I’m writing from São Filipe, in transit from Fogo to São Nicolau for Carnival (Mardi Gras). It’ll be interesting to see São Nic, one of two islands PC told me I’d go to, that or Santiago. Fogo? Its Carnival is the second biggest in CV, behind São Vicente’s. São Nic’s is said to be more terra terra, or uniquely Cape Verdean. I’d love to see Guinea-Bissau’s, but that’ll have to wait for another year.
It feels odd to, after basically just arriving from America, take another vacation. Us Americans aren’t used to 24 vacation days a year, at which our European friends scoff. I wonder why they have a higher quality of life? Shouldn’t all that dirty awful miserable socialism make them unhappy? Anyway, Christmas and Carnival only come once a year, however, and one of PC’s intentions is for volunteers to get to know the surrounding area.
For non-island PCVs that involves crossing borders, but for us, it’s visiting other islands. I would prefer the former, but that geography which unfortunately makes economic development very difficult, gives rise to more cultural diversity than similarly sized non-island nations. It makes CV an interesting tourist destination, but the interisland transport isn’t up to snuff.
Running tends to get ideas flowing. On a recent run I was thinking about the typically American thought that the market solves all problems. This is a big argument against raising any tax in Michigan, my state. God forbid we put a minimal tax on bottled water, which destroys our environment in several ways (plastic bottles are petroleum products, for example), is often no healthier or worse than tap water, and is certainly more expensive. We don’t need to fund firefighters, the market will provide them. “Hi, we’ve come to save your house. We’ll need an advance of $10,000 please. You don’t have it? That’s too bad. It looks like it was a nice house.”
The developing world is a good place to see the market in action, where the state is often weak and underfunded. The developing world does produce myriad innovations which come about despite, or due to, the constrained environment. That said, no one would hail as great market successes developing world education, healthcare, and transport. An economist might argue that those systems in existence in the developing world serve consumers’ needs as well as possible given the lack of money.
When I was in the hospital in Ghana, I went to the best facility in Accra, the capital. I paid about $200 for three days, a trifle for me but an impossible sum for all the people who suffered in the public clinics and hospitals for lack of money. The market solution for an American visitor is great, but for most of the 18-20 million Ghanaians, it effectively doesn’t exist.
You can compare CV which has a relatively strong state, to a plethora of W. African neighbors which don’t. Here public transport (often private cars with a license to carry passengers) is pretty well regulated. You need insurance, up-to-date maintenance, license, etc. Transport’s not great, but it’s not the race to the bottom you see in other countries, where cars are death boxes on wheels, held together with duct tape and wire, certainly have no pollution controls, and are packed even fuller with people, animals, and baggage.
On another run, I thought about international aid. Many argue there’s little to show for the money spent. Jeffrey Sachs, in The End of Poverty agrees there’s little to show, but counters it’s because the developed world has spent almost nothing. Take another look at CV. It’s one of the great African examples in governance, literacy, health, and other indicators. Then check out statistics the Economist compiled for 2009. CV is the second largest recipient, per capita, of development aid, dwarfing most countries.
Does it get that money because it’s well-run, or is it well-run because of the money? Without a doubt it’s both, but imagine what it could be like if the developed world truly tried to help those developing countries willing to make an honest effort, of which there are many. We could see a bevy of African (or Asian or Central/South American) success stories instead of a handful. As Sachs noted, we’ve promised the money, but with only a few exceptions (Sweden, Luxemburg, among others), have lied. The US promised around 0.7% of our GNP, but as of the book’s printing it stood at less than 0.2%.
On another run I approached a dog on a dirt track connecting my small village to a tiny conglomeration of houses in a lava field dotted with agricultural plots. In the US perhaps I might’ve wondered who owned the dog, thought about petting it, noted its breed, etc. Here, I thought of two things: where’s the nearest rock to throw if it tries to bite, and that I might have to kill it. Fortunately it was more scared than me, and ran.
After 18 months I’ve grown much more confident with dogs and aware of the signs they make. Another dog recently growled at me on the same road. I made a loud psst sound, pretended to throw a rock, and after jogging by unmolested, tossed one in its vicinity for good measure. Like bathing with half a gallon of water or learning to love plain rice with ketchup, dealing with strays is another skill I’ve picked up in the developing world.
As always, thanks for reading. Most of the economic arguments are half-baked. So was Econ. 102. Clearly I made no attempt at paragraph transitions. Sorry Mr. Soule. Happy Carnival!
13 February 2010
24 January 2010
Aiung
I’m writing from Mosteiros, Fogo’s second largest community. Apparently it’ll gain city status before long. When I came to CV, there existed five cities: Praia, São Filipe, Porto Novo, Mindelo, and Assomada. Pedro Badejo on Santiago will soon join their ranks, if not already. Jonny and I are planning an accounting class, which we’ll give in February. It’ll complement an entrepreneurism class he gave to prospective business owners over a few months ending in November.
I came to São Filipe from Chã on Saturday morning in the back of a truck filled with apples, pigeon peas, several Chã residents, and a goat. We went to a football (soccer) game, in which one of São Filipe’s teams, Académica, beat Mosteiros’ Cutelinho in a match that went to overtime. We baked in the sun snacking on raw peanuts and downing freshquinhas, little plastic bags filled with frozen juice, in this case tamarind. We rested awhile, then went to a going away party for two nurses from the Portuguese NGO Assistência Medical Internacional, which is active on Fogo. Finally we headed up to everyone’s favorite São Filipe discoteca, Faixa de Terra (Piece of Land).
Today we left São Filipe at 10:45 am, and started the walk to Mosteiros. As it’s about 25 miles away, we hoped to panha un boleia (hitch a ride). Shortly after leaving the São Filipe city limits, we hailed an empty work truck heading in the right direction. As luck would have it, it was headed to Mosteiros, so we jumped in the expansive bed, normally filled with Fogo’s black sand, used in construction when mixed with cement. We got to Mosteiros very quickly, and importantly for PCVs, without spending a single escudo.
Sitting in the sandy bed, flying through villages, watching the rough sea pound the cliffs, I thought of Fogo’s beautiful black sand beaches which are legally stolen to build concrete block buildings. Near Ribeira de Barca, on Santiago, what was once a similarly beautiful black sand beach has been reduced to a rocky strip of land where few swim anymore. However, each day locals wade into the surf with buckets, dive to the bottom, fill the containers, and struggle back to shore with whatever sand they glean from the sea floor. When São Filipe’s beaches Fonte de Vila and Praia da Nossa Senhora disappear over the next few years, no one can say they didn’t see it coming.
Up in Chã I’ve been working mostly at the winery. I enjoy working there, which can mean anything from helping with bottling to having excellent conversations about business-related things like pricing and the IVA (value added tax). Two relatively unpleasant things occurred there recently, but nothing to dissuade me from coming back.
We bottled the 2009 red one day, a high quality and very popular product. The winery can’t produce enough of it. I took my turn at the corker, which unlike in a more mechanized winery, involves manually loading a cork and depressing a long lever with both arms to force the cork into the bottle. Sometimes the bottles have hairline cracks in them, missed by the factory, the people who wash them at the winery, the person filling them, and finally the corker. One such bottle made it to me. I put it in the machine, slammed down the lever, and the top half of the bottle essentially exploded, covering my leg and several workers with red wine. Fortunately no one was cut by the splintered glass. Even a Cape Verdean woman probably can’t get half a liter of red wine out of a pair of jeans, let alone a comparatively lazy American.
The next day, wearing a clean pair of pants, I came back. Having finished bottling the red the previous day, white wine bottling continued. Around 10 am two workers came with a cabrito (baby goat), which clearly indicated a delicious lunch. Cabritos are very cute. You can play with them like puppies. For Thanksgiving 2008 we made the mistake of getting two cabritos Wednesday, playing with them until Thursday. Anyway, the guys showed up with the cabrito, and began to search for a slaughterer. “You guys don’t want to kill it?” “No, look how cute it is! We don’t want to kill it.” Eventually I volunteered to do the deed. I’ll spare the details, only noting that the formerly clean pants got blood on them, and that lunch indeed was delicious.
I came to São Filipe from Chã on Saturday morning in the back of a truck filled with apples, pigeon peas, several Chã residents, and a goat. We went to a football (soccer) game, in which one of São Filipe’s teams, Académica, beat Mosteiros’ Cutelinho in a match that went to overtime. We baked in the sun snacking on raw peanuts and downing freshquinhas, little plastic bags filled with frozen juice, in this case tamarind. We rested awhile, then went to a going away party for two nurses from the Portuguese NGO Assistência Medical Internacional, which is active on Fogo. Finally we headed up to everyone’s favorite São Filipe discoteca, Faixa de Terra (Piece of Land).
Today we left São Filipe at 10:45 am, and started the walk to Mosteiros. As it’s about 25 miles away, we hoped to panha un boleia (hitch a ride). Shortly after leaving the São Filipe city limits, we hailed an empty work truck heading in the right direction. As luck would have it, it was headed to Mosteiros, so we jumped in the expansive bed, normally filled with Fogo’s black sand, used in construction when mixed with cement. We got to Mosteiros very quickly, and importantly for PCVs, without spending a single escudo.
Sitting in the sandy bed, flying through villages, watching the rough sea pound the cliffs, I thought of Fogo’s beautiful black sand beaches which are legally stolen to build concrete block buildings. Near Ribeira de Barca, on Santiago, what was once a similarly beautiful black sand beach has been reduced to a rocky strip of land where few swim anymore. However, each day locals wade into the surf with buckets, dive to the bottom, fill the containers, and struggle back to shore with whatever sand they glean from the sea floor. When São Filipe’s beaches Fonte de Vila and Praia da Nossa Senhora disappear over the next few years, no one can say they didn’t see it coming.
Up in Chã I’ve been working mostly at the winery. I enjoy working there, which can mean anything from helping with bottling to having excellent conversations about business-related things like pricing and the IVA (value added tax). Two relatively unpleasant things occurred there recently, but nothing to dissuade me from coming back.
We bottled the 2009 red one day, a high quality and very popular product. The winery can’t produce enough of it. I took my turn at the corker, which unlike in a more mechanized winery, involves manually loading a cork and depressing a long lever with both arms to force the cork into the bottle. Sometimes the bottles have hairline cracks in them, missed by the factory, the people who wash them at the winery, the person filling them, and finally the corker. One such bottle made it to me. I put it in the machine, slammed down the lever, and the top half of the bottle essentially exploded, covering my leg and several workers with red wine. Fortunately no one was cut by the splintered glass. Even a Cape Verdean woman probably can’t get half a liter of red wine out of a pair of jeans, let alone a comparatively lazy American.
The next day, wearing a clean pair of pants, I came back. Having finished bottling the red the previous day, white wine bottling continued. Around 10 am two workers came with a cabrito (baby goat), which clearly indicated a delicious lunch. Cabritos are very cute. You can play with them like puppies. For Thanksgiving 2008 we made the mistake of getting two cabritos Wednesday, playing with them until Thursday. Anyway, the guys showed up with the cabrito, and began to search for a slaughterer. “You guys don’t want to kill it?” “No, look how cute it is! We don’t want to kill it.” Eventually I volunteered to do the deed. I’ll spare the details, only noting that the formerly clean pants got blood on them, and that lunch indeed was delicious.
11 January 2010
Back to Basics
Happy New Year to all. This is my first blog for 2010. I’m writing Sunday Jan10. I left Michigan the 4th, to Baltimore, then Boston. At 2:30 am on the 5th the reliably unstressed TACV flight took off for Praia, Cape Verde, a mere four hours fashionably late. Seven hours later, we arrived in one of West Africa’s fastest growing cities, currently about the size of Lansing. It seems bigger than it is, though I can’t imagine what Dakar will be like. I suppose like Accra, but crazier.
An unexpected layover kept me, but not my checked luggage, in Praia that evening. This actually worked well as I got a checkup with our PC doctor and antibiotics for a sinus infection. On the 6th only 30 minutes behind schedule, which for TACV is right on time, if not early, we left Praia for São Filipe, Fogo, at 10:30. We touched down masterfully a half hour later.
A fellow PCV and her friend happened to be on the same flight for a Fogo vacation, so I invited them to stay with me in my spacious 225 sq ft studio apartment/concrete box in Chã das Caldeiras. First, however, I had to liberate my bag.
After inquiring in the airport, a helpful though misinformed young woman directed me to the port (for boats) on the extreme other end of São Filipe, where she believed the baggage from the previous night had been sent to customs. We hopped in the van of a friend, speeding through the quaint and pretty coastal town, allegedly the cleanest in Cape Verde, officially the hardest hit (by percentage) by the 2009 dengue fever epidemic, and athletically the volleyball champion of the archipelago.
We pulled into the rather fishy, rough-and-tumble port (what port isn’t?), my Cape Verdean driver/friend/protector from bureaucracy leading the way. The helpful policeman directed us to the airport, to where a hired van had just left from the port, to gather last night’s luggage. We could intercept my bag if we hurried.
Arriving at the airport just in time, I handed another policeman my ticket stub, pointing out the fabulous purple bag, and went on my way. Almost. Back into the van, back to the port, where the customs official had to inspect the bag. Funny, none of that in Praia the previous day. The young man opened my bag, lifted a t-shirt, asking if there was anything else. Absolutely not, sir. Okay, you can go. We grabbed some freshly fried fish, and sped off to catch the van to Chã, but 2-3 hours or 37 km away.
In my first week back I’ve eased into life in the crater. The other PCV, her friend, and I climbed the volcano. I’ve been asked to make sure our volunteers stay safe on the explosive mountain, which entails scrambling to the top from time to time, in total 15 times I believe. I gave them a winery tour and tasting, we caught live Fogo music, Atalia Baixo, and in general enjoyed ourselves.
They left, and I resumed work at the winery. Saturday I helped labeling the new pomegranate liqueur and gave two tours, one to a group of Bridgeport State teaching students and the other to a knowledgeable Austrian couple. Both purchased myriad bottles of the pomegranate liqueur, which is sure to sell out rapidly.
It’s been all right coming back. In general when I leave the island, I don’t relish returning, however. I think my ambivalent attitude towards my time in Cape Verde threw a lot of people off in the US. When you see those billboards with the smiling American surrounded by adorable African kids, you subconsciously imagine Peace Corps as 27 months of bliss. Sometimes it’s great, undoubtedly. I’m lucky to live at a highly coveted site where I have great friends and cool activities. I live at the foot of an active volcano, which is awesome. They say Peace Corps gives you the highest highs and the lowest lows. I’ve had the lowest lows, to be sure.
Going home, it was good to hear from PCVs and their families and friends that our myriad frustrations in CV are shared regardless of country. Good in a way, but bad in the universality of the complaints. On returning, more than one CV PCV said, to paraphrase, “I respect that you came back. If I went home, I don’t think I would’ve returned.” Back in MI, though, it was nice to see the benefits one accrues from volunteering.
While my group perceives it has missed a lot in these tumultuous 16 months, aside from a crippling economic crisis that sadly made America seem worse than I left it, and a plethora of unimportant pop culture highlights (except for Jersey Shore, right Matt?), not much has changed. My friends have new jobs, grad programs, significant others, and locations, but at heart the months and miles haven’t changed much between us.
Sure I now feel fine on the two showers per week plan, can kill a chicken, speak two new languages, genuinely like kids (maybe not bratty American kids who I can’t “straighten out” without legal problems), and can subsist on rice and beans thrice daily for days or weeks. Everyone noticed my PC version of the thousand mile stare, my comical indecisiveness at Jersey Giant deli or the Meridian Mall food court, and the tendency to slip into Kriolu. But aside from those minor quirks all was basically the same.
I think going through hard culture shock after Ghana saved me a bit this time. Maybe coming back finally after finishing in CV will be different, when vacation mode ends and it’s back to the hard reality of America. I assure every Cape Verdean who wants a visa that the US is a brutal place, especially for a person of color with a sixth grade education who knows four phrases in English, three of them unprintable.
For once I have more to write, but as usual my battery’s almost done. Perhaps I’ll get around to finishing up in another couple of weeks. Thanks.
An unexpected layover kept me, but not my checked luggage, in Praia that evening. This actually worked well as I got a checkup with our PC doctor and antibiotics for a sinus infection. On the 6th only 30 minutes behind schedule, which for TACV is right on time, if not early, we left Praia for São Filipe, Fogo, at 10:30. We touched down masterfully a half hour later.
A fellow PCV and her friend happened to be on the same flight for a Fogo vacation, so I invited them to stay with me in my spacious 225 sq ft studio apartment/concrete box in Chã das Caldeiras. First, however, I had to liberate my bag.
After inquiring in the airport, a helpful though misinformed young woman directed me to the port (for boats) on the extreme other end of São Filipe, where she believed the baggage from the previous night had been sent to customs. We hopped in the van of a friend, speeding through the quaint and pretty coastal town, allegedly the cleanest in Cape Verde, officially the hardest hit (by percentage) by the 2009 dengue fever epidemic, and athletically the volleyball champion of the archipelago.
We pulled into the rather fishy, rough-and-tumble port (what port isn’t?), my Cape Verdean driver/friend/protector from bureaucracy leading the way. The helpful policeman directed us to the airport, to where a hired van had just left from the port, to gather last night’s luggage. We could intercept my bag if we hurried.
Arriving at the airport just in time, I handed another policeman my ticket stub, pointing out the fabulous purple bag, and went on my way. Almost. Back into the van, back to the port, where the customs official had to inspect the bag. Funny, none of that in Praia the previous day. The young man opened my bag, lifted a t-shirt, asking if there was anything else. Absolutely not, sir. Okay, you can go. We grabbed some freshly fried fish, and sped off to catch the van to Chã, but 2-3 hours or 37 km away.
In my first week back I’ve eased into life in the crater. The other PCV, her friend, and I climbed the volcano. I’ve been asked to make sure our volunteers stay safe on the explosive mountain, which entails scrambling to the top from time to time, in total 15 times I believe. I gave them a winery tour and tasting, we caught live Fogo music, Atalia Baixo, and in general enjoyed ourselves.
They left, and I resumed work at the winery. Saturday I helped labeling the new pomegranate liqueur and gave two tours, one to a group of Bridgeport State teaching students and the other to a knowledgeable Austrian couple. Both purchased myriad bottles of the pomegranate liqueur, which is sure to sell out rapidly.
It’s been all right coming back. In general when I leave the island, I don’t relish returning, however. I think my ambivalent attitude towards my time in Cape Verde threw a lot of people off in the US. When you see those billboards with the smiling American surrounded by adorable African kids, you subconsciously imagine Peace Corps as 27 months of bliss. Sometimes it’s great, undoubtedly. I’m lucky to live at a highly coveted site where I have great friends and cool activities. I live at the foot of an active volcano, which is awesome. They say Peace Corps gives you the highest highs and the lowest lows. I’ve had the lowest lows, to be sure.
Going home, it was good to hear from PCVs and their families and friends that our myriad frustrations in CV are shared regardless of country. Good in a way, but bad in the universality of the complaints. On returning, more than one CV PCV said, to paraphrase, “I respect that you came back. If I went home, I don’t think I would’ve returned.” Back in MI, though, it was nice to see the benefits one accrues from volunteering.
While my group perceives it has missed a lot in these tumultuous 16 months, aside from a crippling economic crisis that sadly made America seem worse than I left it, and a plethora of unimportant pop culture highlights (except for Jersey Shore, right Matt?), not much has changed. My friends have new jobs, grad programs, significant others, and locations, but at heart the months and miles haven’t changed much between us.
Sure I now feel fine on the two showers per week plan, can kill a chicken, speak two new languages, genuinely like kids (maybe not bratty American kids who I can’t “straighten out” without legal problems), and can subsist on rice and beans thrice daily for days or weeks. Everyone noticed my PC version of the thousand mile stare, my comical indecisiveness at Jersey Giant deli or the Meridian Mall food court, and the tendency to slip into Kriolu. But aside from those minor quirks all was basically the same.
I think going through hard culture shock after Ghana saved me a bit this time. Maybe coming back finally after finishing in CV will be different, when vacation mode ends and it’s back to the hard reality of America. I assure every Cape Verdean who wants a visa that the US is a brutal place, especially for a person of color with a sixth grade education who knows four phrases in English, three of them unprintable.
For once I have more to write, but as usual my battery’s almost done. Perhaps I’ll get around to finishing up in another couple of weeks. Thanks.
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.
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.
19 October 2009
Lack of Creativity
I had a pretty solid weekend in Mosteiros. Several of us PCVs got together more or less informally. I hiked down from Chã. The weekend pretty much epitomized the “Beach Corps” reputation of Cape Verde. As an aside, an RPCV who visited last week convincingly argued against the “Cape Verde isn’t real PC” line, saying that while in many mainland countries surviving for two years is an accomplishment, in Cape Verde, since living’s not too difficult we’re expected to do relatively serious work.
So anyway, we swam, ate delicious lobsters which a neighbor gave us, and in general relaxed. It was pretty much the perfect weekend. Our opinion of Mosteiros definitely improved.
In São Filipe on Friday, standing outside of the Shell, I witnessed a strange occurrence. To my left I heard a car horn blaring, more than normal. A newish, dark blue Audi or Volkswagen SUV came racing down the street. I noticed the driver’s side window was shattered, and disturbingly, the driver’s left arm covered in blood. The story is everywhere now, and it seems pretty clear it was a conflict between rivals in the drug trade. There were reports of several arrests, and last night on the road we saw a police officer with an AK-47 pulling over cars, which may or may not have been related.
Anyway, I guess I don’t really have much to say other than that. Hmmm. Yep.
So anyway, we swam, ate delicious lobsters which a neighbor gave us, and in general relaxed. It was pretty much the perfect weekend. Our opinion of Mosteiros definitely improved.
In São Filipe on Friday, standing outside of the Shell, I witnessed a strange occurrence. To my left I heard a car horn blaring, more than normal. A newish, dark blue Audi or Volkswagen SUV came racing down the street. I noticed the driver’s side window was shattered, and disturbingly, the driver’s left arm covered in blood. The story is everywhere now, and it seems pretty clear it was a conflict between rivals in the drug trade. There were reports of several arrests, and last night on the road we saw a police officer with an AK-47 pulling over cars, which may or may not have been related.
Anyway, I guess I don’t really have much to say other than that. Hmmm. Yep.
19 September 2009
Txuba txobi, txuba bedju
The rainy season (August to October-ish) is in full force. For me it’s not enjoyable, with thousands of flies in the house; everything damp, chilly, molding; not running much, staying in the house. Flies have an affinity for landing on one’s face, particularly the lips. Their cold, wet bodies scampering along every exposed centimeter of flesh never fails to disgust and annoy. Thankfully when the lights (candles) go out, they ascend to the ceiling and stay until morning.
My house like all others is a concrete box, whose benefits are price and ease/speed of construction. They’re cold in winter (it gets below 0º C, or 32 º F for you Americans and Brits ), leak, don’t hold paint well, take long to dry, and use imported cement and sand stolen from CV’s beaches and volcanoes. Doors and shutters (glass windows are a distinct luxury) are normally wooden, swelling in the rainy season making them difficult to open and close. In the dry season they shrink, making it easy for dust, vermin, bugs, and disreputable people to enter. With all that swelling and shrinking they don’t last long either.
Despite the negatives, the rainy season is essential. Whenever I get sick of the rains, I remind myself of the 100,000+ Cape Verdeans who starved to death during droughts during the World Wars. Consider that CV’s population today of around 500,000. The fantastically terrible colonial masters, the Portuguese, let this mass starvation happen. These famines are sometimes referred to as, “the times we ate dogs.” The international community saved Cape Verde from similar disaster several times after independence.
Every colonial power was dastardly, but Portugal ranks up there with the worst. At least the French and British left infrastructure and decent schools. Portugal left nothing but the misery it cultivated during its rule. There’s much underlying animosity for the Portuguese, who come to work and play. They’re described often as “atrevida,” or “cheeky, bold, insolent.” You see it in the way some visitors behave, how they treat the place and people, looking down on it. I’ve been told Americans are highly attuned to these things: we’re extremely politically correct. I have many Portuguese friends and haven’t experienced mistreatment, though a Cape Verdean acquaintance said of course, because America is better off than Portugal, but it’s different for CV and her people. They look up to America and down on CV, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Moçambique.
I’d like to visit Portugal. It’s also often called “atrasado,” or “late.” I admit taking pleasure in an international development book from the 70s describing it as part of the Third World. It’s a country with a proud, but ancient history. Younger Portuguese, born after colonialism, who seem well-educated, modern, and fun, must come to terms with this. The days of Portuguese dominance in exploration, naval power, and colonialism are long gone. The youth understand this, but perhaps don’t know how to move forward. Many seem sheepish or apologetic when taking about the past and present, and unconfident or worried about the future.
It never fails to surprise me of CV’s smallness. The last time I went to Praia, some other PCVs and I went to a discoteca, where we hung out with one of CV’s newest and biggest rap stars. He was a student of one of them at UniCV. It’s no wonder recently when there was a Celine Dion video on someone asked if I knew her and the people in the video. I identify my state, Michigan, as where “that white rapper, Eminem,” is from. “Do you know him? Akon? Chris Brown?” Otherwise Kriolu pronunciation leads people to believe I’m Mexican. This breeds more confusion when I tell how cold it is, how much snow we have. “I thought Mexico was hot?”
Anyway that’s about it. Thanks for reading. Stay dry!
My house like all others is a concrete box, whose benefits are price and ease/speed of construction. They’re cold in winter (it gets below 0º C, or 32 º F for you Americans and Brits ), leak, don’t hold paint well, take long to dry, and use imported cement and sand stolen from CV’s beaches and volcanoes. Doors and shutters (glass windows are a distinct luxury) are normally wooden, swelling in the rainy season making them difficult to open and close. In the dry season they shrink, making it easy for dust, vermin, bugs, and disreputable people to enter. With all that swelling and shrinking they don’t last long either.
Despite the negatives, the rainy season is essential. Whenever I get sick of the rains, I remind myself of the 100,000+ Cape Verdeans who starved to death during droughts during the World Wars. Consider that CV’s population today of around 500,000. The fantastically terrible colonial masters, the Portuguese, let this mass starvation happen. These famines are sometimes referred to as, “the times we ate dogs.” The international community saved Cape Verde from similar disaster several times after independence.
Every colonial power was dastardly, but Portugal ranks up there with the worst. At least the French and British left infrastructure and decent schools. Portugal left nothing but the misery it cultivated during its rule. There’s much underlying animosity for the Portuguese, who come to work and play. They’re described often as “atrevida,” or “cheeky, bold, insolent.” You see it in the way some visitors behave, how they treat the place and people, looking down on it. I’ve been told Americans are highly attuned to these things: we’re extremely politically correct. I have many Portuguese friends and haven’t experienced mistreatment, though a Cape Verdean acquaintance said of course, because America is better off than Portugal, but it’s different for CV and her people. They look up to America and down on CV, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Moçambique.
I’d like to visit Portugal. It’s also often called “atrasado,” or “late.” I admit taking pleasure in an international development book from the 70s describing it as part of the Third World. It’s a country with a proud, but ancient history. Younger Portuguese, born after colonialism, who seem well-educated, modern, and fun, must come to terms with this. The days of Portuguese dominance in exploration, naval power, and colonialism are long gone. The youth understand this, but perhaps don’t know how to move forward. Many seem sheepish or apologetic when taking about the past and present, and unconfident or worried about the future.
It never fails to surprise me of CV’s smallness. The last time I went to Praia, some other PCVs and I went to a discoteca, where we hung out with one of CV’s newest and biggest rap stars. He was a student of one of them at UniCV. It’s no wonder recently when there was a Celine Dion video on someone asked if I knew her and the people in the video. I identify my state, Michigan, as where “that white rapper, Eminem,” is from. “Do you know him? Akon? Chris Brown?” Otherwise Kriolu pronunciation leads people to believe I’m Mexican. This breeds more confusion when I tell how cold it is, how much snow we have. “I thought Mexico was hot?”
Anyway that’s about it. Thanks for reading. Stay dry!
Chã sta sabi
Things are going well in Chã. I enjoyed helping with Pre-Service Training in Assomada, Santiago, but it was nice to get back to site. Our new group of trainees (soon to be PCVs) is incredibly well-educated, motivated, and excited to get started. I too learned from sitting in on sessions, and gained inspiration from them. I have high hopes for them, especially since the new PCVs in Small Enterprise Development have excellent placements, with strong organizations, in positions to use their expertise to help CV.
Every time I leave Santiago I appreciate it more, sometimes feeling pangs of regret for not staying. It’s so big compared to Fogo, with more diversity, a more African cultural vibe, hikes, beaches, a great group of PCVs, so many resources and advantages. Fogo’s got the volcano, but more or less that’s it.
Santiago is nice because you can live in an entirely rural and isolated village, but in an hour or two get to Praia, the “big” city. Living in such a small country as CV can make a city of 150,000 like Praia seem like a bustling metropolis, with every possible resource. Indeed it bustles, but doesn’t stretch far. That makes it nice, though. It’s manageable. When I was in Ghana it took an hour or two to get across smoky, dusty, crowded, 2 million people Accra. I loved every minute of it, though. When in Praia I can walk anywhere I need to go (during the day).
I’m working on several projects. I’m putting my business degree to work helping determine the cost to make grappa/bagaceira, a liquor from fermented and distilled grape skins. Later I may tackle liqueurs (pomegranate, peach, fig) and wines. Getting one relatively complete costing model will make the other products easier. It’s a strange PC experience, working at a winery. Nothing about this experience has been what I expected. But the winery has made an incredible impact on the community, with just about everyone benefitting from increased grape prices, winery jobs, and tourism.
The second project is improving the school, which I wrote about last time. Since I live in the community and my boss in São Filipe, I’m getting estimates, finding people to volunteer, raising awareness, and writing the proposal. He’ll use his contacts and communications to get financing. If all goes well we can get it done before school begins. We’ll focus on making the bathrooms function, shoring up the rainwater catchment tank, paint, and windows/doors, in that order.
Otherwise there are little things. I hope to get materials to give a training on waitressing/hospitality for a local restaurant. I need to get an English class going, hopefully with materials which require no curriculum development by me. When the park builds its jam factory I’ll surely have work, provided it happens in the next year.
Anyway, I’m starting to bore myself, so it must be 10x worse for you. Thanks for reading.
Every time I leave Santiago I appreciate it more, sometimes feeling pangs of regret for not staying. It’s so big compared to Fogo, with more diversity, a more African cultural vibe, hikes, beaches, a great group of PCVs, so many resources and advantages. Fogo’s got the volcano, but more or less that’s it.
Santiago is nice because you can live in an entirely rural and isolated village, but in an hour or two get to Praia, the “big” city. Living in such a small country as CV can make a city of 150,000 like Praia seem like a bustling metropolis, with every possible resource. Indeed it bustles, but doesn’t stretch far. That makes it nice, though. It’s manageable. When I was in Ghana it took an hour or two to get across smoky, dusty, crowded, 2 million people Accra. I loved every minute of it, though. When in Praia I can walk anywhere I need to go (during the day).
I’m working on several projects. I’m putting my business degree to work helping determine the cost to make grappa/bagaceira, a liquor from fermented and distilled grape skins. Later I may tackle liqueurs (pomegranate, peach, fig) and wines. Getting one relatively complete costing model will make the other products easier. It’s a strange PC experience, working at a winery. Nothing about this experience has been what I expected. But the winery has made an incredible impact on the community, with just about everyone benefitting from increased grape prices, winery jobs, and tourism.
The second project is improving the school, which I wrote about last time. Since I live in the community and my boss in São Filipe, I’m getting estimates, finding people to volunteer, raising awareness, and writing the proposal. He’ll use his contacts and communications to get financing. If all goes well we can get it done before school begins. We’ll focus on making the bathrooms function, shoring up the rainwater catchment tank, paint, and windows/doors, in that order.
Otherwise there are little things. I hope to get materials to give a training on waitressing/hospitality for a local restaurant. I need to get an English class going, hopefully with materials which require no curriculum development by me. When the park builds its jam factory I’ll surely have work, provided it happens in the next year.
Anyway, I’m starting to bore myself, so it must be 10x worse for you. Thanks for reading.
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