November 14, 2001

Development work is much harder than I could have ever imagined. There are so many issues involved, such as accountability and sustainability. I had a small revelation last week when I came to the conclusion that my neighbors make more money than I do, but they don’t put any importance on the issues I find crucial for community health and development. None of them use soap, treat their water, cover their wounds, practice family planning, send their daughters to school, wash their hands before meals, or brush their teeth. For five hundred years, since the colonization from Portugal, they have looked towards the leadership of others to tell them what to do. Families don’t put money in the bank – they buy jewelry as a means of wealth. The jewelry is solid gold, imported from Portugal – necklaces and earrings worth $500 - $1500.US each. They wear this jewelry with their modest clothes, and when sickness comes, they sell it to pay off debt.

A typical woman from the ‘fora’(FOR-AH), or countryside, strives to buy herself an expensive gold necklace and earrings, although her children may run around with ragged clothes or she may have no shoes. Ninety percent of all families in the countryside consist of a mother and children because all men emigrate to Portugal or France where they work in the construction area, sending money home whenever possible. On average, husbands send home over $300. a month, which is m ore than a typical Peace Corps volunteer earns. Families buy few items at local supermarkets because what they eat comes off the land: squash, chicken, lamb, beef, corn, beans, mangoes, papayas, etc. Their plates are mostly aluminum, and they use spoons, no forks or knives. These families may have thousands of dollars saved under their mattresses for times of illness, deaths, baptisms, weddings, immigration abroad, and buying a large item, such as a car.

Last week, when I was treating my neighbor’s open wound on her foot, I asked, "Why don’t you wear your shoes to avoid this?" She responded that she had none and no money to buy any. This is the same girl that delivers my water three times a week, earning around $40 USD per month, which is substantial here. I told her I could take the money for this month and buy her a pair in the US that would last years, but she was hesitant to accept. The money will go towards her brothers’ education, even if she remains illiterate and barefoot. Thus, I have come up against a brick wall in the development process.

How do I improve community development in my river valley if for five hundred years people have not valued prevention of disease, education for all children, or family planning? How do you convince a father in Portugal that his 13 year old daughter who does not attend school will still get pregnant by eighteen whether she attends or not – that illiterate and ignorant is much worse. I feel sick to my stomach when I see young girls working as long hours in the house and not attending school. There are less then twenty in my village that are not allowed by their parents to go for reasons that the fathers feel they will date a young boy and get pregnant too young. I plan to start a group of some sort to instill some self-esteem in these youth. Last year, there was a literacy group for them that was quite successful. Apparently, the project was ‘completed’, thus they don’t attend classes anymore. My view is that these classes need to be continuous.

Dawn and I have come to the conclusion that we need to train a small group of Cape Verdeans to give trainings to all 45 associations that we work with. These associations are essentially cooperatives of workers who work with cattle, poultry, and agriculture. The US Agency for International Development has a Food for Peace Program that gives Cape Verde free grain, which the Cape Verdean government sells inside the country, instead of distributing it for free. With the profit from the grain sales, ACDI, a non-profit, distributes this profit in the form of contracts to OASIS and other organizations.

OASIS is the umbrella association of all 45 associations in every region of this island. OASIS delegates work contracts to every association to complete contracts for land improvement, such as terraced walls on mountainsides to prevent erosion, dikes, water storage tanks, etc. The money each association earns is used to pay the community workers who are completing the contracts on the land, as well as to invest in community improvements. I currently work with the three strongest associations of my river valley, helping them decide ways to invest their profit from contracts into their communities. The problem is that every association likes to keep its money in the bank with fears that ACDI or OASIS will soon cease to exist. Because Cape Verde has ‘developed’ to a certain degree in the eyes of the US government, starting in 2005, they may not continue to receive grain shipments. This means that all associations live with the mentality that they may not receive contracts in a few years, thus they must save their money.

Now that you understand the organization of OASIS a little better, I will explain some of the ideas that Dawn and I have. We decided that with so many requests for trainings in specific areas, we will try to get UNICEF and other organizations involved in helping us train local youth to give water sanitation, family planning, basic first aid, STD/AIDS, and micro-enterprise workshops. These youth will then have the opportunity to go to any specific association for an afternoon to offer training in a specific area. Most youth from where I live have never seen the ocean, despite living 5 miles away – 90% have never been to the capital city 2 hours away. Dawn and I would also like to organize a sort weekend in the Praia job-shadowing activity for youth between 12-16 to shadow a professional in Praia for the day. This would be encourage the youth from the countryside to explore other areas where they might like to work and establish goals for their futures. My boss also told me today about a group of 10 or so women in my village who are under 19 years old with small babies. They mostly stay at home and work in the fields. I am thinking of starting an embroidery group with them, and later they will be able to sell it to tourists that pass through or keep it for themselves.

Success. I believe that this week we will receive financing for a drip irrigation school garden next to the community center! I have been working hard to build confidence in the project with the World Food Programme who will finance it. Networking is key because my contact at the WFP is also a national scout leader and liked me a lot because I work with the Cape Verdean scouts on the weekends. He trusts that I will be able to help them find ways to manage the garden and put it to good use. There have been many roadblocks though because my community association didn’t want to finance the water storage tank that is needed for the drip irrigation system. We resolved that problem yesterday when I discovered that there is a tank for the community center bathroom just a hundred feet away that could be used for both the bathroom and garden, as long as it is continuously filled.

Last week, I was at site almost every day. My neighbors have been great about not annoying me that much, but lately other kids have been walking from miles around to come to my house and take a look at the American. It’s very annoying to hear knocks on my door and requests from five year olds to come in when I am trying to clean or cook. The last thing you want is a kid in your house who will go tell every adult what you have, so that later on you get robbed. Volunteers have reported that the less people you let into your house to see your possessions the better. The more they see, the more they want to steal when you are not home. Monday, I sent to the capital city Praia to get away, and to buy my ticket home for Christmas. Honestly, I am looking forward to coming home. I have never appreciated the US more than after being here for 6 months. Time in Spain, Chile, and Brazil were never this hard because they have light, running water, communication.

Tuesday, I returned to my site, and it was the first time I was away for the entire night. I had not told my neighbors because I didn’t want them to break in and steal anything. They were so worried and immediately the 5 year old next door shouted to his mom, "ELETRA JYÁ BEN!" (Elektra is coming!), when he saw me crossing the river bed. The neighbors slowly flowed down to my house, asking where I had been, offering me dinner, cachupa with goat, cachupa with beef. I had a few Peace Corps post card moments, watching the neighbor bottle-feed a baby goat that lost its mother a month ago. The goat kept following her everywhere, suckling on her fingers, showing it was hungry. The eighty-year-old grandmother that offered me cachupa for dinner, and I refused not wanting to possibly get sick. Every time you eat the neighbor’s food, you risk food poisoning, since they have very poor food and hand sanitation.

Then Joao, the five-year-old son of Almazinha, comes over and requests I go visit his mom and baby brother. The baby is now almost 3 weeks old, and I saw her bathe him by candlelight in a small plastic bowl, drying him with scraps of white material, wrapping him in soft cotton. It was a National Geographic photo, the newborn body dangling from her labored hand, gold jewelry glittering in the light of the kerosene lantern on the chair, sacks of beans next to her bed, barefoot son on the floor playing with a small car. She forced me to eat her cachupa with pork, and the kids plucked beans from the newly picked pods. Almazinha joked with the kids about me taking one home for Christmas in the States. Then she caressed the baby and told him to grow strong. When I returned in two years, I would stuff him in a sack and take him with me. As if she almost believed that, she asked me if I knew if kids who went to the States remembered their parents in Cape Verde. I said I didn’t know. Joao nodded in delight at the idea that he might be allowed to come with me. Then she asked her niece 10-year-old Silvina to walk me home with the flashlight – they live 100 feet away from me down the mountainside. Silvina and Joao fought over the idea that one of them might be able to spend the night at my place, but later discovered Almazinha was just joking. I would later learn that Silvina does not attend school, working from 6 a.m. till 9 p.m. for Almazinha. Slowly, very slowly, I would hope for change to occur, even if it just started in Almazinha’s home. Maybe Silvina would join the scout troop or take my English class. Maybe I would learn something from Almazinha and she would learn something from me.