04 December 2009

Weekend Update

Once again it’s been awhile. It’s mostly because I’m enjoying myself at site and don’t leave often. Some of the recent weekends I’ve gone to other sites, but rarely to São Filipe where I have internet access.

It’s turned cold, with frost on Nov. 1. The word in Kriolu for frost is….frost! I’m pretty stupid, and selected the coldest site in CV. Of course like any good Michigander I’m used to cold, but a nice, solid house with a heater is different from a shoddy cement block box with wooden doors and windows which don’t fit too tightly in their frames. This makes my house an attractive site for mice, though I don’t think they found the rat trap and strategically placed poison hospitable.

The temperature drop also brings cold and flu season. I’ve had a cold for about three weeks. I’ve tried every remedy: chicken soup, decongestants, ibuprofen, sleep, exercise, lime tea, oranges, vitamins, at least four cups of coffee daily, the local favorite garlic and orange peel tea, among others. But with the dengue epidemic finally diminishing, I count myself lucky to only have a cold. The fight against dengue, though, has been inspiring. An elderly Cape Verdean told me she hadn’t seen the populace working together since independence, when the country built itself from scratch, sweat, blood, and suffering.

Any illness pretty much hits everyone. There doesn’t seem to be much knowledge of how illness is transmitted. The society is more communal than what I knew in the United States of Brockton. I really like that, though. At a party there might be one cup of water for ten people. At the winery recently, one of the guys reheated a plate of rice and beans, tossed a few spoons in, and we shared. It’s a public health nightmare, but nice at the same time.

I enjoy being basically the only Westerner, aside from the tourists. The nearest PCV is a three hour + hike to Mosteiros. It’s easy to use English-speakers as a crutch, but now I speak Kriolu about 95% of the time. I’m picking up a lot of “terra terra” Kriolu, old school. Most people in Chã das Caldeiras know to dumb it down for me, but still after 16 months, I learn things every day. Portuguese is coming along, and I’ve half-heartedly started studying French.

I know I’ve been in CV too long though. I think of Praia as the big city (pop. 150,000), with every imaginable resource, activity, possibility. Calú e Angela is the greatest grocery store in the world. Moura bus company is the most efficient and well-run public transport outfit around. Cockpit is the coolest discoteca ever. Refried cachupa is the greatest breakfast food invented.

Sometimes, when I try to conjure memories of America, I only catch fleeting glances. An image appears in my head, and disappears like the dusts of the bruma seca. I attempt to remember Meijer, or snow falling on Bramble, or a paved four lane highway, and I seem to see them in my peripheral vision, but trying to focus, they vanish.

I suppose if you’re still reading, you’d like to know what I’ve been doing. When the dengue epidemic hit, I started working with the “Sanitation Agents” from our village health post. We measured water tanks in Cabeça Fundão and Chã (anywhere from 1,000 to 240,000 L), and treated them with either a larvacide, “abate,” for drinking water tanks, or with petrol for unused tanks or ones for livestock. We did a sensitization campaign, explaining the cause, symptoms, and treatment of dengue. Due to the temperature, Chã didn’t have too many cases. Praia and São Filipe suffered the most.

I’ve been working on another sensitization campaign, for a composting toilet the water utility built for a local family. Incidentally, it’s a polygamist family with an incredibly charismatic father, four women, and 46 kids. I really like the family though it poses several contradictions. The father, by any local measurement, is a great dad. The kids are fed, clothed, educated, and loved. The women aren’t beaten and the father doesn’t drink, smoke, or use drugs. Everyone appears happy. On the other hand, you want to criticize the irresponsibility of so many children. It could become somewhat of a contest. If you already have 46, why not go for 50?

Many, many men have kids with multiple women in CV, often ignoring them or only offering minimal support. Driving to Chã with some PCVs a few weeks ago, our driver sheepishly admitted having 20 kids, and couldn’t seem to remember how many houses (and thus families) he had.

In the end, the proposal I wrote for the primary school won’t be used. The local association, along with a Danish NGO, developed their own proposal which admittedly is better. It’s not important, though, as long as the school gets the needed repairs. There are certainly opportunities for other projects, with myriad donors just waiting for good proposals.

Anyway, that’s a lot of writing, so I’ll stop here. Obrigado.