Three miles from HP’s Women’s sewing cooperative is a tiny village called Puits Laurent. Every weekday morning a woman rises at dawn and prepares a simple breakfast of coffee and a piece of bread for her children, eight children, most of whom go to school. After they leave, she walks to work.
The road is choppy, and she walks for a while along a dry riverbed, moves up the side of a couple of rugged hills, all of this taking about an hour and a half because of the rough terrain.
When she reaches the women’s sewing cooperative in Sainton, she begins her embroidery. She has worked at the Artisanat for several years, receiving a salary, improving her skills and, most importantly, earning enough to be able to feed and pay the fees for her children to attend school. Still another woman, the manager of the knitters, lives just a short walk from the artisanat. She carries her littlest ones to work when needed, and sometimes they sleep in the corner while she works. All the women take turns watching the babies romping around the artisanat. Most of the time work ends at 2pm and the women begin the journey home to start cooking dinner, raising livestock, and minding children who are home from school. The day is busy; filled with travel, work, cooking, and children.