Zizi's International Chess Adventure is On!

News for a Better World from the SAKALA Community Center in Cité Soleil, Haiti

Several months ago, I wrote about SAKALA’s own Marie “Zizi” Bernard’s upcoming adventure to take part in an international youth chess championship in Greece as part of Haiti’s national team.

Here is 11-year-old Zizi in June wearing one of her chess medals.

Then a few months after that I wrote about how Zizi’s chess adventure would have to be a dream deferred, owing to delays in getting her passport and visas in time, which in turn was a direct result of Haiti’s extreme political and economic insecurity that is deferring so many dreams there now.

I said then that the Haitian national chess team was looking for other opportunities closer to home than Greece, but I was vague about the timeline because so much is up in the air in Haiti these days — except for the need to hold onto hope as though it were it a chess piece.

A few years ago, I wrote about SAKALA’s own Merisena Cadeau qualifying for an international chess tournament in Russia as part of Haiti’s national team.

Then I wrote about how that was a dream deferred owing to the COVID-19 pandemic that not so long ago shut down the world, including that tournament.

I wrote then that the Haitian national team would be looking for other international chess tournaments, but was vague about the timeline because so much in the world was up in the air in those days, except for the need to hold onto hope as though it were a chess piece.

When I write about the early days of SAKALA’s chess program, I am reminded of the time Daniel Tillias, SAKALA’s leader and co-founder, said that he had heard about a tournament in Port-au-Prince that weekend and he thought it would be great to register some of the kids.

Have they ever played chess before? I asked.
No, Daniel said.

It is a complicated game, I pointed out as someone who does not know how to play it. Is it a good idea to enter them in a tournament with only a few days practice?

Yes, Daniel said, already seeing visions of chess glory.

Huh, I said, doubting.

Doubting even though I knew that the last time I doubted Daniel, was during my very first visit to SAKALA in 2010 when he said envisioned a community garden with trees, flowers, birds and butterflies on the site of an old dump adjacent to SAKALA.

I looked at the dump in question, which seemed permanent, a metaphor for hopelessness, much like this trash canal that still menaces outside SAKALA’s walls:

 Huh, I said, doubting.

The next time I visited what had been that old dump site was now Haiti’s largest urban garden.

Soon after my doubting chess conversation with Daniel, scenes like this became very common at SAKALA — kids just picking up and playing for fun, maybe the best tournament of all.

This may be why Daniel was named a CNN Hero in 2019. In the video you can see a young Merisena Cadeau talking about her dreams in the garden.

I first met Merisena a few years before that, when she was getting an award for academic achievement.

Here she is playing her first official tournament in January 2019 against a much taller opponent.

When the world started to open up again, Merisena’s dream of competing internationally ceased to be deferred. Last year, she was part of the Haitian national team at an international championship in India, with a stop before in Paris to practice.

Here she is then, looking like a movie star, in a Paris park.

I first met Zizi in 2019, maybe 2020, when I was still lucky enough to be able to stay in a guest room at SAKALA. I would walk down the stairs from my room early in the morning to go run in SAKALA’s garden — the one I doubted would ever exist — and I would see Zizi smiling shyly at me, perhaps finding me (accurately) a little bit goofy.

Zizi and her family were staying in a temporary shelter at SAKALA when violence in their neighborhood made it unsafe to stay in their homes. This was the beginning of the especially hard times we now see dominating Haiti and the timeline is vague on when it will get better. We just hold onto hope like a chess piece that it will.

In January 2021, I was lucky to attend a big tournament in Port-au-Prince, that Merisena and another SAKALA team player, Geralson Simon, won. Here they are with a very happy and undoubting Daniel Tillias.

Zizi was at that tournament too, either too young or inexperienced, to play officially, so she was there to cheer the team on.

Here she is playing Daniel in the hallway outside the tournament. She seems to be more than holding her own.

Yesterday, I got happy pictures confirming that Zizi’s dream of competing internationally would no longer have to be deferred. She is playing this week at an international chess championship in Trinidad and Tobago.

Even more happily, she is joined by Merisena, who is competing in a different age group.

Here are the international jet setters at the airport in Port-au-Prince. Ready to go.

Here they are just before that, outside the airport, flanked by some of their teammates with dreams of their own that hopefully won’t be deferred too long.

And here they are just before that, at SAKALA, which they have already, with no doubt, done proud, and are ready to fly.

Stay tuned.

Thank you for your support and solidarity with SAKALA that makes all of this possible.

Wishing you much health, happiness, and peace.