Post Earthquake Jacmel (Haiti) Report and EMMA

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4.2. The Internal Haitian Marketing System
For the purposes of this study, a discussion of the internal marketing system begins with the
Regional Rotating Market System found in the Southeast and the extreme commoditization with
which people in the area interact. This market system is spatially characterized by open air
markets held in specific locations on specific days of the week. The system is such that
inhabitants of any particular area are within walking-distance to at least five major markets per
week. As with the rest of Haiti, the transactions that take place in these markets--as well as
transactions outside of the markets--are cash based. But an important feature of the market is that
many of the items sold are household necessities. xvi This is not to say that markets are stocked
entirely with local products. There are also imported staples (spaghetti, flour, rice, beans, salami)
as well as tools, utensils, clothing, and inexpensive knickknacks (soaps, hair ties, used clothing,
shoes, wash basins, pots and pans, dishes, drinking glasses, eating utensils, machetes, hoes, and
kerosene). But whether imported or produced locally, the overwhelming bulk of items sold in the
rural marketplaces relate directly to subsistence. xvii
The vigorous, cash oriented market system and commoditization-mentality being
described is also manifest in a dazzling degree of specialization in both the production of local
material goods and provision of services. xviii But, arguably the most important aspect of the
regional marketing system is the role it plays, not simply as a place to purchase, but in generating
household income through selling. The overwhelming majority of women who live in the area
are involved in trading such that commerce is the primary feminine economic opportunity; and
together with agricultural and livestock production is one of the three pillars of Haiti‘s internal
market system. Women use commercial activity as a means of earning money and of extending
household savings. The tendency to commoditize is such that a local person who is given a bag
of rice or earns it in a food-for-work project will generally not stash it in a dark recess of the
house to be doled out bit by bit over a period of weeks or months. Rather, the rice is separated. A
large portion is sent straight to the market or sold at below market price to obtain cash that is
then used to engage in more lucrative marketing activities and to purchase other foods and
provisions as needs arise.
Female involvement in commerce is something that has the potential to put women on
economically equal footing with men, particularly middle aged women who have a sufficient
number of adolescent children. These children maintain the other productive activities of the
household while the woman is away engaged in itinerant marketing activities. It is from this class
of women that come the madam sara, a major player in the internal market system and one so
commonly misunderstood as to warrant special mention and clarification here. xix
4.2.1. Madam Sara
Named for a migratory bird that assiduously searches for and finds food wherever it goes, the
madam sara (pronounced ma-dan sé-ra) acts as the critical market link between rural producers
and the urban consumer, most importantly the 30% of the national population who live in Portau-Prince,
many of whom work for wages and receive remittances from overseas migrants. In the
Southeast there are several characteristics of the madam sara that outsiders and urban based
Haitians commonly misunderstand.