VIDA (life)

Friday, December 1, 2006

Today was Dia Mundial de Luta Contra a SIDA (World AIDS Day). Aside from teaching, my volunteer work here consists of getting to know the needs of my community in order to plan for development through the organization of community events. In preparation for World AIDS Day, Portuguese volunteers from the Posto Sanitario (Sanitary Post) came to the school and spoke candidly with them about AIDS and other pertinent sexually related topics. In order to reinforce the activities the students have taken part in, we held a drawing contest and taped the students’ entries along the outside walls of the school today. The community was invited to participate and both the primary school students and secondary school kids wore red or white t-shirts. I passed out pamphlets and we held a march in which the kids stood along the sides of the street. The students formed two lines, one red and one white, and held the shoulder of the person in front of them all the way to the Posto Sanitario on the other side of town near my house. Students held up signs on our march with information about AIDS. Before the event, I was worried that it may be a flop, but was happy to discover that all I had to do was mention the event and the participation was there. The other teachers became heavily involved and I stood back and watched as the work I had put into planning the event took off, creating a life of its own.

Saturday, December 2, 2006

Side note: (I cannot believe today is my little brother’s 18th birthday! Time just continues to fly and the only way with which to measure the passage of time is to flip the pages of my calendar in a feeble attempt to keep up with the months. I left the U.S. midway through the year, and now I stare dumbly at “December,” wondering where half the year has been hiding.)

There is a saying here in Cape Verde about the island I call home. When someone does something that’s a little socially questionable, the remark is “Abo e de Fogo?” or, in English, “Are you from Fogo?” Culturally translated, that well-known phrase means you are crazy. Although I often find myself shaking my head in confusion over the norms of this tiny community tucked into the volcano of the Atlantic, there are a handful of neighbors who I have been told (by other Ponta Verdeans, mind you) are straight up “from Fogo.”

My roommate and I were waiting along the side of the road for a ride to Mosteiros to celebrate a late Thanksgiving with the six other American Peace Corps volunteers on the island. Feeling strangely American in reference to the holiday, we were loaded with bags, dressed for vacation, sporting sunglasses and even loaded down with a homemade cake. While we sat along the road, an older man notorious for having monologue-like conversations with us stopped with a saw-like tool in his hand and commenced an hour-long speech. Oblivious to the fact that we are not fluent in Portuguese, his tiny eyes gleamed and his gummy smile spoke animatedly as he got down on the ground and demonstrated something that he felt was urgent for us to understand.

At first I was polite. Then I was entertained. Then annoyed. After unsuccessfully asking him to leave us four times, I started to sit in trapped somberness, arms crossed in defense at my silent sides. Midway through a full-bodied gesturing charade, another woman who has an affinity for peeing in front of our house and baring her flat breasts in public came by and began cackling at the man who was in a full-swing conversation with himself. As she walked down the road hooting, hands on her hips, my irritation with the situation erupted as laughter poured from me like a fountain. Undeterred, the man continued his sermon in the road as I doubled over, grasping my stomach and wiping tears from my smiling eyes.

When I thought the day couldn’t get much stranger, the ride through a friend of ours appeared…it was a Hummer. I have heard about there being two Hummer cars on the island but never believed such flamboyant vehicles could exist against the backdrop of poverty. After living for 5 months without running water or mechanical devices of any kind, this shiny monstrosity of chrome and tire took me by surprise. I hopped into the back seat next to a large carton of eggs and the wide contraption made its way down the narrow road. I stared out the flawless window. My teeth chattered from the air conditioning. I watched as tiny bodies carrying firewood, weeds, and buckets of water made their way slowly up the steep hill as we flew past. I have often thought about how unhinging it will be to return to the luxury of the States. Sitting in this ostentatious vehicle was a more painful contrast than those previous anticipations. I felt encased in a glass ball, gliding past the struggles of the world around me – and I didn’t like it.

Our ride stopped in a neighboring zone and we were to catch another car to Mosteiros. As we walked through an unfamiliar neighborhood past a rough looking group of guys sitting along a wall near the road, my roommate whispered to me, “Don’t worry, I can always hit them on the head with this giant squash.” (…only in Fogo…) Once we arrived safely in Mosteiros, we met up with the other volunteers from around the island and enjoyed the company of Americans for an evening. The group is a diverse one, as we all have entirely different personalities: my roommate who is an east coast small-town version of me and a Lit major/previous vegetarian turned fish and chicken eater; a girl from Sao Felipe who is calm and collected just returned with pictures from her volunteer trip to a refugee camp and boat clinic in Benin, Africa; a girl from Cova Figuera who is talkative, loves to laugh, and makes amazing hummus; a quirky good-natured guy who lives within the crater of Cha das Calderas, loves to walk and I swear knows a little about everything; and the two guys in Mosteiros – one is tall and thin, practices Tae Kwan Do, wears handkerchiefs around his neck and has a passion for hot peppers; the other has a pessimistic sense of humor, an in-depth blog that I read before I came to Cape Verde, and fluently switches from English, to Kriolu, to Chinese. A turkey was killed and the seven of us, along with a Nigerian guy nicknamed Myguy with a self-professed “PhD in culinary arts,” ate Thanksgiving dinner on a rooftop overlooking the crashing shores of a rocky beach.

So the term crazy floats to the surface of my mind often. But then again, I’m living on a volcano in Africa, so I guess that comes with the territory.

Sunday, December 3, 2006

One way in which I love (and, admittedly, sometimes dislike) about life here is that there is little distinction between what is public and what is private. In America, my profession ended the moment I walked outside of work. Here I am a teacher in the classroom, but once instruction ends I am walking alongside my students to my house, giggling and making jokes with them. I see my student in the mornings at a house where I buy bread (he gets the privilege of seeing the just rolled out of bed look even before class at 7:30.) When I walk down the street during the day my students are riding donkeys beside me to get water. Sometimes students stop by to sit and watch the sunset with me in the evenings. The familiarity that exists between the people who live here has smudged the previously defined line that existed between my vocation and my true personality. I am now “me” full time, trying to find a balance between professionalism and the understanding that students know what my hair looks like after I’ve tossed and turned throughout the night.

On my way from Mosteiros back to Ponta Verde I stopped in a neighboring zone. As I was walking through, I discovered many of my students along the road. They seemed to come from everywhere – they all shook my hands and invited me into their houses to meet their parents. It was telling in the sense that I got the opportunity to see what their home lives looked like. Some lived in nice houses with parents who were interested in talking to me about how their children were performing in class. Some lived in tiny houses and had parents who were rather silent with sad eyes. Others still lived in houses perched high up along the outer crater of the volcano, and I found myself on a full-on hike that I was not expecting. After that experience, I liken the skills of the boy who lives in that house to a goat. People here can walk in heels up mountains I don’t dare attempt in hiking boots.

So in essence I am getting used to letting go of the independence and anonymity that living in America has always afforded me. Sometimes I feel as though I were unknowingly wearing the American flag as a cloak all my life, and now I am pulling it back, little by little, so that which is uniquely me is revealed. The bright red white and blue fabric behind me is a trail of stars.

Tuesday, December 5, 2006

I couldn’t sleep last night. When you live in Cape Verde, you become accustomed to sleeping through the orchestra of cock-a-doodle doos, hee-haws and whatever other random noises animals elicit throughout the hours of darkness. Yet last night the barking of dogs was so intense I lay in my bed with restless eyes and patience that wore as thin as my shirts from being harshly rubbed against washboards. I remember making a comment out loud that I would like to exterminate a majority of the dogs in Ponta Verde, especially the one next door who made a sport out of chasing me up the street every day. Then I got up at dawn and went to school as usual. When I returned home my roommate was in a state of panic. “I’m so glad you’re back,” she practically whispered. “I don’t know what to do!”

She led me to the quintal and there laid the hairy crème-colored body of a dead dog. For all accounts, he appeared to be sleeping had his head not been twisted at an unnatural angle along the wall. I picked up a rock and tossed it to get a reaction, despite already knowing it was the dog from next door and that it was dead. As I heard a noise from behind I turned around and saw our young next-door neighbor. I immediately yelled for her to look away, trying to spare her the grotesque vision of her dead dog. Yet her ten-year-old body remained still and she had an awkwardly polite smile on her face, as though she was not registering the image. Her grandfather came over and calmly picked up the dead carcass of the dog by its legs and dragged his bobbing head along the cobblestone path as though it were a bundle of weeds that he carries from the fields every day. Our little neighbor splashed water on her face and wiped it from her eyes, smiling through the tears I imagined pooling unwillingly along her face.

We later found out that dogs have been sa ta mata (killing) goats in the middle of the night. Since goats are a symbol of livelihood, and since the owners of the dogs often refuse to pay for the damaged property, the police resolved to poison the dogs of Ponta Verde last night. Many of the dogs were discovered dead in the road early this morning. All except the ones that were tied up or kept within the house had been destroyed. At first I was completely horrified by the thought, but as the community explained it to me, a part of me realized once again that death is accepted here and that mentality is therefore altered by that fact. It was just another reminder that the approach here is not focused on comfort, but rather, survival. Whereas the remedy of the situation repulsed me, a part of me is beginning to understand the belief system of a culture that truly embraces the attitude that life goes on. Ten goats live and a dog dies. I’m expecting the night to be eerily silent.

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

As I walked up the steep incline of a rocky path toward the house, trailed by dozens of others, I could already hear the wailing. The silence hung in the air with a deep-sea stillness and each unsure footstep sent a grated chill up my spine. People along the path behind and in front of me held their heads bent low in reverence. I attempted to do the same, but found myself instead looking around like a lost animal in fright, unsure of what lay ahead of me. I had been here once to pay my sympathies amidst the deathbed of an ailing woman, but I had never before been to an actual funeral.

As I neared the house, people were scattered about outside, speaking in low, indecipherable tones. I recognized many of my neighbors, colleagues and students, and gave them each a simple nod of the head, smile-less. From inside came the deep-throated wailing of mourners. It sounded like the souls of the world were shrieking in pain. It sounded like a hauntingly beautiful melody. It sounded like the winds that swept along the beaten path would carry their sorrow to the ends of the earth. It was the most beautiful and horrifying resonance that has ever entered the inner chambers of my mind.

I walked in. Step by careful step I followed the friend in front of me who had promised she would demonstrate the traditional movements of a visitor paying his or her respects to those whose loved one has been ripped away. Amidst women and men beating their chests, wailing and throwing their handkerchiefs about freely, I began to shake the hands of the eight grandchildren of the woman who had passed away. Each looked down with deep circles of redness around their eyes. I shook the hands of every person crammed into the tiny room, walked around the black casket, and out through the stone quintal in the back of the house to join the rest of the visitors in front. Before I had made my way through the quintal, a daughter of the deceased woman (the mother of the eight grandchildren whom I know well) was in a state of frenzy. The calm, kind demeanor I was used to broke out through the passion of her wails. Her shirt was ripped open and I could see the veins in her neck and chest pulsing through her screams. One of her sons and her husband held her arms as she hoarsely screamed “Nha mai! Nya mai e morrei! Undu bu sta bai? Mai!” (My mother! My mother is dead! Where have you gone? Mother!)

I sat in front of the house with the older women of the community who I am beginning to consider as close and supportive honorary aunts. They wrapped their arms around me and cried. After a while they began to speak in hushed tones about everyday life as the commencement of prayers were uttered from within the house. Our Fathers and Hail Marys could be heard in a long and trance-like succession. I began to feel sleepy and calm sitting among my friends in the warmth of the sun. From where I sat, I could look out over Ponta Verde and the glistening movement of ocean far below…

As soon as the prayers ended, there was a moment of utter silence, and then there suddenly erupted a melody of woe. Previous cries lost their agonizingly guttural grief and blended into an array of grieving intonations. This song of suffering had no words, no rhythm, and no endeavor. All I could make out in the combined expression of despair were silent hearts that had found voices and began to sing.

On the way home after the funeral, an older woman I know well asked what the funerals in America are like (judging from my reaction that day, I think she picked up on the fact that the wailing was new for me). I found myself saying, “In America, people try not to cry.” She looked at me a bit strangely and it struck me that at a funeral in America, if someone had burst out in a fire of emotion like the one I had just witnessed, they might be politely escorted. She took in my words, thought for a minute and said, “It’s important to cry. It’s healthy.” And I knew she was right.

Looking back upon my journals, it seems the common theme lately is death – the killing of the pig, the poisoning of the dogs and the funeral. I am not in a morbid mood. This is simply what has happened here. I find myself becoming less fearful of dealing with the reality of death, because I am learning how to live life in a way that makes the everyday aspect of waving to a friend or sweeping the floor enjoyable. When people make plans for the future here, they have a tendency of saying, “Si Deus kre” (If God wills it). It is not a surrender of will, but rather an acceptance – one that I am becoming accustomed to. I will no doubt use it often in life…si Deus kre.

Thursday, December 7, 2006

I’m on the top of the world, looking out over the islets to the right of the neighboring island, Brava. A friend of mine leans over and tells me that Fogo has a bride and that her name is Brava. More feminine than Fogo with its haughty peak and dominating landscape, Brava is cooler, covered in flowers and always surrounded by a group of fluffy white clouds that hang above her like a veil. I imagine the tiny islets to the side are their children. It’s a beautiful family.

Saturday, December 9, 2006

At eight thirty this morning a student of mine (who is also my good friend’s brother) knocked on my door to show me the way up to their family’s house in Lomba, the zone located within the hills far above Ponta Verde. We hiked a good forty minutes and despite his tiny stature, I found myself making an effort to keep up with the pace he set. Huffing and puffing, I couldn’t help but notice he was not out of breath as I focused on the placement of my unaccustomed feet.

This time of year is the beginning of the dry season and the husking of the final remaining food left upon the vines of the wet season’s harvest. People go out into the fields and pick the husks of corn off the stalks in order to dry them in a bdong (barrel) for food that will last them until the following wet season. I had been invited to korta midju (cut corn) for the first time and experience what my friends and neighbors do on a weekly basis in the fields. On the way up the road I ran into people I knew from my runs up to Lomba. They met me with smiles along the road and stopped to shake my hand and laugh at the fact that I actually wanted to learn to cut corn - I think some people have the idea here that Americans consider themselves above doing fieldwork. Odja bu mao! E fino! Abo ka kre fazi kela! (“Look at your hands! They’re fine! You don’t want to do that!”), they said, their sun-worn faces and bright eyes smiling beneath layers of sweaters, hats and scarves.

When we finally arrived at the terra (land) of my friend, I was completely surrounded by dry cornstalks as far as the eye could see. I passed some cows to the right of the dirt path and then entered the tiny concrete quintal of a house filled with plants and colorful flowers. Since my friend is one of fourteen children, there was a lot of people there working. Women were tending to two 3-month-old babies with poofy tufts of black hair atop their smiling infant heads, another was cooking lunch in the conzinha de lenha (kitchen of firewood), another was washing clothes on a washboard and yet another was sitting along the floor separating dried colorful beans that always remind me of Jelly Bellys.

As we were sa ta toma kafe (drinking coffee) my friend who had been in the fields jumped into the doorway and squealed with delight that we had arrived. Her tiny body was layered with long shirts and a jean jacket, on her head was a scarf and she was covered in stickers from the weeds. Her beautiful grin was bright and welcoming (She has quickly become one of my closest friends and we work together at the Jardim (kindergarten). Though she is thirty, she is one of few women who have no children and is a bundle of energy, so I like being around her.).

I put on long sleeves and a baseball hat and headed out to the fields where my friend’s father, husband and husband’s friend had already been hard at work. They handed me a sack and showed me how to comb through the thick brush. Making my way through the cornstalks, I discovered the thick husks, twisted and ripped them off one by one. They also explained how to look for bean pods in the ivy-like twists of vegetation that had grown around the stalks. When I found them, they demonstrated how to feel for whether or not they were ripe enough to pick. I pulled the ripe ones from the vines and placed them into a sack around my friend’s waist. When my sack of corn was full, I tied it at the end and heaved it onto my head. I made my way through the thick brush, making high careful steps, walked along the path back toward the house, leapt down a stone wall onto their property and emptied the husks into a large pile underneath a giant tree.

This continued for more than four hours. We told jokes, pulled up mankara (peanuts) and ate them along the way. Dozens of grasshoppers leapt among dry withered stalks. I searched, discovered, ripped, placed in sack. Searched, discovered, ripped, placed in sack. Heaved, carried, dumped, returned. The prickly stickers from the padja (brush) itched my skin and the heat blazed down on us as we worked. Yet I have never felt so satisfied. My mind wandered and I suddenly felt very far from city life back home. I realized had I not taken the chance to come here I would not recognize the melody of my friend’s laughter as she cuts corn; I would not feel the coarse irritation of plants against my sensitive skin; I would not know the people that surrounded me who were now like family; and I sure as heck wouldn’t know what was like to cut corn.

When I had arrived early that morning, they had already been hard at work for hours in the fields. When I left that evening to get home before dark, they were still bent over in the fields, cutting corn. I walked down the road, covered in stickers and sore in the neck. A part of me felt proud that I had worked a day in the fields, yet another part of me felt like a tourist. Because I knew that behind me there were miles of fields yet to be harvested and thousands of husks to be cut. When I got home I sat on my front porch and took off my dirty shoes and socks. I rolled up the prickly sweat of my jeans. My feet ached and were covered in blisters and dirt.

I had only lived four hours in the life of a Cape Verdean … and I was beat tired.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

An older man who lives a few houses up told my friend that if anyone messes with me he was going to have President Pedro Pires get the police to light them on fire.

Side note: Today is five months in Cape Verde.