Como terra seca precisa de chuva

10/2/06

Today the ICM psychologist, Ercília, came back from vacation, so I got to meet and talk with her a bit after waiting most of the day for her to finish meeting with Andreia. She is sooooo great! I couldn’t imagine a better person to work with, she’s so patient and kind, intelligent, insightful, and compassionate. Six girls who were on suspension for trying to poison the “mães” that work there are coming back tomorrow, so we had a meeting with everyone altogether to talk about expectations and concerns. As the mães ranted about these “horrible” girls and how disrespectful they were, how ashamed they were to work there, Ercília stepped in and proved to be a beautiful advocate for these neglected and battered girls, who now find themselves on the destructive path they were taught to travel. She spoke eloquently and fervently, acknowledging that it’s a tough job that the workers do, but that we are these girls’ last hope, that it is our responsibility to serve them and provide an example of someone who doesn’t give up on them. So that they won’t want or find reason to behave that way towards the mães. She explained that their lives are vastly different than those of the workers, that they won’t ever have to think about some of the things these girls have thought about or gone through. Ercília said the things I had been thinking all along and had started to wonder if anyone else thought about. So I think we’ll get along just fine.

It’s frustrating to see sometimes the attitudes and the apathy that the mães (temporary live-in mothers who take care of the girls in the Center) and monitoras (people in charge of activities during the day) have towards working with the girls. I’ve only been here 3 weeks and don’t know what their experience is, and thus can’t really judge (though I suppose I am even by saying this), but from what I see many of them don’t respect the girls, aren’t warm with them, hardly even seem invested in them most of the time. And these girls need someone to be invested in their lives. It’s not an easy job, probably one of the more difficult ones, which is why you need strong and understanding (and hopefully compassionate) individuals that truly desire to work here. Which seems to be more difficult here simply given the employment situation in the country—there are no jobs to be had, so you take what you can get regardless of how much you like or dislike it or have any interest or passion for it. This is not to say that Cape Verdeans are not compassionate people, just that feeding your family has to come first. I hesitate to say that it’s an issue of lack of education of the ICM workers, because I’ve seen plenty of illiterate people work fantastically with special needs children and children in general, but I think the lack of any job training or basic knowledge in the area of social sciences has an effect here. They don’t have a clear understanding of why the girls behave the way they do or how to respond when they act out. I’d like to think that with a little training they might acquire a bit more patience and understanding. Here’s hoping, anyway. You definitely wouldn’t find that in the States, or probably other countries that have the luxury of higher education for the majority of their population and jobs once they finish—they won’t just let anyone off the street come and work with traumatized youth. But as I mentioned earlier, even those who become educated in social sciences here in Cape Verde don’t want to work in stressful environments with little pay that require substantial sacrifice. So often the few people who are qualified for the job don’t want it. Nonetheless, it was very encouraging to see Ercília, Ivete, and Andreia’s reactions and their beliefs about the whole situation in the Center—the girls have a good team of advocates fighting for them, whether they know it or not.

Sometimes I wonder if they’re too invested: maybe this is a cultural thing, but I’ve noticed (and have been told several times) that they (the psychologist, social worker, and director) will often take one of the girls home with them for a day or a weekend, staying at their personal home and being taken care of by these women and their husbands/boyfriends/etc. This would be pretty inappropriate, or at least worrisome if not taboo, in the States where we draw very finite lines between personal and private lives. Here that line is generally pretty fuzzy. And we talked about that in length during training, and I’ve noticed it in other cultures as well, but I honestly didn’t think it would carry over into this type of situation. Mixing work and personal life is one thing, but erasing the lines completely is another. Part of my concern is that the girls will first of all fight over getting to go home with you (because you can’t just bring one with you, they will all want to be next and they notice when you pick favorites, which is Bad News Bears) so that you eventually have to bring all of them to your house, and likely more than once as they’ll begin to expect regular trips. And second of all, that they’ll become too attached and may eventually develop the expectation that you’ll “keep” or adopt them as your child—false hopes unless you plan on adopting 35 Cape Verdean girls. Another concern is for your own sanity, being able to keep a private space for yourself that clearly delineates between stress and concerns at work and your own needs and coping mechanisms, which shouldn’t include feeling sorry for the girls and trying to “save” them. In this line of work, you can’t ignore your personal needs and de-stressors. And so when I first heard Andreia talk about taking the girls home with her, I worried that they’d expect the same from me and would soon start asking to come home with me. Which they did. Starting the second week. Now most of the girls have asked with eager eyes when I’ll be bringing them home to my house. Today a girl wrote me a card telling me she thought of me as her mother and asked when she’d be able to come over. Yikes, red flag! I’ve explained to all the girls that I have a housemate who doesn’t want a lot of strangers coming to stay at the house and wouldn’t permit the girls to stay over, which the girls seem to have accepted as a reasonable answer, though I’m to let them know the minute he leaves for the weekend or goes on vacation. And I spoke with Ercília about it, expressing my concerns, and she reaffirmed the lines that must be drawn and suggested that when I do have an empty house and the desire to give the girls a treat, I could bring a group of girls over just for an afternoon, instead of singling one girl out, to do a group activity. So maybe sometime I can bring them over to bake cookies or something when Nick’s not home. That could be fun, and easily manageable and something that another Assomada PCV said she’d be willing to collaborate on. So we’ll see, but I definitely don’t want to get caught in the trap of bringing every crying distraught girl home with me. Unfortunately I can’t save the whole world, not even one girl at a timeJ.

10/3/06

Today will be a short entry, just to say that today I showed Andreia my action plan that I mentioned earlier with all the needs I saw and my ideas for projects to address those needs. She read it (which is a start, at least she understood more or less my self-fabricated Portuguese) and was notably impressed by my creativity and “global” approach, which I really can’t take much credit for, because many of the ideas and projects are things that are done in the States and have been done around the world. Things that just haven’t quite made it to Cape Verde. And so I see the real reason I’m here: to spur on thoughts and creativity in bringing about the change that they know on some level they need, but don’t have the time or perspective to focus on yet. Sometimes it helps to have someone from the outside come in to remind them of things they may have gotten used to. Which is not to say that all the things I notice or want to do are necessarily right or perfect or even feasible, but at least I can remember my reason for being here and why I’m so happy to be doing this work. Next up will be making a timetable for all these projects and ideas so that they don’t remain pipedreams, and that I don’t get too sucked into island time. But before that I need to resolve this “lets split Courtney into three different people” dilemma that my various bosses are having. The ICM is where there is the most need (probably obvious since it’s all I talk about), which already has to be split up between two centers, one of which I will only be able to go to one day a week, but the CEJ director is asking that I come there two days a week, and possibly on the occasional Saturday. That leaves two days for the Assomada ICM Center, not enough time to accomplish what I’d like to accomplish, or to be there when they need me. I’m afraid once we’re all in the room together (which will happen tomorrow morning) they may actually each grab an arm and pull simultaneously in opposite directions until I no longer have limbs. Plus I got asked to help out at the high school and possibly teach English at the primary school, so the available days of the week are quickly fading. Oh well, I’m sure time will work itself out as it always does. If I’ve managed to juggle jobs, full grad school class-loads, and research internships at the same time, I’m sure I can do thisJ. At least all of the jobs here are integrated more or less, or at least all related to youth. So it’ll be enjoyable work. And hopefully I’ll have two arms with which to write an update after tomorrow.