A Haitian writer who has lived in Scotland for 11 years says it is “extremely cool” to hear the two countries mentioned together ahead of their first World Cup match on Sunday.
Leilani Taneus-Miller, speaking from her home in Edinburgh, said she has been pleasantly surprised by the interest Scots have shown in their first-round opponents. “Everyone is talking about Haiti and Scotland,” she noted.
She was speaking as members of Scotland’s Haitian community prepare to gather in Edinburgh to celebrate their culture ahead of the match. The writer, who first came to the UK 23 years ago, also expressed thrill that people recognise how much it means for the Caribbean country to play in its first World Cup since 1974 – a 52-year wait.
“Before the World Cup, the words Haiti and Scotland rarely featured in conversations, so I think it’s extremely cool that now it’s billboard quality,” she said. “Everyone is talking about Haiti and Scotland, so I’ll always be grateful myself for football, bringing this visibility to Haitian talent, which is always there.”
She described Haiti as “a very amazing country with great will, a great determination – it certainly deserves its spot in the World Cup.”
Ms Taneus-Miller estimates there are about 1,000 Haitians living in the UK, and she knows of “five or six” Haitian families in Scotland. She said it means a lot to the Haitian diaspora worldwide to compete in the World Cup, particularly as they qualified on November 18 last year.
The date was significant as it marked 222 years to the day since a major battle in the country’s war for independence from France. “A lot of the players, like me, are from the diaspora, and so they may be thinking to themselves, this is my chance to show Haitians in the country how much I love the country, and how I’m dedicating my life’s work to the country,” she said.
“I think that’s very special. I think it’s a huge thing for the youth and the young contenders in both Haiti and the Haitian diaspora to see that you can be on the global stage, and you can represent Haiti, and your talents are going to be visible and celebrated. It’s a very important time for Haiti.”
Having lived in the UK for more than two decades, Ms Taneus-Miller said she “really misses” Haiti – but that it has a lot in common with Scotland. “It’s got such a unique landscape,” she said. “It has the mountains, it has the valleys, it’s very lush, it’s very green – it’s quite like Scotland in many ways.”
She added that another “huge parallel” is that both countries have “indigenous languages”, with Scotland having Gaelic and Haiti having Creole. She recounted recently buying a T-shirt that blended the two cultures via an oft-heard Scottish football chant.
“The other day I saw a very cool T-shirt by a Scottish vendor, and it had words in Creole that said ‘San Ekos, pa gen fet’, which means in Creole ‘without Scotland there’s no party’. It was written in Creole, which I was so pleased to see.”
She explained that she wants to add additional text to the T-shirt: “I wanted to write ‘without Haiti, there’s no party’ in Creole, and I thought maybe even in Gaelic, because I thought that would make the T-shirt even better.”
The writer said she will prepare for Sunday’s game by hosting a Haitian community event in Edinburgh, featuring traditional food, folklore dancing, a film screening and a kickabout in the garden. “If you’re a Haitian diaspora in Scotland, you need to prepare, you need to get your Haitian energy in the right place,” she said. “So eat the Haitian food, and drink the culture through the Haitian cinema, and by being together and dancing.”
When it comes to the game itself, her plan is to settle in at home with a bottle of “very special and delicious” Haitian rum. With the game kicking off in Boston at 2am UK time, she said this will keep her going through the small hours.
Ranked 82nd in the world, Haiti are considered unlikely to make it out of a group that also includes Morocco and Brazil. But Ms Taneus-Miller is upbeat about her team’s chances, citing a Creole saying meaning “if you work together, anything is possible”.
She said: “It is a big deal for us, but we do have the discipline, we do have the athleticism, the pace, and the energy. All those things are what makes football beautiful to watch. So it’s going to be amazing to watch.”
