Tita
Tita died of AIDS this January 2007. We have decided to leave her story available on this web page due to the lasting impact she made on the Tienda and all who have been involved in its creation.
Tita is an artist. She makes anklets dripping with glass beads and hand crafted copper accents.
Tita is 22, or perhaps 25. The interesting thing about the Haitians of this village is that the majority of them don’t have a quantitative grasp on time, but rather a qualitative one. This person is old, this one young. That time was bad this time good. I once heard a story of a Haitian lady, when asked how long she had been pregnant answered,” about 8 years”. This was not an error in translation but rather the response from a woman with a mind that processes time measurement different then the west.
So as best as Tita can guess she was raped when she was about 16. She found out she was pregnant and immediately became a prostitute.
This puts a bleak picture in my mind but Tita narrates with stoicism. She became a prostitute to save up some money to buy a home. She did save up her earnings and did purchase a home in order to raise her son.
The home she purchased was about the size of a very small garden shed. It was pieces of scrap metal held together by random sticks and discarded wood.
Tita mentioned recently that it wasn’t until she was promised a Job in the art co-op (called La Tienda de Raquel by the villagers) that she was able to stop living as a prostitute.
It was a beautiful transformation that happened in Tita over the last year and a half. She went from being very cool and uninviting to warm and full of life.
When you teach someone how to create with their hands, it brings them to life with a sense of purpose and self worth. Tita has a skill. Not only does she now create and learn and grow, she makes things that others want to buy. Not just anyone either. THE RICH. All those rich Gringos with clean hair and access to an excess of goods. The rich who eat three meals a day and have bathrooms in every house and a bed for every person; They actually WANT what SHE makes. This is big.
Now Tita and her young son Frankie (or Tee-pa-pa) can eat every day as apposed to every other day. But more importantly, she has a job with dignity. You wont find her walking the streets at night.
You will however find her in the Co-op the moment the doors are unlocked until the sun goes down. She loves to be there.
