WEBVTT 00:00:09.650 --> 00:00:11.490 BREAKING STONES 00:00:12.110 --> 00:00:14.740 In the Alfred neighborhood, in Carrefour-feuilles 00:00:14.740 --> 00:00:20.540 You can run into Tengué Lyonel, a 33 year old young man. 00:00:20.790 --> 00:00:22.410 He's a stone breaker. 00:00:22.710 --> 00:00:26.580 He's been earning his living this way for several years. 00:00:27.040 --> 00:00:30.250 A boss [a specialized worker] is not a rat. 00:00:30.500 --> 00:00:32.500 I say a boss, because that's who I am. 00:00:32.670 --> 00:00:36.220 You see what I'm doing here don't think i'm not a boss. 00:00:36.340 --> 00:00:38.640 I have things in my mind. 00:00:38.890 --> 00:00:42.310 I must earn my own money to survive. 00:00:44.850 --> 00:00:48.610 Obviously I was born in Carrefour-feuilles. 00:00:48.770 --> 00:00:50.770 I am from Port-au-Prince. 00:00:50.780 --> 00:00:53.820 My mother is from Jeremie. My father from Leogane. 00:00:53.990 --> 00:00:58.740 I can say I am part of three “countries” [regions]. But my native country is Haiti. 00:01:03.330 --> 00:01:06.500 I have a child, but I don't actually have a wife. 00:01:06.920 --> 00:01:11.000 You understand, I live alone. Sometimes my son comes to see me. 00:01:11.210 --> 00:01:15.720 He spends a few months with me. But he is in the care of his mother. 00:01:15.800 --> 00:01:19.140 And I am not with his mother. There are people passing by here who say: 00:01:19.300 --> 00:01:21.970 “I did not believe a rasta would do this kind of job ”. 00:01:22.140 --> 00:01:25.020 But I have to do it because my mind allows me to do it, 00:01:25.270 --> 00:01:28.060 And this spirit that allows me to do it, he takes care of me. 00:01:28.270 --> 00:01:29.770 I care about myself. 00:01:29.940 --> 00:01:32.940 If people don't care about me that's their problem. You understand? 00:01:33.070 --> 00:01:37.030 This is how I manage, without a problem. 00:01:39.490 --> 00:01:42.030 When I need an old pair of sandals, an old t-shirt, 00:01:42.160 --> 00:01:44.160 This is what allows me to buy it. 00:01:44.290 --> 00:01:45.910 I'm not lucky enough to have someone in New York or even here. 00:01:45.910 --> 00:01:47.910 After God, this is all I got. 00:01:48.080 --> 00:01:50.840 I am not going to lie to you, I don't buy the stones. I go get them. 00:01:50.920 --> 00:01:53.880 Sometimes stones come down from the ravine when it rains, I take them there. 00:01:54.050 --> 00:01:56.880 But when it doesn't rain, I go to the mountain. 00:01:57.050 --> 00:01:59.680 Up there at Tapis Rouge. I take stones there. 00:01:59.840 --> 00:02:02.720 By the way this morning it's at Tapis Rouge that I went looking for these two. 00:02:02.850 --> 00:02:05.180 As the sun was beating too hard, I told myself I had to calm down. 00:02:05.220 --> 00:02:06.980 I'll go get some more tomorrow. 00:02:07.100 --> 00:02:11.560 I can break enough to fill two wheelbarrows per day. 00:02:11.690 --> 00:02:15.990 This is money, but I don't have it in hand, do you understand? 00:02:16.150 --> 00:02:21.280 Gravel, you can spend months breaking it before someone buys it. 00:02:21.450 --> 00:02:24.660 If you don't have patience, if you lose courage easily, you can't do this job. 00:02:24.830 --> 00:02:26.830 Because you don't get money every day. 00:02:26.910 --> 00:02:28.910 Life is like this, one day someone can stop by, 00:02:28.960 --> 00:02:32.380 Buy a wheelbarrow, two wheelbarrows, three or five. 00:02:32.500 --> 00:02:36.460 This is how you turn the gravel into money. But you don't get it every day. 00:02:43.300 --> 00:02:48.020 Sometimes the buyer takes the gravel from me and tells me he has no mean of carrying it. 00:02:48.100 --> 00:02:50.440 If he has the money for transportation, I get paid for it. 00:02:50.520 --> 00:02:54.190 It's money. Two sources of money do not argue. 00:02:54.860 --> 00:02:59.950 Likewise a friend can have a job he does in the area, 00:03:00.280 --> 00:03:03.740 He tells me: “I have a job, I need a helping hand " 00:03:03.780 --> 00:03:06.290 Even if I know that he won't pay. 00:03:06.370 --> 00:03:09.370 He will give me some water to drink on the way back. 00:03:09.460 --> 00:03:14.630 This is how I spend my days. I have no one telling me what to do when I wake up. 00:03:14.790 --> 00:03:17.300 It's just me, God and this. 00:03:23.720 --> 00:03:27.310 It may happen that I wake up one morning and that I find some mason work. 00:03:27.390 --> 00:03:31.100 Or a friend can offer me to go with him for a day of masonry work. 00:03:31.310 --> 00:03:34.230 But that doesn't happen every day. There are days like today. 00:03:34.400 --> 00:03:37.400 Someone could have told me: “There is some masonry work here or there”. 00:03:37.570 --> 00:03:41.400 While I was planning to work on my gravel, I would put this on hold, to get the money from that work. 00:03:41.450 --> 00:03:46.780 The friend could have said to me again: “There is a foreman leading a new site. I go. What about you?" 00:03:46.910 --> 00:03:49.620 I go. Because these plans are easy money. 00:03:49.750 --> 00:03:51.500 That's how I fight for my daily life 00:03:51.540 --> 00:03:56.090 You know when you smoke weed they judge you. 00:03:56.670 --> 00:04:01.550 We know the judgments are there. They were there since we were born. We resign ourselves. 00:04:01.720 --> 00:04:04.760 We don't ignore the person who says it. We control ourselves, we do not answer. 00:04:04.890 --> 00:04:07.810 Sometimes they tell you things like: “He looks like a thief”. 00:04:07.930 --> 00:04:10.640 "Look at his face he looks like a gang member" You understand? 00:04:10.890 --> 00:04:14.270 It goes that far. You just need to have strong shoulders.