Super Ben and Queens for Fair Trade

Big news - thunderstorm today!  Managed to wake up an hour earlier than yesterday, so making progress on that jet lag issue.

Ben (AKA Beno the New York Super) was just returning from a trip down Amsterdam Avenue to the nearest True Value hardware store.  Our toilet needed a little plumbing assistance (it is interesting how many times during home stays that Ben has played plumber).  A little plastic do-hickey part had snapped.  All better now.  This always gives Ben a big lift - he loves fixing things (when it goes well).

Our big adventure for the day was to visit Alison Cebulla at Handcrafting Justice (HJ) and see her new place of work.  Alison is famous in HumanKind Fair Trade Store circles for being the savior Store Manager who turned HumanKind into a profitable non-profit.  She has taken her incredible energy field to New York and is now working for HJ in Queens.  She kindly invited Ben and me to a tour of HJ and lunch.  Dilara sat out this adventure (have not asked her how late she slept in!).

 Ok, Queens.  First of all, it is a world apart from Manhattan, not the least because the subway train emerges above ground into sunlight.  We got off the subway into a Greek subculture.  At one point, I asked Ben if he felt as I did that we were in a foreign country.  We detoured into a Mediterranean market and I never realized there were that many kinds of feta!  Olive prices were half that of New Frontiers in SLO.  After wandering the aisles we got back on track and found HJ just before the rain started pelting down.

Alison made us a lovely salad lunch and we met her boss, Sister Maureen, her intern and other employees.  Alison has a big challenge at HJ because she is tasked with developing a national wholesale market and they are used to selling products at the retail level at small parishes around the country.  Alison gave us a tour of their back stock and it was interesting to consider whether HumanKind would be able to market their products.  Overall, probably not.  I never gave much thought to how you develop a product line that a third world artisan can produce but will still sell to our discriminating Western palate.  All I can say is, thank God I was a career government employee and never had to take the risks that small business owners take.

We took our leave of HJ, with the plan to host Alison, and we hope some other SLO transplants, for wine and appetizers tomorrow evening.  We stopped at the California Farmer's Market (!)

for groceries and picked up fish at a Greek fishmongers.  The dinner we devised from these ingredients was delicious, as is the sound of thunder and flashes of lightening that are rumbling all around us.

This NYC trip has a more leisurely feel than our previous whirlwind trips.  We are settling in and loving the pace.  It feels luxurious to know we have 10 days ahead of us to take in the culture and the startling mundane here in NYC.