CNSA Targeting

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the chain, one more heavily capitalized, who accumulates greater quantities and who is likely
destined for a larger town market, city or, the holy grail, Port-au-Prince.
The trade activity of women is a critical part of the household survival strategy. Rare today is the
household that does not have at least one female member who purchases goods in the markets for
the household consumption, sells products of the household in the markets, and buys and resells
the products of other households in these markets. The best way to conceptualize the money from
sale of household produce and female marketing activity as a medium of storage, one in which
consumption of the stored household surplus can first be sold and, secondly, the surplus prolonged
by rolling the cash it yielded over in the market, producing petty profits.
A critically important point for the analysis and understanding how to target interventions is that
while this is a market system, it is emphatically not oriented towards “wants,” but rather
subsistence and local production. The overwhelming bulk of products sold are inexpensive, locally
produced and somehow related to production and subsistence; with respect to the profits that the
machann earns, the bulk of the money is destined for reinvestment in commerce, other income
generating enterprises – such as fish traps – or spent on subsistence foods and necessities for the
household and, ultimately, the growing 'mama lajan' (literally "mother money," or more
technically, the principal or capital) preserved for economic recuperation during times of crisis.
The explanation of the rural economy would not be complete without some mention of the fact
that the market system bleeds over into a burgeoning economy of micro-producers, service
specialists and petty vendors including porter, butcher, baker, tailor, basket maker, rope weaver,
carpenter, mason, iron smith, mechanic, mariner, boat maker and host of marine specialties that
keep the boats afloat. Micro vendors from the most remote homestead to the towns and cities sell
everything from a single cigarette and shot of rum to telephone recharge cards to hair ties to small
bags of water to cures for cancer and unrequited love and bad luck or dozens of different lottery
tickets.
Figure 24:
Integrated
Household
Subsistence
Strategies and the
Market