Napoleon Duarte, who died shortly afterward.
Having accomplished all that, she got the kind of reward she liked best: a private evening with Rob, her UNICEF companion Teresa Albanez, and her photographer-godchild, Victoria Brynner, Dorisâ daughter. Together they all attended a gathering in San Salvador, where Audrey sang and played the guitar with a group of local musicians. When the party was over, the adoring minstrels followed her outside and kept on singing. âThey were still serenading her as we were driving off,â says Wolders. âSo much love for Audrey there.â
Victoria Brynner grew up with Audrey and often photographed her, but never âofficially.â This was âa great opportunity for me to be with her in the context of her work,â says Brynner, âand to watch her deal not only with the suffering people in the field but with all the UNICEF officials, the governments, the media, constantly bouncing from one to the other. It was so impressive to see how giving and patient she always was.â
After one wrenching inspection of Quitoâs most poverty-stricken areas, the two women stopped into the magnicifent La CompañÃa church. âWe stood there next to each other and held hands and each said our own little prayer,â Victoria recalls. âAfter what weâd just seen, it was very moving. A few months later, on my birthday, she came to our house with a little basket, and in the basket was a birdâs nest she had found in her garden, and in the birdâs nest was a little hand-painted paper bird, and under the bird was an unbelievable cross set with diamonds and rubies. The card said it was for that moment we spent in the church in Quito. I have worn it every single day.â 73
Â
Â
As AN INSPECTOR in the field, the lady of fashion dressed down and traveled light: Two suitcases and a carry-on held all the jeans, sneakers, sweatshirts and Lacoste pullovers she required. For UNICEF, as for Gardens of the World, she pressed her own clothes in the hotels, did her own hair and makeup, and never made a late entrance. On the road, she needed no one to hold her hand, literally or figuratively, except Rob.
As a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., however, she reverted to typeâand to nerves. On April 6, 1989, smartly attired in a sleeveless black Karl Lagerfeld dress, she was jittery, clinging to the arm of U.S. UNICEF Committee President Lawrence Bruce as she entered a Capitol conference room to testify before the House Select Subcommittee on Hunger.
As John Isaac had told her early on, UNICEF spokesmen were in a tricky position because they could not take political stands. But in the bellicose Reagan-Bush eighties, politics and economics were at the heart of most human disasters worldwide and could hardly be ignored. Walking that tightrope, the UN staff had devised the idea of a â1 percent for Development Fundâ and was now trying to sell it to the world community. Audrey was one of its first and greatest saleswomen:
âLess than one-half of one percent of todayâs world economy would be the total required to alleviate the worst aspects of poverty and would meet basic human needs over the next ten years,â she told the congressmen. âWe cannot ignore the economic issues that have made the 1980s into a decade of despair....
âThe heaviest burden of a decade of frenzied borrowing is falling not on the military nor on those foreign bank accounts nor on those who conceived the years of waste, but on the poor who are having to do without the bare necessities.... When the impact becomes visible in the rising death rates among children, then what has happened is simply an outrage against a large section of humanity. Nothing can justify it.... The burden of debt must be lifted to a degree where the developing countries can cope with debt repayment.â 74
It costs $5 to vaccinate a child for life, six cents to prevent death from
Having accomplished all that, she got the kind of reward she liked best: a private evening with Rob, her UNICEF companion Teresa Albanez, and her photographer-godchild, Victoria Brynner, Dorisâ daughter. Together they all attended a gathering in San Salvador, where Audrey sang and played the guitar with a group of local musicians. When the party was over, the adoring minstrels followed her outside and kept on singing. âThey were still serenading her as we were driving off,â says Wolders. âSo much love for Audrey there.â
Victoria Brynner grew up with Audrey and often photographed her, but never âofficially.â This was âa great opportunity for me to be with her in the context of her work,â says Brynner, âand to watch her deal not only with the suffering people in the field but with all the UNICEF officials, the governments, the media, constantly bouncing from one to the other. It was so impressive to see how giving and patient she always was.â
After one wrenching inspection of Quitoâs most poverty-stricken areas, the two women stopped into the magnicifent La CompañÃa church. âWe stood there next to each other and held hands and each said our own little prayer,â Victoria recalls. âAfter what weâd just seen, it was very moving. A few months later, on my birthday, she came to our house with a little basket, and in the basket was a birdâs nest she had found in her garden, and in the birdâs nest was a little hand-painted paper bird, and under the bird was an unbelievable cross set with diamonds and rubies. The card said it was for that moment we spent in the church in Quito. I have worn it every single day.â 73
Â
Â
As AN INSPECTOR in the field, the lady of fashion dressed down and traveled light: Two suitcases and a carry-on held all the jeans, sneakers, sweatshirts and Lacoste pullovers she required. For UNICEF, as for Gardens of the World, she pressed her own clothes in the hotels, did her own hair and makeup, and never made a late entrance. On the road, she needed no one to hold her hand, literally or figuratively, except Rob.
As a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., however, she reverted to typeâand to nerves. On April 6, 1989, smartly attired in a sleeveless black Karl Lagerfeld dress, she was jittery, clinging to the arm of U.S. UNICEF Committee President Lawrence Bruce as she entered a Capitol conference room to testify before the House Select Subcommittee on Hunger.
As John Isaac had told her early on, UNICEF spokesmen were in a tricky position because they could not take political stands. But in the bellicose Reagan-Bush eighties, politics and economics were at the heart of most human disasters worldwide and could hardly be ignored. Walking that tightrope, the UN staff had devised the idea of a â1 percent for Development Fundâ and was now trying to sell it to the world community. Audrey was one of its first and greatest saleswomen:
âLess than one-half of one percent of todayâs world economy would be the total required to alleviate the worst aspects of poverty and would meet basic human needs over the next ten years,â she told the congressmen. âWe cannot ignore the economic issues that have made the 1980s into a decade of despair....
âThe heaviest burden of a decade of frenzied borrowing is falling not on the military nor on those foreign bank accounts nor on those who conceived the years of waste, but on the poor who are having to do without the bare necessities.... When the impact becomes visible in the rising death rates among children, then what has happened is simply an outrage against a large section of humanity. Nothing can justify it.... The burden of debt must be lifted to a degree where the developing countries can cope with debt repayment.â 74
It costs $5 to vaccinate a child for life, six cents to prevent death from
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