Mask fashioned by Haitian earthquake victim from husk of the inedible fruit of the tropical “calbas” tree.
Whenever there’s construction noise or the clatter of falling stones, many of 500 little kids in her charge still tremble and require care, comfort, and maybe even yoga. They remember the big earthquake.
Didi, or “Sister Jiivaprema,” was in New Haven telling that story— about a school she and others have built in Haiti.
While the large aid organizations have have reduced services or even forgotten about Haiti as the second anniversary of the earthquake approaches, Sister Jiivaprema has not.
The Ananda Marga nun is in town until Dec. 29 raising money through selling pill boxes, bags, scarves, and art work, many created by families still struggling for water, shelter, and basics in still desperately make-shift camps in Port au Prince.
Allan Appel Photo
Ananda Marga nun Didi Jiivaprema and Peter Dodge at Edge of the Woods.
For 14 years Jiivaprema has worked with three schools that are the beneficiaries of a major local New Haven Haiti relief effort headquartered at the Edge of the Woods natural foods store on Whalley Avenue.
Grocery owner Peter Dodge is a longtime devotee of Ananda Marga, and serves on the board of that group’s social-service arm. In particular he has sponsored relief for three schools and their attendant clinics and women’s programs in the Bourdon and Delmas sections of the Haitian capital.
The papier mache plate is fashioned from a section of a discarded cement sack.
That’s where Jiivaprema has worked for the past 14 years.
Click here for a previous article on how Dodge galvanized the sending of a major container load of tents, clothing, medicines and other supplies in the aftermath of the Jan. 12, 2010, quake.
By the Haitian government’s estimate, the number-seven magnitude tremor killed more than 300,000 people, injured an equal number, and rendered a million homeless.
On Saturday night at 7, Didi Jiivaprema, a Spanish, Canary Islands-born nun (“didi” means nun in the local argot), will play the guitar and update people on the post-earthquake needs at a fundraising dinner at Edge of the Woods. (For more info and to attend, you can call the store at 787‑1055 or Peter Dodge at 467‑0019.)
After Jiivaprema sold two laquered pill boxes to an appreciative regular customer, Robert Kissel of Hamden, Jiivaprema said that two years after the devastating quake a huge amount of the most basic work still remains.
Toilets, for example.
Or, more specifically the ditch latrines that had been built in the12 camps in the environs of Port-au-Prince in expectation of people leaving for more permanent housing in a matter of months; the toilets are still there and are now crumbling.
Most of Jiivaprema’s 3‑to-9-year-old kids live in the camps with such primitive facilities.
In fact one of the three schools she manages is inside the Citron camp. People are still so poor, she said, the meager furnishings such as chairs are still stolen.
Many of the kids get their only meal of the day at her school. She struggles to pay 20 teachers, many dealing with 40 and more kids in a class; there are few amenities for kids’ activities.
“Haiti is a different world. It’s a struggle for everything from water to jobs,” she said.
“The big organizations are still there, but not as involved,” she added.
That means the medical clinic is in need of basics and it is a struggle for water, shelter, food, life’s basics for her families.
“We get rice, beans, oil, and salt from the U.N.,” Jiivaprema said. For everything else, including gas for cooking, spice to render the food other than bland, Ananda Marga must secure donations, often from abroad.
Which is why she is in New Haven. She used to come at least once a year to Edge of the Woods. But this is the first visit since the earthquake.
“Most of the kids don’t have homes, live in the camps. All were victims,” she said.
People’s faith sustains them, she said. Others create art and crafts and their wares are represented in what Jiivprema was selling.
A woman whose design name is Charlotte makes masks as well as paper mache dishes out of pieces of discarded concrete sacks. Such items are selling for between ten and $14 at Edge of the Woods.
Little amounts go a long way in Haiti. One of the Ananda programs Jiivaprema is particularly proud of is the micro-lending. Through a gift from supporters in Italy, she was able to distribute $200 each to 68 families who set up tiny enterprises selling art works or sewn materials or vegetables on the street.
The 2 percent interest goes into the common pot for juice or food when the women’s groups get together.
Edge of the Woods shopper Robert Kissel said he has bought Didi Jiivaprema’s elegant embroidered bags and converted them into carriers for his laptop and MP3 Player, as well as other items over the years.
On Wednesday he bought two laquered and tooled pill boxes whose workmanship he described as elegant and worthy of fancy boutiques, not only the entryway of the Edge of the Woods produce section.
He also praised the prices, calling them almost a “song” compared to “some silicony, nasty ting produced in China.”
He said that every year he is astounded by Jiivaprema’s merchandise. He says he tells everyone about her. She’s “a humble little nun, but it’s high fashion.”
Jiivaprema, and Haiti, need many more such enthusiastic customers as Kissel.