May 18, 2003

I watched the investigative report this week about the Cuban immigrants that took the fast boat to Miami and (many) drowned when hurricane winds hit the boat, flipping it and its contents into the Straits of Florida. The host explained the ‘Wet Foot, Dry Foot Policy’ that Clinton instated, and I could see myself thinking just like the Cubans. Pay the human trafficker, do whatever it takes to reach the shore dry foot, and find freedom in the land of opportunity. I pondered how easy my life has been, all things considered. No slave wage job in a ‘developing’ country, no plans to reach a richer country in a fast boat, no fears my kids will have no future.

I try to remember the events that occurred last week and the one before that. Like the family of a recently departed person, I wonder when the memories, the faces, will begin to fade and desist. I try to write my association boss an email in Creole, and the words come so fast in my head, but so slowly on the keyboard. It all seems so strange to be writing an oral language. Will he understand my email? Will I remember how to speak Creole years from now when I go back to visit? The memories are already fading, so I race to record my final days, the ending to a two-year saga in a West African island nation.

The week before I was to leave the village, I went to the last Hortelăo farming association meeting. The meeting, which lasted from 1 - 5 p.m., followed its typical course from arguments to activity planning. I took up thirty minutes of that time with my goodbye speech, which included my assessment of their progress and hopes for the future. They seemed receptive and thanked me for all that I had done. In that moment, it almost seemed as if I could have or should have done more.

After this meeting, my final two weeks were filled with lots of self-inflicted painting and goodbyes. I finished the famed “Welcome to Hortelăo” mural at the community center, giving the women gold jewelry with my small detail brush, and painting the houses, mostly gray to reflect their cement exteriors. I also spent an afternoon painting the new water well baby blue, and then returned another day to do the detail work. The buckets and feet of village kids had already left the newly painted well very muddy and aged within a three-day period. I later painted a kingfisher on one of the spouts, and everyone joked that it looked so real someone would end up throwing a rock at the well to hit it. While they laughed, I thought of how cultural it was for them to joke about killing a beautiful bird, while I was more concerned with the painting and protecting their wildlife. While I painted the well with designs of villagers diligently at work, clouds sweeping through the mountains, and sunflowers blooming, the villagers gathered around me and began naming the various people I had painted. “Oh, that’s surely Joăo,” they said, “ He wears orange pants when he distills liquor and has the same hat!” “Everyone, look, she just painted a white shirt on me, but no skirt yet!” It was very comical as I painted and they ascertained what part of history I was recording.

Back at my house, everything was strewn about, luggage filled with clothes, the kitchen cabinet with food to be eaten, and my storage rooms ripe with items to be given away. I had so many projects on my ‘To Do’ list that Patricia, my close volunteer friend, had tried to cut most of them off, like the ‘stabilize front fence with cement, ‘paint house,’ or ‘finish stenciling poems on walls.’ All of these things seemed so necessary to me, especially since I was not guaranteed anyone else would ever do them. For my sanity, she believed I should just be lying on the beach and saying my goodbyes. If I ever get to that point where I am not rushed or stressed in the last week before I depart from a country, then I will have made major progress in my life. Many of my San Francisco friends know how last-minute I can be when it comes to moving, given that when I left two years ago, I stayed up for 48 hours straight packing, threw the cat in the carrier when the Airport Shuttle showed up, and unplugged the vacuum, hoards of things that still needed to be packed…Thanks again Mark and Liann – you saved my life with your last minute packing!

Since the funeral a month earlier, I hadn’t visited any neighbors for dinner. I felt a need to stay at home, cuddle with my cat, read my remaining books, and reflect on my last days in the stone house. I finally slipped out of my role as the entertainer, the one who brings ‘Candyland’ to dinner, and did what I wanted, which was to spend time in the solace of my own home. Nha eventually stopped nagging me about not coming for dinner, and accepted the fact that my last month would be spent at home. This meant that many of my closest neighbors ended up bringing me dinner each night in their quaint aluminum dishes. One would come at seven with food, and another at eight, thinking they were the only family pampering me. I would eat the best food, and the lesser one would become dinner for Bruce, my dog. They never knew this, and I always sent their dishes back with sweets or fruit the next day. Note: Only feed dog neighbors food after 10 p.m. when neighbors are asleep and will not catch you.

The Saturday before I left, the community rallied to throw me the best Bon Voyage party ever. They kept downplaying it, saying it would be small and not much food would be served. It ended up that over fifty women and children showed up, as well as a few token men -- we had the best party ever. The thirty-five women in the World Bank-funded culinary classes cooked me my favorite meal, oven-baked chicken, boiled mixed vegetables, cheese pudding, and creamy, coconut, sugarcane liquor. I was so touched by the elegance of the meal, which also featured the traditional ground corn (sharen) and beans with colvi (like spinach). Four Peace Corps volunteer friends showed up, which was nice, considering that I broke down crying for most of the party – I needed their support. After the meal, Nasolino, the association president began the ceremony. He read a speech they prepared as a thank you on behalf of the village farmers, and made me stand at the front of the room to receive wrapped gifts with open arms. He then had the one kindergarden teacher Angela (also in my women’s painting group) give a short speech ‘on behalf of the river valley’s children.’ At this point, I was lucky that someone distracted me because I was tearing up and about to begin a long crying spell, knowing that I had meant so much to the children.

When Nasolino finally asked me to say a few words, I started with ‘I thank you for all of the friendships…’, and ended it by crying. Many of the women started crying, too, which I was later told were my closest neighbors (I was too busy wiping my own tears to see who else was crying). Crying is a big deal in the Cape Verdean culture because it is reserved only for small children who don’t know better or family members at a funeral. Adults never cry unless there is a death, and many times it is just whaling, which is physical moaning, not tearing at the eyes. After I sat down, the batuque, a traditional call-and-response drumming and dance session, began. It was so emotional because they sang my two favorite songs, one of which is about the ‘History of our Ribeira (river valley)’, and they placed my name in it. Immediately after, Sabu sang, sodade, or longing, a deep song about a people and their love for something they miss so much. To imagine that you have had such an impact on a village that you are imbedded in their oral history means more than any gift. It was, in fact, the best thing I could have ever received. I left the party knowing that I had really made a difference and would remember them as much as they would remember me. Although my murals would eventually chip away with the elements, they would never forget the first ‘white’ woman that graced their village.

The last three days were harrowing and sad. The two matriarchs of my cluster stopped by repetitively to bless me for all I had done for them, placing my hand of my forehead over and over. I kept showering them in used gifts of clothing, pans, jewelry, and food. ‘Nobody will ever replace you Elektra, nobody,’ they would say. I would nearly tear up, and always found an excuse for why I had to get back to work packing. I used my remaining food to cook weird dishes that they devoured because they were different, delicious, and had come from me. I always pointed out the beneficial vitamins in the dishes I made, and they liked to repeat everything I said, ‘Yes, the soup has carrots that are good for our eyes!’ They were such good students, and I was such a good teacher when I wanted to be.

The day I left, most of my neighbors did not show up to carry my stuff out to the road. They left early in the morning to avoid saying goodbye and possibly crying. It was desolate, especially with the neighboring kids at school. My Peace Corps driver was in a rush, which didn’t make the parting ceremony any easier, given that he was urging my neighbors to do everything as quick as possible. As I leaned to hug a neighbor at the car, I realized how out of it I was. You don’t hug, you kiss on both cheeks at formal departures, so I dipped in and kissed her cheeks instead of the hug. As I turned, I ascertained that most of the people standing there at the car were people I didn’t know who had just come along the road when I was leaving. My dog Bruce tried to climb up into the front seat with me. I asked my neighbor, his owner, to hold him back, to keep him from running after the car. He ran for about 5 minutes and jumped at the driver’s window. I told him to accelerate, so that we would leave him behind, but soon a car came around the bend and we had to stop. Bruce had already turned around and had begun to walk back home, but, when he saw the car stop, he bolted towards it again. Oh, it ripped at my heart to see him run the greatest distance ever after a car that I was in. You can’t imagine how hard it was to leave him, knowing he would be depressed for days after I left, knowing he would surely remember me in a few years when I returned.

When we reached the town of Calheta on the way to Praia, we stopped by Maxima’s and Jeni’s houses. At Jeni’s, the little girl I was trying to adopt out, I dropped off paint for the surrogate family to paint their dilapidated house. The family’s new fish empanada business that I helped them open is so successful that they have tripled their income of $2.US. per day Little do they know that the local Ministry of Education is going to give the birth mother in Praia a letter in the next month that will enable her to place Jeni in a primary school there next fall, and maybe even get paid daycare until then. At Maxima’s house, I gave her a few gifts for her trip to Canada as a Rotary Youth Exchange participant, and she began to cry. Later in the week, she dropped off a two-page letter in Praia at our Peace Corps house that read something like, “The only thing I can give you, for all that you have done for me, are a few words of thanks and encouragement because I am poor.” I was really happy that I was able to help someone realize a dream when so many people have intervened and done the same for me throughout the years.

The day before I left, a few fellow volunteers and I went out to dinner. Later that night, I began itching uncontrollably, and we quickly ascertained it couldn’t be mosquitoes, given that I was itching inside my tight pants (hahaha). I took a hot shower at 3 a.m., thinking my rash was merely stress and sweat-related. Around 5 a.m. Saturday morning, I woke up with a swollen face, ripe with hives. After many frantic calls to the medical unit, a nurse finally showed up. I was whisked away with Patricia to the health unit where they gave me a steroid to ease the swelling, along with Benadryl. Because I thought this must have been an allergic reaction to dinner, not lunch, the next day at JFK, I proceeded to eat the same cookies from the day before. Nevertheless, I broke out again, and had to wait there all day for my flight 12 hours later on Sunday to Baltimore. By Monday morning, my mom and I went to the emergency room because I couldn’t stop itching, and it was becoming painful. Luckily, my cute ER doctor, that looked like a younger version of Dr. Green from the TV mini-series, was a returned Peace Corps volunteer (RPCV) from Ghana. He gave me extra-personalized care, and we chatted about the Peace Corps bureaucracy.

I have been back in Maryland for a week now. I would have written sooner, but I have been adjusting and sick. While my mom is out on a Sunday afternoon date that involves quick Irish dancing, I am working on my website. It’s been an afternoon of re-examining my Peace Corps experience email-by-email while watching the neighborhood’s newlyweds stroll by on the way to the local park with their toddlers and family dog. There are so many things I have already forgotten in the past two years. Things I recorded in the emails, like details of when I arrived in Cape Verde, the crops that were growing, conversations I had with neighbors. I calculate the time; it’s 10:32 p.m. there, and everyone has been sleeping for over an hour. It seems so unreal that I am back in the USA with my spirit somewhere over the Atlantic, one foot in each country, stumbling to find a place called home.

I don’t feel in culture shock, but I assess everything with the eye of a Cape Verdean villager: Does that family really need that item in their cart? Machines are so great, especially the ones that wash things for you. Fresh squeezed orange juice is delicious. How nice that the gas stove lights itself – no matches required. These showers are so hot they leave the mirror fogged up. There are so many programs on TV and so little time to watch them all. My cat is getting fatter now that he’s stopped hunting… Thoughts like this plague my mind. I dread the day that I start taking life for granted. The day that I forget how grateful I am to have been born an American citizen with ‘white privilege’ and opportunities for a world-class education. If two years in Cape Verde has given me immense gratitude and insight into my life, then how much more will I change in Japan?