Sysiphus

April 13, 2007

The other day I was sitting upon my porch, looking out at the beauty of the world, as though it was laid out on a plate for my eyes to devour. I stared lovingly at the island of Brava, known as Fogo’s bride, and I watched, dazzled, as the ocean sparkled in the final brilliant moments of the sun’s departure. All around me was the cozy silence that only one living in a small rural village can recognize. I smelled the sticks that were burning in the kitchens of my neighbors and the subtle aroma intoxicated me. In this place of paradise, everything seemed right in the world.

Just then I heard a rickety rolling of wheels and turned my head down the path to see a man with no legs struggling up the incline of cobblestone. He was headed to the saint festival that I had been to earlier that day, and he was a long way off. I watched and recognized his face as the brother of a friend of mine, a man whom I had never formally met. I’d heard he’d had an infection in his bones and that was why his legs had been cut off. I knew also that he was the father of one of my students who is living at the bread lady’s house two houses down. This man’s wife was in Praia, and I had been told she was mentally ill. Their son is a very good student.

As I studied the tendons in his lean arms and the squinted determination on his face, I wondered how anyone could use a wheelchair downhill on these hole-ridden cobblestone roads, let alone uphill. His plight was unlikely, and yet I knew he would eventually get there. The moment that I was watching this man wheel his way up the steep cobblestone, turn by tiring turn, I felt a deep sadness and realized the image represented how helpless I sometimes feel here. On the surface, this place can look like paradise. Yet the issues of poverty, education, inbreeding, health care, options, futures, lives - is a constant uphill battle. I often feel frustrated with my Peace Corps experience and think that it benefits the volunteers more than the people who really need it. I find myself angry with the organization, thinking maybe it was created not to help others, but to help American citizens.

All in a swirling mixture of emotions, I am drunk on sympathy for this man as he struggles up the hill. He, to me, represents the plight of all Cape Verdeans and therefore he has many faces. It is too painful to watch him struggle because it is the struggle of every person I have come to love here, and it is such a great effort; a fight that I can’t do much about in the short two years I have here. And in these moments of despair and helplessness, I get up, run up to the man, and push his wheelchair up the hill, he laughing the entire way. His laughter rises up like wings into the air and for a moment – only a moment - his burden is lifted onto the wind and seeks new horizons.