Siiiiingin in the rain...

1/30/07-1/31/07

Finally, a day to lift my spirits. I woke this morning to the long-lost and glorious scent of freshly fallen rain. I left my house for work and was almost knocked over by the crispness of the air and its immediate grasp on me, handing me proof of the previous night’s surprise visitor. So strange how powerful one little smell can be, sending me back home for a brief time, right when I wanted it the most. It smelled like Seattle, like all the miserable months of rain that suddenly became precious and desirable. Even the sight of the wet ground and the mud on my shoes felt familiar. So I spent a few minutes reveling in how wonderful my city really is, feeling it cling to me, entering through my nostrils and coursing through my veins. The Northwest really is a part of who I am, the part that will never go away. Despite how much I complain about it and celebrate the ceaseless sun of Cape Verde that brings me to the beach in December. There’s still the secret part of me that likes to walk outside and feel the cleanness of the air, like a new beginning. And then curl up with a book and hot cocoa inside with the sound of the rain on the pavement outside. Sounds perfect right about now.

This morning I went for the second time with one of my CEJ colleagues to start making visits to potential host families for the new group of Peace Corps Trainees that will be coming in July. I think I mentioned before that we will be doing training here in Assomada, which means those of us who live here will be busily helping make the program run smoothly, orienting newbies to Cape Verde, and finally being “the experienced ones”. They have switched to a Community Based Training model where the PCTs will split off and live in groups of 3-5 in eight small communities surrounding Assomada. Instead of all being relatively close together as we were in São Domingos, they will be chunked off, only seeing each other for group sessions (i.e. medical, safety/security, etc.) when they all come in to Assomada. So Ilidio and I went today to meet more families from a zone called Mancholy. It was a pretty fun morning, getting to see things from the other perspective, seeing what it takes to organize things for the volunteers before they get here. I got to explain what it’s like to come in as a foreigner knowing no language, knowing very little about the culture, etc. and explain some of the difficulties people often have. Now that I speak Criolu (today was an excellent language day for me, I felt so comfortable and nearly fluent, understanding and communicating everything! Which means tomorrow I’ll probably stumble over every phrase), the families all wanted to take me in as their own. Ha! I told them I’d come back to visit, but that I’d already done the drill, hence now being an apparent master at all things badiu. It’s interesting to see all the different attitudes people have about potentially hosting a foreigner in their home. Many are very eager, wanting badly to show you how well they will treat their American and how clean their house is, offering you coffee and catxupa. Others that we approached as prospects in the community were confused and wary, not sure why someone was coming to ask them to receive and cater to a strange person who would come to live with them for 2-ish months. If nothing else, for the most part people were intrigued. The hardest part is often finding families with conditions to receive a PCT (i.e. toilet, spare room, electricity, water), according to Peace Corps standards. In any case I am sure most trainees coming in will be getting much more than they probably expected signing up for Peace Corps Africa. I’m starting to get really excited for the new group to come!

Oh, and I saw a 102-year-old man today that lives in Mancholy. 102! How’s that for life expectancy here in Cape Verde? He was alive and kicking, only the eyesight gone. So sweet and polite, the picture of respectful aging, and they were so proud of him there in Mancholy, my new favorite zone. I kinda wanted to stay there. I could just commute to Assomada…

* * *

The afternoon brought me back to reality, though it wasn’t necessarily all bad. Things have been tense in the Center lately, particularly with the two “problem girls”, Zelda and Aracy. And today, another girl, who happens to have a very rough history and aggressive tendencies that have massively improved since she’s been here, brought a fight to the Center’s doorstep—literally. She’s pretty good at bringing people to their boiling point, and had done so with a group of girls, who hit her, starting a fight that brought half the high school to the Center, where she was pacing around barefoot, daring the girls to come fight her. Upon all the commotion, Aracy decided it was her turn to call attention and started screaming and tried to run outside, requiring three employees to grab her and pull her back in, nearly tearing the shirt right off of her. It was quite the scene, with—again—half the high school watching, once more associating the ICCA Center with crazy misbehaved deviants. The poor girls coming home from school trudged in with expressions of embarrassment as their friends watched and presumably wondered why they had to call this place their home. It’s so frustrating, because everyone in proximity to the Center has a terrible image of the girls and of what goes on inside. So much noise, fighting, and commotion every day, with virtually no understanding of why it is that way, what shitty lives the girls have had that has brought them to this point. Last week Ivete told us that one of the neighbors has begun to complain and recently started threatening to take action to get the Center closed down. Shit. As much as the Center has its issues and could use improvement, it’s pretty much brand new, needs time to make things better, and what the hell are the girls going to do if it doesn’t exist??

Admittedly, though, things need to change fast. The mães and monitoras aren’t happy there, are completely unmotivated not only because it’s a tough job and many of them don’t have much interest in doing it in the first place, but because there are so few of them to do the job of many. They’re exhausted, and even the most dedicated ones are frustrated much of the time. The thing is, the girls have learned to take advantage of situations: if either Zelda or Aracy gets riled up and starts yelling, fighting, or jumping out of windows, the other one does the same, and then the other girls take note and start joining in or starting fights of their own to get attention. Zelda and Aracy have started pairing up, like a small team of destruction. One will have the idea to run away and the other will follow. They’re jumping out of the windows multiple times a day and roaming free through the streets, partly because no one is watching them, or if they do, they don’t go after them or tell anyone about it. Last week, Zelda climbed out the window, ran to Ercilia’s house (which she does often), then an hour or so later climbed out the window again, got on a hiace (public transportation) and went to Praia. We received a phone call that afternoon saying that she was at an ICCA Center in Praia, the first we’d even heard about her being gone. The most frustrating part of it all is that Praia knew before we did, since no one cared enough to tell us she was missing. Any number of awful and unthinkable things could have happened between the Center here and the hour-long trip to Praia. Craziness. This finally caused Andreia to yell at everyone, telling them it was their job by definition to watch and take care of these girls, protecting them from the streets and making sure they have things to do during the day. She admitted it wasn’t desirable for these two girls with significant mental difficulties to be here in the Center, but since we have no other choice at the moment, it’s our responsibility to care for them as our own, and if they don’t want to do that or don’t have interest in caring for children, particularly of this nature, then they should find another job. Simple as that. And if it continues, they might all be out of jobs for awhile, or so goes the threat.

The search has continued these past few weeks to find a place for Zelda to stay, some family member that has conditions or resources to take her in. Most don’t, and those who do tell us they don’t want to take her in because she has mental illness, which comes from evil spirits, which cannot be brought into their house cursing their family. A touch of the animist traditional that is still often clung to, even in the “big city”. So for now she has to stay, and as much as we care about her, it’s frustrating. Today she and Aracy fought—again—(this time it was Aracy’s turn to start with the perturbation), nails, fists and all. And guess who was in the middle of it all—me. Again. Generally I’m there grabbing an arm, helping hold a girl back, etc. but today it was practically just me. Everyone else was either eating lunch or laughing at the scene being made, so it was me pushing them apart and getting clawed in the process. Others eventually helped, but the madness continued for the rest of the afternoon. And of course the rest of the girls, hearing a fight, came running to watch the spectacle, like it was a circus show, egging them on and then starting their own fights to get attention. Like a vicious cycle. It’s enough to drive you crazy. We’re all quickly reaching our limit.

On the bright side, the secretary and I registered all the donations today so that if anyone goes through and steals something, we’ll know what’s missing. It’s sometimes alarming how little trust exists in the Center.