La capacitación, part III – flashbacks to 8th grade gym

The final day of the capacitación was focused more on logistical details and team-building between the artisans themselves, as well as between the artisans and the staff of Manos Amigas. 

Dieuwe and Giuseppe were also at the capacitación, so Simon thankfully had playmates all morning. Sam and I were able to participate more fully in the training without worrying about him being too much of a distraction (for others as well for ourselves!).

I was stationed at the door, greeting everyone as they arrived and handing out surveys for the artisans to complete – anonymously – so that Manos Amigas could get a better handle on their work and how it is perceived. 

Handing out encuestas at the door

Of the 75 people who attended on Saturday, Yannina gave special consideration and kudos to the 15 or so who had traveled from outside of Lima, inviting them up to introduce themselves to the rest of the group. 

A special welcome for the artisans who traveled from outside of Lima to attend

As each had traveled somewhere between 8 and 30 hours by bus, one way, to participate, the applause for each was much deserved. My favorite was an elegant gentleman, Juan Cardenas, who is a jeweler: “I come from the most beautiful city in the world, Cuzco.”

Cuzco artisans chat during a break; Juan Cardenas is in the middle.

Many of the artisans thanked Manos Amigas for something during their brief introductions: “Thank you for the orders, but also thank you for helping to pay for my child’s education.” “Thank you for forgiving a loan after the death of my mother.” One artisan thanked Manos Amigas for the training, saying that none of the other exporters he works with gives him this type of opportunity.

The morning was mostly spent on logistics. Yannina has a really easygoing, friendly manner and was able to say some potentially offensive items to the group without being perceived in a negative manner. “It’s not a surprise to you if you are running late with an order, right? Just let us know too. We need to let our clients know.” “Read your emails! But don’t just read them; respond to them! Do you know how many of you responded to my email about RSVPing for today? Two! I had to call every single one of you as a result!” Artisans laughed.

Roberto reviews payment issues and questions

Yannina did a good job of being the mediator between the group of artisans and the group consisting of their clients, explaining, for example, why the clients might need a fixed cost for a product for one year since they are, in turn, advertising that product and specific price to their own customers.

We enjoyed listening to the information covered as well as looking over the crowd. Sam leaned over and whispered at one point, “I recognize that guy from a Ten Thousand Villages catalog!” Funny how we have our own superstars. We were hoping to meet Rosa, a woman whose heartbreaking and inspiring story we’ve heard several times. Unfortunately, she wasn’t there.

After getting through all of the morning’s topics, door prizes were awarded. Yannina let all the kids take turns drawing numbers out of the bag.

Finally, the moment everyone (at least, all of the artisans) had been waiting for arrived: soccer and volleyball. There had been significant trash talk during the last 24 hours about the soccer games, and some Lima artisans skipped all the training sessions yet showed up to play soccer!

We walked to the park down the street and played for a couple of hours. I say “we”…. I played one game of volleyball, to officially say that I played, all the while reliving the horror of 8th grade gym. And surprise, surprise: time once again slowed down to a crawl. Sam knew how much I had been dreading this game and gave me little pep talks between points. Once our game ended, I made some lame excuse about needing to watch Simon and skedaddled. Sam, however, was all over the soccer games, scoring goals and helping his team get to the championship round.

Giuseppe, Simon, and Dieuwe on their way to the games

Resting after a game while watching another one

Sam's team, en route to victory!

The capacitación ended with lunch, awards, and gifts at our favorite pollería, which Simon slept through. It was a very jovial atmosphere. Yannina was constantly thanking everyone for something. It was clear that people felt valued and respected.

This came through, too, on the anonymous evaluations artisans completed. 79% of the artisans work with other exporters or buyers, yet only 39% of them receive any sort of capacity building training from other sources. Typical comments made at the end of the survey were things like: please keep being the same kind people you are, treating us well and paying us on time.

Everyone walked back to Manos Amigas to pick up a panetón, a special Christmastime treat. And then, mid-afternoon on Saturday, la capacitación was done – whew!

Later we realized that a lot of the work we’d done on Thursday at the last minute – the questionnaires, the additional questions for the anonymous survey, the cds – hadn’t been used. We were a little frustrated that all that effort was wasted. But, to paraphrase Sam, “it seemed like all the artisans had a good time and felt like it was a worthwhile investment of their time. So perhaps we shouldn’t be too annoyed.” But I felt justified in being a little annoyed.

That annoyance was tempered a bit when I remembered all those artisans who traveled to the training by bus. By the time the group from Cuzco reached their homes late Sunday night, they had spent five days on this two-day workshop. What dedication!

I would be remiss if I did not give kudos to Simon, an incredible traveler. On Friday especially, he was in and out of presentations all day, didn’t have a lot of time to play and run around, and took a nap on the fly in the sling as we walked around Lima. And all this without much complaining! We are lucky!

With all the effort and logistics that went into this training, I can see why it is only offered once every two years. But what a valuable experience it was for everyone: so much discussion, learning, and fun. I’m sure that fits in perfectly with the World Fair Trade Organization’s fair trade principles!

La capacitación, part II – field trips and freaking out

Finally, the days of the capacitación arrived! We were excited to meet all of the artisans and see fair trade in action. One of the 10 fair trade principles is to provide capacity-building opportunities for producers, and here we were, about to participate in one!

Friday’s training was specifically for the 15 or so artisans who had traveled from outside Lima to attend: Ayacucho, Huancayo, Huancavelica, Cuzco and Puno, hours away by bus. However, since Sam was giving a special presentation on the qualities of best-selling items, Yannina had invited the Lima artisans to drop in for his presentation. We were curious to see how many would attend.

When we walked in, everyone was running around. While this isn’t unusual – we thought it was weird when we first started at Manos Amigas, but now we have been known to run too – it felt more frantic. The buzzer was constantly ringing its 30-second song as people arrived. Yannina had mentioned that we’d have 30 minutes to mingle with the out-of-town artisans and chat with them, then after the Lima artisans arrived at 9:30, she’d begin with her presentation. Sam would follow with his.

All the artisans were sitting in chairs, waiting for the trainings to begin. Sam loaded his presentation onto the laptop and got the projector hooked up. While he was finishing that, Yannina motioned to me to come up to the front to be introduced. I was wearing Simon in the sling and he stared, wide-eyed, at the 20 or so people who were gathered at that point. They stared back. Yannina began by introducing us and then asked each of the artisans to say their name, where they were from, and what type of artesanía they produced. I was trying to scribble all that information down but was having a hard time understanding much between my level of non-fluency in Spanish and how quietly the artisans were speaking. Yannina thanked them, then said, “OK, Alison and Sam, feel free to start!” She went to the back of the room.

But wait, I thought. Aren’t we supposed to be waiting for the Lima artisans to arrive by 9:30? And wasn’t Yannina going to present first? And where is Sam? Aaaack! This isn’t going according to plan!

Yannina realized we were jumping the gun by about 15 minutes. “Go ahead and chat while we wait for more artisans to come!”

I stared at the artisans. They stared back. I started to have a freak-out moment. She had said that we’d all be chatting during that time; I envisioned us standing around meeting individual people and talking. Instead, I was trapped at the front of the room with no prepared presentation and any idea of how to speak correctly in Spanish vanished completely. My Spanish isn’t great enough to spontaneously banter in front of a group of strangers!

I tried to express how grateful we were for the opportunity to be working with Manos Amigas and learning from the artisans that were here for the training. As I was speaking, Simon sneezed and two huge rivers of snot exited his nose and hung there while I groped around for a tissue. Why couldn’t he have sneezed when everyone was distracted or looking at someone else, I thought. I wiped his nose while I tried to make a joke about it. Time slowed down to an infinitesimal crawl.

So, in desperation, I mentioned that I hadn’t been able to write down everyone’s names when they introduced themselves earlier; could we go around the room again?

Everyone graciously repeated themselves while I took better notes and prayed that when they were finished, we’d be able to start. After an excruciating 15 minutes or so, time resumed its normal pace.

Sam gave an excellent presentation to about 35 artisans; I was so proud of him! He introduced himself in Spanish and then turned translation duties over to Christina, who was also impressive. He talked about Global Gifts and how it is related to Manos Amigas (he buys their products via SERRV or Ten Thousand Villages), and described several qualities of best-selling products, with examples of each. 

Sam, introducing himself in Spanish; Christina is to the right, waiting to begin translating

For instance, he showed a picture of beautiful stationery with elephant designs on it. “This is a best-selling product because it has a surprise associated with it. It’s nice stationery. But once customers learn that this paper is made from elephant dung, they have to purchase it!” Christina paused, unsure of how to say “elephant dung” nicely in front of 40 people. “This paper is made of excrement of elephants.” An audible shock wave traveled around the room. People scribbled notes. 

It was neat to see some of the artisans we’d already met, in their workshops, here for the training. Businessmen wearing half-moon glasses, taking out notepads of paper from their briefcases, figuring out ways to diversify and grow; a complementary scene to an outdoor ceramics workshop where everyone is wearing clay splattered aprons and handling small nativity scenes!

During the Q&A, artisans had a lot of questions about price points. “How much should I be selling my ceramics for?” “What is a good price for jewelry?” The answer, always: “It depends.” 

question & answer time!

Sam gave some examples of items at various price points that sell well at Global Gifts. Yannina intervened, making sure that the artisans realized that the prices Sam mentioned did not equal the sale prices of the artisans, since the price gets adjusted along the fair trade chain. The artisan sells to Manos Amigas, who sells to Ten Thousand Villages (for example), who sells to Global Gifts, who sells it to the customer. Each group marks the product up by varying amounts. 

Yannina then presented the research about Katie and Mary and challenged the artisans to envision their products in the homes pictured. What would fit in each of the rooms? What colors would look best? What designs would best fit each of these women’s personalities?

Afterwards, we broke into small groups by product lines. I was matched with the mate burilado (carved gourd) group. Sam was with the ceramicists. Other small groups included jewelry, retablos, and weavers. While this was a cool exercise, it was also slightly tortuous and time stopped once again. All these artisans were looking at me expectantly. What were my ideas? I tried to facilitate the conversation a bit, as I don’t have answers. I had about three brilliant ideas before the workshop, when Sam and I were brainstorming new products, and when I mentioned them, they said, “Oh yeah. We’ve tried that. Any other ideas?” Great! 45 minutes to go! 

Small groups by product line; I am quietly panicking on the left.

The afternoon session was very interesting, too; Yannina had planned an excursion to two different shopping centers for the artisans to compare and contrast how items were displayed and sold, as well as the different prices the same items commanded. 

The first shopping center, Inca Market, is a series of outdoor malls with little stalls crammed full of various items: shirts, jewelry, gourds, hats, musical instruments, etc. Before entering some of the buildings, Yannina gave the artisans some instructions of what to look for as we browsed. 

Instructions on the street

Comparing window displays

Inside Inca Market

One of the artisans I was walking with was shocked at how much higher the prices were in these markets than in Cuzco, where she sells her items in a similar set-up.

The second, LarcoMar, is a high-end shopping center built into the side of the cliffs and overlooks the ocean. You can walk on the park on top of it and never know it is there! 

LarcoMar from above

Dramatic ocean views... and dramatically high prices too

 The shops that sold artesanía tended to look more like art galleries, with elegant interiors and sparse selections, or were comfortable shops with their products beautifully and artistically arranged. 

We closed the day with dinner together at a restaurant near Manos Amigas and the artisans’ hotel. I was amazed to learn that for about a third of the artisans who traveled here for the workshop, this was their first time in Lima! Ever!

I was also impressed to hear, over and over again, how important fair trade is to their businesses and to their families. Sam posted recently about this too. Fair trade pays on time. Fair trade gives us respect. Fair trade gives us opportunities. Fair trade provides these trainings for us.

Of course, there are always exceptions. Several of the artisans talked about groups that called themselves fair trade but didn’t act accordingly. But for the most part, they were able to trust in better treatment and wages from fair trade groups.

With experiences like this, fair trade is beginning to be less of an abstract concept and more of a concrete reality.

With the Hurtado family: three brothers, each with his own mate burilado workshop

La capacitación, part I – market trends and relentless consumerism

One of our most interesting projects so far has been working on a capacity-building training (la capacitación).

Since this was such a big project for us, I’ve broken up my thoughts into three posts that I’ll put up over the next few days.

Every two years, Manos Amigas holds a training in Lima for all of its workshops, and pays for the transport and lodging for the artisans who live outside of Lima. Each of their 87 different producer groups is invited to send one representative, all expenses paid. (In the interim, Yannina travels to various areas on the outskirts of Lima or specific areas in Peru with larger concentrations of artisans and provides these trainings on a smaller scale.)

A couple of weeks before the training, Yannina gave us an overview of the 2-day capacitación and asked us to do several things: prepare a presentation on the qualities of best-selling products; review several reports on market trend projections for next year and use those as guides to come up with relevant suggestions for new products that artisans could create for all the different product lines; and finally, as most of the artisans don’t have the opportunity to surf the internet for ideas (since most must go to an internet café and pay for web access), we were to compile images that could help the brainstorming process for new products.

A meaty project! Sam happily tackled the presentation on best-selling products. I started reviewing the market trend projections and panicked slightly about making product recommendations. Who am I to say what will sell well? I usually am shocked when Sam tells me what Global Gifts’ best sellers are; I tend to think, “Who in their right mind would spend money on that?!?” If I were in charge of ordering the products for Global Gifts, it would be difficult for me to order things I didn’t personally like. It would also, of course, not be as successful of an organization as it is!

We had reports from three fair trade organizations to digest. My favorite was a 30+ page report on the profiles of one organization’s two targeted consumers, whom they called Katie and Mary. This organization had done an incredible amount of research on these consumers and the type of people they were overall: their values, how they receive and process information, the types of activities they participate in, and of course, their shopping preferences and habits. “Katie” was 35-50 years old; “Mary” was 50-65 years old.

As I read their profiles, I realized that I am Katie, to a T. Everything Katie does, likes, or buys accurately describes me too. Scary! The report included many photos of the types of homes Katie and Mary might have, including furniture, decorations, color preferences, etc. The organization did a great job of providing a lot of information to the artisans designing products for Mary and me, I mean Katie, and it was all in Spanish. Not only did this organization know its target consumer, it knew its target audience for this report. Impressive.

It was fascinating to look at these reports, especially since I am not an insider (i.e. I don’t work at a fair trade organization, Sam does; and I am a product consumer, not a product designer). To see the background on how to make products specifically for a certain consumer was riveting. It also made me feel a little uncomfortable. To what end are all these products made? Why do all these products need to be made? Why does there have to be four or six different marketing seasons each year, with different colors and accents and themes for consumers to purchase new products?

While I have my share of belongings and always need to reduce too, I try to not acquire too much. Watching The Story of Stuff was illuminating, especially the part about perceived obsolescence and planned obsolescence. Remembering this helps me not get sucked in (at least, most of the time) by thoughtless consumerism.

I obviously buy into the fair trade cause (literally and figuratively). But I guess I question whether the costs of relentless consumerism, however thoughtful, is justified by the real and valuable benefits to an impoverished family. I suppose that the answer is to let my purchases make my ethical statements, and that when I’m going to buy something, buy it fair trade. But I’m still overwhelmed by this process. Hopefully I’ll have a better answer to this in several months.

We wrapped up our projects the day before the training and met with Yannina and Mario to review our presentation and materials one last time. They gave good feedback and then proceeded to give us three days of work that needed to be done before the next day: create 35 cds (with over 2,000 photos in 97 folders from Mario!) of supplemental materials, some of which needed to still be created; create a questionnaire about the content of the Friday’s training; review and add questions to an anonymous survey about Manos Amigas’ work with the artisans.

Sam and I looked at each other and weren’t entirely sure how to proceed. We divided up the work as quickly as possible and finished as much as we could that day and evening. And then we figured we’d just roll with the punches the next day…

A Peruvian Christmas

Christmas was obviously different for us this year; no Schumacher/Hess or Carpenter family gatherings, no truffle-making madness over the last few weeks, no cold and dark nights. 

Christmas Eve day seemed like any other day; everyone was still at work (even though it was a Saturday and Christmas Eve!) so Simon and I stopped at our favorite construction sites and watched cement trucks, a backhoe, and the giant buckets moving up and down on a pulley system. This is a favorite pastime – checking out construction sites – and we never have to go very far to find one!


Peruvians celebrate Christmas late on Christmas Eve, with presents and dinner at midnight, accompanied by lots of fireworks. We were excited to be invited to Christmas Eve dinner at Yannina’s home, thankfully at a more reasonable hour (for us) of 7:30. It was as if Manos Amigas had simply changed the location of its daily activities, as everyone we see on a daily basis (with the addition of Yannina and Roberto’s mom, Angelica) was there for dinner.


Dieuwe and Giuseppe have an annual tradition of putting on a little skit featuring their Santa Claus-clad teddy bears, and this year they had a special part for Simon: the tiny elf helping Papa Noel. We thought this was hilarious and taped it while all the other adults were off doing adult things like putting food on the table.

Getting ready for their annual Papa Noel skit, this time with a special guest, the little elf

Is this not hilarious? I love Simon and Giuseppe's hats! 

We ate dinner, we opened presents, and we set off fireworks. Simon was bouncing off of the walls, a combination of a late night, lots of exciting toys, and two giant glasses of chicha morada, the purple corn drink.


We were home by 10:30, only to be awakened at midnight by many earth-shattering rounds of fireworks. Somehow Simon slept through all of that, thankfully!


Christmas morning we walked down the coast via our park network (past all the used firecrackers!) on the malecón to find a group of friends-of-friends for a Christmas brunch picnic. It was an interesting contrast to the night before. There was champagne, fruit, sticky buns, and lots of toddlers. 


Sam started blowing bubbles for Simon to chase and was instantly surrounded by kids; he looked like the Pied Piper of Peru!

Look at the zeal on Simon's face! What a delight.

It was interesting to compare notes with Sam on our walk back home: people generally either work for an embassy or in mining. Occasionally I’ve met an expat who is a teacher, or works for the World Bank, or is a fruit exporter. But generally those people (and we) are outliers. It’s a completely different circle of people than we’d meet in the States. Many different nationalities, several different professions; our only real commonality is that none of us is Peruvian!


We are thankful to have opportunities to meet friends and experience a holiday in another culture, even though we miss our friends and families. Merry Christmas!

Be

Welcome to our 2011 holiday letter, making a guest appearance online this year as trying to mail cards & letters from Peru was slightly impractical and cost-prohibitive!


This is a different end-of-year letter to write than we normally do; typically this is one of the few times per year we write about what is going on with us for our fabulous but far-flung community of family and friends. But this year I’m writing every week or so, trying to capture interesting or meaningful experiences as we have them, not only to share with you, but also to help us preserve these memories after we’ve returned home. Bear with us as we straddle the line between writing a year-end missive without including too much that is already posted on this blog.


As mentioned elsewhere, we are spending Sam’s sabbatical year in South America, mostly Peru, and the three months we’ve been here so far have been amazing. Since those months are fairly well chronicled here and on Sam’s blog, I won’t say too much about them, other than they are going by very quickly. (If you are interested in having future posts delivered to your email inbox, type in your email address to the box on the top right corner of the blog that says “subscribe by email”. Ditto for Sam’s blog, which you can find via the link at the top, right.)


We tend to pick a word that represents our motto for the upcoming year, and look for a quote that helps illustrate what we mean.

I like to walk alone on country paths, rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot down on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth. In such moments, existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality.


People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child - our own two eyes. All is a miracle. 

Thich Nhat Hahn

It’s funny how, once we’ve settled on a word, it jumps out at us in a number of situations. I tend to be tense and want to make projections, plans, nail down specifics. Sam tends to want to keep options open and make decisions a little later. With the move to Peru, there have been so many things that we’ve simply needed to wait for (such as finding friends, improving Spanish, various pieces of information) that many of our conversations have ended with some iteration of “Let’s just be. Let’s just enjoy the moment.” Simon, having fun with beginning to say recognizable words, has also enjoyed reminding us to “BEEEEEE!” He’s a good reminder for that in general.

Simon has continued to amaze and amuse us with his energy, good nature, cheerfulness, adaptability, and all-around fun-ness. He is pretty fabulous. He loves mopping, sweeping (both of which come in handy daily here), loading the laundry, and helping us make coffee and juice each morning.

What a huge help he is! He’s starting to want to “help” on the stove; yikes! He’s started waving hello and goodbye to strangers as well as whenever cars honk, which means he’s incessantly waving; he likes playing with other little kids at the playground and is currently only sliding down the slide backwards. But more than anything or anyone else, he loves playing with Dieuwe, Yannina’s 11-year-old daughter, and Giuseppe, Christina’s 6-year-old son. He runs to the window to wave goodbye to Giuseppe when he leaves for school, and when we see Dieuwe at Manos Amigas he screams with delight and off they go to play.

Sappy or simplistic as it sounds, a lot of this year was just about enjoying life during long talk/walks with friends and their kids, and the anticipation of the sabbatical in South America. Besides being in Peru or planning for Peru, other significant and/or special happenings for me (Alison) this year included:


I finished the book of Jared’s blog, finally. We threw a party to celebrate.


Some of the backstory: When my brother, Jared, was diagnosed with leukemia in 2007, he started a blog on CaringBridge. After he passed away in 2008, I didn't want his blog to just disappear. I wanted his sons (so young when he died: Caleb was 2 years, Noah 4 mos) to get to know their father as they grew up, through his writing as well as what other people remembered about him. I wanted them to see a gazillion pictures of Jared, encompassing his entire life instead of just the 8 months of his leukemia fight.


So, I decided to make a book of his blog, with additional sections for Jared's obituary, memorial services, letters & stories from friends, some of his widow Anne's posts, and two memorial events at Camp Friedenswald. I wanted to make five copies of this book - one for each of his sons, Anne, my parents, and myself.


I worked with a designer to place the text and photos and create the sections somewhat close to how I'd envisioned them. I formatted the text & cleaned up all the abysmal spelling from the comments. In August 2010, I finally dropped off the printed copies of the book to a bookmaker, who had agreed years before to stitch and hand-bind each book.


And, three years after I started working on this project, the five copies of this book were finally completed. They are gorgeous. I wish I would have taken photos of them all together, but alas, that opportunity is gone. As each book is over 800 pages long, it takes some serious reading to get through it. The professionals I worked with did an amazing job. I am so grateful to have his elegant and honest writing, with silly and serious photos, in a beautiful package for our family! My uncle blogged about the book too; read what he had to say.


I worked part-time during the summer, covering some duties during a maternity leave for a friend and former co-worker. It was fun to get back into the work force a day or two per week, and Simon had a blast with his babysitter friend Kelsey. It helped me better consider various factors I’d like to have when I go back to work in a more permanent employment situation, as has my part-time volunteering here with Manos Amigas.


I also really, really enjoy continuing to help run the arts committee at my church. We got an arts space (MennoArts Gallery) up and running with several shows this year, and had a number of projects in the hopper before I left. It will be fun to step back into those projects, and whatever is next on our plate, when we return.


And now, switching to Sam…


This year has felt like a year of preparation for my sabbatical and our year in Peru. This is something Alison and I have wanted to do for years and have been plotting for as long to make it happen. But a whole new level of planning was needed to make the actual jump.


I spent much time laying the groundwork for my absence from Global Gifts. An important and insightful task was writing out my job description. As Global Gifts has grown over the years my responsibilities have changed significantly. I had to sit down, think through, and write all that I do. It was insightful because before that exercise, I think I would have had a bit of difficulty explaining my job in detail. The next step was hiring and training my replacement and splitting up my job responsibilities between that person and other people on staff. In the middle of all of this transition, we needed to move one of our stores to a new location. This involved much negotiation with landlords, handwringing, and the logistical challenge of closing one operation and opening another. We had the grand opening for this new store September 9, and we left for Peru the following week (just under the wire). I’m pleased to say that things are going very well in my absence and it looks like Global Gifts is having a record sales year. That success is a real tribute to the many people involved with Global Gifts. Our time in Peru and meeting many artisans reminds me just how important it is that Global Gifts continues to do well.


In addition to my responsibilities with Global Gifts we needed to find renters for our house and move out. This experience was not too unlike opening the new store in terms of handwringing, negotiations, and logistical challenges. But on the plus side, it did prompt us to get rid of a lot of extra stuff.


During those last few months before we left, I kept thinking, when I get on that plane, I’m going to breathe a huge sigh of relief and enjoy the slowness of my sabbatical. It didn’t quite turn out that way but gradually life has slowed down. Spending so much more time with Simon, while not relaxing, is a real joy and a great benefit of this sabbatical year.


While blogs are great for keeping up with what is going on in someone else’s life, it’s certainly no match for an actual conversation or visit. As you have the time and interest, we would love to hear (or read!) what is going on with you and your family.


Much love,
Alison & Sam

Just another link in the chain?

Yesterday Sam and I had the opportunity to visit three artisan workshops in Chorrillos, one of the southernmost neighborhoods in Lima. We were accompanying Yannina and Luigi, a representative from Libero Mondo, one of Manos Amigas’ Italian clients. 

At one point in the afternoon, Luigi commented about the links in the fair trade chain between the producer and the consumer, and how it was represented here. “We have the artisan creating the product, Daniel. We have the exporter, Manos Amigas, who sells to the importer, Libero Mondo. Too bad we don't have someone with a store to complete the chain!” 

Except we did; Global Gifts was represented. I piped up. “Sam’s organization has three stores!” Luigi was relieved: “Ah, the chain is complete.” I took a photo to document the occasion. 

The artisan, the exporter, the importer, and the store

Later, Luigi asked me to replicate the photo for him, including Simon as the future of fair trade. I could have argued to be included (as the all-important consumer!), but someone needed to take the photo, right?

How cool that fair trade can be represented by these four people. I wonder how many links are in Wal-Mart’s producer-to-consumer chain, on average.

Warning: product promotion follows. Stop here if you can’t take another commercial, even if it’s for fair trade! If you are interested in learning more about the links in the fair trade chain and you read children’s books, consider purchasing Think Fair Trade First, by Ingrid Hess (my cousin!) and edited by Sam; online via Amazon, in person at Global Gifts (in Indy and Bloomington) or at a Ten Thousand Villages store near you!