Celinecia Nelson

Celinecia Nelson
6/18/2009

There is no shade near Celinecia’s house. To avoid the fierce sun, we went inside her house. With the four of us, the house felt overcrowded. It looked so fragile that a little bump here or there could bring the entire house down.

Inside, there were a bed, a table, some pots and buckets. I sat on an empty paint-can and Celinecia sat on her bed with her baby in her arms. Bonison and Ashley both sat down on the ground since there was nothing else to sit on. The floor of the house was uncovered and the bare earth was exposed. The roof was made out of banana leaves. The sunlight peaked through the house. When it rains, the entire house will become wet and muddy.

Celinecia hadn’t been living in this house for that long. A few months ago, she lost her original house because her mother-in-law, the owner of the property, threw her out. She was able to move into her parents’ property, where she built this temporary house. She hopes to build a more durable house in the coming July. CLM will provide tin, some nails, and labor, and she would have to prepare wood and stones.

Celinecia was originally born and raised in Port-Au-Prince. She never knew her father because he left the family when she was a baby. Her mother died a few years ago. Celinecia has one brother who lives near the Artibonite River and two sisters who are still living in Port-Au-Prince, but she hasn’t seen them ever since she came to Chevry two years ago. The only kin she keeps in touch with is her grandmother, whom she visits occasionally.

Celinecia has been married for two years and she is now a mother of two children. Her youngest is ten months old, and the older one is two years old. Her husband was working in the garden when I visited her. She said that they had just planted some vegetables in the garden. What would you do with the vegetables when they grow? She hopes to feed them to her family. How many times in a week do you eat? She does not know for sure but maybe once a week.

From CLM, she received three female goats, and she is also going to start a "small commerce." She wants to buy chickens to sell them for a good price. Before CLM, she had to buy food with credit. She burned some wood to make charcoal and sold them so she could pay back what she owed. However, since she had to buy food continuously, she kept accumulating more and more debts. But now with CLM, she feels she can gradually start paying back her debts, and even start her own business.

Adeline Brevil

Adeline Brevil

6/18/2009

Adeline is in a very good condition compared to other CLM members I have interviewed so far. While others on the program are eating maybe twice a week, Adeline and her family are able to eat twice a day, every day in the week. She also eats variety of food, not just rice and beans. Today, her family ate breadfruit, potatoes, and even some stew.

It turns out that Adeline is a talented entrepreneur. With the stipend, she goes out in the local market to buy rice, citron, mushroom, eggs, and platens. She carries whatever she bought on her head and travels to Milbale, a city that is farther away from the town, and there, she sells them for a better price. With the profit, she buys food to feed her family. This is extraordinary since most other women use their stipend to buy food for direct consumption or to pay debts. Last week, Adeline bought two hens with the stipend. She says that even if she cannot sell them immediately, she can always keep them for a while and then sell them later when she needs money. I asked her if she likes raising animals, and she says that she loves animals and that the animals prosper in her hands.

Adeline chose goat-raising and chicken-raising as her enterprises. Bonison (the case manager) pointed out that one of her goats was already pregnant, which is a really good sign. With the revenue and profit from animals, Adeline wants to buy more animals. She will buy a pig first. Then, more goats, a cow, another cow, and finally a horse. With a horse, she could carry more loads to the village and make more profit. Moreover, she jokes that she would no longer hurt her neck like she did this week.

Adeline hurt her neck and shoulders this week. She fell on her way back from getting drinking water from the local waterfall. She was carrying the water bucket on her head when she fell, so she hurt her shoulders and neck. This seems to be a common problem among the women who live in her village. Another woman complained to me on the same day how the road gets muddy and slippery when it rains, and that she would fall when she is trying to get water. But other than Adeline's shoulders, everyone else in the family is healthy.

Things were not always this good. Before CLM, Adeline would go hungry very often, and the people in the village would save some money for her so she could feed her children. She says that since CLM has started, things have improved a lot.

Mother of four children, Adeline has two girls and two boys. The oldest goes to school, but he is the only one who can go to school at the moment. Adeline herself was not able to go to school. She complained that her parents, or the older generation, did not know enough to put their children into school. With CLM, she was learning to write her own name for the first time. She slowly tried to write her name in front of us, which was not an easy exercise for her. She was able to finish writing her name with some help from her case manager. By the time she would be able to write her name with confidence and ease, I hope that she could also send all of her children to school.