Angeline's Story

Take Angeline for example. A woman I met during my time in Haiti. Angeline, a tiny woman with a small frail frame, who is likely in her late 30s, has five children, no husband, and lives in a tiny tin shack with no running water, no electricity, and not even a front door to ensure she and her children feel safe at night while asleep. Angeline worked at a fair-trade beading facility we partnered with in Haiti to earn money to support her family. I became close enough friends with her to ask her if she would allow me to see where she lived. She agreed, and so we walked from the beading center, down a small dirt hill, through a little community of lean-to shacks which were each nestled directly upon the other. When you walked through her little village it seemed everyone was outside-neighbors caring for other neighbors’ children, mothers cooking, some women washing clothes, others selling coffee in large pots outside their homes. The little village with bustling and teeming with smiling and welcoming faces. When we arrived at Angeline’s home the reality set in that where she was taking us was her everyday reality, but for my team and I, we would look in, learn about where our bead workers live, and then get to leave to the comforts of our American homes. Angeline’s little tin hut was so fragile, it looked like it could be knocked over by even the slightest gust of unexpected wind. Upon entering this tiny, dirt floor shack-home I saw a small pile of black charcoal placed in a mound in one corner used as cooking fuel, sitting next to the little pile of charcoal was a pile of badly used plastic plates and old, worn, tin cups waiting for use after they’d been washed. A chipped and discarded piece of plywood served as a divider from the front of the little house to the back, and upon entering the back portion of this shed you could see small piles of clothing lying around as there was no closet, no place to hang or store belongings, and in the middle of this tiny dirt floor area was a piece of old, broken, plywood, elevated on four small wooden posts. This, Angeline told me, was her bed. I looked down in this dimly lit area to the dirt floor and noticed packing paper sent by HALF UNITED to protect the merchandise we’d shipped to Angeline’s team scattered all over. I asked her why the paper we sent was lying around, and she told me she brought it home to lay it down for her children to sleep on, so they wouldn’t have to sleep directly on the dirt. I lost it. When she said this, I had to sit down. I found myself seated, hand over mouth, on her little plywood “bed” staring out the front entrance with tears running down my cheeks. It was not my intention to hurt Angeline’s feelings or make her feel bad about her circumstances. Quite the opposite. I sat there fighting tears as hard as I could, so she wouldn’t think I pitied her, or felt sad about what I saw. I didn’t feel sad for her, I felt sad for the truth that this is the reality for millions of women every day. I felt sad that in one hemisphere, one person clinks a cocktail glass, while another lays their head at night on a strip of packing paper, so they don’t have to feel the grit of dirt beneath their skin.