It has been just over one week since I went to the San Francisco launch of
Heart of Haiti at Macy’s in Union Square where I nibbled on jerk chicken with papaya salsa, drank watermelon lemonade, listened to and bounced to the music of Haitian performer
Sophis Dorsainvil, and re-connected with Pascale Faublas, one of the skilled Haitian artisans/designers I met in Miami at Blogalicious several weeks ago (she remembered me right away!). I admit I felt a little guilty about having such a good time when so many people in Haiti are suffering. But I’m pretty sensitive in that way.
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| Jerk chicken with papaya salsa. Yummmm. |
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| Haitian performer Sophis Dorsainvil |
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| An image of designer/artisan Pascale Faublas sets off some of the Haitian artwork in the foreground. |
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| Haitian designer/artisan Pascale Faublas & Me =) (Notice the hair.) |
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| Dannie James =) |
I now know what took me so long to not only respond to Sophis' Facebook friend request but to report back to all of you. I guess you could say I’ve been busy, which is true; but I realize that my avoidance has been for the same reason I took so long to get back to Marilyn, the girlfriend of my dear friend Dannie who recently passed away from cancer. Marilyn sent me an email requesting my mailing address so that she could send me a copy of Dannie’s obituary and I just. couldn’t. respond. You see, I've been grieving Dannie's loss and wasn't ready to physically touch his obituary. “Makes it real when you touch it,” is how I explained it to Marilyn when I finally got back to her just yesterday…and this is how I in turn can explain it to you. Writing this post (and finally "friending" Sophis) makes
Haiti’s ongoing suffering real for me…even though it has been over 10 months since the earthquake. Call me crazy, but it’s true.
That being said, and as mentioned in
a previous post, I intend to be an ambassador for
Heart of Haiti and look forward to helping in whatever way I can. In the meantime, I will
order gifts from the Collection online this holiday season which will put sustainable income in the hands of Haitian artisans and I encourage you to do the same. I did do a little shopping of my own in Macy’s last Saturday (boots, pants, lunch, etc.), but my most treasured purchase was a heart. A heart from Haiti. =)
