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minor diff author diff hide diff>>**Jean Manie**<<
>>June 18, 2012<<
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http://www.apprenticeshipineducation.com/images/jeanmanie.jpg
When one speaks with a CLM member who is 17 or 18 months into the program, it
is common to hear glowing accounts of "what CLM has done" for them.
But Jean Manie's declaration is different, and much stronger. She says, "I
can never forget what CLM has done for me. It released me from slavery."
When our staff first met Jean Manie, she was living "//a moun//."
That is to say, she was a //restavčk//, an unpaid domestic servant in her
cousin's home in Chimowo, a rural community along the main road that runs west
from central Boukankare to the important market in Feyobyen. She had been
living with the cousin for years, having grown up in her aunt's house after her
parents died when she was a very young girl. Life with her cousin and her
cousin's husband, Moussa, was hard. She would get up every day before dawn to
make breakfast for the household. Then she would go into the fields. She worked
in Moussa's fields almost every day, unless she was doing the laundry or some
other heavy household work.
At the time, Jean Manie was living separated from her young boy, Patrick.
Moussa had put Patrick out of his house when he was a toddler, saying that he
would feed Jean Manie, but not her son. So Jean Manie sent Patrick to her
aunt's house, where she would visit him now and again when she "really
missed him." Her first case manager, Sandra, told Jean Manie that CLM
could only help her if Patrick was with her. CLM does not work with childless
families. So the two of them spoke with Moussa, who was initially interested in
the program, and he agreed to let Jean Manie bring Patrick back.
Moussa was enthusiastic because he thought that the program would bring
resources into his own household. When he learned that we would be giving Jean
Manie goats and a pig, he said they we could just put them together with his
and that he would take care of them for her. When he heard that we'd help Jean
Manie build a house, he said we could construct it on his land.
Things started to unravel as Moussa began to understand that CLM was a chance
for Jean Manie to achieve independence. By that time, Jean Manie had a new case
manager, Alancia, and Alancia made sure that Moussa understood that the assets
we were giving Jean Manie were for her, not for the household. We tried to put
an understandable spin on things: We explained that we thought it important
that Jean Manie herself learn to take responsibility. But the message must have
been too clear. Moussa wasn't ready to simply send Patrick back to the aunt's
house, but he was willing and able to interfere with any progress Jean Manie
might make. He would send her out into his fields to do farm work all day,
forcing her to leave care of her animals to Patrick, who didn't know how to
take of them and too small to do so without direction. Her goats were soon in
very bad shape, her pig had piglets, but they died of neglect. The sow died
shortly after her young.
Jean Manie was not, however, alone in her struggle. Nor was Alancia the only
one anxious to help her. The CLM program establishes village assistance
committees in all the communities we work in. They are made up of local leaders
who agree to lend a hand as we try to combat the extreme poverty around their
homes. We established a committee for the area just east of Feyobyen, and the
representative for Chimowo was Claude, a local farmer who also teaches at the
little primary school in the area.
Claude attended one of the workshops we offered to committee members, and what
he heard made him think of Jean Manie. "They said that I should pay
closest attention to the women who have the most problems, and I saw that Jean
Manie had big problems." He began encouraging her to take better care of
her animals, though he could see that she needed more than mere encouragement.
He watched helplessly as the piglets and then the sow died and the goats'
condition deteriorated.
Jean Manie's problems increased as she and Alancia started thinking about her
house. Alancia vetoed Moussa's idea. She would not allow the house to go up on
Moussa's land unless Moussa would deed a little piece of the land to Jean
Manie. Ultimately, the land owner is the homeowner, so Jean Manie would have no
guarantee unless her house went up on her own land. As Alancia started helping
Jean Manie look for someplace to build, it became clear that Moussa would try
hard to hold onto her. Alancia got initial agreement from their church's pastor
to sign over a very small corner of the church's land to Jean Manie so that she
could build. But when Moussa heard, he went to the pastor and threatened to
leave the congregation if the pastor followed through with his promise. Rather
than lose a relatively wealthy congregant, the pastor apologetically went back
on his word.
Things took a turn for the worse one-day when Moussa and his wife sent Jean
Manie to Mibalč, where they keep a home for children who are in secondary
school. They sent her to do laundry for the kids. At the end of the day, they
were angry because they felt that she ruined a new shirt. Not only did they
refuse to give her money to pay for her transportation back to Chimowo from
Mibalč, but they didn't feed her that day. What's more, they made her pay
them for the allegedly ruined shirt. But Jean Manie still had nowhere to go
with Patrick. She felt stuck with Moussa and his wife, the only home she knew.
The crisis came when Alancia and Jean Manie arranged for Claude to take over
management of her surviving goats. Moussa was so enraged that he threatened to
beat Jean Manie. The threat was real. She had been suffering physical abuse
since she was a girl.
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Alancia heard about the threat, and she sent Moussa a counter-threat of her
own: If he laid a hand on Jean Manie, he would see what Alancia could do. The
threat was vague, but its vagueness itself might have helped it. Alancia is, in
any case, a strong and robust, six-foot woman who would tower over a man like
Moussa. Rather than call her bluff, he decided to be done with the whole thing,
and he threw Jean Manie and Patrick out.
Without a home to return to, they arranged, through Alancia, to move in with a
fellow CLM member, who had just finished constructing her home. Tona had two
children of her own, but she was willing to give a corner of her one-room house
to Jean Manie and Patrick. Idana, another CLM member who lived closer to
Moussa's house, finished her house soon after that, and Jean Manie and Patrick
moved in with her instead, even though she had four children and a husband in
her little home.
None of that, however, offered anything like a permanent solution, and this is
where Claude's commitment really began to show. He owns several pieces of land,
and decided to deed a small plot to her. It would be just enough to allow her
to build a home.
Our program, however, does not simply build homes for its members. We provide
roofing material and some money to pay builders, but members themselves have to
supply the lumber and the rocks and dirt or palm-wood planks that are used to
build up the walls. We think it's critical for member families to have to work
hard for the progress they make. But Jean Manie really had no resources at all
to work with. Her assets were in bad shape. They hadn't yet created any new
wealth for her to invest in lumber or other materials. And she had no other
land where she could find the lumber she'd need.
So Claude cut the lumber for Jean Manie on his own land, and helped her carry
it to the small plot he had given her for her house. The plot itself had the
dirt and rocks she would need for walls. Jean Manie had to prepare food for the
workman who did the building, which was a real expense by her standards, but it
was also a contribution she was capable of. She also hauled the water for the
mud walls. She and Patrick moved into the house as soon as the first of the two
small rooms was ready.
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So Jean Manie escaped from Moussa, and began a new life with Patrick in her own
house. Looking back, she's come to understand that she was a slave. But when
she talks about what makes her maddest about all the years she spent with
Moussa, she doesn't mention physical or other abuse. She doesn't mention being
hungry or exploited. She talks instead about something that happened one
Sunday after church. Patrick was hungry, so he dug up a sweet potato in Moussa
garden and boiled it. When Moussa saw, he was furious. He told Patrick never to
take anything from his garden again. Jean Manie says, "I was so angry. All
the years that I've planted and harvested those gardens, and prepared all the
food the family eats, and Moussa can't let my boy eat a sweet potato."
Finally in her own home, things started to look up. She even took money from
the sale of meat from her sow, added savings from six months of income
replacement stipends, and was able to buy a very young bull. Claude takes care
of it for her.
Once the door was up on her house, she was able to start a small commerce.
Initially, she sold kerosene. She would give Claude the money to buy it for her
in Domon, where it's cheaper, and then she would sell it in the local market in
Feyobyen. But Jean Manie felt that it wasn't selling well enough, so she
decided to sell //kabesik// instead.
//Kabesik// is low-grade rice. It consists mostly of broken grains. It's
imported from the Dominican Republic, where it's used mainly as feed for
livestock. The Dominicans call it "//cabecita//," which means
"little head." The Kreyňl word comes from the Spanish. In Haiti,
//kabesik// is a staple for those families who can't afford anything else. Jean
Manie buys 600 gourds worth of //kabesik// on Fridays, in the market in Domon.
That's about six large coffee cans of it. She's able to sell five of the coffee
cans for the same 600 gourds in one or two days in the market. She uses the
sixth coffee can to feed herself and Patrick. Between that rice, and the
various things she can scavenge, she's keeping the two of them fed -- Patrick
has even put on some weight -- but she's not able to make the kind of progress
we hope for.
There is, however, another factor. She is a young woman, and at various times
over the years she's had suitors. Nothing much came of the relationships while
she was living with Moussa and his family. He acted as her parent. Suitors had
to go through him. He would insist that they help her work in his fields, and
his demands would eventually discourage them.
Things changed when she moved into her own home. Shortly after she finished her
house, a local agricultural laborer moved in with her. Things were going well
for a short while. He works at a sugar mill, and would bring her logs of the
dark brown sugar called "//rapadou//," which is popular in the
Haitian countryside. She'd sell the logs, and it was a nice addition to her
income.
The relationship unraveled when Jean Manie got sick and went to the hospital.
The doctor told her that she had an infection and that she should refrain from
sex during the couple of weeks of treatment she'd need. The man got angry, and
he moved out. A couple of weeks later, he wanted to move back, but Jean Manie
said she wouldn't take him. He said that he would have sex with her whether or
not she was willing. Fortunately, she told Alancia, who reported him to the
police before anything could happen. She also spoke to the guy, letting him
know that she'd have him arrested if he carried out his threat.
Eventually, another man started showing interest in Jean Manie. This time, Jean
Manie sent him to talk to Claude. She chose to have Claude play the parental
role. So Claude talked to the new boyfriend about his prospects and intentions,
and he liked what he heard. He's a middle-aged widower with grown children. He
shows no interest in having more kids. He has his own productive farmland, so
he is able to contribute to the household. He initially wanted to have Jean
Manie and Patrick move in with him, but Claude insisted that Jean Manie she
stay in her own home, and the guy eventually agreed. For now, the relationship
seems promising. Claude seems optimistic: "It hasn't been easy, but I
pulled her through. Some day, I want to hear people say, 'Look what Claude
did.'"
Jean Manie will graduate in July, though her situation is still precarious. She
has goats and a cow, but can't really manage them. Claude does it for her. Her
income is small, just about enough for her to feed herself and her son, but it
isn't yet likely to grow very much. She hasn't shown much evidence that she's a
capable businesswomen. Even with the intensive work she's done with Alancia,
it's only support from fellow CLM members that has enabled her to get her
little business going. Her best hope right now depends on her new relationship
working out.
But her life now is nothing like what it was. "The best thing is,"
she says, "that when you live in your own house you get up when you want
and go to sleep when you want to too. With Moussa, I used to have to get up at
2:00 every morning to make breakfast for the rest of the household before I
went out into the fields." The difference is even more visible in Patrick.
At Moussa's, he was silent, scared. He was always looking at the ground. Now
he's playful, full of cheer. He's a happy, healthy boy. He's about eight, and
he finally was able to finish first grade this year. His mother dreams that
he'll be able to go much farther than that. And maybe he will.
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