30131: Mdmdread (reply) Re: 30078: Kathleen (reply to Paul Bick) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Mdmdread@aol.com

Some twenty years ago I spent time in Cite Soleil with a group of artisans
from whom I bought handicrafts, which I then sold for them at a non-for-profit
store in the States. I'd also take groups of 'tourists' to see the shop and
workspace there.

Some might say that is voyeurism, but I thought those trips served several
purposes -- the first being that they brought income into Cite Soleil because
they bought handicrafts from the store, so the money went directly back to the
 artisans. Another was that it provided these people a chance to see  the
conditions that artists had to work under/in/with in order to produce their
goods. And it was a way to understand a part of Haitian life that otherwise 
might
be closed off to them.

I don't know what most of those people did with that experience after they
left Haiti and returned home. But when I was first introduced to Haiti, it
changed my life, and I'm forever grateful that someone allowed me to see a side
of Haiti that otherwise might have remained an academic one.
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