The Apparent Project Blog

Next blog: Your vote

noreply@blogger.com (Apparent Project) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 17:04:00 +0000

It's been a while. Sorry blog-stalkers.

The peanut butter blog led to more conversations, phone calls, and action than I could ever have imagined. It has also, unfortunately, given Shelley and I reputations as people who care deeply about peanut butter. I think the point was that we cared deeply about Haitians, but since peanut butter is a key ingredient in Reese's Cups, I guess I don't mind the affiliation too much. I was very pleased to hear that some churches took the blog to heart enough that they were led to reevaluate some of their short term missions strategies and policies. I was also glad that many people took seriously my recommendation (on facebook) to read "When Helping Hurts".

Also, as a result of the peanut butter blog, I received a kind letter from somebody at Feed My Starving Children regarding the efforts they make to not upset local economies and to create jobs in the nations they serve. I sincerely applaud all these efforts, and the mere fact that this organization takes seriously the Biblical and ethical mandate to serve and care for the hungry. Too few people are doing so. Still, I would deeply urge solidarity with the poor (that means living near the people you serve and speaking their language, sharing their hurts, celebrating their victories, etc.) over a delivery model of missions & aid. The dehumanizing poverty charades that are often performed by charity recipients trying to secure unsustainable aid can't easily endure under the arch of relationships and friendships that characterize a localized mission of solidarity. Visits, surveys, and interviews through hired translators will never give you the perspective gained by sharing life with the people you serve, and when the cultures are as disparate as those found in the U.S. and Haiti, there is more lost in translation (and shipping) than gained in assumptions about what the needs really are and how to help them. I still feel thoroughly that I am a learner in this culture, that I make mistakes, misjudgments, and misunderstandings daily, despite the fact that I've poured a lot into knowing Haitians well and living with them. I can't imagine doing this based on the appearance of things rather than an intimate knowledge of people.

I would also kick the dead horse that food is the most basic element of any economy, and if you upset that element by importing food bought from other farmers, you are harming the base economy of a nation: Even if you think you are freeing up their money for other enterprise, they're still dependent at the end of the day if your free food is eliminating their capacity to feed themselves... especially in this era of fuel crisis and inflation. I would also repeat that shipping stuff that is already here to purchase, no matter your intentions, is a waste of money. Let me pull my foot out of Mr. Ed's carcass and move on, lest my reputation as Peanut Butter Nazi sticks (to the roof of your mouth?)

A lot has happened in our lives since the last blog. Each of the following stories deserves a full report, and I wish we would have had time to write these blogs as these things happened... but we really don't have time. That's why we're putting it to the vote. Which of these following Apparent Project stories do you want to hear? Read the descriptions and vote for your favorite below:

1. Presidential, Presidential, Presidential, Presidential! (visit!): Former President Bill Clinton visited the Apparent Project house and then a couple weeks later Shelley attended the Clinton Global Intitiative meeting in New York and met a bunch of beautiful and famous people who are interested in helping Haiti.

2. Dirty Deeds: We received death threats (for money) for three weeks which led Shelley to a long and deeply human phone conversation with her prospective killer... then led us briefly into hiding and ultimately led to the arrest of one of our nearest and dearest artisans... who now sits in the National Penitentary...

3. Twisted Cyster: Our great new intern, Sophie Wiseman-Floyd arrived, began training people in super cool recycled glass/wire wrap jewelry, then suddenly fell ill because of a ruptured abdominal cyst, spent some time in a couple Haitian hospitals, and then went to the states to recover and is now back with us.

4. Tragic Death and Dominoes:
Makencia, a jewelry maker who has lived in our artisans' house and gave birth to two beautiful baby girls (whom Shelley named), lost one of these precious twins to a respiratory illness in her tent in Clerville. Shelley and I, while grieving with Makencia and Serlo (papa) also got a window into how Haitians cope (or don't) with loss.

5. Business is Beautiful: Christmas artisan sales have been great, more people are discovering the fun an easy way to help Haitians through hosting jewelry parties, and retail venues in Hati and abroad continue to open up, with potential contracts in the works with Macy's and The Bay, as well as our continued work with Donna Karan. Jewelry designer Chan Luu came by to look at our beads as well.

6. Apparently Viral: This has been a period of a lot of media exposure for the Apparent Project. It started when the Apparent Project story was alluded to by Donna Karan on CNN's Piers Morgan show. Since then we can barely keep up with the media coverage. Shelley and the Apparent Project artisans were given thorough mention in the December issue of Vogue magazine (read the article starting at pg. 122), Maria Bello recently launched some Apparent Jewelry, Haiti's president posted a picture of Shelley on his facebook page, Haiti's largest newspaper, Le Nouvelist, honored Shelley on the front page, Magic Haiti, Haiti's best travel magazine (given to everybody who steps off a plane from the U.S.), posted a picture of Shelley in an article about artisan work, and is pursuing another interview, crosswalk.com interviewed Corrigan about the closure of a local orphanage, and we were given mention in some other great blogs and websites as well:
Making Meaning
Creative Call Cambodia
Stichting Timoun

7. The Whambulance: We somehow manage to employ 180 people, serve as the only ambulance for most of our community, run food and supplies for our operations and get our children to school in a beat up 1999 Forerunner that has now lost its wheels more times than we can count on one hand. Insert pity here.

8. Insert Clay Pun Here: On thanksgiving day this year, our first ever ceramics kiln was built from local materials with the assistance of Scotty Dillman and Sarah Jane Gray from the Grunewald Guild, a wonderful arts initiative from Leavenworth, Washington.

We are super excited for this ongoing partnership and for the production of local beads from local, non-imported materials, and the wide world of ceramics that is opening up to our artisans. This is going to mean many more jobs for many more Haitians! We hope to have production begin in Cite Soleil in February, bringing much-needed jobs to families at risk in Haiti's most notorious slum. The beads, by the way, are BEAUTIFUL!

Now it's time to vote! Select the blog below that you most want to see us write! Voting ends December 15!

Quizzes by Quibblo.com | SnapApp Quiz Apps

Peanut Butter and Shelley

noreply@blogger.com (Apparent Project) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 22:18:00 +0000

This blog is inspired by my wife Shelley's passionate facebook plea with a Wisconsin church to not send peanut butter to Haiti. I thought a more in depth explanation might be helpful, interesting, and possibly motivational, so here goes...

http://www.wqow.com/story/15278291/church-to-send-more-than-20000-jars-of-peanut-butter-to-haiti

Now that Haiti has dropped from fad-disaster-charity-icon status, it is good to see a few churches still caring, and more importantly, ACTING on behalf of the poor here. After all, Jesus' says he doesn't have much to do with people who neglect those without food and income. Yet, while I'm infinitely appreciative of churches that take seriously the Biblical mandate to prioritize the plight of the poor and suffering, I'm concerned that so many of us have neglected that mandate for so long that when we recognize our grave oversight, we rush into service without thinking through the impact of our actions or getting to know those we intend to serve. My friend, Ed Cook, once gave me some great advice about service: "Don't just do something, stand there! ...then do something." We need to venture out into the deep, vital waters of serving the poor, but we can't do a cannon ball into a situation that deserves a swan dive.

Landmark Christian Church in Lake Hallie, Wisconsin (see video & link above) is passionately offering its time and resources in response to Haiti's malnutrition and hunger problems. The pastor of LCC says "What we are hoping to do is send about 28,000 jars of peanut butter to Haiti. The children there just don't have a good source of protein. Peanut butter is a wonderful source. Ounce for ounce, about the same protein as pork." I agree that many Haitians' have a diet with less than sufficient protein and I'm glad that this Church cares enough to do something about it, but, in unfortunate irony, the well-meaning pastor named two of Haiti's staple protein sources: peanuts and pork. Mamba (peanut butter) and Grillo (salted fried pork) are beloved Haitian foods, both coming from native sources and farmed here on Hispaniola since before Columbus made his first landing. What do you imagine 28,000 jars of peanut butter coming to this island and being given away might do to the local businesses of peanut farmers, mamba manufacturers, and retailers? Good intentions to save Haiti have already all but ended the long legacy of the Creole Pig's positive nutritional and economic impact, and now the kindhearted, peanut butter-wielding, generous faithful of Wisconsin are posing a benevolent threat to Haiti's "pistache".

The misguided declaration that Haitians "Don't have a good source of protein," reminds me of the recent adaptation of the U.S. State Department warnings against travel to Haiti. You can read the whole thing here. It offers a very strong discouragement from visiting Haiti, which is portrayed in bleakest terms. Murders, kindnappings, political instability: all the makings of a Jason Bourne film (or a devastated tourism industry along the Caribbean's most untouched beachline). I'm told by people with connections to the embassy that the U.S. travel warnings are written by somebody whose pay scale is dependent upon how dangerous their station of duty is. In other words, the worse Haiti sounds, the higher the threat level, the better the annual income that the author of the Haiti travel warning receives, because they have to work in this "hazardous duty station". I don't know if that is true, but that's the rumor here. And even if it is only a rumor, it would have no life if those of us who live here weren't so shocked by the things these warnings say. They don't adequately describe what we see here every day. But, staying on the food topic, the part of the travel warning that raised my eyebrows was this:

"If you intend to work for an organization involved in relief efforts in Haiti, be aware that living conditions are difficult and the availability of food supplies, clean drinking water and adequate shelter is limited. If you are seeking work with a relief organization you should confirm before traveling to Haiti that the organization has the capability to provide food, water, transportation, and shelter for its paid and volunteer workers."

If this is true, at least humor us and give us a season of "Survivor: Haiti". I want to see Jeff Probst stir disputes at tribal counsel after somebody fails their tribe by refusing to swallow an entire fillet of cat. This travel warning makes it sound as if working in Haiti will require you to scavenge the dilapidated ruins of some earthquake ravaged gas station mini mart, searching for the last crumb of a post-apocalyptic twinky that the roaches haven't yet discovered. The travel warning also implies that the only reason an American might come to Haiti is to offer emergency relief, as if settling in and developing something sustainable or simply living a normal life is unheard of here.

Those of us who live in Haiti and frequent one of the hundreds of local markets or the scores of grocery stores here know that food scarcity in Haiti is simply not the issue. There is plenty of food in Haiti... if you have money. The food is not cheap and the produce is not always as cosmetically enhanced as what you may see in your American super market, but it's here. All around. And it's for sale. If you have an income. Oh... and 70-90% of the food is American. That's a big part of why there are no jobs in Haiti. The unemployment rate hovers hauntingly around the same percentage as the imported food rate. As American imported goods, largely sent as food aid, have swept into the Haitian market, Haitian farmers could not compete with the low prices offered by U.S. farmed grains. The prices of American grains have been lowered dramatically by excessive production and government subsidies. (Have you seen King Corn or Food Inc?) Our cheap food is not only making us fat, but it's making the world poor and dependent.

Bill Clinton, in what has to be one of the most redemptive moments in international politics I've ever seen, publicly renounced American international food aid policies and apologized for the way in which his own tarrifs and relief strategies in Haiti effectively increased poverty and sapped the dignity of the poor. He says, "“It was a mistake. . . I have to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti." Why? Because of the rice we gave away to Haitians. Clinton says our generosity helped Arkansas farmers while hurting the Haitian people.

I'm very excited to see the film "Hands that Feed" when I get a chance. This film promises to give a more thorough treatment to the issue of Haitian food sovereignty. You can see a trailer of sorts here: Hands That Feed- Video Pitch. If we don't change our ways of thinking about charity, Haiti will be kept in poverty as a result of well meaning, good-hearted, generous people who don't understand the dynamics of poverty, aid, relief, and development.

Landmark Christian Church is not the only ministry gearing up to ship peanut butter to Haiti. Lifeline Christian Mission has a goal of distributing 90,000 jars of peanut butter to Haiti every year, and has already sent 350,000 since 2002. Comparably, we see far more boxes of "Feed My Starving Children" rice than we see bags of Haitian grown rice. This is bought by churches and private Christian donors from American sources and then shipped to Haiti. This is poor stewardship. If just the shipping cost were invested into developing sustainable agriculture, developing compost programs, and purchasing seeds an irrigation technology, the aid rice would not be needed. I'm not saying to cut off all aid, but that anybody involved in food aid ought, as a matter of conscience, be investing at least as much into development of sustainable food sources as they are into the expensive and unsustainable practice of shipping in foreign food. They also ought to purchase as much as possible of the food they are contributing from the nations that they are trying to help.

After the earthquake we saw a charicature of Haiti: Merchants sitting trying to sell their produce while banks did not yet function. Everybody was hungry, there was plenty of food, and nobody had any money. That's not so different from the macroeconomic picture in Haiti today. I encourage anybody who can do so in as kind a manner as possible to personally contact food ministries and aid organizations and suggest that they buy indigenous foods, seek to sharply discern the moment at which emergencies that demand relief are no longer emergencies, and strive to develop agriculture in places of hunger. Call Lifeline Christian Mission. Call Feed My Starving Children. Don't call Landmark Christian Church (We've already overwhelmed them from Facebook traffic). Contact the news station that ran the Landmark Church peanut butter story. Definitely contact your favorite orphanage or charity in Haiti and tell them that you want to help them find ways to spend your money to purchase local goods so that your giving doesn't further break the Haitian economy. Make a big no-strings attached financial donation to show your unconditional support. (People don't make positive decisions for change when they feel controlled by somebody's funds, they make changes because you care and are committed to them, no matter what they do). At the Apparent Project we are working on making it easier for organizations to find locally produced items and will soon blog a list of resources along those lines. In the meantime, if you are thinking about sending something to Haiti, a good place to start looking for indigenous Haitian alternative products is haiti.buildingmarkets.org or the local "509 Business directory" that is available in print at locations such as Handal. Your money will go a lot farther if you don't have to ship something and if you don't undercut the local economy.

If you want to help address the broad malnourishment and emergency food needs in Haiti, the best option, in my opinion, is to buy Medika Mamba for local distribution from Meds and Food for Kids, or to make a donation to their overall mission. Medika Mamba ("Peanut Butter Medicine") is amazing stuff. I have distributed this peanut butter after the earthquake and have seen my friends at Real Hope For Haiti save hundreds of lives using this completely Haitian-made miracle food. It tastes like a cross between a Power Bar and a Reese's peanut butter cup, and it makes skinny kids chunky (No, that's not Jackson's secret). Best of all, Medika Mamba undercuts the root causes of malnutrition by providing jobs and sustainable agriculture to Haiti.

I would FULLY support Lifeline and Landmark Christian Church's efforts if they were purchasing and distributing Haitian made peanut butter instead of spending a ton of money on shipping containers of American peanut butter to a country with the capacity to produce peanuts and loads of excellent peanut butter. Americans pack Haitian peanut butter back to the states in their suitcases because the stuff is so good. Some of it is made with a spicy pepper added to give it a real creole kick. Heck, Haitians even write songs about their peanut butter! There are many local peanut butter producers, such as REBO (who also makes some of the best coffee in the world) or PIDY, not to mention hundreds of local ma & pa mamba makers that sell in the grocery stores. You can even order Haitian mamba online to be delivered in a gift basket with other Haitian foods: http://haititrading.com/Goupam/index.html

George Washington Carver, the freed slave and inventor who re-discovered peanut butter and revolutionized farming practices in the south, once said, "Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. Not only have I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets, but I have found that when I silently commune with people they give up their secrets also – if you love them enough." This is such perfect wisdom for those who wish to help the poor. Don't treat the poor like a problem. When we hear "malnourishment" let's not think of skinny kids with gaping baby bird mouths grasping and gasping for food. The only answer to this image is food. But if we treat starving people as people before we treat them as an issue, we will get at their secret. Let's ask, why are they starving? More importantly, let's ask THEM. Let's love people enough to speak their language and serve them according their needs and their requests. Haitians are asking for education and jobs far more than they are looking for handouts. Let's listen to them. Poverty is almost always avoidable. Our earth is too rich and ready to burst forth life for poverty and starvation to be natural. God didn't abandon anybody to poverty... other forces have separated the poor from the bounty that is readily under their feet. We must love the poor to get at their secret and team up with them so that they can liberate themselves from the internal and external forces that make them hungry. This love for the poor, attention to creation, and quite a bit of prayer, is exactly how George Washington Carver discovered so many uses for the peanut in the first place.

When Jesus told his disciples to be the "salt of the earth", I think he meant to be the spice of life, people of taste, people that bring out the best in others, people that keep the odor of death from touching the sweet things of life, people that preserve what nourishes so that it doesn't go to waste... Unfortunately, often in spite of our best intentions, we Christians can sometimes end up being more like stinging salt in the world's eyes, and its wounds. Of the many tears we see in Haiti, more than I'd like to say are flowing as an indirect result of the uninformed actions of the Church and others who come to help. It doesn't have to be this way. I hope that this blog will inspire action and more thoughtful help from those of you who, like myself, want their life to be lived in the love of God, creation, and humanity.

by Corrigan Clay

Some thoughts..

noreply@blogger.com (Shelley Clay) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 03:57:00 +0000

Four figures lay in the shadows as I cracked the door to the basket weavers house in the backyard open. A petite young mother, her younger sister, and two baby girls lay in the darkness. She had been beaten and had fled to the artisan center to hide where she had made a bed for the babies on the concrete and then called me to tell me where she was. I quickly came down to the artisan center and found them all there, lying on nothing but a spread out sheet that they had brought with them from their home- babies sound asleep. The young mother's shoulder was swollen up where she had been beaten with a stick. Apparently her "marie", her boyfriend/husband, has another lady who is also pregnant. This will be his sixth child with three different woman and he is only 24 years old.
The thing is, he is not a bad guy. He is a guy who is struggling to make ends meet, fighting over where to spend the money, and unfortunately not fighting some of the cultural norms for men here. It is not uncommon to have several women, it is not uncommon to have many kids with several "wives", and it is not uncommon to have domestic violence be the norm.
I can't say how many times women have come running to the artisan house with their heads bleeding, or lumps on their backs because they hadn't come home promptly from a shopping trip, or had found their man with someone else.
It is something I just don't really know how to deal with. How do you change a culture? How do you teach someone something at 30 that we would have learned at age 4.. don't bite, don't hit girls, don't steal, don't lie....and how do I stand here knowing that I would probably full well do the same thing if I had the same enormous pressures on me for survival? How do I not judge, but also not be ok with it? How do I make this better?
These are the things that I think about in the pauses between the amazing things that we get to experience here. It is just one of the many hard things that I was never exposed to in the states to this degree. It makes me sit in silence and think. And everyonce in a while I pick up the computer and want to share these moments with you....

Fair Trade? How about B.E.A.N. trade?

noreply@blogger.com (Shelley Clay) — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 06:00:00 +0000

Let me first start by saying that life in Haiti (or should I say life in general) has left me disillusioned with a lot the past few years. My first experiences with orphanages and the quantity of kids in them with parents who love them led us to start the Apparent Project-an artisan initiative to keep families together and help end -to the capacity that we could- child relinquishment with poverty as the determining cause. My disillusionment in Haiti has only continued by the way that I have witnessed food aid kill the farming industry, clothing handouts kill more industry, medical aid shut down hospitals, religion linked with handouts kill the core values of those religions, school sponsorships breed a large quantity of bad schools in order to receive that sponsored aid. etc.. etc.. (and my heart desperately wants to see the good in all of this).
The disillusionment only continued as we began our artisan program and started to work with and get exposed to various "fair trade" organizations that approached us to carry our artisans' work.
Some of my first set of shocks came from some of the most notable fair trade companies explaining that they could get necklaces similar to what we were making in Africa for as little as 50 cents per necklace. My head went into a dizzy spin the first time I heard this. Are they trying to low ball Haitian workers by bragging about how they are successfully low balling poor Africans in order to get us to lower our prices? What in the world? Fair Trade? A quick look at some of the price points on these "Fair Trade" websites show a mark-up of 10-50 times what they paid for the item. Wow.. quite the impressive sales gimmick isn't it?
Now don't get me wrong, but the time an item for sale is made, marketed, transported, re-marketed, had signs put on it, been placed in a well lighted air-conditioned store, paid the driver and the salesperson- a lot of people have to be paid along the way. There is no getting around that. What I don't like is when companies who consider themselves "fair trade" seek to remain competitive by pushing the price point down at the most critical link in the chain- with the poor artisan who made the darn thing.
Let me spell it out for you. If an item was going to be listed in the store as fair trade and the wholeseller could get away with paying 50 cents for the item to the laborer who made it, but was selling it to the retailer for $12 and then the retailer was marking it up to $36 for the consumer- what if instead of trying to negotiate 50 cents for the piece, they instead paid $1.50 for the piece at the beginning and absorbed that cost at the end selling it for $13.50 wholesale and then $37.50 retail?
Would you buy a piece of fair trade household good item or accessory that you knew the artisan who made it was actually getting triple what could have been paid but only costs a fraction of the cost more for you? Of course you would.. that's what "fair trade" is all about. It's about letting people be able to rise above the poverty line and not exploiting them for our own luxurious spending.
Now economists (and factory owners) who are a lot smarter than I am will tell me why the world will come crashing down with the reckless rising of prices to a reasonable wage for the poor, but i can't say that I'm buying it from where I'm sitting.
Here's what I am thinking. Screw Un-Fair Trade. I have come up with my own standard of paying something that is competitive, marketable and doable.
B.E.A.N. trade.
BASIC EVERYDAY AVERAGE NEEDS- trade.
I'm talking about what it takes to meet your basic needs as a family.. to put the "beans" on the table everday. In Haiti, at least in Port Au Prince, for my artisans, this works out to be about $300 per month- or $15 per work day. This is an extravagant TRIPLE the minimum wage in Haiti -just to be able to feed your family appropriately, pay rent on a one room shack with a tin roof, and send 2-3 kids to a semi-literate school. (We're not even touching emergency medical needs, transportation, church clothes or any of those things...)
My experience as we were striving to employ people is that EVEN THOSE WITH JOBS were looking for orphanages to give their children to because they couldn't take care of them. A worker in one of the local orphanages is getting paid $60 per month because her meals are also included in the salary. Her FIVE children are at home starving. What is she supposed to do when she sees the kids in the orphanage getting three meals per day? This is a no-brainer for a loving mom.
BEAN Trade works like this. For our artisans, we take a piece of jewelry, a basket, a metal work piece, or a purse and we observe our artisans at work. We find out the average production total per day of each individual item, divide that by $15 per day and BAM.. we have BEAN trade... families who can pay for their lunch AND their kids to go to school.
Let me break this down a little further. If an artisan can make 30 pairs of earrings in one day comfortably, we pay them 50 cents per earring. If we were simply "fair trade" we could pay them 16 cents per earring. The difference is 34 cents per earring. When we go to sell this pair of earrings to a retail store, we figure out our costs for materials and overhead costs and sell this pair of earrings for about $2 per earring to the retailer instead of the 1.67 that we could get away with at a "fair trade" cost. The retailer doesn't balk too much about the difference and happily marks up that earring to between 5-10 bucks, where you, the consumer, are happily wearing a piece of jewelry for the same price you just spent on your mocha frappuccino and you don't even know that you are enabling a family to be able to shelter themselves, feed their kids, and send them to school because of the 34 cents that got added in at the bottom of that price scale.
That is what we do with our piecework at Apparent Project. We make sure that everyone has the ability to work in order to pay for their basic everyday average needs in Haiti. BEAN TRADE.
Now to make things even more complicated, and wonderful... and even better for our artisans, we also have our HOME party option. THIS ROCKS MY WORLD. You know why? Because there is no retail middle man. We pay our artisan currently 60% of what sells at a home party. We use the other 40% to cover shipping, quality control, daily meals for our artisans, and our other overhead costs of running the artisan center. At this 60% earnings, that same artisan who made that pair of earrings for 50 cents (at triple the minimum wage) can sell it to you directly with no retail middle man and make a whopping $3-$6 per earring depending on how much you paid for it. It is these kind of home party sales that has allowed Makilene (last year covered in scabies and looking for an orphanage for her five children) to purchase her first two room home this year. It has allowed Sonia, mother of five to purchase her first land this year. It has allowed Joceline the privilege of being able to afford a wedding after 18 years and five children with the same man. It has allowed Frenel to be able to buy a motorcycle and start up a moto-taxi business. It is the home party sales that are allowing our artisans to rise ABOVE their basic every day needs and change the course of their lives.
So whether you buy our items in retail stores or through home parties, rest assured.. what we are doing is more than FAIR..... It's BEAN trade (and yes you look lovely in those earrings!).

A day in the life of...

noreply@blogger.com (Shelley Clay) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 04:23:00 +0000

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.

Today 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 own 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 prisoners 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.

"The flood"

noreply@blogger.com (Apparent Project) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 22:06:00 +0000

Please read this and share it with your friends ASAP, as it contains time critical information. If you don't have time, just skip down to the bottom and read the LARGE text...

By Corrigan Clay

5 days ago I was driving down Delmas (Port Au Prince's equivalent of a "Main Street") listening to the scratch of my crippled windshield wiper vainly fluttering its way through the rain that obscured my vision, when my mind began to wander. Now, normally a wandering mind and driving in Haiti are a deadly mix, but when it rains, nobody in Haiti drives, so the apocalyptic landscape void of humanity in front of me only lent itself to deeper mental meanderings. Something about rain on glass always reminds me of tears. Maybe the association was inevitable for me, having grown up in Oregon and Washington with many losses in my early life. In America, when people ask me normal questions about my family, I always hesitate to answer. Small talk inquiries like, "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" inevitably thicken the air as I explain my only brother's fast and unsuccessful battle with Leukemia, my parents' subsequent divorce, and my father's remarriage... and death 3 weeks later in a plane crash. Perhaps my dad's greatest gift to me was a spark of humor, because I'd always need it to light up the gloom after telling our family's story. Some poor innocent bystanders trying to make chit chat have looked as if they needed therapy after asking for my family trivia.

Here in Haiti, however, my story is not a unique sob story, but the norm, and I don't have to couch my words as I talk to Haitian friends. I am in good company. Everybody has lost a mother, father, brother, or sister... and this was true before the earthquake... every tranquil smiling Haitian face obscures deep currents of grief within.

As I stare at my windshield I remember those moments of tragedy and loss in Haiti that I have witnessed first hand. Crying is often forbidden, even by messengers delivering the news of fresh loss. "Your mother is dead. Stop crying. Stop IT!" On the rare occasions that I've seen Haitians cast off the conventions of emotional suppression, it has been a spectacle: whooping, flopping, screaming, ripping, tearing, fainting, and throwing fists... pandemonium. As I watch each droplet find a companion with which to descend, I wonder what it would look like if Haiti had tears, and the thought is frightful. This unrelenting rain would surely not be sufficient. Only the drips that commingle and unify gain enough weight to leave my windshield.

The next few days are exciting. Donna Karan's "Urban Zen" initiative for Haiti teams up with Hugh Jackman, a Ralph Lauren model/polo player named Nacho Figueras, and the Veueve Clicquot champagne company to host a benefit polo match on Governors' island in New York, naming the Apparent Project along with big groups like Partners in Health and Yele' Haiti as benefactors. We don't know what this will mean for Apparent jewelry sales or charitable contributions, but Donna has asked us what we might need to expand into ceramic bead production and expansion of our training and employment initiatives. A friend casually comments about this announcement on our facebook status, "the flood is coming". The phrase struck me as odd, because I didn't know what she meant. I think she was speaking optimistically about sales and donations, as she had noticed that our jewelry was prominently displayed at the event, which broke records for numbers of people on Governors' Island.

Then it rained harder.

Our back yard began to flood, doves finding refuge with our mud-caked chickens inside of their coop. Soon the roof-top balcony flooded, almost 2 feet of standing water and mounting faster than the drainage pipes could accomodate. Our office and bedroom began to leak through long-forgotten earthquake cracks. We called artisans' cell phones and heard that many had left their homes because the creek in Clerville had usurped its boundaries and flushed the neighborhood with a lake of mud. Shelley went to help and to see the damage. Many families lost all of their clothing, food, and cash to the flood. Animals that had been tied up had drowned, their owners busily butchering their carcasses to avoid a complete loss. One of the properties that we had considered purchasing to develop homes for those still in tents had washed away completely. When we asked our artisans what people needed, they said, "Tout bagay. Yo pa gen anyen anko." They need everything... they don't have anything anymore.

As the kids played on our balcony-turned-pool, oblivious to the traumatic sight down in the ravine below, Shelley carted off all of the clothes that we could part with to provide some warmth to families whose wardrobes now lay under the mud. Shelley walked through the community and took the pictures you see on the left of this post. Our artisans are in a mess.

We are unceasing advocates for development in Haiti, and we look at relief with caution. Most short term work, relief efforts, and handouts have just crippled the Haitian economy and stolen dignity, initiative, and autonomy from Haitians in poverty. But now, this week, is the time. For much of the community we serve, this is exactly the time for a brief, but vital gift of food, clothing and, shelter. That brings us to some exciting news...

For the next 72 hours, the first $10,000 raised for Apparent Project flood relief will be matched by a grant from Haiti Serve!

Donations will provide food, clothing, and blankets to those in need of immediate relief. Any leftover funds will provide tent city dwellers with land and homes. The deadline for this matching grant is by midnight on Sunday, June 10.

Donate at http://www.apparentproject.org/contribute.html and indicate "flood Relief" on the paypal notes section. Thanks!

Things are still nuts around here.

noreply@blogger.com (The Apparent Project) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 05:15:00 +0000

This week has been about as bipolar as it can get.

Good: Inga Swope and crew has been here for the last 10 days getting her 3seams.com children's clothing and accessories project off the ground. Check her out. It's awesome.

Bad: Cholera is rearing it's ugly head again.

Amazing: AP was represented at Governor's Island for a Polo match fund raiser by a champagne company that I can't spell or pronounce so won't try too, but a lot of amazing people were there including Hugh Jackman, Wyclef, Donna Karan and some other super fancy people who know how to act at polo matches. The event broke the record for # of people on Governor's Island.. so this could be a super boost! shout out to Caroline (again), Isabelle, Jojo and Donna herself for taking a second look at what we are doing in Haiti.

Bad: Two nights ago, I spent most of the night in the ER with Naomi (one of our artisans) who had been stabbed in the leg with re bar by her jerk neighbor. Inga heard the brawl and called me to come down to see what was going on. Clerville was a mess. Many people were wounded in the fighting over emptying the latrine. Seriously? While at the ER I witnessed a man die, his wife go into hysterics, a army officer having a heart attack, a woman suffering a miscarriage who went into seizures and bit her tongue off and two major stitch jobs from attacks with random weapons (glass bottles and re bar).

Amazing: Edna had her baby. It's a little boy and she named him Gustav by my suggestion. It is fun getting to name babies in Haiti. For some reason Haitians are much less uptight on what to name their kids ( no baby name book industries coming up with names like Marjorama and Starlight).. so I thought of a good German name for a Haitian kid and I guess she liked it. Welcome to the world baby Gustav!

Blah: Our car is a disaster. The breaks went out three times in the last two weeks. Corrigan actually got hit, then I cleverly lent someone the car (who said he could drive) and got a phone call 15 minutes later with the news that he had hit a garden, a wall, a person and another car. Sweet. Guess who has to pay for that? Amazingly, despite the grinding whirring noises, it's still getting us around. It managed to get Naomi to the ER, but I am still hoping for an upgrade soon. While waiting, I decided to start painting it sort of tap-tapish... I don't think it could be devalued at this point..so might as well have fun pimping my flintstone-mobile. word.

Awesome: Got a retail catalogue almost ready to go for stores wanting to sell AP jewelry. Anyone? Give me a call and we'll hook you up.

Beauty

noreply@blogger.com (Shelley Clay) — Tue, 10 May 2011 05:36:00 +0000

This woman has no teeth. Her eyes are unproportionately large, her hair, pure grey. She obviously skipped her last few sessions of botox, is half the height of a super model, can't remember who she is, has huge calloused feet from walking in the dirt barefoot her whole life, has nothing really to offer in terms of productiveness or service, her hands are crooked and wrinkled, she has no womanly figure to speak of any more. And she is the most beautiful, breathtaking thing that I laid eyes on this year.

Her name is Latina.

What is it about brokenness, about things ancient, used up and yet still somehow unchanged that is so attractive over time?

I feel the same way about Haiti, about the earthquake rubble, about the lady in my neighborhood with stubs for arms, the precious little girl with orange skin, the piles of trash to pick through for new recycling ideas, the teasingly inconsistent everything here, and the way that my life in Haiti only half accomplishes what it should in three times as long. It has become my place of rest. This broken country so beautiful to me.

I loved China. The efficiency, the cleanliness, the amazing streamlined production, the meticulous importing and exporting of everything, the starched collared guards at every corner. But it was not home. It was not comfortable. It was not something to sink into. Haiti is comfortable to me.

The thought of this scares me as I know that in order for Haitians to someday move past the bondage of poverty, things have to change. Marketing, importing, music, clothing, internet, jobs, food.. it's all changing. People are being trained, leaders rising up, tents going down, buildings going up. And all of it is so tearfully good. So good.

But there is something to the idea of timelessness. Of leaving a piece of the Berlin Wall in tact, the sacred space of Ground Zero undisturbed, the scar from a horrible childhood incident not erased, the broken pieces of your heart still on your sleeve that brings something living and real to what the fabric of Haiti is.

May Haiti be all that she can be. May Haiti rise up to be the cool breeze that refreshes the Caribbean and blesses the world with her beauty, people, and culture as her kids start to receive education, her moms and dads fill their calling to work, the young and old alike need not die for lack of medical care, and her plants and animals need not be broken and abused anymore.

But may she never lose her wrinkles, her scars, her weathered feet that bring all that she is becoming into a new kind of beauty. She is not broken to beautiful, but rather beauty because of her brokenness.

She is my Latina.

And may the stunningly gorgeous Latina live to be 300 years old (if she's not already) so that every time I venture into the paradise of the Furcy mountains, I can see her face and melt in her glow.

http://mafkrul.blogspot.com/

noreply@blogger.com (Shelley Clay) — Fri, 06 May 2011 11:37:00 +0000

No Trouble in Big China

noreply@blogger.com (Apparent Project) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 02:55:00 +0000

My travels to China went off without a hitch… just barely. Four flights, one jog to a connecting flight and one full out sprint to a connecting flight landed us safely in Hong Kong on Sunday night. My travel buddy is Wilhelmina Krul- awesome helper of the seamstress program, designer of our IPAD bag, MAF pilot wife and all around amazing girl who is pretty much 50% smarter than I am, so it works well for me to have her around in times where a lot of thought is required.

We were immediately impressed with China. Perhaps coming from a culture of complete chaos has softened our expectations, but the Chinese got it going on. They are beyond efficient. It is almost as if they all have computer chips implanted inside their brains to know how to be the most helpful possible. Two people in line is one too many. Get off the train and pick your choice of hotel, sim card, taxi, translator, banking service, or vending machine within steps of your arrival. Ask and you shall receive. The Chinese are incredible. Their service, work ethic, attention to detail, architecture etc. is phenomenal...and beautiful. I am impressed.

Day 1:

So the first day at the Canton fair was intense. I can’t begin to describe the enormity of the fair. It is five stories high and I've been told it is 9 football fields long. It is a labyrinth of everything. Everything. Everything you have ever seen in your whole life is at the Canton Fair. It is all made in China and it is here. Everything. It was like shopping on steroids times a thousand. I really can’t explain it. It was exhausting. We walked for hours before we got the bright idea to try to use the computer to find the bead vendors. It turns out however that although the Canton Fair has everything, the bead vendors must have slept in because there was only a handful in the gazillion booths that sold beads. I was discouraged. I was thinking several thoughts all at once:

1. What on earth does the world need 400,000 different kind of nativities sets for and where are the beads?

2. I am freaking tired and jetlagged and have been walking for miles and have 150 people depending on me and I can’t find any beads.

3. Oh cool they have McDonald’s and Papa Johns. And coffee.

Day 2:

We found a smidgeon of awesome beads. I started to work with one of the vendors to buy some of their beads and they said a minimum quantity would be 3000. Wow. That’s a lot of money for one kind of bead. We were still game for this kind of purchasing but decided to go check out one of the factories that I had the address for before sinking all of our dough on five different kinds of beads.

We took the subway and a taxi over to a main square.. think Times square or something like that only lit up with all the colors of the rainbow and a TV screen about as big as Mt Everest. We walked into this mall – a gigantic six story super mall of all amazingness- and waited for someone to meet us to take us into the nether regions of the mall for a factory tour. Apparently a billion people need a lot of clothes because this mall was ginormous. We slipped into an ally way filled with watches, shoes, clothes, Hello Kitty everything and then it happened.

First one, then another, then I fell into a sea of ultimate bliss and happiness. Bead stores as far and wide and high as the eye could see. Literally. Bizillions. Quadrillions of the most beautiful things you have ever laid eyes on. My joy was uncontainable. I could not believe it. Seriously.

We found the factory store for the beads that I need for our signature piece, but my mind was blown for what else we will be able to bring back. Words cannot express how many beads were in this hole in the wall ally in Guangzhou China.

Next task- shipping and textiles. I will be spending the remainder of my time here trying to figure out regular shipping and also searching for fabric for our sewing program (no textiles are currently made in Haiti in any kind of quantity). We also have the 3^rd session of the Canton Fair to still go to, a possible trip to a Chinese orphanage lined up, and maybe also getting to visit a Chinese Church on Sunday. My mind has once again been blown away by another culture- another group of amazing people representing their maker by the things that they do well. They are to be commended.

More to come…

Don't read this if you're even a little tired...it's long and tedious.

noreply@blogger.com (Shelley Clay) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 13:35:00 +0000

Spring is the time that people in the retail world are thinking about CHRISTMAS. I remember this clearly from working in an awesome gift shop ( where I probably got a lot of my marketing intuition- at least what I do have- thanks Dan and Danette Willis for that) called Commnique up on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. I would watch Christmas stuff being surfed and ordered in the spring, arriving in late summer, pricing, packaging and selling in the fall and winter, and putting things on clearance for the new year. The year revolves around the holidays in the states- where what we buy determines most everything- and although I hope to never go to that extreme in our little boutique, I can't help but trying to remember that there is a Christmas coming and it is a great chance for our artisans to use those sales to buy land, build a house, put their kids in school, get out of a tent, put food on the table, help other kids in their neighborhoods, buy a motorcycle, start a business or something else that might really change their lives. It would be so cool if Americans buying Haitian products could provide the relief that they need rather than just giving handouts that get 80% swallowed by CEO salaries and overhead costs. If you or your group are interested in hosting a Christmas boutique with artisan goods from Haiti this fall... put it on your calendar and let us know. You can have a direct impact on the economic livelihood of Haiti AND get a really cool gift for that someone special at the same time! My christmas ramblings have a point. There is much going on at the AP artisan center and a lot of it has to do with gearing up for more production, Christmas sales, and more people getting on their feet with a steady job. Here are some of the main points: 1. We have been visited by Donna Karan (DKNY)four times now and it looks like her humanitarian company Urban Zen is going to use their clout to help us get beads at cheaper cost from China, market a few cetain select necklaces, and keep tabs on us to see how they might help with business advice. Along with Donna Karan, I have had the pleasure of talking to Joey Adler (Diesel Jean Company), the famously talented JoJo- small business start-up expert, the International Development Bank folks, Greg Milne from the Clinton foundation, and many others who have offered me hours of unbelievable business advice. They are all some of our biggest cheerleaders and I find myself feeling like a two year old learning to walk in their presence. They are not giving AID to us or to Haiti... they are offering their knowledge so that we, together with our artisans can run a successful and organically grown artisan program that can give jobs to as many Haitians as possible. 2. We are streamlining jewelry production. While we have always had beaders who just beaded, and jewelry makers (who although they know how to make the beads, prefer to buy the beads from the beaders), we decided to organize our troops to make the most effective use of space (180 artisans do not fit in the house) and time. We built a small house (shack?) just inside the gate of the guest house. People in the neighborhood who have proven that they know how to make great beads ( and almost everyone can now) will be free to buy supplies for beadmaking and sell their beads at our gate. We will have someone in charge of selling supplies ( our wonderful JANO) and someone in charge of quality control of the beads ( our amazing ELINORD). This will allow all beaders to work from home and not have to come in to use the cutting machines or anything else. Inside the house, we will have paper cutters around the clock, cutting paper to sell at the gate. This streamlines the process preventing a line up around the paper cutters. We will pay the paper cutters with the money the beaders pay for the precut paper. The jewelry makers will have free access to the house where they can come work, buy supplies, price and tag their jewelry and enjoy a daily lunch with their children. This system is almost entirely in place and so far seems to be working quite well... 3. I ( Shelley) am going to China this Friday to see about regular shipments of supplies for both our jewelry making, but also our sewing program. i am very excited about what I might come across on our trip ( I will be going with Wilhelmina Krul- MAF pilot's wife here in Haiti who has been working with our seamstresses). I'm really hoping to find some great fabric, great cheap glass beads and get some ongoing contacts in China. Although we are currently buying a lot of our supplementary beads in China, the goal really is to open a ceramic bead and glass bead ( lampwork beads) studio under the umbrella of the AP. We need to find good teachers and start up supplies for this and the sky is the limit!!!! 4. AP artisans are multiplying via our partnerships with other organizations in Haiti. We are training and mutually marketing artisan goods with some of these great organizations: Three Angels Children's Relief, the Restavek Freedom Foundation, and Christian Reformed Church as well as several other Haitian run ministries working to serve the poor in Haiti. I think that a boom of paper jewelry is about to come out of Haiti... what a cool thing to be a part of ! I think that's about it for now. Many people asking me about the ins and outs of how we do things and although it is a continuously changing process, that's where we are at right now. Thank you for your interest in supporting the economic developement of Haiti, where somewhere between 70-90% unemployment is unbearable. Mesi Ampil!

Nothing to say really..

noreply@blogger.com (The Apparent Project) — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 00:22:00 +0000

Some days I have this modge podge of thought that I want to somehow get out there and share. Here it goes...

While I was out on a walk to look at some houses that were being built I found an elderly lady sitting up on the fence by the side of the road fast asleep. It struck me (in many ways) and in good form (of course) I proceeded with my photo shoot. I think my Haitian friends got a kick out of it in that same sort of way one might get a kick out of a politically incorrect joke, but I thought she was beautiful and the moment deserved to be captured. I hope you see what I saw.

We got a whole box of size 4xl men's button down flannel shirts donated and although it was fun to imagine how many Haitians you could put in one of those shirts we decided to go an alternate route and we washed them in boiling coffee to distress them with the thought of possibly making them into coin purses instead. It wasn't the smashing success that we anticipated and the shirts smelled kind of funny afterwards, but it was fun making our washh lady's head spin by the process itself. This and a bunch of new creative ideas have been ignited with a visit from Donna Karan to our AP house last week. Already some new products are brewing and I am so excited to see what will be happening with our artisans next year!

Today I did payroll. It is getting scarier and scarier with the amount that is going out every other week. I keep wondering how I can keep ourselves safe when the whole community knows that it is payday at the AP house. I joked with Junior that from now on he gets to carry the money. A selfless act of course. Today's payday winner: a beader took home $1000 US for turning in 40,000 beads in two weeks. Of course I asked him how he pulled that off ( besides wandering off with my paper cutter) and he informed me that he has 8 employees and has rented a room in a house for production- now that's ingenuity!

That lead me to my next interesting factoid for the day. I decided to be type A (as much as possible) and do some statistics on our artisans. As they were getting paid, I asked them a series of questions- how many kids, whether they were in school, whether they lived in a house and also how many employees they had themselves working for them making beads. It was interesting to find out that only 2 of our 150 artisans reported not having ALL of their kids in school. Wow. Awesome. Also interesting was that most of our jewelry makers are now all in houses, verses the bead makers- who are still primarily in tents. It may be reading too much into it to think that the fact that the jewelry makers have been around longer and probably have had more time to save and get out of a tent situation.. but it did appear to have some correlation and may be also a good indication of some postive change in our neighborhood.

Another very interesting result of my type A moment was in realizing how much outsourcing of work is going on. We have 150 people who have badges and work out of our house. Those 150 artisans reported to have another 180 employees that they paid themselves to help them produce more quickly. There are also a whole bunch of people who have figured out the art of bead making who are freelancing and/ or selling beads to us independently. With this in mind, it is not inconceivable that there could be 500 or more people earning money, sending their kids to school, getting out of tents because of the artisan community that has been created. So exciting and humbling to see the growth that is happening and feel so much like I am just along for the ride. The Haitian train is moving like a steam roller picking up speed.. watch out world. I think you're going to be impressed.

On a disturbing sidenote. We have a maltese that is in serious love with our rotteweiler. There is no need to explain the birds and the bees to our kids anymore.

Sunday has a lot in store. Donna Karan will be back in town and wants to meet again. Still floored. Along with her, she will have her friend Joey, the owner of the Diesel Jean company and the founder of the One by One campaign. They will be outsourcing the production of their promotional bracelets to AP artisans! Very excited for this connection. With their bracelet promotions they both employ Haitians but also raise money through the sales for humanitarian needs in Haiti. It's fun to be getting so connected with people who can do so much so quickly because they are so well networked.

China has been on my mind lately. Been spending a lot of time figuring out logistics of how to import directly. A trip to the Canton Fair might be in the works for the end of April. If we are going to keep up on orders and be sustainable, we need to get our supplementary beads from the source! Or... we could start a ceramic/seed bead factory in Haiti, which would be so much more fun..... maybe....

Corrigan has been running around filming, photographing, designing, and rubbing shoulders with a lot of people interested in the development of Haiti and particularly housing developement. It's hard to create a housing community and expect that the residents will be able to repay their house when nobody has jobs. We are looking into partnering with some land/housing developers and creating the job market to enable people to buy their own house. I still have an artisan community on the brain.... would love to see much more tourism here. It deserves to be here. Haitians are incredible and incredibly creative. Criox de Bouquet is enough to prove that point-a tinker town of people pounding recycled tin oil drums into beautiful pieces of art work. Check out our web store for some products that have come straight from some of these artisans that we have been networking with.

My kids are funny. Jackson has decided clothes are the bomb. I have decided that he is the bomb because I don't have to dress him anymore. Ember has ringworm on her head and is looking like some kind of inverse Hare Krishna. Her bald patch is stunning. Zebedee has decided that red lipstick and high heels are pretty (on me of course--- not that he's ever seen me in them), and only wants to play with guns, swords, dinosaurs, and video games. I guess he's all boy. Keziah is growing so fast and approaching 8 years old. She is loving school and is finally starting to catch up on reading and some of the academics that got put by the wayside with last years earthquake.

The days are generally beyond full for us, the possibilites seem endless, the emotions are unbearable sometimes, the mosquitos are relentless, the neverending summer is wonderful, the Hatian people exceed and exceed and exceed my expectations, and the times of rest and relaxation are so needed and cherished. After almost three years, I am more in love with this country than I've ever been. It is so nice to be right where I belong.

My upside down world...

noreply@blogger.com (Shelley Clay) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 03:17:00 +0000

The first shall be last.

Those who want to be the greatest must be the servant of all.

Unless you are willing to lose your life, you cannot save it.

I am paraphrasing of course, but the crazy reality of some of these truths have become so much more of a reality to me in the past few months.

It's an upside down world!

This morning I spent a good chunk of time with Donna Karan. The fashion designer.

I am not really sure how it happened, but a key person for the Apparent Project right now is a super cool chick named Caroline Sada who has a restaurant right by the embassy that serves all natural and fresh food! A sweet little restaurant, she gets all kinds of big wig traffic and she is one of those restaurant owners who knows everybody that comes in her door. She had fallen in love with our jewelry and our mission sometime around August and has been peddeling our stuff out of her restaurant to all kinds of big wigs. It has been through her that we have been able to sell and tell our story to celebrities such as Olivia Wilde (Tron and House) and Maria Bello (Grown Ups, Coyote Ugly, and ER).

A couple of days ago, Caroline called me and said that sme people from DKNY wanted to meet to look at the jewelry. I was flattered... but stunned when I found out that it was ACTUALLY Donna Karan and that she was looking for a "Haitian artisan" themed fashion line.

I have been spending a lot of time in tin shacks, tents, with sick people, starving people, desparate people, hurting people, abused people. I have been spending my last three years getting to know some of the poorest people in our hemisphere and I find it so extraordinarily astounding that in the midst of that, that I would have the opportunity to spend the morning with Donna Karan, have Maria grace our artisan house with her presence, and have red carpet Olivia Wilde pose for a shot with our little Molene who lives in a pup tent in a tent city of 5000. It boggles my mind.

So Donna Karan wants to do something with our jewelry. She wants to base some of her prints for her fashion line off of the color scheme of a few pieces so that people can wear our jewelry with some of her fashion line.... it was truly an extraordinary meeting and I am not sure I fully understand what just happened or what will happen.

I do know that she asked me if she could buy every piece out of our boutique.. I cringed as I know a few people who might be dissapointed if we were completely out of stock this week. So she settled for buying every piece that I had brought to show her- probably close to $2000 worth. Wow. cool.

My life is upside down. I run a business with 130 employees who can't figure out how not to poop on the floor of the bathroom. My goal in business is to minimize profits and maximize labor costs. I hurt alongside my friends as I am still grieving from earthquake aftermath, still seeing people struggle for their lives with cholera, still watching people get rained on because they don't have a roof over their heads, still trying to figure out whether I should confront our street boys for consulting with a Voodoo priest, still listening to my neighbor lady get her head bashed against the cement as they try to exorcize her demonic manifestations, still coming up with design ideas for what our artisans can make to add a few more dollars to their pockets, still trying to send my emails with attachments that take one hour to upload, still waiting on the airport to shut down because Aristede might be coming this week, still trying to drive my car with no shocks or brakes or air conditioning or windshield wipers, and yet in the midst of this wacked out life, there are GREAT things happening.. beyond what I could have ever imagined. I look forward to what is to come....

Blessed are the poor.

It is with the poor that I have found my greatest and most humbling blessings.

Let me be real...

noreply@blogger.com (The Apparent Project) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 02:29:00 +0000

I'm scared today. I usually feel like I could joke my way out of most situation but not today. The word on the street is that I may be in danger. I can't even tell you how many people every single day that I turn down for work. It is coming back to bite me.
Despite the fact that we have 130 people in our area with good jobs, now I have ten times that many who are mad that it isn't them.
This week I haven't had the car. I have been walking with Ember in the backpack and Zebedee and Jackson on each side down my dusty streets with money in my backpack and wondering.. what if? what if today someone is mad enough to do something vindictive?
It isn't safe and I really don't know what to do? Close up shop? Ignore it? Get an armed guard.
(I can't tell you how much I hate that idea).
The self destructiveness of jealousy haunts me. How do I get people to be patient? I know full well that if things progress.. many many more people in our area will have jobs. Will they destroy it before it comes to it's fruition? I've thought about talking to the local pastors and soliciting their help.. I am examining myself too. How many times have I treated another begging face at the gate like a nuisance? It gets so draining day after day... but these people are real people with real kids to feed. And I can't do anything for them. And now I may pay for it. I can't even begin to say how discouraging this is....

Promised LAND

noreply@blogger.com (Apparent Project) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 19:42:00 +0000

"She was standing right here last night. How could she be GONE?!"
Shelley turned to me in the hallway in front of the artisan house kitchen. The incredulous look on her face hadn't changed since she had received the news. 16 hours prior Vesline's mom had been standing right over there: a bright-eyed grandma cooing over her beautiful new grandson, and now she was being cremated. This strand of cholera works its evil quickly.

Vesline is a 17-year-old Apparent Project jewelry artisan. As her pregnancy progressed Shelley urged her to move out of her mud-crusted tent into one of the rooms in the artisan house to provide her a safer, cleaner, and more restful transition into life with a baby. We have done this before, and currently we have 6 more pregnant artisans living in similarly grave situations. Vesline's little family moved in just after the birth of baby Pierre. Vesline had been in her cozy blue room sharing meals and trading baby-cuddle time with her attentive boyfriend since her mom's visit. The neighborhood hummed with the rumor that her mom had died, but nobody wanted to tell her. She sat smiling over her newborn child, unaware that she herself had just been orphaned.

Shelley decided to do the difficult job of bringing Vesline the news. As Shelley and Vesline cried together, Vesline said, “I’m all alone now, I don’t have anything, and I don’t have anybody.”

“You have me”, Shelley responded through tears, reminding Vesline that she also has a job, a man who appears to want to remain faithful, and for now she has a bed to sleep in.

Nearby in one of the larger tent cities in our neighborhood a rag-tag militia armed with stones recently threatened to destroy a makeshift medical clinic because they had admitted a patient infected with cholera. Police broke up the scene, but to my knowledge the clinic stopped admitting cholera patients after this confrontation. Cholera may make the neighbors nervous enough to throw rocks at the infected but it can't break down the dignity of a daughter's love for her mom. In fact, dignity was Vesline's primary concern for her mother. She asked Shelley to make sure her mother was given a proper burial.

Beyond ear-shot of Vesline, Shelley and I awkwardly rejoiced that she would not get her wish. While we grieve that Vesline will not have the opportunity to find the closure that a burial can provide, we are glad that the cremation of her mother will prevent her from being exploited by the morgue in the time of her greatest grief. We've seen it before. The corpses of the relatives of the poor are held for a ransom of exorbitant burial and funeral fees, pinning survivors between the shame of dishonoring the dead and the shame of begging every living body you know (or don't) for money to perform the compulsory ceremony. Somehow a culture of lavish funeral ceremonies has placed a guilt burden upon Haiti's poor. Recently Shelley spoke with a young mother whose daughter's body was going to be thrown in a trash pit if the single mother couldn't come up with $5,000 (U.S.).

I don’t know why Vesline’s mom didn’t seek help with us. If we had known she was sick, we would have given her the oral rehydration salts and antibiotics she needed. It would have been very easy to save her life. I can only guess that shame kept her from telling Vesline or us what was going on. Maybe she just didn't want to be a burden. Maybe she was ashamed of the symptoms. I don't know. I just know that she was gone without saying goodbye.

The Inheritance
When I was studying at Regent College, my days were spent reading, thinking, and praying through challenging and nourishing theological and artistic ideas that brought new clarity, simplicity, compassion and wonder to my life with God and people. I loved the experience, and I’m very thankful for it. But retrospectively, most classes and readings nourished me like a kind of daily bread: They were life-giving, necessary, and vital when consumed, they became a deep part of who I am, and then their flavor faded into memory and the mundane. Yesterday’s manna does not retain the freshness or continue to nourish sufficiently to meet the demands of today’s hungers. However, there are some thoughts from Regent that I still find myself chewing on today, like beef jerky for my life with Jesus.

One of the things, strangely enough, that I’m still chewing on from my days at Regent is the Biblical concept of inheritance. Sunday morning preachers will talk of the “inheritance of the nations” as a kind of code language for global evangelization, which sounds a little like conquest and plunder to the listening secular world. Or maybe they’ll talk about inheriting our “heavenly home in the sweet by-and-by”, which for me always brings about strange imaginings of white-robed Scandinavian-looking harpists floating past bobble-headed Precious Moments cherubs and softly high-fiving over the grace of their non-ambulatory locomotion. But maybe that’s just me. Anyway, the Biblical idea of inheritance is far more earthy, gritty, substantial, and real than all this. When the Bible talks about an inheritance, it’s something you can plant a garden in. The Biblical inheritance is all about land. It’s about a Kingdom that comes on Earth.

Lavinia Fontana, 1581: Jesus as gardener

Actually, land is an important theme throughout the entire Bible: Adam’s name, in Hebrew, means “red earth”… he is formed from “Adamah” (the earth). He and Eve are given the whole earth, with a particular commission as gardeners. The curse on them both for their sin is banishment from a productive garden and difficulty in bearing fruit wherever, uh, wherever... eh hem…. seeds are sewn. The blood of Abel cries out from the ground. A flood is sent to purify the ground. Babel’s skyscraper strays too far from the ground. Abraham steps out in faith in response to a promise of land. Israel is liberated from slavery in order to inherit land. She is called a “vineyard” by her prophets. The same prophets speak of a time when swords and spears will be turned into farm equipment. The prophecies of a coming Messiah promised the overthrow of a kingdom that had robbed land from Israel. Jesus used earth to heal blind eyes and stooped to scribble with his finger in the sand. He spoke in parables of seeds, soils, lilies, bushes, trees, fields, and harvests. He cursed the unproductive vine, and called himself both the vine and the source of irrigation. When he resurrects he is mistaken for a gardener. Paul calls him the second “red earth”. And the end of the story comes with the descent of a New Earth, un-cursed, productive without toil, owned by one VERY GOOD king who has banished a usurping dictator who was a thief, a killer, and a destroyer of property.

lego Esau trades his birthright for some chili

Poverty, according to Biblical economics, comes from humanity believing that it owns land, which is really the property of God. If we follow God’s land-use laws he promises a world in which "there will be no poor among you" (Deuteronomy 15:4). There are a few complexities to this law, but the general idea is very simple (see Leviticus 25 & Deuteronomy 15). Every family is supposed to have their own land on which they can sufficiently meet their needs. The seventh year was to be a Sabbath year in which fields were allowed to lay fallow, so that their nutrients could be restored (like crop circulation in modern farming). This land is supposed to be passed down the generations, ensuring that each family has sufficient wealth to live in peace. If a parent sells their land, they are condemning their children to poverty. Giving away your birthright is strictly forbidden because it introduces poverty and wealth dynamics, which erode the national security and alienate your children, usually ending in some form of slavery. If land is sold, or used to pay off a debt, or given up for any reason, it is supposed to be returned to the original family on the year of Jubilee (which comes every 49^th year). The year of Jubilee also comes with a broad cancellation of debts and the mandate that all slaves are freed and returned to their families.

"Baal"- semitic for "lord, owner, master, or keeper"

In contrast to this, Baal worship included adherence to Phoenician religious economic laws that commodified land and created a system of rent and landlords. Poverty and wealth would increase under these “statutes of Omri” because the rich would get richer on the backs of the poor through a system of debt without the checks & balances of the Jubilee year. Land would also be ruined because there was no Sabbath year to let the fields regain their nutrients. Baal was a weather god motivated by sacrifice, so if the depleted soil failed to yield crops, or if a drought ensued, an increase in animal sacrifices would follow, as well as conquests into new territories. Ecological destruction, slavery, war, and political control through hunger management were the expected results of this economic/religious system. This is what the story of Ahab, Jezebel and Naboth’s vineyards is all about (1 Kings 21-22, 2 Kings 9:7-10). It is what the prophet Micah rails against (Micah 2:2, 6:16). Baal was the god of rent and landlords. This is why the promised LAND had such weight in the minds of Israel and why stories of banishment, unfair wages, debt, slavery, and the purchase or sale of land have so much weight in the Biblical narrative. Let there be no doubt: The God of the Bible does not like it when people own more land than their family needs and then rent it out. He says this is what causes poverty. He wants everybody to have a bit of land. The land is not ultimately ours, it is His, and He has declared what he wants to do with it: END POVERTY.

So what does this have to do with Haiti?

I will spare you the long, politically charged history of land disputes in Haiti. You can read about that all over the internet if you want. Suffice it to say that all indigenous Haitians are descendants of slaves, Africans displaced from their land, and Haiti has had more than its share of landlords groping for power and property. I've heard that today, land disputes make up more than 80% of Haiti's court cases, and many murders and kidnappings have happened over land wars. The post-quake government still can't figure out who owns which land, so governmental development plans to house those displaced have not really materialized. The poor spend all of their resources on renting homes (if possible) while violent confrontations erupt regularly between landowners and squatters. Eventually the settlers of the tent cities (called "Internal Displacement Camps") will face many more confrontations with the owners of the land on which they dwell.
Generally, the poor of Haiti inherit nothing but a long history of redundant displacement and landlessness.

When I visited her a couple days after her mother’s death, Vesline asked me "Eske ou vle we manmanm ki te mouri"? ("Do you want to see my dead mother?") She is so proud of her little picture of her mother. It's probably the only inheritance Vesline will ever get. One image on a piece of paper. A little, desaturated, fading memory tucked into a cheap and poorly bound photo album. Vesline’s entire inheritance could be lost to just a few minutes of light rain, or a little bit too much exposure to sun. What are the chances that she’ll even be able to pass it on to Pierre?

Haiti needs a Jubilee. Getting land into the hands of the poor is the most basic step that can be taken to undercut the rampant poverty of this land. For our artisans this would mean that instead of paying for rent each year, they could afford to send their kids to a good school. Imagine the difference this could make!

In our home building efforts, we only build homes for people who own the land they live on. We know that if we built homes on rented land, the tenants would be kicked off as the landlords claimed the newly built homes, or they would be charged a higher rent for the land. Renewed land disputes are also a real danger if we build homes on land that previously held little value to the competing claims of multiple landlords. The slum area that we have served is running out of undisputed land in the hands of the poor. We can only build a few more houses before we begin building for tent-dwellers who have no land of their own. We are excited that this is pushing us into the difficult task of bringing Jubilee to the poor. We need to buy land and redistribute it amongst the poor.

Apparent Project art commissioned in Croix des Bouquets

We will start with those of our artisans who have no property and live in tents with their children. Our hope is that if we buy a big enough piece of land, we can create an intentional community planned around an infrastructure that would eventually allow for electricity, rudimentary plumbing, gardening, and common areas for community gathering, church, and play. Part of the concept is that if our artisans all lived in one cohesive group, their community of creativity would also invite a small tourist economy. Croix du Bouquets has something like this already because all of Haiti’s premiere iron sculptors live in an artisan’s community there. It is a hot spot for visitors to Haiti to visit, purchase artwork and gifts, but is much farther than we are from the heart of Port Au Prince. Why not create a similar community of artisans making jewelry, journals, baskets, hats, funky sewn handbags and other kinds of artisan crafts? We think this could further stabilize the creative work that the Apparent Project has begun with our amazing Haitian friends, would provide them with more space to do their work, and create a safety and camaraderie in increasing the ways in which the artisans can share life and resources together.

We estimate that it would cost between $100,000 and $200,000 to purchase the land and structures necessary to provide homes for the 30 to 40 families in our artisan program who are currently homeless and landless. We’ll start there and then see what else becomes possible. If you would like to give to this Jubilee effort, please contribute through the following "chip in" widget or make a donation at our website www.apparentproject.org/contribute.html indicating “Apparent Project: Jubilee Haiti” in the note along with your payment. Thank you so much for your help! We excitedly await the day that our friends can truly go "home" after work! Let's make this happen!

Dancing and Singing

noreply@blogger.com (Shelley Clay) — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 23:54:00 +0000

I had an emotional catharsis with a business planner today. weird.
Talking about business strategy and crying my eyes out over death and destruction do not normally go hand in hand but it is somehow to be expected here.
As I was leaving the Apparent Project house afterwards, an old man approached me. "shelley, I'm hungry". He patted his stomach.
I squinted my eyes and remembered yesterday. I had been walking up from Clerville and this same elderly man had approached me with the same need. I can't give to everyone in Haiti who is hungry. It would be impossible. So i made a joke with him about stealing crackers from the local cracker vender while nobody was looking and we both laughed and went on our way.
Today was different. Two days in a row and still hungry.
I reminded him about my joke about stealing crackers. He laughed and reminded me that he wasn't a thief and was not about to go steal crackers.
I somberly looked at him and said, "why don't you work?" The answer I hear all to often came forth. "I can't find work". I asked him... "well what can you do?".
"I'm too old to do anything.". Probably true. What's an illerate aging man going to do in the hot sun all day.
He says again. "I'm not a thief, but I need to eat."
I replied. "To refuse to work, but expect people to give you everything is thievery." This may sound harsh, but unless you live in Haiti or a similar situation, you can't fully understand the truth of this. We know that without the dignity of work, charity is often given in vain and wasted.
So what work can this man do?
I asked him half jokingly. Can you dance?
"wi! m kapab danse".. of course he can dance.
He stood there awkwardly for a second.
"Can you sing?"
Two seconds of silence and a song broke forth.
It was the cutest 45 seconds of pure bliss. This sixty something starving man is standing by the side of the road singing his best kompa and leaving it all out on the dance floor. The neighbors all peeked their heads out the window to look, everyone starting smiling and laughing.
I payed him 250 Gds for his excellent entertainment and got in the car.
Corrigan looked at me and said... "now that was so much more gratifying that just handing it out". I hope it made his day as much as he made mine. And I hope his belly is finally full tonight. And I hope that someday Haiti can be a place where more than 10% enjoy the dignity of a job.

the 12th...

noreply@blogger.com (Shelley Clay) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 12:49:00 +0000

The last few days have been hard. Somehow I wish the calendar wasn't cyclical, because I'm not really ready to remember what happened a year ago. A lady stopped by yesterday. I didn't recognize her until she showed me a mangled scar on her ankle. She thanked me that she still had her foot. I remember now. She was the woman that Jocelyn and I carried up a hill, over a rooftop that had crumbled and had taken care of in my yard for almost a week, cleaning and dressing her wounds until help arrived. I wonder if more people will come today. There were so many that I think about, wonder how they are doing, wonder what kind of emotional scars they carry around with them.
I spent yesterday trying to figure out what I was going to do today. I heard that they resurrected the Iron Market and it opened yesterday. I used to go there for all of my beads when our jewelry program had just started. It was a place of significance for me and I cried as I saw the beautiful historical marketplace crumpled on the ground in the wake of the quake. I think for me it will be a moment of joy to see it rebuilt. The one thing that is fixed. The one thing that has been restored and repaired.
My plans for the day were interrrupted out of a deep sleep at 5 am. Vesline is in labor. How odd that last year this day was marked by such tragedy and this morning I am jolted out of bed by the news of a baby coming. My car is not working, so I hiked about 25 minutes in the dark over collapsed rooftops up to her small tent and found her inside writhing on the ground. I brought some gloves and gave my first examination ever to see if it was still safe to transport her to the hospital. She was a mess down there. I won't go into details, but she had severely neglected herself and infection had set in. I wonder how hard this birth was going to be for her. Already infected and hurting, 17 years old.. one of my hardest working artisans, trying to change her life.
We called a tap tap that took about an hour to get to us. I held Vesline in my arms through her contractions. It was a joy to be able to do that for her. It is not common to see Haitians empathize publicly with others who are hurting here, perhaps because the degree of pain is so severe in most peoples lives. The women were standing around watching, the men were standing further away making jokes and laughing at the women. I asked the father of the baby to come rub Vesline's back for her. He didn't want to. So different from our North American experiences of women in labor.
We loaded into the taptap and took the 30 minute bumpy ride to St Damien's- probably the best maternity hospital in Haiti. From the back of the taptap, I watched Vesline, her face contorting from the pain. I wondered if she knew what was going on with her body, her baby. Does she know how to breathe through the pain, does she understand what is going on in her body, how much more intense it will get before the baby comes? Does she know about the placenta? Will they tell her to breastfeed? Does she have clothes for the baby? She certainly doesn't have a crib, a bassinet, a carseat, a stroller, a diaper, a baby bath..... she has a tarp on the ground that she is sleeping on under a small three foot tall military tent.
It is January 12th. A baby is coming into the world today. A country is on her knees today. I will spend my day waiting for news of a boy or girl, probably go down to see the beautiful Iron Market, probably cry a little, hug my kids alot, and remember what happened one year ago. God Bless Haiti this year!

Haitian Christ in Dezolasyon

noreply@blogger.com (Apparent Project) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:18:00 +0000

"Is the traffic this bad because people are trying to get out of the city to avoid the protests?"
"No," I replied to Shelley's mom, Marilyn, "this is just normal Haiti traffic".

I pulled forward, narrowly avoiding an unforgiving tap from a Mack truck that was making a 20 point turn in the middle of the road. This was not too far from another Mack truck "apan" (brokedown) in the middle of the road with a small, dry palm branch sticking out of it's hood as if Charlie Brown's Christmas tree was hailing the Messiah. The palm was intended to inform oncoming motorists that there was something in the way and it wasn't about to move, but to me it looked as unequal to the task and unnecessary as a post-it-note on the Hindenburg reading "I'm on fire".

Today the Haitian electoral sorcerers were supposed to conjure some clear declaration about the vote count. There was no protest as far as I could see. Maybe that's because the Haitian people know that this election doesn't face some simple challenge like counting "dimpled" or "hanging" chads, and a recount of fraudulent votes will not diminish their fraudulence. There were monumentally catastrophic election procedures, completely incapable of collecting a real sampling of the per capita votes of "pep la" (the people). (See this video). The UN spent 30 million dollars for this election, half of which came from the U.S. That's chump change when it comes to government operations, but here, when I see money like that being wasted it makes me want to chug a Nalgene full of syrup of ipecac... But see how my mind wanders. It takes a billboard like this one to bring me back into focus:

"Ou nan dezolasyon? Jezi se espwa ou"

I couldn't help but read the glossy new sign as I pulled into the airport departures drop-off area. "Are you in desolation? Jesus is your hope." There was a big white Jesus hand reaching down as if to pull somebody up... or hand something out. Underneath the sign.... lots and lots and lots of dust covered tarps and tents. Thousands of tents that have been lived in for a year by people that have almost all lost family members and homes, have weathered tropical storms, and now fear the spread of Cholera and political unrest. My instant, involuntary visceral reaction to the billboard was to feel nauseous. My secondary reaction was to ask myself why. Why is it that something so important to me, something I believe so strongly, could be so repulsive? I DO believe that Jesus is the most sure hope for those in desolation, but this sign had me looking for another Nalgene shot of ipecac. Why?

My first thought was, "Which Jesus?" Which Jesus is the true hope for Haiti's desolation? Is it the Jesus with a big WHITE hand? Is it the bleach-robed, super clean Jesus looming over dirty tent-dwellers to pull them out of their yucky untouchable filth? Is it the well-fed, healthy Jesus handing out food to the hungry and medications to the sick (while destroying the agricultural and food markets of Haiti and sending the best Haitian doctors and hospitals the way of the Dodo bird)? Is it the spiritual Jesus that cares nothing for the bodies and corporeal realities of those who suffer, but offers them peace of mind and reconciliation with God while they starve? Is it the social Jesus, who can't liberate people from real demons and spiritual darkness, but can rally the desperately poor into rebellion from empires and "the man"? Is it the Jesus who answers prayers that actually move things or the Jesus who has his own unyielding agenda whether or not you converse with him (thank you very much)? Is it the Jesus who caused the earthquake, stood by while it happened, or rallied his forces together to respond to and heal the hurt caused by His enemy? Is this happy Jesus, angry Jesus, judging Jesus, forgiving Jesus, healing Jesus, ruling Jesus, subversive Jesus, social Jesus, Santa Jesus, Now Jesus, Soon Jesus, or Sweet By and By Jesus? Is this Jesus for sale, Jesus selling, Jesus buying, or Jesus paying the price? Is this conquistador Jesus, colonial Jesus, NGO Jesus, corporate Jesus, humanitarian Jesus, MINUSTAH Jesus, liberation Jesus, red Jesus, Tea Party Jesus, IN JE$U$ WE TRUST? Is he altar call Jesus, come as you are Jesus, sackcloth and ashes Jesus, turn or burn Jesus, earn-the-right-to-be-heard Jesus, Buddy Christ, Daddy God, Sovereign Lord, in control Jesus, delegating power Jesus, or Jesus at war? Is this T.V.s begging Jesus, the high Church's stone Jesus, the NorthWest's non-confrontational hipster Christ, the southern preacher's "Low-erd Aw-mitey", the East's community organizer Jesus, or the moral guardian of Minnesotan Norwegian bachelor farmers? Is it Bono's Jesus, Glen Beck's Jesus, Obama's Jesus, Bush's Jesus, Right Jesus, Left Jesus, Purple Jesus, Rainbow Jesus? Purpose Driven Jesus, Mere Christ, Crazy Jesus, Shack Jesus, Left By Jesus, Nooma Jesus, Emergent Jesus, 700 Jesus, or Praise the Jesus? He-sus or She-sus? Is this Rabbi Jesus? Philosopher Jesus? Economist Jesus? Doctor Jesus? Power Jesus? Suffering Servant? Risen King? Coming Judge? Man of Sorrows?

Is this the Jesus of the Gospels, the Jesus of the denominational doctrines, or the Jesus of the missions policy handbook? Is this Jesus going to call Haitians away from their identity and culture or to transformation from within? Is he going to affirm anything about them or is he going to call them to death and new creation? Or both?

Why does this Jesus pay for a billboard? Who does he pay? Why is this Jesus glossy? Who speaks for him when you call his phone number? Why does he reach down instead of across? WHY THE HELL DOES THIS JESUS NEED TO ASK HAITIANS IN A TENT CITY IF THEY ARE IN DESOLATION, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE?! Why isn't there blood or dirt on his hands? Has He been to Haiti before? So many Jesuses have. Does He have a way to tell the desolate ILLITERATE people about the hope he is bringing?

I look over my back and see a man exit his tent to dump a bucket of some liquid into the fetid trench that tightly encases the displacement camp. His clothes remind me that he hasn't always been homeless. The smells remind me that there is more around me than just this looming billboard, and that I'm definitely not sitting in a seminary class, or on an American highway. This is the real world, and it has been for a long time now. This is the world where Jesus said he could best be seen and touched and talked to in interaction with the most underprivelaged people on the planet. Here. In the prisons and ghettos. In the ravines and the dumps. In Cite Soleil and La Saline, in the IDP camps and the clinics. In the tin shanties and the crowded tap taps. According to Jesus, the poor and powerless (the "meek") are his Kingdom's landlords. Jesus says that if he didn't know us through their faces and experiences of us, then he doesn't know us at all. Perhaps at Heaven's gates there are hundreds of thousands of Haitians and other powerless people from around the world and when the new arrivals show up Jesus turns to these weak ones and says, "Hey, do any of you know this new guy? Did he offer you any help? Did he comfort you? Did he give you dignity and hope? Should we let him in?" Maybe this is why "the poor will always be with you," because they have such an important role to play. They are his memory of us at the last judgment, He says. The poor have been working with sheep and goats for a long time. They are good at it.

I look back at the sign and notice a nearby poster for an upcoming "Croisade d' Evangelisme" to be hosted by Franklin Graham, (son of Billy).

Crusade. That's a loaded word. When I hear the word "crusade" my imagination wanders to images of a safari hunt, fresh pelts of numerical converts displayed on Christian broadcasting networks to announce the trophy kill. Or I think of the "Culture War" that makes enemies of sinners that Jesus loves enough to die for. So is this what we will crusade against in Haiti? Moral depravity? Voudou? Political corruption? Crusade against what? I agreee, something... a lot of things need to be conquered here, there is so much evil that needs to come under the authority of the only good King... but what? Who? How? Haven't Haitians been conquered enough? Who really has power here? Is Graham's Jesus' fighting against flesh and blood, or against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms? I'm not asking whether Graham is going to bring some threat to people's bodies. Of course not.

I remind myself that a great majority of the temporary housing structures I have seen around Port Au Prince were built by Graham's organization, Samaritan's Purse. I have seen them accomplish far more than many of the larger NGOs, and they have penetrated into communities that have seen very little other help. They are also doing great work in response to Cholera. In this way, they have been announcing the Kingdom of God... where people do not sleep outside during a hurricane or die of diarrhea. But I wonder whether Graham himself knows the Haitian people well enough to verbally announce the "Good News of the Kingdom of God" here. Does he know that there are hardly any atheists in Haiti? Does he know that most people involved in voodoo will call themselves Christians? Does he know that conversion stories are cheap street politics used to leverage aid from "blan"? Does he know that many people who believe fervently in prayer and only worship Christ will still turn to a houngan when they want a more expedient result? (Don't judge... we turn to our insurance companies and savings accounts and doctors and politicians in much the same way). Does he know that the gospel in Haiti (as everywhere) is a matter of power and not of words? Does he believe that Christ's power is a power under or a power over? Does he know that there is a great "revival" in Haiti of Christian faith, but that it almost universally assumes that God is angry and sent the earthquake as an act of judgment (as if the cross meant nothing)? I sincerely hope that Graham and his team have this sensitivity and wisdom. I am praying for his "crusade"...that it would stand for love and justice and the Kingdom of God and not for other kingdoms, rules, or authorities.

I write all this knowing that much of my audience won't know what I'm talking about, and I'm sorry if I offend or seem off in the stratosphere somewhere. But if our churches facilitate the status quo and there is no conflict between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdoms of this world than we either live in Heaven and there's nothing left to do, or we aren't really bringing the Kingdom to earth as it is in Heaven.

Haiti needs Jesus more than it needs anything else, and it needs a clear gospel of the Kingdom even more than it needs a cohesive relief plan, or a functional government... But that statement is redundant, because the gospel IS a universal relief plan and it announces the only functional government. I heard somebody say in anticipation of the Graham crusade, "Haiti doesn't need to look to a new president, they need to look to Jesus." I agree whole-heartedly with the statement, but its phrasing assumes that Jesus is not running for president. Don't be mistaken, He IS running for President. In Heaven every crown will be tossed at his feet and all the kings of the earth will bow before him. Every tongue will name him King. And when Jesus taught us to pray he said to pray for the KINGDOM to come on earth as it is in heaven. If Graham announces that REAL kingdom in the face of Haiti's would-be presidents, he will be preaching the gospel. And he would be announcing a revolution that, though peaceful, would bring him great personal risk. A king has come, a government has been established and the Empire of love is gaining ground against every power in this world.
Christmas brought Herod's paranoid infanticide because it announced an alternative to oppressive worldly government... the coming of Israel's king. Christmas means no less today... in fact it means more. Not just Israel's king has come... but the world's king. Haiti's president. The U.S.'s president. The boss of my business (and yours). The head of my family (and yours). And his rule has made all under it equally important and valuable. Black, white, male female, Christian, atheist, rich, poor, parents, children, fat, skinny, sick, and well. Haitians notoriously blame their condition on oppressive and ineffective government,and they are right to do so. Turn on CNN or Fox and see the same thing in America. But Jesus said, "the Kingdom of God is within you", not a matter of geography, but a matter of the allegiance of its citizens. To wait for a perfect system of government, a perfect leader, a perfect law, a perfect taxation, and an unseen Utopia to bring to light the end of needless poverty and suffering is idolatry. CNN and FOX and the Haitians debating on the radio are not covering the real political story: The Kingdom of God is at hand. Jesus has given us a perfect law and he is a perfect king and He gave us a whole lot of work to do in establishing that kingdom in our hearts first and then in our world around us. His Rule: love him first and Love your neighbor as yourself. His courts: All guilty citizens have already paid the death penalty via a surrogate. His enforcement: Do not use force to resist the evil doer. Love your enemy. Forgive everybody. His geography: within you and everywhere around you. His taxes: Everything you have for the poor. His healthcare: heal each other. His economic stimulus plan: six days a week work with your hands, mind your own affairs, and be dependent on nobody. If this isn't being done in your neighborhood, it's not the fault of citizens of other nations (like the U.S. or Haiti). It is the work of the Nation of God to expand his reign of justice and peace beginning "at home". There are too many Haitian Kingdom of Godians and American Kingdom of Godians waiting for their secondary government to heal the world while their very citizenship in the Kingdom of God has mandated them to bring that very healing.

From my perspective, this king is not best represented in Haiti by a big "blan" hand in a Sigfried and Roy white robe selling imported eternal life insurance from a billboard. This is fine for selling soap, but the dirt in Haiti is deep, and the hope that is needed is not a matter of words but of presence and power.

I am reminded of Grunewald's crucifixion image from the Isenheim Altarpiece... that gnarled hand taking on the pain of the world... If you look closely at the altarpiece painting you will see Jesus' skin pocked and splitting. I always thought that was to suggest his whipping, but I learned later that these are the marks of "St. Anthony's fire", a disease better known today as ergotism, which comes from ingesting a fungus called "Claviceps purpurea". In the middle ages poor people were the most frequently struck by this disease (because who else is hungry enough to eat rye flour that looks moldy?). The Antonite monks whose Medieval clinic treated this disease had this image of Christ in the front of their chapel, where the sick would gather. They would look at Jesus pictured as a fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy of a man despised, outcast, suffering, and carrying the shame and sickness of the world in his body and healing it all. If the alterpiece was opened there was another image of Christ. It is probably the world's most famous painting of his resurrected, ascending body, shrouded in light... with perfect skin. But the patients at St. Anthony's couldn't see this without first seeing Christ identified with their sufferings, sharing their contortions, gangrene, nausea, and agony. If Christ IN us is the hope of glory, then Christ with us in our weakness and suffering and shame and mortality is what opens the possibility of him living in us. So declares a medieval masterpiece tucked away in a relief clinic for the poor. Put the words, "Ou nan dezolasyon? Jezi se espwa ou" to this image and I can begin to believe it. Amen. Yes. We are in desolation, and so has he been. And yes, he is our hope.

What Jesus do Haitians need to see now? I think maybe I can see him.

Like so many Haitian men, he is named Emanuel. He lays exhausted on his cross: a cholera bed, a cot with a hole cut out in the middle so that his never-ending diarrhea can go straight into a bucket below. His black body curves in an S, contorted and sore from heaving all the life and sustenance within him into another formerly white bucket on the dirt floor near his gaunt face. He has nobody to cover his naked, emaciated frame, for they fear his disease, and the nurses are preoccupied by patients whose chances are greater, or whose families have the rare privilege of being able to pay for their care. In his right hand he holds a voter card that was not counted in the presidential elections. On it an "X" is marked by a photograph of his father taped onto the card above the other candidates, since he wasn't a candidate approved by the CEP. When he looks at the picture he smiles, as if into a mirror. He feels a spasm in his stomach and turns to his bedside bucket. As the pang of pain subsides he gazes at the slowly dripping bag of rehydration fluids trickling though an IV going into his arm, wondering if they can possibly be traveling fast enough to replace what he has been filling his buckets with. At his bedside lays his last will and testament scribbled on a shredded piece of tarpaulin he had hoped to use to patch his family's tent. He had another patient, one who could read and write, record it for him as he spoke it softly in Creole a few days ago. "Le mwen mouri bay madam mwen tout bagay m gen, paske lap bezwen pou pran swen timoun nou." He thinks of her, his wife, home now bathing the kids in a puddle and waiting for a friend to bring rice and beans from the distribution line. Does she know he's still here? Where is the nurse? Why is everything so quiet? "M SWAF!" he yells into the void with a cracking voice. His IV has run dry. He looks at a well worn photograph he holds under the voter card: a picture of all the children he lost in the earthquake. He begins to tremble and and wonder if this is all worth it. His stomach seizes, but he hears nothing beneath his bed. He uses all his strength to turn and look to see what is going on. Trying to hold himself up with both hands he notices that the picture from the voter card has fallen off into the bucket below him. His arms buckle beneath him along with his hope for a new Haiti. His physical pain compounds with his sense of rejection and loneliness and comes out in a bitter cry:
"Papa, ki kote ou ye? Poukisa ou te kitem la?"
What seems like the last drop of fluid in his body comes to his eyes and he gasps for a painfully dry last breath. But it does not come.

... on Sunday morning, three days later, CNN begins to run stories of another Haitian earthquake.

Christmas shopping

noreply@blogger.com (The Apparent Project) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 04:46:00 +0000

It was like any other Christmas shopping marathon. Well, sort of. I left the house at 10am bent on getting it all done in one day. I had my mental map out of what stores I would hit in what order and what presents to buy in which. Nothing is ever totally normal in Haiti, but considering we had political riots shutting everything down only two weeks ago, it was pretty good.

Some things that struck me were the fact that all the cashiers at Eagle Market, where we buy most of our food were wearing santa hats with light up stars on the front. It was pretty corny really, and sitting right next to the guard with the semi automatic weapon just lent itself to a funny picture.
For the most part chocolate is out of the question. It is very hard to find Christmas MnM's until April and even then, they have melted so many times that they have that chalky brown fuzz on them. So, no chocolate Santas or green and red MnMs on the list today.
I went to a store up in Petionville called "Interior Chic". They have a guard with a huge rifle standing outside next to the kiddy playlands for sale. It is right across the street from a tent city of about 1000 people and I parked right in someone's tent front yard while I looked for things for the kids. I had a great time. I found a cool puppet set for the kids and a little puppet theater. It was at least double what I would pay for it in the states, but I splurged knowing that that is just what things cost here. I paid for it all and was loaded up with my bags, happy with my purchases and then stepped out into the street to get in my car.
That's when my heart dropped. You see, I wasn't doing anything different than anything I've ever done my whole life. It is totally normal for us to spend and splurge and treat ourselves royally on Christmas (or any other day for that matter) and because it is so normal, we don't notice. A small naked child was standing by my car. A pregnant mother was sitting in front of her tent hungry. Two kids jumped on my car to wash my windows for some spare change. A father, unemployed, was drinking. The tents are ripped and dirty. The situation is worse and not getting better. The poverty is staggering. And I was loading my car up with presents just like I have always done.
At Target, they ask sometimes if you want to donate $1 to this or that charity. Sometimes there are Salvation Army bellringers outside the store and we try to remember the less fortunate during our season of binging. But this was so different for me. I wasn't watching a PBS special on children in poverty and desolation... I was living it. Bags in hand, they were in front of me.
"Can you give me one dollar" they say. I shake my head as I almost always do. You can't give to everyone who asks of you here. It's impossible to fill the void.. nor would it be particularly helpful. At least that's what I tell myself. It certainly made me think and ponder for the drive home. I wish we all had it in front of us, how blessed we are, how excessive we are allowed to be.
Christmas as we know it is not "normal." It is more than most people see in their whole lives. It is abundant. It is colorful. It is full of riches and beauty and music and parties.

I have no closing argument to this stream of thoughts. I want you, me, everyone to have a good Christmas. Period. I don't want you to have to give that up, for my children to have to give that up. But I do want the naked child across the street in the tent city to have clothes, and food, and a good education and the very basic things that we have as fundamentals in our world. Merry Christmas to my very rich friends in America (because that's what we are in comparison- VERY rich).. and Merry Christmas to the naked child in a post earthquake tent. May joy be found in all circumstances this year.

Jaqueline Regnus

noreply@blogger.com (Shelley Clay) — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 08:49:00 +0000

Jaqueline looked at me with those puppy dog eyes. Please Shelley, I need help. I'm sleeping in my friends yard. I don't have a tent or a tarp. The landlord kicked me out. Please.

My reply was firm. Jaqueline. You have been given a chance to work. You have been given the chance to change the course of your life. You don't have to come begging anymore. You just have to work.

We figured out it would take about sixty necklace sales for her to be able to pay for rent on a house for a year. A YEAR. Jaqueline's face went from puppy dog eyes to confident determined woman.

This is my goal for you my dear Jaqueline. That you wouldn't need me anymore. That you would be able to stand on your own two feet and look at what you've accomplished and not have to ask me or any other white person, aid organization, or beorgious Haitian for a single handout again.

Jaqueline will do it. I know it.

With Christmas sales booming, my ladies (and men) are making more money than most of them have ever made in their lives. We had a talk the other day at work. I asked them how much money they made when they worked as housekeepers, cooks, nannies (for those who actually had had a job before- as most have not). 500HD per month. Divide that by 8. Just over $60 US per month. How in the world was that ever enough money? It wasn't of course. And so they still lived their lives looking for handouts for food for their children, school, clothing, shelter.

This month marks a change. A few of our artisans broke the $1000 mark. Yes. You heard right. That is $1000 US . Unbelievable. I am still in shock. But to put it realistically, that is only 100 necklaces once all the supplies are paid for. 100 necklaces. Beautiful works of art are changing the course of these peoples lives.

So what are they doing with their money? We have implemented a beautiful new requirement. From now on, an artisan who wants to get paid must open a bank account. Now let me explain something here. It is not just everybody in Haiti who has a bank account. It is a milestone. A status symbol. A piece of dignity handed out on a silver dish. This week (assuming the political riots allow banks to be open) every single one of our 72 artisans are opening bank accounts!

There are going to be lines at the bank! Tellers will stare inquisitively as illiterate women from the province hand them $100 bills to put in their new accounts. What a day! I can't wait to see all the proud faces as they face their first pay day with a trip to their savings accounts.

Many artisans are still struggling to put food on the table. They will be encouraged to save what they can until sales for them increase. Some artisans who are doing well will be required to save half of their earnings with the goal of a life changing purchase in mind- land, a house, starting a side business.

This is what we are about. Helping Haitians figure out how to do it themselves. Decreasing dependency. I read recently that much of the aid coming in is filling the pockets of those who already have money in Haiti. I can't tell you how many brand new Landcruisers are on the roads and how many nice restaurants have opened up. While this does have a slight trickle down effect, it is a sad sight to see $100k in aid money go to pay for rent on a NGO's one family house for the year. Some of this cannot be helped. And it is too complicated to offer pat judgements and complaints, but I do know that for every dollar that a poor Haitian earns from their own hard work, there is tremendous headway made in breaking the cycle of poverty and enslavement that has been on this country for generations.

I may have sounded harsh to Jaqueline.. after all, for now she is still homeless and sleeping outside her neighbor's house. But 60 necklaces later and that woman is going to have a smile of confidence on her face as she sweeps the floor of her new apartment and arranges the table for guests. I never want to take that dignity away from her. Go Jaqueline!

If you would like to help these ladies earn their living by hosting a no obligation jewelry party.. please contact us at apparentproject@gmail.com. If you would like to help us continue in our vision (yes, WE still ask for handouts), please see our website http://www.apparentproject.org/ for how you can help.

The children suffer..

noreply@blogger.com (Shelley Clay) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 15:10:00 +0000

This morning I checked my facebook status and saw that another friend was headed to the market. I hasn't been open in several days and with the current political situation being what it is, I darted out of bed, threw some clothes on and headed out myself. We have so many people depending on us for food, if we run out, we feel it.

As I was backing out fo the driveway, I saw a couple street kids hanging around my gate. It's been a while since I've had kids at my gate, so I paused to see what was going on. "Nou grangou, Shelley." We're hungry. They said.

The current political situation has a lot of innocent victims. Marchants live day to day on what they sell. If they can't sell, they don't eat. And that means their children don't eat. Kids will go a day or so without eating- they're used to that. But as day two and three wear on, they start to get restless. These couple of kids were walking the streets, peering under rich people's gates (like mine) and looking for whatever scraps they could fine.

I told them I was going to try to go to the market to see if it was open.

Probably no more than five minutes later I had forgotten all about them.

I was so pleased to find a gas station open and the grocery store open. I stocked up.

More than usual.

When the recount results are released, who knows what will happen. We have been blockaded in our house for the past three days and I want to be ready.

Not a thought about those kids on my brain, I casually returned home.

As I rounded the corner to my street, my heart stopped... there was a whole PACK of street kids. They started cheering when they saw my car... CHEERING.

Oh no.... I wasn't even really thinking about them when I did my shopping...

We do various feeding programs from time to time and it is generally a thankless job. Kids act wild, hoard food and leave the house a mess. This was different. These kids were hungry. They were hoping for any scrap they could get.

I passed out bread and peanut butter, and a little water. I didn't have enough time to cook anything for them.

They were mesmorized with my white children and our big dogs. They were all from a nearby tent city of 5000. Apparently the Red Cross generally feeds them, but they hadn't been able to come because of the riots.

I asked the boys where all the hungry girls were. They said that they aren't allowed out in the streets to look for food. I guess they go hungry.

I just wanted to take a moment to tell their story. Kids are hungry. We feel it. It is more newsworthy in my opinion than the burning tires on our corner. It is more noteworthy than rediculous political candidates and demonstrations. When I saw those kids, my heart started beating faster. They are the reason I am here. They are what is important in this country.

Thanksgiving in Haiti

noreply@blogger.com (Apparent Project) — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 16:19:00 +0000

I am thankful to be alive today. I don't mean that in the general, universal sense (while that would also be true). I mean that I am glad that I didn't die yesterday. Let me explain.

When you live in Haiti and your car is broke down or being used by somebody else (if you're one of the very fortunate few people that owns a car), then you have a variety of alternative options for transportation. There are the livestock options: Either a mule for mountain travel or one of the tiny horses used for provincial trail trotting. The latter look overburdened by Haitian riders, who are typically not too big. I think one of these micro-steeds would snap in half under the weight of my well-fed American booty, if it weren't for the fact that my feet would probably still touch the ground if I were to mount one.

The more common transportation options in the city are the "tap tap" or the "moto taxi". Tap taps are 80's junker pickup trucks with bright custom paint jobs in primary colors, extended covered back ends with bench seats, and various other contraptions welded to the truck bed to maximize occupancy and profit. A ride in a tap tap reminds me of what it might be like if a county carnival ride broke and your "squirrel cage" went rolling down the road, stopping to let all the 4H people join the ride accompanied by their animals. Only, a liberated squirrel cage or Tilt-A-Whirl might actually get you to your destination more quickly. This is why when I needed to buy a Thanksgiving turkey in Petionville (Port Au Prince's wealthy uncle on the hill) I opted for the moto taxi.

The "moto" is a motorcycle with extra foot pads for a passenger (or 3, depending on how desperate for money the driver is, or how desperate for transportation the passengers are). I tried to explain to the moto driver that I was going to the fancy new market to buy a "giant chicken". He looked at me cross-eyed. From the rest of our interactions, I'm not sure if that had anything to do with what I was saying. Maybe that was just how he looked, which ought to have raised questions about his ability to drive a motorcycle through the crowded Haitian streets. However, my better judgment yielded to the simple fact that he said he knew how to get where I needed to go and he had a functioning set of wheels.

Just two weeks ago I watched as a mototaxi driver got caught on somebody else's rearview mirror and landed in the street like one of the stormtroopers that were clotheslined off of their speeders by Ewoks in The Return of the Jedi. I only witnessed this whole event in my rearview mirror because I was so incredulous that the same mototaxi driver had passed my car at 20+ mph from 5 millimeters away without killing himself or somehow etching the side of my car.

The average Haitian street is an obstacle course when there aren't any cars on the road. Man-holes and storm drains have long had their iron stolen by welders desperate to turn a profit, or by cooks looking for a grill. Pot holes are filled with large rocks rather than new pavement, making them larger in the long run as the filler grinds away in all directions. May roads are not paved at all, or, locals tell me, are paved under many layers of dust and sludge runoff from years of tropical storms and government neglect. My driver wove through traffic like a frustrated figure skater trying to complete a routine in a crowded locker room. He would nudge his way between two moving vehicles only to find a wall, a hole, or another vehicle on the other side of each obstacle. Twice he got stuck in the gutter of the road, a river of dirty rain water and litter attempting to push us back down the hill or tip us into the drink. When we arrived at the market I reminded myself to begin breathing again, not sure whether I had stopped because of the dust that was pelting my face, the black exhaust that gushed from decrepit Mack trucks, or just because my subconscious was experimenting with what it would be like when a motorcycle crash stole my last breath.

The supermarket is a radical contrast to the Haitian streets. It feels like you have walked through a portal, warping across space into an American grocery store. The only things that remind you that you are still in Haiti are the smattering of french products, the clear majority of black customers and employees, and the use of the threat of Cholera to market products like soap, hand sanitizer, and PediaLyte. Oh yeah, and the astronomical prices on all the imports. Thus the turkey, a big guy at 27 lbs, cost $3.40 per lb. I never thought I would know what it is like to get raped by a turkey. Nonetheless, I am thankful for this expensive, but well managed new grocery store. It is cheaper than some of the other supermarkets, and it feels most like a little bit of a taste of home, when I need it. The other grocery store that really served that purpose fell down in the earthquake, killing a bagger who had become a friend to our family. The loss of the store and of him, was a big hit to us emotionally. Can you imagine if the place you always go to get your groceries collapsed? These are things we will not take for granted again. In fact, I think that if I were to write a list of things I am thankful for, well run Haitian businesses would take up much of that list. They create order and peace, not just in their facade, but in the calm that comes over a family when a parent is employed. The money that good businesses create gets spent in Haiti, thus stabilizing other businesses. Often these are the secondary businesses, or the businesses of the poor merchant selling fruit or dry pasta from a basket on the side of the road. Now if we could just stop importing everything....

So, my moto-man and I made the great descent down the bumpy road from Petionville to my house. I held the 27 lb frozen turkey in his lap while straddling him, making for what I'm sure the Guinness Book would agree was the most awkward trans-racial, cross-cultural, inter-gendered, strictly hetero hug in the history of the universe. We weaved through spaces between cars that I'm pretty sure I'm too big to have walked between. In fact, I'm pretty sure the turkey, God rest his soul, would have been too big to have walked between the spaces we drove that motorcycle through. My well fed American booty bounced off the seat a few times when we hit unmarked "sleeping policemen" (what the Haitians call their speedbumps). Motoman's leg kept slipping off his foot peg under the weight of the turkey, making it difficult for him to properly shift, and as a result, causing the engine to rev at high rpms. The resulting noise made sure to include all those who had been previously left out from the staring party we had created. A bird that big, a "blan" that big, a motorcyle that loud.... I'm sure motoman was really glad his helmet hid his face.

My trip reminded me, like every time that I drive in Haiti, of the many, many things I have to be thankful for. Owning a car that sometimes works is sheer wealth in comparison to the majority of the people who live on this planet. Buying a really expensive and humongous turkey because that's what EVERYBODY does where I come from, is total extravagance here: a month's wages for somebody fortunate enough to have found employment. As we drove, I saw the usual sights... the fallen buildings, the rubble, the people washing hands and feet in dirty puddles. I saw people who likely had no family to go home to, and I felt such immense gratitude that none of my family was lost in the earthquake, or to the storms, or to cholera. I think of how much I love and enjoy and thank God for my kids just for who they are and for Shelley as the best friend I could have ever asked for. I saw a woman, presumably mentally ill, walking in the middle of the road wearing nothing but a dirty shirt, the rest of her naked body covered by mud. I could picture Jesus in my mind, wrapping a beautiful robe around her, as I thought to myself, "when his kingdom is finally completely here, I will never see these kinds of things again."

The words, "I am making all things new" have been echoing through my mind these days. Sometimes they are booming through my skull as if in a haunted empty cave, taunting me with the many things I see that are not being made new. There is so much broken. There are such terrible disasters. Zebedee asked me the other day, "What would we do if there was an earthquake and a hurricane at the same time?" The fact that his question is a reasonable one, and one that I have no answer for, makes "I am making all things new" a painful declaration. There is so much wealth in this world that is ignoring so much poverty. There are so many old hurts that do not yield to forgiveness. There are so many fears that do not bow to Love. There are so many governments and powers manipulating human "capital"... where is the Kingdom of God? Where are all things being made new? Sometimes Jesus' words are bitter to me. A painful sting of unrealized hope. Sometimes Jesus' hope is revolting.

There is a place near my house where kidnappers used to execute the rich who resisted payment, or couldn't find friends to pay for their freedom. The street kids talk about the dead bodies they saw there. That place has also become the trash dump in our neighborhood. Everything unwanted, broken, and dead goes there to be burnt or consumed by birds and worms. When our dog died I took him there and laid him under some dirt and trash. Gehenna.

But right now, Gehenna is covered in corn and flowering squash plants. The green is so thick in some places that you can't see through the foliage to the underlying filth. New corn shoots sometimes grow what seems like 6 ft overnight. The abundant spread of life seems unstoppable. Sometimes, that is what those words, "I am making all things new" do inside of me. There are bursts of faith sprouting up through all of this muck of broken history, telling me, "NO! Seriously, Corrigan, I AM making all things new!" I feel it when I see all the home construction that Shelley has coordinated. I feel it when I walk into the artisan center and there is no place to sit because so many smiling Haitian friends are making beautiful jewelry out of garbage to sell to people with money to spare. I feel it when I look at my black and white children playing together with no clue that they are radical signs of a reversal in the history of hatred. I feel it as I see babies live that might have died were it not for the love of Shelley and the community of people here supporting Makensia, and a community of our friends and supporters around the globe helping to keep us going. But the thing about these feelings is that I feel within them the stronger river of God's slow and steady move towards ultimate victory, like a flood that will cover all the earth. Love endures like nothing else, and where love increases, so does life. This hope is radical, standing up against the order of things... from life to death, and demanding that it reverse. "Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’” There is a revolution going on... an overthrow of power, as the kingdom of God is coming to earth. Jesus' hope is ALWAYS revolting.

This Thanksgiving, as I still fight fear of another earthquake, as finances are tight, as I feel emotionally broken, as we struggle to know what to do about theft and dishonesty in our community, as the sands under our feet just feel altogether shifty, this verse spoke to me:

"Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe." Hebrews 12:28

A kingdom that will not fall. Crimes whose penalties are paid for by the judge. Death that springs into life. Untouchable disease and uncleanness being made clean by touch. The poor and weak and ashamed being honored by the wealthy and powerful and famous. The afraid overcoming through love. That is not the order of things.
God must be revolting... and I am thankful.

-Corrigan

A day in the life of...

noreply@blogger.com (The Apparent Project) — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 02:53:00 +0000

My day started out with a call from the states. Jeremy is going to be landing at 10am and he has cholera medicine in hand for you- enough for 20 people. Can you meet him at Avis at 10 am. "I'll be there", was my firm response and then I hung up the phone. I looked at my watch. 9 oclock. The day is half way over by 9 in Haiti, but I had been up most of the night trying to keep up with emails, fighting a migraine, making sure the sewing machines were running, and then having earthquake nightmares. I'm really tired and I need my coffee. I go out to the kitchen and find that the propane tank is empty. Bummer. No coffee. I have hit this point just in the last two weeks of my coffee drinking career where it is no longer about keeping a headache at bay.. it is a love relationship. I crave it. None today. I'll get over it.
It's going to take too long to drive to the aiport in morning traffic, so I quickly call Important. He gave himself that name for when he one day becomes a famous rap star. Until then, he is my motorcycle chauffeur. He is at my beck and call whenever I need him, so I pay him well. He deserves it. At 19, he has a 17 year old lady and a 1 year old baby and is living in a two man pup tent while trying to finish school. He thinks he already is famous and walks with and air of importance that cracks me up for a guy that is 5'2".
So he shows up at 9:30 and I hop on the back of his motorcycle and we hightale it down the dirt roads to meet Jeremy at the airport. As we drive, men blow kisses and yell flatteries.. I lean forward and tell Important that they obviously think he is very beautiful. Not catching my sarcasm he thinks I don't understand. I understand I'm just giving him a hard time.
We arrive near the airport and find Avis. We get off the motorcycle and stand around for a while, and having been in this situation too many times before decide to verify my location. Yes we are at Avis by the airport.. is there any chance there is another Avis by the aiport that is not listed on the internet? OF course there is. Back on the motorcycle. The nice security guard with the machine gun opens the gate for us to go find Avis #2. I don't even notice guns anymore. We take the dirt road short cuts past the 7000 man tent city just outside the airport and find Avis #2. WE wait. and wait. We wait an hour. I strike up a conversation with Important about why women in Haiti put up with polygamy. He laughs.. I ask him if men ever run out of women if every man has four women. He laughs some more. It's easier to be a man here. We wait an hour and I call Jeremy's wife to say I can't wait any longer. Important needs to go to school. Just then Jeremy bounds up the exit runway with suitcases in hand and hands me enough antibiotics for 20 people. 20 people. This is exciting. I am ready to save 20 lives now. It feels good. He lectures us for a minute on saving some for our family... I get it. We're no good if we're dead. Will keep this in mind. I hop back on the moto and ride back to the house, dodging election parades and marchants with baskets on their heads the whole way.
Upon arrival, Ti Sherlie informs me that a man had tried to give his baby away at our gate that morning. The mother had died in the earthquake and the baby had formed such a tight bond with him that he would cry and cry when his father left. He couldn't work because of it and was looking for an orphanage. Ti Sherlie had given her directions to one of the 10 orphanage houses in our neighborhood. I told her, I wish you hadn't done that. He could easily work here and bring his baby to work with him. That's why we do what we do. She slaps herself on the forehead. Next time there is a parent wanting to abandon their baby so that they can eat... she'll remember.
We spend the day packaging, tagging, boxing jewelry for jewelry parties all over the world this Christmas season. We have made it to at least three continents- including Asia. It's exciting to see what has happened in a year. Makilen just put money down on land. It was just December last year that she showed up with her baby covered in scabies and looking for an orphanage for all five of her children. Now she is buying land with two small houses on it.. one for her and one to rent. She works so hard. She deserves it. Chrislene got married-was able to mostly pay for her wedding. Several of our boys have paid for school for themselves, people's kids are in school this year. It is what we're are about. Making it possible for mom's and dad's who love their kids to be able to keep them and raise them well
As the day was winding down, I made a trip over to Delmas 91 to the Three Angels Children's Relief center. Jack and Marcia Nonweiler ran a stellar orphanage before the quake and have been doing all kind of awesome relief work since. They approached me a few months back about partnering in their microloan program with some of their women. The partnership is great. We get to train and work with some of their ladies and get them going on jewelry and they help market these ladies (and many of our too) in their circles of influence. It is a win win situation. I think I got the better end of the deal though because Jack just happens to be a doctor and has already been there for my family and some of our ladies on several occasions..
It is always a pleasure to see Jack and Marcia and after visiting with them for a while made my way back home to my beautiful children and pizza night. Corrigan is a gourmet cook if you didn't know and we collaborated with my pizza dough making skills and his pesto, thai food, and alfredo sauce making skills and had what the kids call "weird pizza" night. One with peanut sauce, carrots, beansprouts and chicken, one with alfredo, chicken, spinach and broccoli and another with pesto sauce, arichoke hearts, spinach and cheese. UNBELIEVABLE. I pretty much gained 15 pounds in the kitchen there, but that's ok because I just have to hop back on the motorcycle with Important to get my self-esteem back up.. cat calls in Creole have a ring to them you know... Ahhh.. time for bed. I'm sure I left out three quarters of the day.. probably the parts about the electricity going out or the five million people knocking at the gate asking for a house, or the six children bringing me cereal boxes from the tent cities for money to eat. A satisfying day I'd say.

Soap and Hand Sanitizer

noreply@blogger.com (Shelley Clay) — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 04:35:00 +0000

We are literally on a shoe string budget right now. While the ladies are making money with their jewelry, we are about to lose our house, our car, our inverter etc.. And now Cholera.
Would somebody be willing to donate $200 so that we can buy 100 bars of soap and 100 small bottles of hand sanitizer to give our artisans? It would help so much.

Cars that run are nice!

noreply@blogger.com (Shelley Clay) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 16:11:00 +0000

We have a Toyota Fourrunner that is very sick. The axle has broken four times, it sputters and pants at best when it is running, it always smells of gasoline, the gas gauge is broken, sometimes the keys work, and when they do sometimes the doors open but not always, the check engine light is continually on, the breaks are bad.... seriously. It's pretty much a death trap. And at best, it is being fixed by "duck tape" mechanics every other week, so it is not unusual to see me having to taptap or ride on the back of a motorcycle to run simple errands.

With new cars in Haiti costing between $40K and $60K for a decent SUV that can handle the hell roads, we have put off the thought of trying to purchase another. My Haitian friends have asked me why I don't buy another one.Several of them having even offered to donate their necklaces to fund a car. It is way beyond their abilities but they don't realize that, so it's cute.

I have never had the serious thought of buying another one really. For the cost of a car, I could put up 20 houses... way more worth it! Hands down.

Until last night.

One of the boys in our program was over at a friend's house last night. The owner of the house called me last night to complain about too much noise coming from the house. I went over to the house at 11:30 in the night, madder than a wet hen, about to pull their underwear of their heads and walked in the house to find Carlin face down, lying on the floor unconscious. Long story short, when we moved him he started having seizures and stopped breathing.

We quickly decided to take him to the hospital... and then the car troubles began. sputtering, stopping stalling, we took three times longer than normal to travel to three different hospitals to find one that was open. It was a life and death situation as I kept punching Carlin in the gut trying to keep him conscious while driving in the middle of the night with a car (and a boy) on the verge of death. We did make it to the hospital, where he was put on an IV and given oxygen and monitered through the night. Carlin will be ok.

But I shudder to think of the possiblity that my car had broken down. Last night it would have been worth 20 houses, in my opinion, in order to save his life.

We all know Cholera is on our heels. Every day I wonder when it is going to start in my area. Has it started? I have been giving out pedialyte and rehydration packets to everyone who even thinks they may have diarrhea. This is life and death. One of these days I am going to need to take someone at death's door to a cholera clinic, and I need a reliable car to do that.

Here in Haiti, cars are expensive. If one is donated from the states, we would only have to pay import taxes on it ( can be new or used). It just needs to be a reliable 4WD.. preferrably an SUV, something like a 4runner, Pathfinder etc... If anybody would like to help with this very urgent need, please let me know! I don't want to have someone die needlessly on account of transportation. And pray for Haiti. My gosh it's rough here right now!