I just always wanted to do the right thing.

I was the only girl out of six kids, and my parents expected a lot of me.

And my dad used to always say to me, Melody, don't be a sheep.

Don't follow the crowd.

I speak French.

I was fascinated by the sound of the language.

I had a wonderful teacher in junior high school, and my parents had gotten me a book when I was a young kid called The Slave who freed Haiti.

So I think the fact that that was somehow embedded in my consciousness and the sound of the French language and my love for the Caribbean I'm a swimmer, I said.

That's it.

I'm going to go and live in Haiti.

I landed there and I was in shock that I couldn't use my French too much because the the official language is French.

But the people speak Creole.

I think the people who hit your wonderful they're very, very sweet, their humble, they're accepting of their plight.

I learned that everybody says hello and goodbye and how are you before they start talking?

This is going to be hard for me to talk about my daughter because I love you so much.

I had wanted to have a child and because I'm independent, I didn't care if I was married.

I had done an unsuccessful in vitro.

And then I told the doctor, friend of mine, a Haitian doctor friend of mine, that it didn't work.

And he said, So are you ready for Haitian, Baby, I said, I just want a baby.

And, um, within two weeks we found a beautiful Haitian peasant woman who doesn't want the baby, and it was almost like it was meant to be.

So I can I tell my daughter, Rachel, I've known her longer than she's known me.

I saw her first.

The name of my store is the lady from Haiti.

At first I was thinking about changing that name because Haiti was getting so much bad press at the time that I decided to begin a store.

But then I got my daughter, and I decided I'm not changing that name.

She's actually the lady from Haiti.

This is now her definition in Naples.

The little girl doesn't have a daddy got a white mommy.

She's gonna be different.

The lady from Haiti is Rachel.

When people come into my store, I hope that they they feel happy when they see the artwork.

The Haitian spirit shows through in most things.

People are happy to see unusual things, unique things and expensive things.

I like people to smile when they come in here, and it happens.

I lived in Haiti for six years during nine different governments.

I would love people in this country to understand that Haiti has so much more to offer all the different things that people that aren't in a big rush, to get somewhere fast and achieve and to grab more and more for themselves.

Ah, lot of the things that we don't experience so much in our country anymore are still present in Haiti.

I admire Mother Teresa and people that can give up everything, all the comforts of home and their background.

I know I can't be like Mother Teresa, but I want to have the kind of impact I many people that I've had on my daughter.

Sometimes I think I want to go to the Middle East and help the kids and the refugee camps.

They can't be happy people in their lives if they don't learn somehow that there is a thing called happiness.