The Years the Locusts Have Eaten

September 14, 2007

There are times here when the purpose of my life seems to connect, willingly, with the unforeseen events of the future. There is a smooth interval that seeks to communicate to me without words, and I stand by willingly, awaiting the next installment of information, like a soldier on duty, ready at will, anticipating even the most unfathomable assignments. The fear within is dispelled by a belief that, despite the cloudy ash of aftermath, the meaning will somehow appear, as an apparition, from the obscurity of smoke. It will rise up, undeniably, from the complication of the visible, and utterly confirm the coded significance of that which has come to pass. In this, one seeks solace. Emotion, prayer, desire, conviction…all tend to play common roles in this method of thought. The requirement is none other than belief. Here lies an immense canyon of difference, between those who move forward courageously, and those who are utterly hindered by doubt.

September 19, 2007

It appears as though:

the issue of conflict arises from a situation in which two opposing ideas – whose owners favor an ardent array of opinions based upon a purely unsystematic mixture of genes, nurturing, life experiences, conflicts, tragedies, triumphs, relationships, and trillions of other seemingly unalterable factors – decline to accurately reflect the value in looking at the issue as a whole and complete truth; which is, ironically, often a mixture of both sides. Only when the issue of putting aside years of rational assessment and personal moral principles has been achieved, can these two polar opposites link in some way, and resolve the incompetence of this world.

Believing in the possibility of this is often referred to as Idealism. In other words, in all actuality this will never happen.

But I hope it does.

me========Idealist.

September 23, 2007

I have only recently begun to understand the concept of love. I believe I always saw love as an act of taking - as though it were something one was lacking and needed in order to fill that void of misunderstanding, doubts of existence, meaning and purpose. What I have only just now discovered is this concept is entirely switched, a mirror image of the thing. A definite reflection of reality, but backward.

Engaging in love is, in fact, entirely … not minimally, not slightly, not haphazardly … an act of giving, and taking is but a tainted distortion of the concept, one that corrupts and ruins it entirely. People often treat love as a filler: a drug, craving, high, addiction, reason or satisfaction as validation of worth. Those who expect anything – a mother with unfulfilled dreams, a spouse with selfish needs, a volunteer with high ideals – are distorting the concept of its existence. Love is simply and uniquely an offering, in which the transaction does not require (in fact outright restricts) the giver from taking in return. In this way a giver of love expects nothing but acceptance; loves only for the sake of the purity of the act. This is love despite hindrance. In this equation, fear of balance provides nothing.

There is yet another fallacy: Love is not an emotion, lofty in ideals and wrought with gleeful misdirection. It is strategic, and sensible. Its aim is drawn to those who lack it, and treats recipients as un-captained ships stocked with treasure, gone astray and seeking route. A lighthouse of hope amidst dark waves that crash, futilely, against battered rock. A map of clarity, an injection of courage, a firm providence of support. In short, love is given only for those who need to be reminded that they are worthy of it.

In this way, love is the most powerful tool available to us. This is why, when misunderstood, it is an equally powerful weapon.

October 4, 2007

“Where are the years the locusts have eaten?”

Those were his last words to me. He sighed, his heart heavy with living, his mind expanding beyond the tangible nature of the world, and the folds of his eyes creased as he looked up into the distance of the sky. The blue-veined hands rested, crossed resolutely in his lap, upon bony knees covered in gray sweatpants. I thought of those hundred-year-old hands; the hands my brother had photographed in sepia; the ones that had turned the dial of a radio for the first time in a friend’s garage; had labored during World War Two; hands that had built beautiful furniture, intricate carvings, boats out of wood. In the next labored breath, he looked at me, and the life that was only a moment ago pirouetting through the sky settled upon me, focused and intent.

Watery eyes like glass – eyes that have borne witness to a century of moments – allowing me to look in.

His words, as they fell from a closed mouth into the cavities of my soul, welled up inside me. His gift, a million memories, filling me so I was bursting with tears for every precious one of them. Each tear and triumph poured from my eyes and down my young face, in comparison so inexperienced, so new to the world.

In these final moments I thought of the beginning:

I used to go up to Santa Barbara often as a child. Road trips were always accompanied by my grandmother fretting over my predisposition to car sickness. It was then I learned to hold a brown paper bag to my stomach, in order to take my mind off the slow lurching curves of the northern roads. Once I saw the land take unfamiliar shape, turning from desert-like stretches to the whitewashed churn of ocean along rocky cliffs, past the outdoor stadium theatre and twinkling glass carousel, I knew we had made it to my land of imagination. I would become giddy with anticipation to visit my Popo.

Often I would show up to his cozy white house and crouch by a cluster of flowers my great-grandmother planted, the ones with bright colors and black puckered-up faces that sing in Alice In Wonderland. I would walk along the little path toward the giant oak with the wooden swing and contemplate what I would be that weekend. Would I be an adventurer? A famous singer? Wounded and unable to walk? Blind? By the time my little fist knocked against his door, I would have assumed an entirely different persona. Most often I was an English girl named Matilda, with a well-to-do British accent, silk gloves and purse, flower pinned in my hair and pink handkerchief to match. A proper pinky finger pointed in the air.

“Why, Matilda!” my great grandparents would exclaim as they opened the door. “How lovely to see you!” It would be that way from the moment I arrived to the moment I left days later.

In my great grandparents’ house I could be whatever I wanted.

Over the years, I, like most people who knew him, began to develop an interest for my great-grandfather, this man who was so full of life that it never seemed to run out, even with age. I began to take a video camera along with me on visits and listened to him talk about his life, from the beginning to the present. His face is recorded – at moments eyes shine with glee and utter joy as he recall stories that delight him. Other moments he sings old hymns he learned in church as a young boy, his celebratory voice booming and raised to the skies, then falters, becomes low and somber as he is taken away with emotion. Heavy, shoulder-wracked sobs drown out his words.

He made me cards on my birthday. One-liners that hit me like his characteristic hard grip of a hug. For all I know, he must have made them for everyone. Small pieces of wisdom handed out in recognition of celebratory days of growth. He always told me to use the least amount of words to express the greatest of concepts.

He liked writing emails to keep in touch. I can still imagine him sitting beneath the corkboard bed that folds upward against the wall where I used to sleep, surrounded by Raggedy Andy doll sailors and mementos of the sea. In his eighties he chopped down the enormous tree in his front lawn and installed a sprinkler system. He attended exercise workouts at the gym to, jokingly, “look at young women in their leotards.” He liked Taco Bell burritos, wore a white Gilligan’s Island hat and was a notoriously bad driver. I never saw him without his white bristly mustache. It would prickle me against my top lip when I would kiss him goodbye.

And now I see there won’t be any more goodbyes.

So the years have been shuffled through like a stack of cards. My father called today and told me our hero has passed away. The man we all thought would surely be with us forever. There is much more I would have liked to learn, and I am sure to never be Matilda again. Here in Cape Verde if someone dies you wail to alert the community of the death. You dress in black and you mourn your loss. The wailing is called chora and the missing, sodade. This is what I feel.

I know I am lucky for the time I spent with my great-grandfather during my summer trip to the States. I was able to see the greatest man I know in his month of twilight. As he stood weakly and reached for me to lead him into the other room to talk, one-on-one, I felt his firm hand on my arm. His heart was failing him, yet firm against my shoulder I felt the enduring strength of his grip on life. All his will was centered there in that hand. He sat down and I crouched across from him, my elbows on his knees, my knees on the floor like a child. I looked up at him and my great-grandfather looked at me one last time. In this moment he passed on a lifetime of wisdom through his eyes. I didn’t know someone could do that, so simply. But that’s how he was.

His gaze confirmed everything he had told me over the years – that he believed in me, in who I was, and in where I would go in life. He encouraged me to pursue my dreams and instilled that bit of faith that even the strongest people need as assurance in life to succeed despite setback. He inspired me to use my words, continue to search, have the courage to live a life of valor. He told me he was proud of me. The loving impression of my departing mentor.

My Popo continues to exist, to me, as a symbol of a man who enjoyed his life; who made mistakes, yet came to terms with them; who never allowed the passage of time to stifle the flame of his heart, but rather allowed the comings and goings of wind to fan the flames of what burned within. From him, I am sure to live on into my own life with a zest and eagerness strong enough to see me through a great passage of time.

As for Matilda, she is a part of me that will never die. Though I will never again return to those weekends of exploring imaginary lives, I am content to continue on in order to discover new ones. I can, after all, be whoever I want to. My great-grandpa taught me that.


Sodade Missing/Longing

Nha bizdono, My great-grandfather,
N ta tem sodade pa bo I will miss, long for you
Hoje e pa sempri Today and for always
Dormi dretu na seu ku anjos Sleep well in the sky with angels
E spera pa mim And wait for me
Pa kel dia n ta txiga e fla bo: For that day I arrive and tell you:
Obrigada, Thank you,
Guia de nha vida. Guide of my life.
Descansa na paz, Rest in peace,
Bu bizneta Matilda. Your great-granddaughter, Matilda.

October 10, 2007

It was dark and windy when I awoke to my alarm. The wooden shutters at my window opened and slammed. I lit a candle, and half-asleep got dressed in track shorts and wifebeater. I tied the laces of my worn running shoes and headed down the steps into the shadows of a moonless morning, being sure to throw my arms wildly about to avoid a face-first dive into a spider web. The cornstalks that surrounded me were tossing in surrender to heavy currents of air. The fluttering sounded like people walking about me as I tried to make out the outlines of billowing stalks. As my eyes began to adjust to the darkness, a dog began to bark, echoing into the distance of the heavily blanketed sky. Besides the wind, all I could hear was the brisk pace of my footsteps as I stared at the innumerable stars twinkling mutely above my head.

Stopping a couple houses down, I awaited the first of dedicated friends who go running with me every morning along the cobblestone path. I stretched my tired legs along a low rock wall. A candle appeared, laughter at an unheard joke, footsteps down a corridor, a jangle of keys and the slam of a front door. As my friend greets me, hand extended in the darkness, we turn to hear a screeching noise near her house. A screaming, spitting and wailing.

“Kela e kuze!?” (“What is that!?”) she cried, leaping and grabbing me from behind, rather theatrically in my opinion. I looked blindly into the direction of a sound that appeared to be scratching the night out.

At first I thought it was chora, a mourning sound people make to signify when someone has died, but it soon became obvious – as the humanly high pitch turned to a more animalistic tone – that it came from two cats in a heated fight in the middle of the street. It took a great deal of coaxing, and finally an outright threat that I would leave her there in front of her house, for my friend to agree to run along with me.

She is a believer of tempo antigo “the old times” and there is a myriad of old wives’ tales, superstitions and humorous beliefs that she swears are God’s truth. It leaves me clutching my sides in laughter, or more often staring at her sideways, when I hear her random explanations for things. (A woman’s child has a drooling problem because she ate a type of fish when she was pregnant with him. Eat three limes and it will cure any sickness. On October 13th, all the flies will fall down dead.) What’s funny is half the stuff I tell her she outright disregards as hearsay, silly nonsense from a Western world. (Illness is often passed through a thing called germs. You must stretch after you run to avoid injuring yourself. Women can drink beer.) Somehow, despite these differences, we find a way to laugh at each other’s crazy notions and consider whatever comes out of the other’s mouth a source of endless entertainment.

As I drag her hesitantly into the darkness to begin our run, we make our way in the direction of where the catfight disappeared only moments before. My friend crosses herself and makes an array of elaborate hand motions to ward off bad spirits. The schedule-based American in me checks the time to make sure our pace has not been set back to the point that I will be late to teach class when the bell rings at 7:30 a.m. (FYI: time does not formally exist in Cape Verde).

Both of us, with a sly air only close friends can get away with, observe the other through a sideways, knowing glance and stifle a giggle as we head up the hill together for our daily run, side by side, each of us shaking our head.

October 16, 2007

There are many aspects of life in Cape Verde that I never expected to encounter during my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer. For example, I did not expect to live in a large beautiful house (humble as it is within, lacking in furniture, running water, etc.). I did not expect to see young teenagers walking out of shacks looking dressed to perform in a hip hop music video shoot on MTV, sporting fake bling and professing their undying love for Tupac and 50-Cent…and Celine Dion. I couldn’t have even anticipated trading my idea of the “bush” experience on mainland Africa for a life in mainland PCV-dubbed “Posh Corps,” in which one of the northern islands boasts windsurfing and scuba diving lessons available for interested European tourists.

Yes, there are many things I did not expect to encounter in Peace Corps. Most significantly of which is Cape Verdeans’ utterly diehard obsession with Brazilian soap operas called telenovellas. On the rare occasion that there is actually something interesting to do on a weekend evening, it is absolutely necessary to coordinate the time of departure with the ever-exhausting issue of the T.V. People here are so intrigued by the lives of these Brazilian celebrity dramas that families of 15 who sleep in two-bedroom homes and dress in rags are sure to have a shiny television mounted like a serene idol within their unpainted (and unfinished) cement block homes. Simply put, the street is a ghost town between the hours of 8-10 p.m.

Hence, the current issue of Zorro.

Much like the prime time line-ups that air on all cable-connected programs in the States, the telenovellas that appear at the beginning of the Fall season often feature new shows with yet another random mix-up of the same actors that appeared on three older shows from last season. Cape Verdeans anticipated the subtle change with an emotion that can only be described as political fervor tinged with a dash of religious zest. Their excitement was nothing short. Most popular of all these anticipated telenovellas was the cheesy Brazilian take of (whoosh-whoosh-woosh!) ZORRO.

I have, I admit it, seen the show once or twice. Although it was, in my defense, against my will: I watch it only under the pretext of integration. I saw the busty damsel who is, shockingly, in a constant state of distress. Zorro himself makes his consistent appearance, wielding his thin swooshy sword and vanishing dramatically into the night the moment his alter-ego takes form. But lately Zorro has taken on an even greater level of distinction: he has been appearing in houses on the island of Fogo. Not on television, but as real-life robbers.

Indeed, on a tiny island known as the “crazy” island (Cape Verdeans actually have a saying that goes: “Are you crazy or are you from Fogo?”) it is normal to experience your shock level to sink to a tolerance of just about anything, but my personal low has reached a new depth. Apparently some young teens with a rather unintelligent interpretation of Zorro’s plight have taken to wearing black masks, breaking into people’s houses at night, and stealing everything they find within. It happens anonymously and at random, and despite the fact that it has not occurred in my zone, this place is small enough for word to get around quick. Zorro is on the tip of every tongue, and fear is in their eyes when they say his name.

For those of you back home, don’t worry. I am taking the necessary precautions. I lock my door, don’t go out at night, and make sure I know how to say, “I’m calling the police!” in Kriolu. Yet I get a small sick pleasure in the fact that everyone is running around crying out, “Zorro is coming! Look out for Zorro! Don’t let Zorro get you!” I suddenly find all attempts to convince my Cape Verdean friends that telenovellas aren’t real life slightly embarrassing, considering Zorro’s running about in human form. But fear not, I’ll do my part. I’ll just be sure I don’t take the program as seriously as the young ambitious looters. I will keep my bust covered and avoid looking like I’m in distress – two things that are guaranteed to get any female in trouble in Cape Verde.

Yes… there are many things I did not expect to encounter during my time here. But I’ll just keep expecting the unexpected. Fogo is the kind of place that continues to dispel all concepts of rational logic. It keeps me guessing. In the meantime, my name is Brittany and I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in Western Africa.

And I’m looking out for Zorro.
Z.

October 20, 2007

My good friend turned 100 years old today. There were three days of preparation. Women of the family and myself ran about frantically baking cakes, rolling dough for pastels, ripping cove (collard greens), separating beans, frying pork skins, pounding corn and putting up decorations. The firewood kitchen was kept lit all through the moments, a thick, lazy stream of smoke that rose out from the cement floor and danced through streams of light. Women bent over as they toiled, their heads covered in colorful scarves. Since I did this last year for the 99th birthday party, I found myself a bit more helpful than I had been the year before.

With big events such as these I find the gender roles are completely separated (and my role as well). The women were in charge of food, cooking, presentation, etc. The men killed the animals, put up a ragged tarp covering for shade, and then sat under a tree and got to work at drinking a bottle of the strong clear liquor called grogue. Then they offered me a swig.

It is strange to be an American woman in Cape Verde. At times I feel as though I am seen as an honorary man. I have a career, my own house, and the freedom to go wherever I please without being confined to a restricted role. Yet I constantly teeter between this recognition and the newness of living in a foreign country. One moment I am treated as an elite celebrity that commands the respect of even the highest community members and country nationals. The next moment, a five-year-old is laughing at me for mispronouncing a simple word or concept. It is both confusing and humbling. I am not quite a man, not quite a woman. I am called a Kriola and seen as just another person among my group of friends, yet I am a strangeira (foreigner).

So who am I here? Where is my sense of role and purpose supposed to lie amidst this enormous canyon of perception?

It may be safe to conclude, as I watched my friend dance about gleefully upon her century-old feet, that both age and self-depiction can be transcended.

October 21, 2007

It is harvest time! I have gone through and counted the husks of corn friends and neighbors have left as presents on my front porch. Just today the grand total is 26. What am I going to do with all this corn?!?