This is a quick interjection meant for all of the volunteers I know, as well as those I don't. I came across this poem recently and it articulates points that I or friends have made in recent conversation. I was touched by its relevance, and just want to post it in hopes that it may touch a chord with someone else when they need it.
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
... though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.
-Mary Oliver
Cape Verde
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
I get it
During my first trimester of my first year in Fogo, a friend of mine listened patiently to my frustrations regarding disciplinary problems in my classroom, and said to me, “I wouldn’t wish a first year of teaching on my worst enemy.” I shrugged the comment off at the time, thinking that my second year surely couldn’t be too different from the first. And now here I am, and for the millionth time during my service I find myself thinking “ok, I was wrong.”
The difference is astounding. One year ago I was grasping at straws trying to find anything at all that I could do to keep things in order. I didn’t have teaching resources, my Kriolu wasn’t strong, and I didn’t understand the learning styles of Cape Verdean children. The blank stares I encountered were disheartening, as was the amount of time it took me to figure out how to make my students grasp even the simplest concept.
I’m not quite a month in to my second year in school now, but I’ve taken every painful lesson from last year and combined them into some hybrid version of success. I love joking with my students, but understand now the fine line between light-hearted lessons and getting kids so excited that they become uncontrollable. Everyone participates, like it or not. I have the “teacher face” down, and can stop kids from talking without saying a word. That might be my favorite. I leave my personal emotions at the door when I walk into the classroom. My first real effective day last year came after a breakup, but in retrospect I think the only reason the students behaved that day was fear. Effective, but not my style.
Last year my favorite thing to say to people was that my kids are the best and worst parts of my service. I think once the year goes on that may be the case once again, but I have a handle on it now. A friend in the States, a very successful and wonderful teacher, told me someone said to him once, “I tried teaching. I get it, but it’s not for me.” For me, it’s become something that I think I’ll need to do for the rest of my life…maybe just not professionally.
For anyone who wants to try, I highly recommend teaching ESL. Before joining Peace Corps I taught in Arlington for a year, only once a week, to an amazing and diverse group of people. I taught people of all ages, from nearly every continent. I still remember their faces, and their kind words, and I have a beautiful card from them hanging on my wall. To date, aside from Peace Corps, it remains the most meaningful thing I’ve ever done.
So I get it. Teaching every day from the crack of dawn to two may not be for me, but it’s stuck with me. I saved some of my favorite parts from a project that I did last year with my eighth graders. Some of the papers made me want to quit, but some of the students took the opportunity to convey their emotions and thoughts in such a poetic way; I was insurmountably proud of them. Some were just hilarious. These were some of my favorites:
I like my father. She is the best father.
The holiday that I liked is the holiday of Christmas. Because I was together with my friends, brothers, my family, girlfriend, and my mother, and my father. The party was more pleasant with music in house of my aunt. I danced very with my girlfriend.
At first day that I went to school in Ponta Verde, I finded many friends.
We spent time there and spent one midnight happy.
I like policemen. I like to go to the beach. I don’t want to be rich. I want to have a family with a woman that I love. I like my English teacher.
I’m 12 years old. My homework is about a party in Santo Antonio. It is very short but is very interesting.
During summer vacation, the weather gets hot, and since I live close to the beach I go there almost every day to swim. Even when the vacation is about to end, I still be happy because when I return to school I will be in a different grade and that will be a new experience.
A month after my grandfather died I had many sad. I liked him, he gave me a lot stories. He was seventy years old.
Last year I went to the island Brava over my island vacation. I was walking around the city. The city was full of flowers by the side and seemed to be the paradise. Out windows at night we were looking at the sky. Took many photographs.
(Anyone interested in ESL in the Northern Virginia area should look into REEP: The Arlington Education and Employment Program. Please feel free to email me with any questions, and check out their website at http://www.apsva.us/Page/2019.)
The difference is astounding. One year ago I was grasping at straws trying to find anything at all that I could do to keep things in order. I didn’t have teaching resources, my Kriolu wasn’t strong, and I didn’t understand the learning styles of Cape Verdean children. The blank stares I encountered were disheartening, as was the amount of time it took me to figure out how to make my students grasp even the simplest concept.
I’m not quite a month in to my second year in school now, but I’ve taken every painful lesson from last year and combined them into some hybrid version of success. I love joking with my students, but understand now the fine line between light-hearted lessons and getting kids so excited that they become uncontrollable. Everyone participates, like it or not. I have the “teacher face” down, and can stop kids from talking without saying a word. That might be my favorite. I leave my personal emotions at the door when I walk into the classroom. My first real effective day last year came after a breakup, but in retrospect I think the only reason the students behaved that day was fear. Effective, but not my style.
Last year my favorite thing to say to people was that my kids are the best and worst parts of my service. I think once the year goes on that may be the case once again, but I have a handle on it now. A friend in the States, a very successful and wonderful teacher, told me someone said to him once, “I tried teaching. I get it, but it’s not for me.” For me, it’s become something that I think I’ll need to do for the rest of my life…maybe just not professionally.
For anyone who wants to try, I highly recommend teaching ESL. Before joining Peace Corps I taught in Arlington for a year, only once a week, to an amazing and diverse group of people. I taught people of all ages, from nearly every continent. I still remember their faces, and their kind words, and I have a beautiful card from them hanging on my wall. To date, aside from Peace Corps, it remains the most meaningful thing I’ve ever done.
So I get it. Teaching every day from the crack of dawn to two may not be for me, but it’s stuck with me. I saved some of my favorite parts from a project that I did last year with my eighth graders. Some of the papers made me want to quit, but some of the students took the opportunity to convey their emotions and thoughts in such a poetic way; I was insurmountably proud of them. Some were just hilarious. These were some of my favorites:
I like my father. She is the best father.
The holiday that I liked is the holiday of Christmas. Because I was together with my friends, brothers, my family, girlfriend, and my mother, and my father. The party was more pleasant with music in house of my aunt. I danced very with my girlfriend.
At first day that I went to school in Ponta Verde, I finded many friends.
We spent time there and spent one midnight happy.
I like policemen. I like to go to the beach. I don’t want to be rich. I want to have a family with a woman that I love. I like my English teacher.
I’m 12 years old. My homework is about a party in Santo Antonio. It is very short but is very interesting.
During summer vacation, the weather gets hot, and since I live close to the beach I go there almost every day to swim. Even when the vacation is about to end, I still be happy because when I return to school I will be in a different grade and that will be a new experience.
A month after my grandfather died I had many sad. I liked him, he gave me a lot stories. He was seventy years old.
Last year I went to the island Brava over my island vacation. I was walking around the city. The city was full of flowers by the side and seemed to be the paradise. Out windows at night we were looking at the sky. Took many photographs.
(Anyone interested in ESL in the Northern Virginia area should look into REEP: The Arlington Education and Employment Program. Please feel free to email me with any questions, and check out their website at http://www.apsva.us/Page/2019.)
Friday, September 16, 2011
Summer vacation
Disclaimer: this is a ridiculously long post.
When I first joined Peace Corps I had this big idea that I would spend my full two years here. I thought it would be better to use my vacation days within country. I came here partially to isolate myself from Western thought and also to get to know a country other than my own in a personal way, so it made sense to stay. But living on an island can drive a person to near-insanity at times, and I thought it best for my mental health and the physical safety of my students to get away for a while. My friend Toby was planning to go home to York for a few weeks over his birthday and invited me along. At first I declined, offering every type of reason except a good one. I needed a break, I was just too stubborn to admit it. But when he found a buy-one-get-one-free ticket to Germany I had to jump on board.
This vacation started out unintentionally. I had planned an art camp for my students with two other volunteers to take place during the summer. Sadly, I was shipped to Dakar during the exact week that art camp was taking place for a few medical consultations and had to miss it. But this journey extended my vacation to a full month traveling outside of Cape Verde, and it was pretty amazing. Since I don’t speak French or Wolof, while I was in Dakar I had to wait for volunteers to come to the medical hut when they had time and tag along with them. So some days were spent restlessly pacing around, hoping for someone to show up (but enjoying turkey and French bread and varieties of cheese, all of which I’ve been denied for such a long time now). But there were a few days I was able to go explore.
I made fast friends with a few of the volunteers, one of whom was beginning his third year and moving from a rural site to Dakar. He had never been to Ngor Island, which is a small island used for its beaches just off the coast of the beach near the Peace Corps medical hut. We were able to go there one day, crammed onto a boat with a hundred other people for a smooth ten minute ride. I was happy to just walk around and stretch my legs a little bit. We circled the island, and I was able to try touba, a spicy coffee that tastes like it has ginger in it, before we sat down for a drink before heading back.
Another day we went to the port with the intention of getting details on tickets to Goree island, a former slave island. But we were sidetracked. We saw a long, narrow sea wall jutting out into the ocean in a winding S-curve and were too curious to leave it be. It’s used these days for fishermen, and it was used back in the day for coastal defense. Parts of it were difficult to traverse. Rock had been eroded over time, and parts of it were washed away completely. Other sections were coated in slippery algae, and there was one part that had an ancient cannon blocking the way. But it was amazing, and spontaneous, which made my day.
After Dakar, I had one day in Praia before Toby and I went to Sal for our flight to Germany. I hadn’t been certain how long I’d be held in Dakar, and it was a relief to touch ground back in Cape Verde in time to go on the trip we’d been planning. Two days later we arrived in Stuttgart to start the three weeks we’d stay in Europe.
We stayed two nights in Stuttgart, accommodating our excitement to try every type of food and drink every type of beer that we could get our hands on. We made it to a museum and I felt months of stress begin to chip away. The second morning there we woke up, packed our bags, and took a long walk to the place we’d begin hitchhiking. Along the way we found that there was one thing we’d both missed terribly but never really noticed: grass. Seriously, all I wanted to do was sit in the grass and roll around in flowers. It was probably an odd sight to people walking by, but we had to give in a few times.
After Stuttgart we went to Karlsruhe, which was interesting because there's a theory that this is the city whose layout Washington DC is based on. Capitol Hill is the equivalent of the Town Hall of Karlsruhe: an epicenter with ring streets expanding outward from it. So that was strangely familiar. But we were struck upon arrival by an increasing number of people in costume. We passed pirates, barmaids, peasant boys, all mixed in with people just going about their evening. We had no idea what was going on until we reached the main park, which was hosting a giant medieval festival. Getting rides to our destination proved to be a long process that day (we got numerous rides along the way, some incredible people, including a family who rearranged their car and children to make room for us) and we didn’t have much time once we got there. So the next day we were off.
The next stop was Saarbrucken. We stayed there one night and spent a full day exploring, but the highlight was dinner. I’d been set on sushi from the beginning, and I found a great restaurant in the city. Spicy tuna rolls and five little bottles of warm sake later I was the happiest girl in the world. But again, we had a target in mind and had to be on our way. At this point we were on the border of France and planned to make it to Metz.
This was the best hitch of the trip. We met a fantastic couple who went out of their way to befriend us. They took us to our destination, and then we all went to the extension of the Pompidou center that had just been completed.
We had some drinks after in the shadow of a beautiful cathedral, and exchanged contact information before begrudgingly saying our goodbyes. It was one of the more staggering experiences of my life to date. Metz, as though it knew it was following a star performance, didn’t disappoint in the slightest. Everything came together, stars aligned, and the meaning of life was clear. I can’t say why, really. It was just one of those places that meant something to me immediately. We had some wine-induced conversations (debates? Fights? Who’s to say) about modern art, explored parks, and let ourselves get lost in the newness of it all.
After Metz, we made our way to Reims. My favorite part of Reims was the process of getting to Reims. It was far more difficult to get rides in France than it was in Germany, and we’d been on the side of a road for three hours before getting a ride to a gas station a few exits up. This was good timing as we were able to eat and shield ourselves from the rain that had been showing signs of opening up on us for an hour or so. As we were waiting at this gas station, a Mack truck whistled to a stop in front of us. A young guy leaned out the door of the driver’s side and said this was a bad place to wait, but he could take us a few exits up.
After we’d been in the cab of the truck for a good fifteen minutes or so, he said he was making a drop at a farm but after that he was heading to Reims, if we wanted to go on this drop with him and then continue on our journey. He was personable and fun, and of course we agreed. We sped along increasingly narrow back roads and came to a tiny town in the middle of acres of farmland, and as he was helping a local farmer unload the freight, we climbed all over the truck and explored the town.
Afterward, we continued on to Reims. Along the way, our new friend started pulling medieval weapons out of various hiding places in the cab (completely innocently, just a quirky guy) to highlight stories he told us about strange things that had happened to him over his years of driving. This popped into my head a little bit later when we were stranded in a ghost town, our friend having reached his 15 hour maximum on driving for the day, and we realized the three of us would be sharing the cab for the night. He was a friendly guy, with a sweet disposition, and he ended up giving us all of the food that he had in his refrigerator (and also gave me a small sheep figurine to remember him by) and we continued on the next day. Definitely a night to remember.
We reached our destination early the next morning. Reims is the capital of the champagne valley in France, and we drank accordingly. The day was spent wandering around. The only big thing here was the Notre-Dame cathedral, the site where the kings of France were once crowned. It had a lot of character, but there had been massive damage done to it in 2010 with the outbreak of a fire, and the dynamic inside has changed with the addition of modern stained glass which now includes pieces ranging from the 13th to 20th century. The variety of style was unlike anything I’d seen in stained glass. The only thing I can say about that night is better summed up through photos:
(classy)
(tasteful but clearly well-enjoyed)
(where am I?)
After Reims, having woken up with severe champagne headaches, we decided to take a train into Paris. We spent three days there, and it was wonderful. We went to the Musee D’Orsay which quickly made my list of best museums I’ve ever been to. I finally climbed the Eiffel tower, had Mexican food for the first time in forever, my first Cosmopolitan in over a year, walked along the Seine and crossed a few things off our lists. We stayed in a hotel in Montmartre, on the top floor, and the first night I hopped over the guardrail to sit on the narrow rooftop ledge to watch the light show.
I could dedicate a whole post to Paris, but I’ll keep it short and sweet. On the third evening, we made our way to the bus station to catch the overnight bus to London. It was an awful ride and I highly recommend avoiding this situation at all costs. Progress was delayed numerous times and it made sleeping impossible. But we did finally reach London and made our way to Toby’s friend’s apartment. We lazed around (oh my God couches! Couches are so good) and made dinner with his friends that night, but we’d been hearing sirens go by and realized that the riots had broken out in Ealing, which is where we were. We didn’t see anything, but the stories on the news were heartbreaking, and in the middle of the night we could hear helicopters circling around us and turned on the news to hear that residences in the area were being broken in to. When Toby’s friends walked home after dinner, they passed burning cars and found that the apartment building across theirs was on fire.
It was tragic to see what people were capable of, but I have to say it was heartening the following day to step outside and see so many people walking with
brooms and dustpans to clean up the mess that looters had made the night before.
After London we spent a day at Cambridge, where Toby showed me all of his University haunts. Cambridge is beautiful, and it was a really touching way to spend the day. It made me miss JMU, and we sat under a tree eating sandwiches and trading stories about college days. That night we took a train to York, to his family’s house, where we spent the following five days or so. If I could sum this up I would say the following: sleeping in, mashed potatoes, afternoon gin, the family farm, wine, steaks, sausages, fish and chips, haircuts, movie theaters!, mango juice, stained glass, art, Les Mis, bars, bacon, moors, highland cows, washing machines omg, chicken brick, more bacon, asparagus and tea. If I say much more than that we’ll be here for days. Amazing. That is all.
(fish and chips on the moors)
(highland cows are so awesome)
The last stop was Edinburg. Toby’s brother lives there and we made it during the Fringe, which is the annual theater festival that triples Edinburg’s already massive population every year. It was so much fun, and once again it was the type of place that contained too much in too short of time to be able to do it justice here. One thing worth mentioning is that we went to see a show called Showstoppers at the Fringe, which is an improvised musical. The audience would provide examples of Broadway musicals, or specific songs, and also suggest a setting, and the actors would improvise an entire musical incorporating everything on the compiled list. The first night was so hilarious that we went the following night, and it was equally mind blowing.
After this trip we flew back to Stuttgart for a night before coming back to Cape Verde. We’d planned to come back through Boavista to see some friends and settle back into life in-country before going back to our sites. It was a good way to end, and I was able to cross another island off the list.
So a lot happened and changed over the course of this month abroad. I have tentative plans for post-PC life, which I’ll elaborate on as soon as things are set in motion, and I also feel completely regenerated for my second year here. I didn’t realize when I was making the plans, but leaving for a while helped me twofold: I was able to step away from the stresses of my life as a teacher and evaluate and redevelop my plan for the coming year, and I was also able to settle into familiar ambiguity and relax a little bit. I kind of feel as though I’m starting over again, but this time with a good grasp on the language and classroom techniques. It was at once the perfect celebration to the end of my first year of teaching, and an energy boost for the second. We’ll see what the coming year brings.
When I first joined Peace Corps I had this big idea that I would spend my full two years here. I thought it would be better to use my vacation days within country. I came here partially to isolate myself from Western thought and also to get to know a country other than my own in a personal way, so it made sense to stay. But living on an island can drive a person to near-insanity at times, and I thought it best for my mental health and the physical safety of my students to get away for a while. My friend Toby was planning to go home to York for a few weeks over his birthday and invited me along. At first I declined, offering every type of reason except a good one. I needed a break, I was just too stubborn to admit it. But when he found a buy-one-get-one-free ticket to Germany I had to jump on board.
This vacation started out unintentionally. I had planned an art camp for my students with two other volunteers to take place during the summer. Sadly, I was shipped to Dakar during the exact week that art camp was taking place for a few medical consultations and had to miss it. But this journey extended my vacation to a full month traveling outside of Cape Verde, and it was pretty amazing. Since I don’t speak French or Wolof, while I was in Dakar I had to wait for volunteers to come to the medical hut when they had time and tag along with them. So some days were spent restlessly pacing around, hoping for someone to show up (but enjoying turkey and French bread and varieties of cheese, all of which I’ve been denied for such a long time now). But there were a few days I was able to go explore.
I made fast friends with a few of the volunteers, one of whom was beginning his third year and moving from a rural site to Dakar. He had never been to Ngor Island, which is a small island used for its beaches just off the coast of the beach near the Peace Corps medical hut. We were able to go there one day, crammed onto a boat with a hundred other people for a smooth ten minute ride. I was happy to just walk around and stretch my legs a little bit. We circled the island, and I was able to try touba, a spicy coffee that tastes like it has ginger in it, before we sat down for a drink before heading back.
Another day we went to the port with the intention of getting details on tickets to Goree island, a former slave island. But we were sidetracked. We saw a long, narrow sea wall jutting out into the ocean in a winding S-curve and were too curious to leave it be. It’s used these days for fishermen, and it was used back in the day for coastal defense. Parts of it were difficult to traverse. Rock had been eroded over time, and parts of it were washed away completely. Other sections were coated in slippery algae, and there was one part that had an ancient cannon blocking the way. But it was amazing, and spontaneous, which made my day.
After Dakar, I had one day in Praia before Toby and I went to Sal for our flight to Germany. I hadn’t been certain how long I’d be held in Dakar, and it was a relief to touch ground back in Cape Verde in time to go on the trip we’d been planning. Two days later we arrived in Stuttgart to start the three weeks we’d stay in Europe.
We stayed two nights in Stuttgart, accommodating our excitement to try every type of food and drink every type of beer that we could get our hands on. We made it to a museum and I felt months of stress begin to chip away. The second morning there we woke up, packed our bags, and took a long walk to the place we’d begin hitchhiking. Along the way we found that there was one thing we’d both missed terribly but never really noticed: grass. Seriously, all I wanted to do was sit in the grass and roll around in flowers. It was probably an odd sight to people walking by, but we had to give in a few times.
After Stuttgart we went to Karlsruhe, which was interesting because there's a theory that this is the city whose layout Washington DC is based on. Capitol Hill is the equivalent of the Town Hall of Karlsruhe: an epicenter with ring streets expanding outward from it. So that was strangely familiar. But we were struck upon arrival by an increasing number of people in costume. We passed pirates, barmaids, peasant boys, all mixed in with people just going about their evening. We had no idea what was going on until we reached the main park, which was hosting a giant medieval festival. Getting rides to our destination proved to be a long process that day (we got numerous rides along the way, some incredible people, including a family who rearranged their car and children to make room for us) and we didn’t have much time once we got there. So the next day we were off.
The next stop was Saarbrucken. We stayed there one night and spent a full day exploring, but the highlight was dinner. I’d been set on sushi from the beginning, and I found a great restaurant in the city. Spicy tuna rolls and five little bottles of warm sake later I was the happiest girl in the world. But again, we had a target in mind and had to be on our way. At this point we were on the border of France and planned to make it to Metz.
This was the best hitch of the trip. We met a fantastic couple who went out of their way to befriend us. They took us to our destination, and then we all went to the extension of the Pompidou center that had just been completed.
We had some drinks after in the shadow of a beautiful cathedral, and exchanged contact information before begrudgingly saying our goodbyes. It was one of the more staggering experiences of my life to date. Metz, as though it knew it was following a star performance, didn’t disappoint in the slightest. Everything came together, stars aligned, and the meaning of life was clear. I can’t say why, really. It was just one of those places that meant something to me immediately. We had some wine-induced conversations (debates? Fights? Who’s to say) about modern art, explored parks, and let ourselves get lost in the newness of it all.
After Metz, we made our way to Reims. My favorite part of Reims was the process of getting to Reims. It was far more difficult to get rides in France than it was in Germany, and we’d been on the side of a road for three hours before getting a ride to a gas station a few exits up. This was good timing as we were able to eat and shield ourselves from the rain that had been showing signs of opening up on us for an hour or so. As we were waiting at this gas station, a Mack truck whistled to a stop in front of us. A young guy leaned out the door of the driver’s side and said this was a bad place to wait, but he could take us a few exits up.
After we’d been in the cab of the truck for a good fifteen minutes or so, he said he was making a drop at a farm but after that he was heading to Reims, if we wanted to go on this drop with him and then continue on our journey. He was personable and fun, and of course we agreed. We sped along increasingly narrow back roads and came to a tiny town in the middle of acres of farmland, and as he was helping a local farmer unload the freight, we climbed all over the truck and explored the town.
Afterward, we continued on to Reims. Along the way, our new friend started pulling medieval weapons out of various hiding places in the cab (completely innocently, just a quirky guy) to highlight stories he told us about strange things that had happened to him over his years of driving. This popped into my head a little bit later when we were stranded in a ghost town, our friend having reached his 15 hour maximum on driving for the day, and we realized the three of us would be sharing the cab for the night. He was a friendly guy, with a sweet disposition, and he ended up giving us all of the food that he had in his refrigerator (and also gave me a small sheep figurine to remember him by) and we continued on the next day. Definitely a night to remember.
We reached our destination early the next morning. Reims is the capital of the champagne valley in France, and we drank accordingly. The day was spent wandering around. The only big thing here was the Notre-Dame cathedral, the site where the kings of France were once crowned. It had a lot of character, but there had been massive damage done to it in 2010 with the outbreak of a fire, and the dynamic inside has changed with the addition of modern stained glass which now includes pieces ranging from the 13th to 20th century. The variety of style was unlike anything I’d seen in stained glass. The only thing I can say about that night is better summed up through photos:
(classy)
(tasteful but clearly well-enjoyed)
(where am I?)
After Reims, having woken up with severe champagne headaches, we decided to take a train into Paris. We spent three days there, and it was wonderful. We went to the Musee D’Orsay which quickly made my list of best museums I’ve ever been to. I finally climbed the Eiffel tower, had Mexican food for the first time in forever, my first Cosmopolitan in over a year, walked along the Seine and crossed a few things off our lists. We stayed in a hotel in Montmartre, on the top floor, and the first night I hopped over the guardrail to sit on the narrow rooftop ledge to watch the light show.
I could dedicate a whole post to Paris, but I’ll keep it short and sweet. On the third evening, we made our way to the bus station to catch the overnight bus to London. It was an awful ride and I highly recommend avoiding this situation at all costs. Progress was delayed numerous times and it made sleeping impossible. But we did finally reach London and made our way to Toby’s friend’s apartment. We lazed around (oh my God couches! Couches are so good) and made dinner with his friends that night, but we’d been hearing sirens go by and realized that the riots had broken out in Ealing, which is where we were. We didn’t see anything, but the stories on the news were heartbreaking, and in the middle of the night we could hear helicopters circling around us and turned on the news to hear that residences in the area were being broken in to. When Toby’s friends walked home after dinner, they passed burning cars and found that the apartment building across theirs was on fire.
It was tragic to see what people were capable of, but I have to say it was heartening the following day to step outside and see so many people walking with
brooms and dustpans to clean up the mess that looters had made the night before.
After London we spent a day at Cambridge, where Toby showed me all of his University haunts. Cambridge is beautiful, and it was a really touching way to spend the day. It made me miss JMU, and we sat under a tree eating sandwiches and trading stories about college days. That night we took a train to York, to his family’s house, where we spent the following five days or so. If I could sum this up I would say the following: sleeping in, mashed potatoes, afternoon gin, the family farm, wine, steaks, sausages, fish and chips, haircuts, movie theaters!, mango juice, stained glass, art, Les Mis, bars, bacon, moors, highland cows, washing machines omg, chicken brick, more bacon, asparagus and tea. If I say much more than that we’ll be here for days. Amazing. That is all.
(fish and chips on the moors)
(highland cows are so awesome)
The last stop was Edinburg. Toby’s brother lives there and we made it during the Fringe, which is the annual theater festival that triples Edinburg’s already massive population every year. It was so much fun, and once again it was the type of place that contained too much in too short of time to be able to do it justice here. One thing worth mentioning is that we went to see a show called Showstoppers at the Fringe, which is an improvised musical. The audience would provide examples of Broadway musicals, or specific songs, and also suggest a setting, and the actors would improvise an entire musical incorporating everything on the compiled list. The first night was so hilarious that we went the following night, and it was equally mind blowing.
After this trip we flew back to Stuttgart for a night before coming back to Cape Verde. We’d planned to come back through Boavista to see some friends and settle back into life in-country before going back to our sites. It was a good way to end, and I was able to cross another island off the list.
So a lot happened and changed over the course of this month abroad. I have tentative plans for post-PC life, which I’ll elaborate on as soon as things are set in motion, and I also feel completely regenerated for my second year here. I didn’t realize when I was making the plans, but leaving for a while helped me twofold: I was able to step away from the stresses of my life as a teacher and evaluate and redevelop my plan for the coming year, and I was also able to settle into familiar ambiguity and relax a little bit. I kind of feel as though I’m starting over again, but this time with a good grasp on the language and classroom techniques. It was at once the perfect celebration to the end of my first year of teaching, and an energy boost for the second. We’ll see what the coming year brings.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Guest spot: nha mai
This is a little bit overdue, but I wanted to try out a guest spot on the blog. My mom came out here for a good two weeks (e tal) in June/July and I asked her to write a little bit about her experience. It was her first trip abroad (Africa, of all places) and she was amazing. I'll let her do the talking:
I had a great 2 weeks in Fogo. The highlight of the trip, of course was seeing Rachel again! We did so much in two week! The flight over was easy, as we did not leave Boston until 1 AM. I woke up at dawn and it was unreal, being over the ocean. When I looked out my side of the plane the sky was dark. On the other side, the sun was coming up. The first two days I really needed to read and nap while she finished up with school. Walking around the "neighborhood" and meeting the local people. I know I had a bit of difficulty with the language, but I tried!
Rachel took me to a "dance" at a local persons house. We ate very well, and I was fortunate enough to have several people there visiting from Boston, so they of course spoke English. Afterwards, all the guys went into a room and waited for the women to come in to dance. It was very unique! All I can say is their "social life" is very different than ours!
We also went to a benefit dinner at a local restaurant to raise money for art supplies for the school children. The food and drink kept flowing, great music played by a local musician and several people who sat down to play with him. It was a good turn out, and I think all the people who helped put this on were pleased. I met a really nice young man from Germany, who I talked to for awhile.
Transportation was very unusual. They had regular taxis, but the way to really travel is in a Hiaces, which is like a passenger van. They cram so many people in one its unreal. One trip we took, they actually picked up someone with a live chicken, not even in a cage or a box. The driver opened up the back door and put the chicken in and packed boxes and bags around it to keep it in one place! We also would make several stops along the way if someone wanted to stop at a "store" to pick up some cakes or bread. Of course everyone had to wait in the hot Hiaces. No one seemed to mind. I was fortunate enough to only experience this once, the trip we took (on my way to the airport naturally) when we had to drive around the city looking for people who needed rides. It was getting close to the time I needed to be at the airport, so we got out and got a cab.
I enjoyed Mosteiros very much. We stayed 3 days with Josh, another volunteer. He lives more in a city atmosphere, and I enjoyed sitting on his balcony watching the people come and go. We went to a festival there, where Rachel and I participated in the Pilan, which is crushing corn into flour. It is quite strenuous! My arms got a work out. While you are doing this, the people are standing around you and chanting songs about you. The next night we went to the festival, and ate food made from the corn flour. It was very good. After everyone ate, we went to the streets to wait for the parade. Here, people dressed from head to toe in corn stalks and masks, and ran through the streets while musicians played and chanted. Younger kids, also disguised, ran about with long sticks chasing the other people. This went on for quite awhile. I was told this dates back from the slave days. When a slave had a complaint against his master, he would disguise himself from head to toe and go on his Masters porch and state his complaint. The master would not know which slave it was, so he could not be punished.
We spent one day taking a hike. We took a cab up to the top of the "mountain" and slowly walked down. The banana trees were huge! It was so lush and green at the top. It was really something, to be walking down a road, turn a corner, and there is a store where you can get a beer. We made several "stops" on our walks. We also found a few houses where the people have monkeys as guard dogs. They are chained to a tree and have a very nice tree house.
Rachel took me to meet a local artist, Tony, and his wife. They were very nice. I loved his art work! He used odds and ends he found on the island and made art out of it. He had these gorgeous picture frames he made out of PVC pipes, wrapped in banana leaves and shellacked. His wife, whose name escapes me, makes beautiful jewelry. Their home was very simple, very comfortable, and they both had a happiness about them that is not seen here (USA) very often.
Cha was really unique. The bed and breakfast we stayed at for two nights was a real treat. It is at the base of the volcano. The food (once again!) was incredible! And the wine! There is a lovely courtyard right outside your room that have these statues and wall hangings that are carved out of lava rock. The next morning we took a long hike around the volcano. The rock formations were incredible! And in all that black and rock and barren looking land, was the vineyard, lush plants full of grapes! Not to mention the apples and pomegranates! The volcano itself is a sight to see. It is huge! I doubt I could have climbed it, and I KNOW I would not have been able to run down it. It was a sight! We walked most of the day, it was like being on another planet. We stopped at the "store " there and bought some wine. The men of the "village" who were finished with their days work, came in to play music. We sat and listened and it was really good. The owner played the violin, and you could tell they all enjoyed this time together. After this, we went back to the bed and breakfast, ate supper and had the most delicious chocolate mousse! That night, we climb the steps to the roof to look at the stars. With no outdoor lights, and being in the middle of the ocean, it was an incredible sight!
From here we traveled to Tortuga, which is another B&B on the ocean. The owners are Italian, and once again the food was incredible. We pretty much lazed around, played cards, read, and took naps in the hammock. My journey was slowly coming to an end.
We got back to Rachel's house for a few more days. Near Rachel's school is a store, where a women named Bete works. She is extremely pleasant. We walked over there one day so I could say goodbye. She has a big heart, a very kind soul. I am happy I met her.
I am so happy Rachel showed me her life there. I learned a lot, mostly how spoiled we are here, with running clean water, showers (hot), electricity that stays on when you need it, washing machines! I know I only washed a few things with the scrub brush and wash board, but it was a chore!
I ate octopus and eel, woke up every morning to roosters and donkeys! Picked fresh mangos off the tree. And the cashews! I did not know they had fruit AND they are toxic raw!
Thank you for sharing your world with me! It was a trip I will never forget!
I had a great 2 weeks in Fogo. The highlight of the trip, of course was seeing Rachel again! We did so much in two week! The flight over was easy, as we did not leave Boston until 1 AM. I woke up at dawn and it was unreal, being over the ocean. When I looked out my side of the plane the sky was dark. On the other side, the sun was coming up. The first two days I really needed to read and nap while she finished up with school. Walking around the "neighborhood" and meeting the local people. I know I had a bit of difficulty with the language, but I tried!
Rachel took me to a "dance" at a local persons house. We ate very well, and I was fortunate enough to have several people there visiting from Boston, so they of course spoke English. Afterwards, all the guys went into a room and waited for the women to come in to dance. It was very unique! All I can say is their "social life" is very different than ours!
We also went to a benefit dinner at a local restaurant to raise money for art supplies for the school children. The food and drink kept flowing, great music played by a local musician and several people who sat down to play with him. It was a good turn out, and I think all the people who helped put this on were pleased. I met a really nice young man from Germany, who I talked to for awhile.
Transportation was very unusual. They had regular taxis, but the way to really travel is in a Hiaces, which is like a passenger van. They cram so many people in one its unreal. One trip we took, they actually picked up someone with a live chicken, not even in a cage or a box. The driver opened up the back door and put the chicken in and packed boxes and bags around it to keep it in one place! We also would make several stops along the way if someone wanted to stop at a "store" to pick up some cakes or bread. Of course everyone had to wait in the hot Hiaces. No one seemed to mind. I was fortunate enough to only experience this once, the trip we took (on my way to the airport naturally) when we had to drive around the city looking for people who needed rides. It was getting close to the time I needed to be at the airport, so we got out and got a cab.
I enjoyed Mosteiros very much. We stayed 3 days with Josh, another volunteer. He lives more in a city atmosphere, and I enjoyed sitting on his balcony watching the people come and go. We went to a festival there, where Rachel and I participated in the Pilan, which is crushing corn into flour. It is quite strenuous! My arms got a work out. While you are doing this, the people are standing around you and chanting songs about you. The next night we went to the festival, and ate food made from the corn flour. It was very good. After everyone ate, we went to the streets to wait for the parade. Here, people dressed from head to toe in corn stalks and masks, and ran through the streets while musicians played and chanted. Younger kids, also disguised, ran about with long sticks chasing the other people. This went on for quite awhile. I was told this dates back from the slave days. When a slave had a complaint against his master, he would disguise himself from head to toe and go on his Masters porch and state his complaint. The master would not know which slave it was, so he could not be punished.
We spent one day taking a hike. We took a cab up to the top of the "mountain" and slowly walked down. The banana trees were huge! It was so lush and green at the top. It was really something, to be walking down a road, turn a corner, and there is a store where you can get a beer. We made several "stops" on our walks. We also found a few houses where the people have monkeys as guard dogs. They are chained to a tree and have a very nice tree house.
Rachel took me to meet a local artist, Tony, and his wife. They were very nice. I loved his art work! He used odds and ends he found on the island and made art out of it. He had these gorgeous picture frames he made out of PVC pipes, wrapped in banana leaves and shellacked. His wife, whose name escapes me, makes beautiful jewelry. Their home was very simple, very comfortable, and they both had a happiness about them that is not seen here (USA) very often.
Cha was really unique. The bed and breakfast we stayed at for two nights was a real treat. It is at the base of the volcano. The food (once again!) was incredible! And the wine! There is a lovely courtyard right outside your room that have these statues and wall hangings that are carved out of lava rock. The next morning we took a long hike around the volcano. The rock formations were incredible! And in all that black and rock and barren looking land, was the vineyard, lush plants full of grapes! Not to mention the apples and pomegranates! The volcano itself is a sight to see. It is huge! I doubt I could have climbed it, and I KNOW I would not have been able to run down it. It was a sight! We walked most of the day, it was like being on another planet. We stopped at the "store " there and bought some wine. The men of the "village" who were finished with their days work, came in to play music. We sat and listened and it was really good. The owner played the violin, and you could tell they all enjoyed this time together. After this, we went back to the bed and breakfast, ate supper and had the most delicious chocolate mousse! That night, we climb the steps to the roof to look at the stars. With no outdoor lights, and being in the middle of the ocean, it was an incredible sight!
From here we traveled to Tortuga, which is another B&B on the ocean. The owners are Italian, and once again the food was incredible. We pretty much lazed around, played cards, read, and took naps in the hammock. My journey was slowly coming to an end.
We got back to Rachel's house for a few more days. Near Rachel's school is a store, where a women named Bete works. She is extremely pleasant. We walked over there one day so I could say goodbye. She has a big heart, a very kind soul. I am happy I met her.
I am so happy Rachel showed me her life there. I learned a lot, mostly how spoiled we are here, with running clean water, showers (hot), electricity that stays on when you need it, washing machines! I know I only washed a few things with the scrub brush and wash board, but it was a chore!
I ate octopus and eel, woke up every morning to roosters and donkeys! Picked fresh mangos off the tree. And the cashews! I did not know they had fruit AND they are toxic raw!
Thank you for sharing your world with me! It was a trip I will never forget!
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Musical interlude
I've had some times in the past few months when I've needed to slow myself down and remind myself that everything is ok. It is, when I think about it, but between work and the complexities of maintaining a social life in a foreign country, as well as the normal ebb, flow and occasional white water rapids in life, sometimes I begin to think it's not. When I need a quick fix I listen to music, and I wanted to share some, the words of which you may not be able to understand, but I think the appreciation of this artist comes from a place beyond language.
Sara Tavares is my favorite "Cape Verdean" musician. I use quotation marks because she's actually second-generation Portuguese. She's of Cape Verdean descent, but she was born and raised in Portugal. Her parents abandoned her at a young age to seek better lives for themselves and she was taken in by a family in Portugal. I've heard rumors around Fogo that she didn't speak Kriolu as a child, but wanted to relate to the culture that she never knew and learned the language to incorporate into her music.
She's a little example of the spirit's ability to persevere through hardship. Enjoy:
Sara Tavares is my favorite "Cape Verdean" musician. I use quotation marks because she's actually second-generation Portuguese. She's of Cape Verdean descent, but she was born and raised in Portugal. Her parents abandoned her at a young age to seek better lives for themselves and she was taken in by a family in Portugal. I've heard rumors around Fogo that she didn't speak Kriolu as a child, but wanted to relate to the culture that she never knew and learned the language to incorporate into her music.
She's a little example of the spirit's ability to persevere through hardship. Enjoy:
Thursday, June 30, 2011
These Photographs
Today as I was on my way to class I realized I had forgotten to take a photo of a document that I had to send to the Peace Corps office. I snapped a photo, clicked the memory card directly into my computer to save a few precious seconds, and set out to the school. It was more of an afterthought than anything.
I’ve been home alone for the past week; just me and my thoughts. I only have so many hours of HBO specials on my computer and eventually, I knew one night I’d be left alone to deal with myself. That night turned out to be tonight. I came to my room and searched through my computer folders and realized that I have nothing left to enfold myself in. Half a day! I don’t know how Thorough did it, just him and that silly lake.
I climbed into bed and realized that my memory card was still in my computer. It actually scared me to look at it! My own life, the past three years of it, stored on this little piece of technology. I guess it’s just one of those days when it seems to taunt me instead of serve of remembrance of happy memories. “Look what you used to have, sucka!”
Regardless, I just spent the last half hour sitting in an apartment enjoying second Christmas, watching the Superbowl with friends, lounging in the Caribbean, going on snowy photo shoots in DC alleyways, playing fancy flipcup games on my old balcony and dressing up. I enjoyed traditions, vacations and time with friends all over again. I saw people change. I watched people I love grow up, and make choices, and move on with their lives. I saw a friend I met at a beer pong table in college grow into himself, find his sexuality and embrace his strength. I watched friends fall in love, and others get married. Some people, after a while, weren’t in the photos anymore, and sometimes new people appeared.
Sometimes it’s hard here when I realize that so many of the good things that I had won’t be the same again. I never thought at the time, “this is the last time.” I guess I had convinced myself that when I went back home parts of my life wouldn’t have changed. But I took myself out of the pictures and life carried on.
A friend of mine gave me advice that I thought would be easy to follow but has proved, somehow, to be anything but. He told me that I’m here, I’ve left things behind and I need to live here. I need to be in the moments as they come, and stop thinking about what’s behind and ahead of me. So I smiled at the three years of photos and the memories, and the wonderful things that I was able to experience, and I put them away to take a look at what I have today. This is a taste of the latest stop along the road: the memories shared with all of the other people who left their photographs behind.
I’ve been home alone for the past week; just me and my thoughts. I only have so many hours of HBO specials on my computer and eventually, I knew one night I’d be left alone to deal with myself. That night turned out to be tonight. I came to my room and searched through my computer folders and realized that I have nothing left to enfold myself in. Half a day! I don’t know how Thorough did it, just him and that silly lake.
I climbed into bed and realized that my memory card was still in my computer. It actually scared me to look at it! My own life, the past three years of it, stored on this little piece of technology. I guess it’s just one of those days when it seems to taunt me instead of serve of remembrance of happy memories. “Look what you used to have, sucka!”
Regardless, I just spent the last half hour sitting in an apartment enjoying second Christmas, watching the Superbowl with friends, lounging in the Caribbean, going on snowy photo shoots in DC alleyways, playing fancy flipcup games on my old balcony and dressing up. I enjoyed traditions, vacations and time with friends all over again. I saw people change. I watched people I love grow up, and make choices, and move on with their lives. I saw a friend I met at a beer pong table in college grow into himself, find his sexuality and embrace his strength. I watched friends fall in love, and others get married. Some people, after a while, weren’t in the photos anymore, and sometimes new people appeared.
Sometimes it’s hard here when I realize that so many of the good things that I had won’t be the same again. I never thought at the time, “this is the last time.” I guess I had convinced myself that when I went back home parts of my life wouldn’t have changed. But I took myself out of the pictures and life carried on.
A friend of mine gave me advice that I thought would be easy to follow but has proved, somehow, to be anything but. He told me that I’m here, I’ve left things behind and I need to live here. I need to be in the moments as they come, and stop thinking about what’s behind and ahead of me. So I smiled at the three years of photos and the memories, and the wonderful things that I was able to experience, and I put them away to take a look at what I have today. This is a taste of the latest stop along the road: the memories shared with all of the other people who left their photographs behind.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Cultural sensitivity
Cultural sensitivity. Such a peaceful concept that makes perfect sense and is, in theory, always available at the forefront of a foreigner’s mind. Don’t shake hands with your left hand. Don’t take mangos from another person’s mango tree. It’s respect at a deeper form: taking the time to get to know cultural norms that are different from your own and adapting yourself to them, like them or not. So everything that I’ve hardwired myself to think and do in response to people for the past 25 years of my life is justifiably open to debate, and right and wrong have been shifted in every direction since setting foot in the country that I’ve chosen to call home for two years.
I’m going to dive right into this post because despite the title, it’s probably anything but culturally sensitive. I’d like to think the fact that the person in question lives in America dilutes the need for attempted empathy, but on top of this, I’ve never heard of a person who is so annoying that every Cape Verdean I know collectively talks negatively about her at the mention of her name. So…I’m just integrated, right? And it’s one of those things that up until a point, I wouldn’t have written about for the sole reason of trying to accept my situation for what it is and move on. But all aforementioned reasons aside, life at home has recently dipped a toe into “so ridiculous it’s hilarious” territory, and I can’t resist a good story.
For the last month and a half, our landlady has been living next door to us. She usually lives in America but comes here every few years to work on the house that she lovingly reminds me on a constant basis is hers, and thus the decisions she asks me to make with her, in those cases where I disagree, are deferred to her alone. Every morning as the sun rises in the cool, peaceful countryside, she walks outside of my window, waking us from our innocent slumber with her melodic Kwaaaackckkkkuuuughhhkkk noise, as she seems to perpetually have a limitless deposit of phlegm lodged deep, deep in her esophagus which she can never quite clear out. But she’s persistent.
The first bit of work they did on the house was putting in a new door and a new window inside. The door is located all of five feet from another door, and it leads to a room that she’s ordered us to board up and never use. So I totally understand why she wants another door there; I’m shocked there wasn’t one to begin with. Two doors that access an inaccessible space, of course! The window allows us, if we’re on tiptoe in our kitchen, to gaze into the dark hallway in the back of the house that contains both previously described doors, and remains unfinished. That was a quick piece of work and I was happy in my naïve thinking that this house project surely (one eyebrow raised in retrospect) wouldn’t take a full two months.
This construction leaves the back exit to the kintal open, so the day that Sarah and I chased our chickens around to clip feathers and clean them up a bit we had a nice peanut gallery of one telling us how to improve. Which, I assure you, is exactly what you want to hear when you’re trapped inside of a chicken coop because you shut the door behind you to keep them from escaping and didn’t think about the fact that when the mama hears her babies squawking outside of the coop, days after the father of her babies was slaughtered in front of her, she’s going to attack the big threatening thing that doesn’t belong. In this case it was me, running around a chicken coop and screaming as the biggest chicken inside dive-bombed into my shins and scratched at my kneecaps. Kwaaaackkkuugh.
Next came the interior painting. This was about a week into her happy two-month visit, and it was about the time when I threw in the towel on any attempt at productive conversation with the woman, leaving my poor (more patient) roommate to deal with her one-on-one. Which meant that it inevitably started. Every day. With about a two second Mississippi pause (that may be generous but I’m rounding) in between each shrill, smoker voice shriek. SAH-rah. SAH-rah. SAH-rah. Yes? Are you here? Oh, ok. Cue any excuse to leave the house. Any possible thing that a person would have no logical reason to say to another human being became just cause to yell Sarah’s name with barely enough response time for a proper eye roll (a half roll, yes, but it’s not nearly as satisfying, especially when considering you need to get in a good sigh and maybe a hysterical laugh as well depending on what time of day it is by now) before the next harpy shriek. After painting the rest of the house, she and I had a feisty debate over the need to paint the bedrooms, and she ultimately gave me all of one days notice that she was going ahead with it, so one lovely Sunday was spent taking down my card wall and moving things out of my room, only to hear the next morning, oh, we don’t really need to paint your rooms. Our response was a culturally sensitive insistence that they were painting the effing rooms.
After that was the tiles. There aren’t words for the tiles.
My personal favorite thing that was directed at me was when I was cooking on the opposite end of the house from my room: RaKEL? RaKEL? RaKEL? Mmmhmm? Open the window. Um, sure you can open my bedroom window. No, come open the window. I proceeded to turn off the burners, walk across the house, walk outside, walk directly in front of her (please note she was holding and doing nothing) to open the window she would have walked into had she taken one step forward, look at her for a moment with my eyebrows raised and my mouth slightly ajar, then go back to cooking. This surprised me because she has before taken the liberty to open windows (surprise!) at the ass crack of dawn to look into bedrooms to talk about her plans for the house, because asking if we want a bathtub is just that important. She has also butted in on conversations with other friends—usually to disagree with something we’ve said, has told us how we should cook our American food that she’s never seen or eaten before and has no idea how to make, interrupted my every thought on the rare occasion that I’ve had the patience to try to share one, taken our water despite numerous pleas to stop and reminders that her family literally stole all of the water from this house last year: forcing the girls who lived here to carry water on their heads up a mountain just to get by, criticized us to other people in front of me in assumption that I don’t understand the language that I speak with her on a daily basis, and has generally been the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.
And yet I remain as patient as I possibly can. I try to ignore our new wood paneling tiles that I think maybe sometime in the 1960s a lumberjack or a burnout somewhere would have been excited about, probably in New Jersey (sorry dad, just thinking about that timeshare back in high school), and the terrible craftsmanship of the installation, which makes sense to me now that the elderly man who was in charge of it just left my house with a bedong on his head, reeking of grog and drooling on himself (no seriously, toxic bubbles down the face when saying a word that includes F or P) as he walked into walls while he asked me how old I was. Which I find to be extraordinarily sexy.
With this exchange happening outside of my back door, another man was loading bucket after bucket of our rapidly diminishing water supply onto a donkey to walk it up to the house next door to fill up that family’s water tank. I asked him why he couldn’t go to the public water supply down the hill, since it’s free and our water is dwindling because of their work and he has a freaking donkey. I even threw in a snarky comment about how it literally wouldn’t be any more work for him, just the donkey. He said he didn’t have time. For cultural sensitivity reasons, I’m not going to delve into that one. I waved a lock around, little does he know I unsuccessfully tried to remember the combination for an hour today, and told him to let his friend know that after tomorrow she can expect the water supply cut off. She’s tapped a whole new level of sass (that’s what she said! Stealth and avoidance* = The Office reruns) and I think everyone involved is happy that this experience is almost over.
So, where am I now? She leaves on Monday. God forbid the construction on the new airport (yes, anyone considering visits, your experience will now be more streamlined and you may be able to fly directly to Fogo…details pending) takes longer than people anticipated. My roommate is freshly gone for a two-week trip to Maio, so the patience has left the building. My current project: playing with fire and recycled bottles. Focus tends to be on the fire. My current pastime: stealth and avoidance, referenced above*. Current song playing on Itunes: Y’all Been Warned. Jus sayin, Wu-Tang don’t lie. Word.
I’m going to dive right into this post because despite the title, it’s probably anything but culturally sensitive. I’d like to think the fact that the person in question lives in America dilutes the need for attempted empathy, but on top of this, I’ve never heard of a person who is so annoying that every Cape Verdean I know collectively talks negatively about her at the mention of her name. So…I’m just integrated, right? And it’s one of those things that up until a point, I wouldn’t have written about for the sole reason of trying to accept my situation for what it is and move on. But all aforementioned reasons aside, life at home has recently dipped a toe into “so ridiculous it’s hilarious” territory, and I can’t resist a good story.
For the last month and a half, our landlady has been living next door to us. She usually lives in America but comes here every few years to work on the house that she lovingly reminds me on a constant basis is hers, and thus the decisions she asks me to make with her, in those cases where I disagree, are deferred to her alone. Every morning as the sun rises in the cool, peaceful countryside, she walks outside of my window, waking us from our innocent slumber with her melodic Kwaaaackckkkkuuuughhhkkk noise, as she seems to perpetually have a limitless deposit of phlegm lodged deep, deep in her esophagus which she can never quite clear out. But she’s persistent.
The first bit of work they did on the house was putting in a new door and a new window inside. The door is located all of five feet from another door, and it leads to a room that she’s ordered us to board up and never use. So I totally understand why she wants another door there; I’m shocked there wasn’t one to begin with. Two doors that access an inaccessible space, of course! The window allows us, if we’re on tiptoe in our kitchen, to gaze into the dark hallway in the back of the house that contains both previously described doors, and remains unfinished. That was a quick piece of work and I was happy in my naïve thinking that this house project surely (one eyebrow raised in retrospect) wouldn’t take a full two months.
This construction leaves the back exit to the kintal open, so the day that Sarah and I chased our chickens around to clip feathers and clean them up a bit we had a nice peanut gallery of one telling us how to improve. Which, I assure you, is exactly what you want to hear when you’re trapped inside of a chicken coop because you shut the door behind you to keep them from escaping and didn’t think about the fact that when the mama hears her babies squawking outside of the coop, days after the father of her babies was slaughtered in front of her, she’s going to attack the big threatening thing that doesn’t belong. In this case it was me, running around a chicken coop and screaming as the biggest chicken inside dive-bombed into my shins and scratched at my kneecaps. Kwaaaackkkuugh.
Next came the interior painting. This was about a week into her happy two-month visit, and it was about the time when I threw in the towel on any attempt at productive conversation with the woman, leaving my poor (more patient) roommate to deal with her one-on-one. Which meant that it inevitably started. Every day. With about a two second Mississippi pause (that may be generous but I’m rounding) in between each shrill, smoker voice shriek. SAH-rah. SAH-rah. SAH-rah. Yes? Are you here? Oh, ok. Cue any excuse to leave the house. Any possible thing that a person would have no logical reason to say to another human being became just cause to yell Sarah’s name with barely enough response time for a proper eye roll (a half roll, yes, but it’s not nearly as satisfying, especially when considering you need to get in a good sigh and maybe a hysterical laugh as well depending on what time of day it is by now) before the next harpy shriek. After painting the rest of the house, she and I had a feisty debate over the need to paint the bedrooms, and she ultimately gave me all of one days notice that she was going ahead with it, so one lovely Sunday was spent taking down my card wall and moving things out of my room, only to hear the next morning, oh, we don’t really need to paint your rooms. Our response was a culturally sensitive insistence that they were painting the effing rooms.
After that was the tiles. There aren’t words for the tiles.
My personal favorite thing that was directed at me was when I was cooking on the opposite end of the house from my room: RaKEL? RaKEL? RaKEL? Mmmhmm? Open the window. Um, sure you can open my bedroom window. No, come open the window. I proceeded to turn off the burners, walk across the house, walk outside, walk directly in front of her (please note she was holding and doing nothing) to open the window she would have walked into had she taken one step forward, look at her for a moment with my eyebrows raised and my mouth slightly ajar, then go back to cooking. This surprised me because she has before taken the liberty to open windows (surprise!) at the ass crack of dawn to look into bedrooms to talk about her plans for the house, because asking if we want a bathtub is just that important. She has also butted in on conversations with other friends—usually to disagree with something we’ve said, has told us how we should cook our American food that she’s never seen or eaten before and has no idea how to make, interrupted my every thought on the rare occasion that I’ve had the patience to try to share one, taken our water despite numerous pleas to stop and reminders that her family literally stole all of the water from this house last year: forcing the girls who lived here to carry water on their heads up a mountain just to get by, criticized us to other people in front of me in assumption that I don’t understand the language that I speak with her on a daily basis, and has generally been the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.
And yet I remain as patient as I possibly can. I try to ignore our new wood paneling tiles that I think maybe sometime in the 1960s a lumberjack or a burnout somewhere would have been excited about, probably in New Jersey (sorry dad, just thinking about that timeshare back in high school), and the terrible craftsmanship of the installation, which makes sense to me now that the elderly man who was in charge of it just left my house with a bedong on his head, reeking of grog and drooling on himself (no seriously, toxic bubbles down the face when saying a word that includes F or P) as he walked into walls while he asked me how old I was. Which I find to be extraordinarily sexy.
With this exchange happening outside of my back door, another man was loading bucket after bucket of our rapidly diminishing water supply onto a donkey to walk it up to the house next door to fill up that family’s water tank. I asked him why he couldn’t go to the public water supply down the hill, since it’s free and our water is dwindling because of their work and he has a freaking donkey. I even threw in a snarky comment about how it literally wouldn’t be any more work for him, just the donkey. He said he didn’t have time. For cultural sensitivity reasons, I’m not going to delve into that one. I waved a lock around, little does he know I unsuccessfully tried to remember the combination for an hour today, and told him to let his friend know that after tomorrow she can expect the water supply cut off. She’s tapped a whole new level of sass (that’s what she said! Stealth and avoidance* = The Office reruns) and I think everyone involved is happy that this experience is almost over.
So, where am I now? She leaves on Monday. God forbid the construction on the new airport (yes, anyone considering visits, your experience will now be more streamlined and you may be able to fly directly to Fogo…details pending) takes longer than people anticipated. My roommate is freshly gone for a two-week trip to Maio, so the patience has left the building. My current project: playing with fire and recycled bottles. Focus tends to be on the fire. My current pastime: stealth and avoidance, referenced above*. Current song playing on Itunes: Y’all Been Warned. Jus sayin, Wu-Tang don’t lie. Word.
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