tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46607875493987911402011-07-08T01:14:39.893-05:00an artist's ground level view of HaitiMandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.comBlogger261100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-37042159043487970182010-05-23T14:55:00.000-05:002010-05-23T14:55:37.550-05:00

An enormous amount seems to be happening in my life as it relates to Haiti, much less as it relates to art, or at least my own art! I did finish a commission, a Himba girl bust, life-size, that I'm very pleased with... fired since returning from my month in Haiti. The desert-like Gonaives area with it's dusty city, and river valley oases of millet and palms - and working for IOM - was fascinating

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-42973941429588380882010-03-25T17:46:00.000-05:002010-03-25T17:46:15.254-05:00

I'm setting off for Haiti again, with some trepidation - ten weeks since the earthquake, and right at the start of rainy season - to work in Gonaives, a dusty hot northern town that was the scene of terrible floods and mudslides in the hurricanes of 2008, more floods last year, and is in a badly deforested area. It's now also overrun by refugees from Port au Prince, some (thousands) of whom are

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-15503329392504871192010-02-03T10:49:00.002-05:002010-03-25T17:37:20.219-05:00

May14th Benefit Exhibition for Haitian relief! 100 artists participating! Keep up to date on FaceBook, http://www.facebook.com/pages/100-for-Haiti/282674848036 or new website  www.100percent4haiti.org

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-740390503698106212010-01-14T14:27:00.005-05:002010-01-18T12:48:17.919-05:00

Now that the big basic aid is arriving in Haiti and unfortunately bottlenecked all over with uncleared roads, one damaged airport... all the unimaginable problems - the little aid agencies are starting to come into their own and getting organised - HCS founder Mathilde Aurielen Wilson only just reached Port au Prince but is already setting up a base with a second plane load of medical supplies

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-620735377626012012010-01-13T13:29:00.001-05:002010-01-13T14:13:25.878-05:00

I thought I knew before How it is to feel heartsick and so far away and unable to help… Now I see that I was only dreaming. All the world sees the few pictures are the same on every news-site, the woman up to her waist in rubble, dust covering her like ash, the naked dead piled on truck beds, the crushed and bleeding limbs the shock in every eye. And no-one knows there are no phones, no power,

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-70473320647566140972010-01-12T20:03:00.000-05:002010-01-12T20:03:28.512-05:00

Just this evening came the news of the 7.3 mag. earthquake right next to Haiti's capital and 3 million people who live mostly in illegal concrete block shacks with no seismic re-inforcing, even schools and hospitals are collapsing, houses falling in ravines... The phone services are out and there will probably be no word for a few days - we can only wait and hope for the best. Why does it seem

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-57673632806408072102009-12-20T16:45:00.001-05:002009-12-20T16:47:46.532-05:00

Some quick sketches - Haitian Old Year and Haitian New Year... MERRY CHRISTMAS

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-86764256911988429022009-12-16T20:08:00.002-05:002009-12-16T20:08:30.974-05:00

Those Haitian smiles look out from my photo album On mule-back, next to thatched huts, coming down steep banks where there are no roads, Wearing bright school uniforms or T-shirts with strange slogans (who knows, donated by Minnesotans...) Stirring coffee beans in an old tin over the fire, planting yams with a heavy hoe and machete, Walking with huge baskets on heads, half-naked children trotting

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-80681879996242642672009-12-07T17:27:00.000-05:002009-12-07T17:27:54.719-05:00

The Omega VI Mill is in Timo's hands (and out of Customs)... so trials can begin and it's off to the village soon! Seemed like a long long time from here... but at one point I was trying to raise enough money by Xmas so at least we beat that! Well and truly!

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-32160591264531323572009-11-07T04:52:00.002-05:002009-11-15T04:43:18.170-05:00

We're still waiting for the shipment of the Omega VI Mill to Port au Prince from Miami, bumped twice for medical priority shipments and now lost in transit, a second one is en route ...  but that gives time to finish translating the documents for it's use and maintenance, and to collect the materials to build the pedal-powered framework (much more efficient than the hand-crank)...  Here in the "

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-61710259057303664292009-11-02T15:46:00.000-05:002009-11-02T15:46:40.121-05:00

Vévé profile (L) 6 x 6, clayboard $190- Vévé face (below) 6 x 6, clayboard $190-

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-55315433240783223032009-11-02T15:43:00.000-05:002009-11-02T15:43:07.742-05:00

Sunset 8 x 8" watercolor on clayboard $240-

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-54036553789291005542009-10-28T17:54:00.002-05:002009-10-29T05:51:23.668-05:00

Just received the new Stovetec 2 door charcoal / wood burning rocket stove ( see one door version in my stove slide show) to test! Stovetec has given it to me free in exchange for my translation of their manuals into French, and then into Haitian creole with a great deal of help from Timo and friends in Haiti! It will be really interesting to do some cooking with the dead branches that are all

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-65060745888882228482009-10-24T14:56:00.001-05:002009-10-24T15:10:56.081-05:00

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-19661876808294799042009-10-16T15:20:00.011-05:002009-12-07T17:52:27.502-05:00

Omega VI Mill. I'm currently raising money to send a BURR MILL to Au Centre Village in November! This is a kind of grinder that can be used to husk coffee, grind coffee, grind maize, make flour from dried breadfruit and other crops, and make peanut butter and other pastes! It is hand powered and I am also sending the metal parts for a pedal-powered mounting that can be built in the village (

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-53159854669373968852009-10-13T07:16:00.000-05:002009-10-13T07:16:52.269-05:00

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-33501345666466998452009-10-12T20:05:00.001-05:002009-12-07T17:38:37.842-05:00

Long before the red mud staining the soles of my feet is gone, Days before I've eaten the last great flat circle of cassava bread you gave me, Even while I still have that sweet ache inside - I'm back in the concrete jungle. Nobody here says hello in the street No smell of coffee roasting and burnt sugar tablette. No hibiscus hedges along footpaths No chickens underfoot. No tidy schoolchildren

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-66404523668424945312009-10-12T20:00:00.000-05:002009-10-12T20:00:19.788-05:00

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-7852834191919811782009-10-10T11:58:00.005-05:002009-10-22T14:29:17.341-05:00

All sketches available - 25% of price supplies needed equipment in Haiti. 

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-44775708461332780812009-10-08T14:27:00.001-05:002009-10-08T14:49:05.636-05:00

Endless turned earth where the yams are planted each to its own dip in the red ground, each with it's supporting pole like a soldier, there is strength in numbers but also the voracity of locusts. Subsistence - kay where the reddish children, hair in twists yellowing at the tips, stand bunched in doorways, one for each year of a farmer's married life. Patience - the mule hobbled in another

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-56967145905728651212009-10-05T06:56:00.004-05:002009-10-09T05:57:05.530-05:00

Inside the house is as dark as at five in the morning, with the same infrequent squawks of chickens and the odd shout from the road, almost no-one is out. All day the nieces lie huddled under the covers, sleeping or murmuring on their cell-phones. An odor of kerosene pervades the corridor, it was used to light the charcoal fire - there is a big plate of rice and some boiled cabbage at noon.

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-31682296135828521412009-10-02T19:56:00.004-05:002009-10-03T07:26:23.908-05:00

The LOW TECH STOVES slideshow shows the main stages of building several types of simple stove during my two trips... Note: click on slideshows to view full size on Picasaweb!The stoves cost virtually nothing to build, can be adapted to  different sizes of kitchen/family, using 60% less fuel they save biomass eg. wood, charcoal, dried maize cobs, save collection time, and distance travelled in

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-91902231696230502322009-10-02T05:17:00.001-05:002009-10-02T05:19:06.692-05:00

Staying with Madame Clem. The wisdom of 84 years close to the soil surrounds her, though she is almost never still, the first to rise in the morning, she spends her day cooking, tending the banana-grove, a small bean crop, her herbs, missing nothing that happens in this household of at least 16 people.  Probably not a lot escapes her in the district of several thousand... with nine children, and

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-38763458776668303592009-09-28T19:02:00.003-05:002009-10-02T04:58:07.273-05:00

September 2009 - The four young men on the old concrete threshing floor beat black beans from their pods with sticks they cut from a tree nearby, it could be a hundred years ago but for the style of their shorts and the cheap plastic sandals. Their shirts off, they glisten at first then the dust of the threshing covers them evenly, without changing the intensity of the blackness that the strong

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-76849847122169394962009-09-28T16:19:00.004-05:002009-10-04T18:29:43.879-05:00

Poem in three languages: (1) I'd like to stay here for a long time Until I have only the scent of woodsmoke and after bathing, Of "Giv" soap they sell in the market in boxes Bright green or orange with pictures of black women Whose skin is lighter than my Englishwoman's skin. I'd like to stay here for long enough Babies wouldn't cry if I held them, a strange white woman - Children wouldn't call

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4660787549398791140.post-38186180334543059502009-09-26T11:54:00.002-05:002009-10-04T07:54:08.189-05:00

Approaching the end of another adventure, we get up at 3.30, in Madame Clem's house, Au Centre village, and set off in pitch dark before 4am up into the hills to catch the bus to Port au Prince. Luckily here the mobile phones have built-in flashlights, my Maglite flash gets feeble quickly  so I trade, the villagers could do this walk in the dark, it's the twice weekly market route, and the daily

Mandy Thodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281338651923346937noreply@blogger.com0