Today was pretty typical. I woke up, quickly got ready for work and with hair still wet set the Apparent Project in motion. Locks came off doors (for those who know my key collection- I have traded up to padlocks with codes so that I won’t get hip dislocation from the weight of the keys in my pocket). Artisans filed in. Some got right to work, others gave me the sorrowful stare of “piecework”. 
So many have 
become “piecework’ junkies. I write this with half a smile as some of 
my favorite artisans come every day and instead of just working independently on their own stuff like most do, they just want me to tell them what to do. They follow me around the house with puppy dog eyes until I find something that I need done in mass quantity and then they happily go to work. This week it was Christmas garland. Last week it was pendant necklaces from recycled tin work hammered out in Criox de Bouquet. The “piecework people” are present to me the most- so are probably some of my best friends of the bunch, but also drive me the most berzerk. Especially when I have a day like today.
To
day I had to send off 300 necklaces to Choose Haiti. Unfortunately, somewhere between the order of 500 necklaces that I sent off last week and the arrival in New York, 270 of them went mysteriously missing. It’s hard to get motivated to make 300 replacement necklaces when you are losing money on a job.. but I guess that’s business. (I’m learning)
Just finishing that up this morning was a chore in itself when I got an email from a friend in Haiti- Magalie Dresse ( Haiti’s Digicel entrepreneur of the year) and owner of Caribbean Craft- a huge exporter of Caribbean artisan goods to companies like Anthropologie, Disney and others. Well, apparently Disney is looking for some more Haitian made goods and Magalie told me to send over some samples of things we can mass produce. Wow. This is big- I think to myself and get right to work on that. Ummmmm…
About five minutes later, my i-pod beeps in a new message and I look to see that Donna Karen’s Urban Zen initiative is putting in an order for 400 more necklaces for an event they are having in two weeks. I fly downstairs to check on my “Donna Karan” room and check in with the “boys in the hood” in the basement who make those particular necklaces to see if they have enough beads.
Carlin Paul- 17 years old- invented this particular necklace and for this, I give him the privilege of hiring his o
wn crew to work on this best seller of ours. He has hired what probably would have ended up being a crew of thugs but for the fact that they now have work and all go to school- they are turning out to be quite the respectable hip-hop jewelry makers in the basement of the artisan house. We talk about beads and quantities and that’s when I find out the Marcoril (one of our hoodies) is in jail up in Petionville. Apparently it is illegal to exist in Haiti because he got arrested for not having identification on him while walking at dusk. He has now been in jail for four days with no food and little water. Later in the afternoon, I went to visit him and saw his gaunt face and depressing eyes as he was waiting to be led downtown to the tribunal for his trial while I tried to negotiate his release with the police officers (explaining of course how important he is to our work and the future of Haitian economics). They didn’t buy it and all I could do was leave him (and all his prison mates) with enough money for a decent meal.
Back to the artisan house…
A call a few hours later while the house was humming with activity sent me in another flurry. Pascale Theard (who is working closely with President Martelly on economic stimulation) called to say that she is putting together gift bags for some event that Martelly is putting on and could I bring some jewelry down. Our car (Flintstone mobile) was currently occupied by our assistant Junior who was on his way to DHL to mail off the Choose Haiti boxes, so I quickly threw an assortment together and hopped on a moto-taxi down to about a block away from Cite Soleil to the pasta factory where Pascale has her offices. I learn that Pascale was in the Caribbean market in the freezer section and ducked in time to save her own life during the earthquake. Practically entombed in what was every body’s favorite grocery store, she found a small passageway in the concrete and managed to crawl out on her own where so many many people had died. I stop to reflect on how we all stay sane after what we all experienced during that week almost a year and a half ago.
It is so fresh in all of our memories.
My moto driver waited patiently and whisked me back to the artisan center an hour and a half later. Exhausted, I came home to find Novens and a little hoodlum companion of his at the gate. I am suspicious of people I don’t know in Haiti. Especially of teenage slinky scavengers who don’t introduce themselves. He waited outside while Novens came in to tell me about a house that he had found to rent with a couple other artisans. Just then I got a call from Junior (our assistant) who was wrecked with fever and earache and had no medicine. Rodney was standing by, so I decided to walk with Rodney a couple blocks down the road to deliver the Tylenel to Junior. Slinky boy was still outside the gate and for some reason decided to walk with us. I joked about whether or not he was going to kill me or just steal all my money and pretty much just ignored him the whole way down to Junior’s house. On the way back, feeling a little guilty and a tad curious, I struck up a conversation. “Do I know you?” ..
“Yes” he replied.
And proceeded to tell me about how I had met him at Leo’s house and he had been making beads for Leo and he asked me for a job and I said no.
Oops.
“Are you still mad at me” I asked half-jokingly.
” No” he said..” it’s just that my mom and dad are both dead and my aunt can’t take care of me anymore and so I really need to have a job so that I can finish school- I only have two years left ( a huge feat in Haiti) and I wasn’t able to go this past year.”
He was still slinking but my perceptions of him had just taken a double cartwheel to the side.
18 years old. No mom. No dad. Orphaned since age 4. Working in a dusty room with no running water or electricity all day making beads for me. He just wants to finish school.
Slinky boy graduated to hero in my mind in a little over two minutes.
It is people like this that keep me humble. Keep me wanting to ask stories. It is impossible not to love people like this. At this very moment there is nothing I would rather do than give him a job.
I hike back home to my daughter who is herself still wrecked with fever and headaches and I cuddle her to sleep. I think of Marcoril on the concrete floor of the prison tonight with no food in his belly once again. I remember a song we used to sing in church when I was younger. “And we lift up our cry, into the night.. and ask for the captives to be loosed from their chains.”. I sing it to my kids.
Not all pris
oners are guilty. I understand for the first time really why the sheep and the goats parable included visiting prisoners. Tomorrow I will meet with a representative from Tearfund in the UK about jewelry and then start making phone calls. I can’t leave Marcoril there one more night. I have to figure this out. I think about slinky boy. I think about Disney. I think about Donna Karan and the earthquake and my bizzar-o life that I wouldn’t trade for anything. I have hope that things are getting better here in Haiti. That LOVE and JUSTICE are on the move. I snuggle my daughter with her fever and think of my neighbor here in Haiti with five children who just lost her husband to a fever. I am so grateful that we have Tylenol. LOVE and JUSTICE- I am running in your footsteps. Don’t leave me behind.
day I had to send off 300 necklaces to Choose Haiti. Unfortunately, somewhere between the order of 500 necklaces that I sent off last week and the arrival in New York, 270 of them went mysteriously missing. It’s hard to get motivated to make 300 replacement necklaces when you are losing money on a job.. but I guess that’s business. (I’m learning)Just finishing that up this morning was a chore in itself when I got an email from a friend in Haiti- Magalie Dresse ( Haiti’s Digicel entrepreneur of the year) and owner of Caribbean Craft- a huge exporter of Caribbean artisan goods to companies like Anthropologie, Disney and others. Well, apparently Disney is looking for some more Haitian made goods and Magalie told me to send over some samples of things we can mass produce. Wow. This is big- I think to myself and get right to work on that. Ummmmm…
About five minutes later, my i-pod beeps in a new message and I look to see that Donna Karen’s Urban Zen initiative is putting in an order for 400 more necklaces for an event they are having in two weeks. I fly downstairs to check on my “Donna Karan” room and check in with the “boys in the hood” in the basement who make those particular necklaces to see if they have enough beads.
Carlin Paul- 17 years old- invented this particular necklace and for this, I give him the privilege of hiring his o
wn crew to work on this best seller of ours. He has hired what probably would have ended up being a crew of thugs but for the fact that they now have work and all go to school- they are turning out to be quite the respectable hip-hop jewelry makers in the basement of the artisan house. We talk about beads and quantities and that’s when I find out the Marcoril (one of our hoodies) is in jail up in Petionville. Apparently it is illegal to exist in Haiti because he got arrested for not having identification on him while walking at dusk. He has now been in jail for four days with no food and little water. Later in the afternoon, I went to visit him and saw his gaunt face and depressing eyes as he was waiting to be led downtown to the tribunal for his trial while I tried to negotiate his release with the police officers (explaining of course how important he is to our work and the future of Haitian economics). They didn’t buy it and all I could do was leave him (and all his prison mates) with enough money for a decent meal.Back to the artisan house…
A call a few hours later while the house was humming with activity sent me in another flurry. Pascale Theard (who is working closely with President Martelly on economic stimulation) called to say that she is putting together gift bags for some event that Martelly is putting on and could I bring some jewelry down. Our car (Flintstone mobile) was currently occupied by our assistant Junior who was on his way to DHL to mail off the Choose Haiti boxes, so I quickly threw an assortment together and hopped on a moto-taxi down to about a block away from Cite Soleil to the pasta factory where Pascale has her offices. I learn that Pascale was in the Caribbean market in the freezer section and ducked in time to save her own life during the earthquake. Practically entombed in what was every body’s favorite grocery store, she found a small passageway in the concrete and managed to crawl out on her own where so many many people had died. I stop to reflect on how we all stay sane after what we all experienced during that week almost a year and a half ago.
It is so fresh in all of our memories.
My moto driver waited patiently and whisked me back to the artisan center an hour and a half later. Exhausted, I came home to find Novens and a little hoodlum companion of his at the gate. I am suspicious of people I don’t know in Haiti. Especially of teenage slinky scavengers who don’t introduce themselves. He waited outside while Novens came in to tell me about a house that he had found to rent with a couple other artisans. Just then I got a call from Junior (our assistant) who was wrecked with fever and earache and had no medicine. Rodney was standing by, so I decided to walk with Rodney a couple blocks down the road to deliver the Tylenel to Junior. Slinky boy was still outside the gate and for some reason decided to walk with us. I joked about whether or not he was going to kill me or just steal all my money and pretty much just ignored him the whole way down to Junior’s house. On the way back, feeling a little guilty and a tad curious, I struck up a conversation. “Do I know you?” ..
“Yes” he replied.
And proceeded to tell me about how I had met him at Leo’s house and he had been making beads for Leo and he asked me for a job and I said no.
Oops.
“Are you still mad at me” I asked half-jokingly.
” No” he said..” it’s just that my mom and dad are both dead and my aunt can’t take care of me anymore and so I really need to have a job so that I can finish school- I only have two years left ( a huge feat in Haiti) and I wasn’t able to go this past year.”
He was still slinking but my perceptions of him had just taken a double cartwheel to the side.
18 years old. No mom. No dad. Orphaned since age 4. Working in a dusty room with no running water or electricity all day making beads for me. He just wants to finish school.
Slinky boy graduated to hero in my mind in a little over two minutes.
It is people like this that keep me humble. Keep me wanting to ask stories. It is impossible not to love people like this. At this very moment there is nothing I would rather do than give him a job.
I hike back home to my daughter who is herself still wrecked with fever and headaches and I cuddle her to sleep. I think of Marcoril on the concrete floor of the prison tonight with no food in his belly once again. I remember a song we used to sing in church when I was younger. “And we lift up our cry, into the night.. and ask for the captives to be loosed from their chains.”. I sing it to my kids.
Not all pris
oners are guilty. I understand for the first time really why the sheep and the goats parable included visiting prisoners. Tomorrow I will meet with a representative from Tearfund in the UK about jewelry and then start making phone calls. I can’t leave Marcoril there one more night. I have to figure this out. I think about slinky boy. I think about Disney. I think about Donna Karan and the earthquake and my bizzar-o life that I wouldn’t trade for anything. I have hope that things are getting better here in Haiti. That LOVE and JUSTICE are on the move. I snuggle my daughter with her fever and think of my neighbor here in Haiti with five children who just lost her husband to a fever. I am so grateful that we have Tylenol. LOVE and JUSTICE- I am running in your footsteps. Don’t leave me behind.
