International Live: In the middle of the deadly political unrest that has rocked Haiti for more than two months, another crisis is unfolding most schools are closed, leaving Haitian children with nothing to do and their parents flailing to cope.

In some homes, parents are trying to teach their own kids, while simultaneously working to assuage their mounting anxiety about the violence they see every day in the streets. “I’m muddling through. I don’t really know how to do all this,” confesses Edine Celestin, who is holding a reading workbook in her lap.

“One might think it’s easy to teach your kids, but you only realize afterwards that the child did not understand what you said, and you have to teach the same lesson three or four times.” Since September, Celestin has tried to make sure her five-year-old daughter gets some kind of schooling each day. Their living room has become a
classroom.

The impoverished Caribbean nation’s crisis began in late August, prompted by a national fuel shortage. Since then, protests against unpopular President Jovenel Moise have raged. Barricades block the streets, and armed gangs roam freely. Nearly 70
percent of the schools have remained closed, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and its cultural agency UNESCO.

“The school principal told us several times, ‘Come on Monday to do a bit of work.’ When we arrive, the teachers are not there, and the principal is alone with five or six students,” explains Reevens Bosquet, who is 20 but still hopes to complete his high school education.

Despite the government’s confidence, Samy Janvier says he feels incapable of telling his eight-year-old daughter Samara when she might see her classmates again, just as he struggles to explain why she can’t go to school.

“We’d love to be able to tell our kids that it’s all because of a revolution in society, but in reality, we don’t see an end to all this on the horizon,” Janvier says, while he helps Samara do some practice math problems as two-year-old Samy Jr looks on.

Dhaka 23 November (campuslive24.com)//AZ