noticed all the tournament players and all the observers gravitated to watch Merisena’s match. The last few minutes was a flurry of high-speed moves on both sides, with both players capturing so many pieces it seemed like they would be down to just their kings. (My favorite spectator from this picture is the little girl looking over Merisena’s shoulder, a future SAKALA chess champion to be sure.)

It was a test of not just chess skill on both sides but also of character because both competitors had to dig deep.

And then it was over and the competitors shook hands.

There were hugs all around for Merisena, and I was pretty sure she had won.

But I knew also there would be hugs all around even if she just tried her best and showed good sportsmanship. Good sportsmanship is super important at SAKALA – more important even than winning. SAKALA’s children are ambassadors for Cité Soleil – which is a marginalized neighborhood suffering under many stigmas – and they are also ambassadors for peace.

They are ambassadors for a better world for all of us and at a chess or sports tournament that translates into behaving with grace and class, win or lose.

But, as it turned out, Merisena won that match and with it the whole girls’ division, joining Geralson as champion in the boys’ division.

My eyes misted as I heard both SAKALA and Cité Soleil mentioned in the winners’ circle and when Daniel celebrated with them just after the medal ceremony.

Just like in a movie.

Piti piti zwazo fè niche. Little by little we build our nests, just as in real life.

And after that — against this background of extreme political instability and difficulty that has become normal for these children — they did what is normal for many children in places less burdened.

They stopped for pizza on their way home from the big game.

If you are reading this newsletter you share in their victories, your solidarity from all over the world makes such things possible (so have a slice of pizza in celebration).

And if you, like so many around the world now are suffering difficulties, please take the strength and comfort that comes from being part of the SAKALA community.

Remember, piti piti, zwazo fè nich.

I truly hope you can visit SAKALA some day. And if you are a chess player, maybe sit down to play…but be prepared for a tough match in this place of champions.

Wishing you much peace, happiness, and health.