In the last week Haiti’s Jewels has been blessed with two new, completely original, GROCKISANZ (glass and rock artisans). I wrote a few days ago describing our first tremendous trio and today I’ll introduce you to two more… making the FABULOUS FIVE!
CHRISMATE PIERRE: UREYTHANG GURL
I met Chrismate my second week in Gressier because of her rambunctious, adorably verbal five year old son. Every day, as I was walking up the mountain to Bellevue School, I would hear a munchkin scream, “Blaaaaaaaaaaaan!!! (White girl) Comment vas-tu?” I thought it was pretty adorable that this little kid shrieked down to me every day just to practice his French and by the 5th or 6th time I decided to go introduce myself as someone other than “Blan.” I walked up the hill and talked to little Robenson, introduced myself to Chrismate, and made sure they both knew that my skin was actually brown, not white. 😉
We talked for a few minutes but I quickly had to tear myself away because I was already forty-five minutes late for a visit to a dear friend of mine, Madame Vil. Story-of-my-life. I waved goodbye and Robenson screamed after me, “SCHOOPHIE, Bonne journée!” “Bye-bye,” I waved back. As I walked past the school I stopped dead in my tracks and almost slapped myself right upside-da-head. Why the hell didn’t I invite her to come jewelry class? Ughhh. On my way back home, later that afternoon, I stopped by her house again but the neighbor said she had gone to the market. Shoot. By monday, our next class, I had completely forgotten about my brain fart and was focused on teaching Donald to make double tiered earrings. Chrismate came up to the iron door and peeked in on the class. It’s like she read my mind! I was so stoked to see her that I told to Donald to ‘just keep practicing’ and took almost the entire class period to work with Chrismate. It’s always really hard with women, I don’t know why, to do the wire wrapping. It never makes any sense to me because I am a woman and obviously have a knack for wire, so… why do I have such a hard time finding other women in Haiti who can wrap the glass? But my gut told me she would learn. Tuesday class: Chrismate walked in and dumped 15 wire wrapped rocks onto the table, “Look Sophie, I’ve been practicing!” Most of them were actually wrapped pretty well. I was shocked. Sure I believed in her and everything… but this definitely surpassed my expectation. Within a couple weeks, she’ll be wrapping as well as any of the other Grockisanz.
MONSIEUR RICHARD PIERRE: QUALITY COMES FIRST
Richard joined us for class a few weeks ago because he had heard Wilnes had a new job wrapping rocks and wanted to check it out. He must have taken a few tips from Wilnes because he invaded my same three pet peeves. He stood over my shoulder, just inches from my ear, breathed down my neck, and blocked 90% of my light. Aww brings back memories. This time I waited a few minutes before I said anything just to see what would happen. He said, while breathing into my ear, “thaaat…breath.. looks easyyyy… breath…” “Really?” I said, offering him a challenge, “why don’t you sit yourself down and give it a try? I ate my own words, so to speak, because he is the most detail oriented Haitian I’ve ever met. He made two pairs of earrings in an hour, painstakingly slow, but they were without any imperfections.
Richard is a good deal older than any of our other grockisanz and has, in just few days, proved himself to be the wise, stable leader in eclectic crew. He is always telling us that “bon dye renmen nou” (good lord loves us) and other Gospel essentials. He came to class on Friday with 5 pairs of perfectly wrapped earrings. I couldn’t believe a human’s hands had wrapped pairs of earrings so identically. How? So his motto is one to remember and value quality>quantity.
I feel very blessed to already be working with five talented jewelry makers. I never, EVER, expected training to move so quickly.
Together they make the fabulous five and with yours truly we make the SENSATIONAL SIX.
Much love from Ayiti Cherie!
Haiti's Jewels 