Tuesday, August 11
Today was a special day for us. Butch put it pretty accurately when he said "today we are just vacationing." We had a later start at around 9:30 and we loaded onto the truck to visit a place called Apparent Project by Papillon Enterprise . This is a place about 15 hours *cough cough* I mean minutes away that was developed by a Ms. Shelly to provide jobs for around 400 Haitian citizens. Apparent Projects began when Ms. Shelly realized that she could provide the most help to Haitian people by providing jobs. The beginnings of her mission started in her living room with five women making jewelry and has now grown into an enterprise that partners with companies in America such
as Walmart as well as American local artisans.
When we arrived, we noticed we were in an affluent part of town and Apparent Projects was placed
on a quite side street with multiple buildings devoted to their mission. The inside of the building we went into first was festive and catered to a foreign audience (namely Americans). There were actual printed signs and every piece of jewelry had a price tag (something I had not seen for the past week). There was pleasant music for the shoppers and a nice canopy that Lloyd tested thoroughly with his eye closed. The rest of us sauntered through the array of clay beads, metal work, and cereal box jewelry. Many of us will be bringing back wonderful finds, maybe one of you reading this will be fashioning these beauties in the near future.
A young woman named Cali (from California) gave us a tour of their facilities and the whole system seemed extremely positive. They had some phenomenal ideas about progressing their market, caring for their workers, and educating their workers. I really liked that Cali encouraged the workers who spoke English to explain what they did in a specific location because it promoted their ownership of the enterprise. I especially enjoyed going into a room where the employees could educate themselves using laptops. Many of them were on Rosetta Stone. I was really impressed! Check them out on literally any social media cite because they are on top of it.
We ate lunch with their employees in a cabana like deck area and Carrie and Beth, being so giving, thought to share our cookies with them since many of them were using their lunch break to relax (also, I learned that Haitians usually only eat two meals a day, so many would just wait until dinner). We shopped a little while longer and it was time to go.
The rest of the afternoon was fairly relaxed. Some folks went to Ryan Epps to check on the completion of the metal work. Wes and Dave also had a chance to give little Tracy a little elephant they had purchased at Apparent Project. I stayed back with Sarah and we both rested from the long long journeys we took that day. When the group got back, Carrie came in carrying a mysterious bag. I asked what she had bought and she showed me a beautiful piece of stonework. She told me that there was a man out in the courtyard selling stonework around where madam CheepCheep usually set up.
I visited this man. I never learned his name, but he was a very cool dude. First of all, his stone work was simply magnificent! I ended up buying a beautiful piece for my friends wedding on Saturday. I ended up chatting with him for a bit and he told me his wild life story. He had lived in West Africa and New York City and had come to stay in Haiti. He had all of his working equipment stollen from him and he had to start over in the mountains of Haiti making stonework. It's hard to describe, but you could tell that he was a wise man who had truly had a whirlwind of a life. He was a good father too. He had his two sons with him and he encouraged them to talk with the customers. His sons had also made some stonework that he was eager to show us. We truly have met some amazing people in Haiti. He was one of them for me.
So since we come back tomorrow, (yes, tomorrow. Please don't forget to pick us up from the airport) I am going to list some things I forgot to mention:
1. Claudel is spelled Claudel, not Claudelle. I know this now because we are Facebook friends. Yay!
2. If you ever go to a pool party with a Californian, beware, they are splashers!
3. Lloyd can fall asleep anywhere (so can our friend Son-son)
4. Debbie can rock a killer top ponytail that should be in the next Molly Ringwald movie
5. Sarah is our resident queen! She has earned this position by being the ultimate trooper and to attest to this esteemed position I will tell you today she had three people fanning her with various found objects.
6. Marilyn is the group mom! She has stayed back with some, checked on all, and she always
manages to keep a beautiful smile on her face.
7. Villa Mamika never had a meal I didn't like
8. Wes now calls Matt papa, Wes is Sarah's new grandson, I am Debbie's daughter
, Carrie is Marilyn's daughter and we are all related because these kids made it so
9. Dana stole all the children's Chapstick and tried to get away with all 46 until we caught her....no not really...but it seems pretty plausible
10. Tom is the IT wiz, and loves to say everyone's name in a Haitian accent
11. Beth had earned a degree in medicine. It is official.
12. And Dave is a just a jerk...jk everyone loves Dave
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