"Things will get better": Rebuilding livelihoods in Carrefour Feuilles.

By: Julia Gilbert (June 2010) 

Marie Carole Boursiquot was one of 56 women who ran Oxfam’s first community canteens in Port au Prince, for two months from March to May. Oxfam supported her financially so she could feed 80 of the most vulnerable people in her community and make a profit for herself, as a first step to regaining her own means of subsistence. To meet her, we drive up to Carrefour Feuilles, a poor area of Port au Prince packed with small buildings, most of them broken by the earthquake, and climbing gravel paths, still covered with a thick layer of rubble. She is sitting at a market stall covered by a large awning made of plastic sheeting, outside an old water kiosk – a two-story building now reduced to one floor. She pulls up a few small chairs for us, and we ask her how she has been getting on in the last couple of months.

Marie Carole Boursiquot, canteen owner in Carrefour Feuilles. (Kateryna Perus 2010)

“Things were difficult right after the earthquake, but we’re Haitian so we have to get up and move forward. Then there was the community canteen and that work really helped me; I was able to set some money by to start my business back up. Now I have my own stall again. Every week, while I had the canteen, I would put aside some of the profits, 1,000 gourdes here and 1,000 gourdes there, and I would send the girls out to buy things for my shop; I also borrowed a little money so that I could buy the rest of the stock. Now I am selling all kinds of things; rice, sugar, beans, pasta, coal…”

(Kateryna Perus 2010)

I ask Marie Carole to show us her stock and she is happy to oblige. She shows us the beans and grains first, lined up neatly to one side, in canvas sacks – she scoops up little handfuls of each for us to inspect; kidney beans, black beans, little green beans she calls French beans, Miami beans, wheat, cornmeal, and corn kernels. The corn is for chickens, she specifies, not people! Then she delves into a box on the floor and pulls out blue sachets of coal, little bags of washing powder, and sugar that she has wrapped in little plastic packages - two sizes, one worth 5 gourdes and one worth 10 gourdes.

(Kateryna Perus 2010)

For such a small stall, there is an impressive variety of stock. Marie Carole pulls out strings of milk cartons, little pink bottles of shampoo, candy, and, strangely, something that looks like a little clay saucer. She laughs as she shows it to us, and explains that it’s called ‘terre’ (earth) and that children and pregnant women are usually the ones who come and buy these…to eat. “I don’t eat these myself, but they do, sometimes they buy a whole tray! They come and ask for it specifically.” Apparently it is considered healthy.

Marie Carole puts the boxes back in place and sits down again; “I went all the way down to Croix Bossales to buy the stock at the market there. My brother came with me and helped me. With the canteen and now this stall at least we can all eat. There are ten of us still living together, since the earthquake, in the same shelter with a metal roof. But now we have some plastic sheeting, some from Oxfam and some that we bought, so when it rains we don’t get wet like we did before.”

We are momentarily interrupted by the arrival of a customer, a little girl of five or six years, sent to Marie Carole to buy some snacks – crisps or crackers of some kind. She is a little shy around us and rushes off without waiting for her change. Marie Carole laughs and lines up the coins on the counter – the little girl will be back. Then she sits down again.

“The problem now is that this shop is not mine. I have an arrangement with the owners, they have let me set up shop outside the bottom floor since they can’t use it anymore since the top floor collapsed in the earthquake. But the ceiling is cracked and leaks so some of my stock got wet, all the little plastic bags I bought to put the customers’ goods in. Because the first floor fell on top, I don’t like to go inside, so I didn’t see immediately that my things were getting wet because of the leak. It’s hard to manage my stock.”

Marie Carole Bourslquot, canteen owner in Carrefour Feuilles standing where her house and shop stood before the earthquake on January 12, 2010. (Jane Beesley 2010)

“People from Oxfam (the market support team) came to inspect the site of my old shop, they saw that it was destroyed, and they are going to provide me with a shipping container that I can use as a shop and to store my stock securely. That will be much better for my business; I will be able to buy more, and I will be able to manage my stock better then.”

I ask her what her biggest needs are now, but she is reluctant to answer. She shrugs. “Oxfam is the only organisation helping this whole community. Many things would help me, but I don’t want to ask for too many things. You can’t constantly ask for others to give and give. I am satisfied with what God gives me. But with more money, or the container from Oxfam, I would be able to get on even better than now, expand my shop; sell more and make more money to improve our shelter and to improve our life.”

“There are always needs, but as long as we are healthy, and we have two hands and two feet, we can find things to do, and we will continue living. Things will get better.”

Oxfam’s livelihoods work in Haiti supports people in regaining their means of subsistence, and in taking charge of their own lives again. The programmes began with 56 community canteens feeding 80 people, and are continuing to expand. The first canteens have closed but there are now another 139 canteens in various areas of the capital, each supporting one canteen owner and feeding 80 of the most vulnerable people in their communities. The women who run the canteens will participate in business management training, and 25 shop owners, Carole among them, will receive containers, to use as store premises and secure storage, once they are ready for distribution. Oxfam will support them and many others with a livelihoods grant of 130 US dollars to allow them to recapitalise their business or buy more stock. The livelihoods grant programme will reach 30,000 families, or roughly 150,000 people, over the next few months.