I won't be silent like you...

3/10/07

Today is a day when life doesn’t fit into a blog. Some days it’s hard to track from minute to minute what you are feeling, sometimes it changes that often. And sometimes it’s just that difficult to define. For a list of occurrences over the past week: a new PCV came from Guinea and has been shadowing me and Mel at work, we had a Rocky party where there was lots of greasy food and a viewing of the first 4 Rocky films, Andreia got so stressed out at work that she left and has stayed home the last few days (don’t know when she’ll come back), Zelda has officially gone to live with her family in Praia so we all said goodbye yesterday, my expensive useful surge protector busted in a literal cloud of smoke (scary), I broke down in a fit of tears over job stress in front of Mel (about 6 months worth all built up), I decided to stop going to Picos to the boys’ Center once a week to cut down on said job stress, the president of ICCA asked me to translate a 38-page UN document to be sent to New York with only 1.5 days warning, I was put on steroids for my ever-developing asthma, I signed up almost 30 people for my English classes at the CEJ (yikes!), I got a decent-sized group of youth interested in coming to help volunteer at the girls’ Center, and two of the CEJ girls said they’d pay for my gym membership if it meant I would start working out and stop gaining weight. Apparently when it comes to appearances, it really doesn’t matter who has come into whose country to provide assistance—I will soon be receiving charity for the purposes of superficiality. Thank goodness for it too, my life has become annoyingly sedentary, I write as I sit in front of my computer. Hmph.

I’m really not in the mood to go into too many more details about the week, other than to say it was exhausting, exhilarating, and productive all at the same time. From one of my lowest moments to some of my highest, this week has somehow managed to get a decent amount of things accomplished. It has also been nice having Alex (the new PCV Transfer) around with me at work, because even though she doesn’t speak the language and I have to make sure I’m explaining everything to her, it’s nice to finally have someone there who is seeing what it’s really like every day, what kinds of things are dealt with. I enjoyed having someone to talk to about the situations I’m dealing with and what the frustrations are, and with someone who speaks my language and has a certain amount of interest in the topic. It’s like a small piece of validation, someone finally noticing that my job is TOUGH. I’m not trying to say I’m a saint or a miracle-worker, or that I am somehow better than other PCVs who may do more tangible projects than me, but God the stress there from minute to minute is enough to make you wonder how anything gets done and how you maintain your sanity some days. Anyhow, the whole point was supposed to be for me to convince Alex how wonderful youth development is and how really she should work in an ICCA Center like she’s secretly always wanted to, but ultimately it seems she will be working out amongst the trees in environmental education in São Nicolau. I guess 38 screaming needy girls may have scared her away. She’s very sweet and fun though, so we in Assomada are glad to welcome her into the Peace Corps Cape Verde family.

As I said, the steps needed to reintegrate Zelda with her family were completed this week, as we took her to Trindade on Thursday and got the psychiatrist’s final okay, got her family prepared, and she was driven home yesterday. It was quite a surreal feeling, and though we’ve been working towards it for so long, it seemed to all happen so fast. Zelda was very happy to be going home, and many of the girls were also pretty pleased, and so I wondered what the goodbye would look like. It turns out some of the mães and girls cried, harder to send her off than they thought. It was the first time since I’ve been here that I’ve seen Aracy cry. She spent the majority of her time alongside Zelda, the two “special” girls locked up in the Center all day with no school, no activities, no nothing. And so Aracy lost a good friend—and not only that, but she longs so badly to go back home to Fogo and instead of getting to go she watched someone else get to be with their family. So it was sad to watch her suffer, even though she’s been calmer the last few days. We were supposed to take a trip to Tarrafal (the beach) with the girls this weekend, but they cancelled it because this last week has been so exhausting for everyone. I hate letting the girls down. So that was the week at the Center.

I don’t feel much for analysis or deep thought at the moment, so I’ll leave it short this time. I’m exhausted. And I’m still working on the translation, which still has 20-ish pages to go. So ciao for now.

3/12/07

Finally the massive translation is done and I can go home to rest. Yesterday Alex and I had a "translation party" which was more fun that it sounds. We set up shop in the kitchen and got to work, taking frequent breaks to make egg salad sandwiches, talk about life, and then make homemade granola, which turned out soooo yummy! We made it with honey, oats, raisins, peanuts, cinnamon, vanilla, and other wonderful things. Trust me, it was like heaven straight from the oven, you should be jealous.

And so that is pretty much all I have to say about the last two days. Hope it was worth the added 30 seconds of blog-reading. Til next time.