Acampamento de Meninas 2008- Sua Mente..Seu Corpo...Sua Escolha (your mind....your body...your choice)

So I am writing 3 days after the last day of our girls camp, Acampamento de Meninas 2008- Sua Mente..Seu Corpo...Sua Escolha (your mind....your body...your choice) that Whitney and I put together in Ribeireta last week. Overall it was awesome! The girls loved it and even though it was a lot of work I had a good time too. It rained 3 out of the 5 days but it was still a good time. We had around 16 girls and 4 youth leaders. The girls did the 35 minute walk from Calheta to Ribeireta. The agenda was based on a different subject for each day;

Monday-Lines of Communication

Tuesday-Making good decisions and leadership

Wednesday-Safe-sex

Thursday-Gender roles and Self esteem

Friday-Saying goodbye

Most of the subjects overlapped. We had the youth center director come and lead one session on good decision-making. The head doctor from theHospital came and talked about HIV/AIDS, Contraceptives, and Teenpregnancy. One lady from ICIEG (Instituto de Cabo Verdiano de equalidade e igualdade de Genero) which is like the national organization for promotion of gender equality came and lead a 3 hour. She did a session on Gender roles and self esteem. The session on safesex the girls were able to anonymously put questions or concerns thatthey had about those topics and the doctor randomly answered them throughout the session.Everyday they had an art projects. The did art projects where theyused whatever form they wanted to depict how they saw themselves, usedmagazines to pick out leaders and why, drawings talking about AIDS andearly pregnancy, and they made bracelets. We used one activity from the book that my sister sent me about making positive "flowers." The flowers exercise we used for the last day in which each girl was given 4 petals and had to choose 4 names (one petal for each girl), then theyhad to write a positive phrase or a word about that specific girl. They thought the activity was confusing at first but once they got it they loved it! Also on the last day we gave out completion diplomas.

This weekend the trainees came to "shadow" us in Calheta. As we were walking around we saw 4 girls who went to the camp. They were so excited to see us. The showed the trainees all the things that they made and they could explain the different topics. One girl and her mom came to my house and her mom says that the girl wants to laminate her diploma. Another mom yelled my name in the middle of the street and was going on and on about how thankful she was because her daughter had such a good time! All of them want us to do it again. I am very glad it is over but I am even more excited that I actually got to do it.

The support once we really got going was unbelivable. The friday before camp Whitney and I made a competition amongst the youth group at the CEJ to see who could get the most donations by sunday. On sunday night we had over 20 kilos of rice, over 4 kilos of corn, sugar, flour, and 6000$00 eschudos given to us from neighbors and random people in the town. The store that I go to almost every other day gave us 30 eggs for free. CCS-SIDA(comite para combate SIDA) which is the governmentally regulated sector to fight AIDS in cape verde gave us money as well! We do have money leftover and according to people in the community I have talked to it can be used for extension projects with the campers and maybe even a boys camp if we wanted to do it. I had a really great time and it seems that the girls did as well!!!

Di Volta Pa Txan di Tanki

Last weekend I spent the entire weekend with my host family. It was interesting because I had not been back since Christmas and I missed my family there a lot. I can never seem to find the time to go back or to call them as much as I want but I made time last weekend. Everyone was soo excited to see me and I was overjoyed to see them as well. I ate a lot, I mean in general when you go to a cape verdean´s house you eat a lot but I ate so much more at their house. They recently made a wood kitchen and the food is so much better when it is cooked on a wood stove (well not so much as a stove as three rocks and then wood or linha but it is perfect).

A lot of cape verdeans live abroad (actually there are more cape verdeans outside of cape verde than within) and my host-mom´s son came home from France. He has been living in France for 7 years. He showed up 2:00am on Saturday morning, and I woke up to a sound that sounded like "grita"-ing and "txora"-ing but was really a happy yelling. He is staying for quite a while but for his family I am sure it is not long enough.

I am planning on going back next month. My host family is really cool and they always help me to relax and I just feel so comfortable at the house, in their family.

Brinquedo Do Lixo (making games with trash)

Some of the girls at the end of the activity. Flowers and photo frames!

So in honor of earth day and ambient (earth) month here in Cape Verde, I tried to come up with an activity that was not just a trash pick-up. About 3 weeks ago, I saw in one of my co-workers desk that she had a book about making games out of trash. So that is how I got an idea for an upcoming project. So on Sunday, the 20th of April, initially about 10 children (that very quickly turned into 30 children) came and made picture frames and other art work out of plastic bottles and bottle caps. Yes this was the art teacher who helped us out. This is an example of the flower...and yes every part of it was made out of a soda bottle.

It was hectic but I think it was fun for the kids to have a little creativity in their lives; they do not get that very often. They were excited to start, excited to take the work home, and wanted to do it again. In the beginning there were around 5 girls who helped us find bottles and bottle caps and they were great! Before the activity started though, I used my “influence” on all the kids I knew to get them to invite their friends. This art project was fun, hectic, and sometimes a little frustrating but it had such a great effect on the kids that I think we will have to try it again.

These are some of the kids making the flowers. Check out the bottles on the
table...that is only half of all the ones we found.

Yeah I think they had fun...or they just love to take pictures. Maybe a
little of both.

This is a small sample of the traditional dance of Batuk. The beat that the women are playing is the traditional beat. However the song being sung now aer usually about Social issues. These were "batukadeiras" from Pilão Cão, Ponta Verde, Rabelado, and some other zones that I can´t quite remember at this very moment. This is one of the coolest experiences during the meeting. I felt a connection and such a shared pride for these women dancing and singing. They loved it...this is a dance that, as they will tell you, was born out of pain and suffering and they will also tell you that you have to find joy and motivation anyway you can, even through dance and song.

Dia de Mulheres de Cabo Verde

This year in Calheta de Sao Miguel, Cape Verdean women’s day was celebrated on March 29th. During the previous two weeks I went around Sao Miguel taking pictures of the life of women; and so there was a small exhibit of the pictures that I had taken as you walk into the conference room. The Expo was named “Exposição de dia a dia de Mulheres de São Miguel.”
It was a Saturday and the Social development part of the Câmara, a Peace Corps volunteer (me), and 70 women and 6 men came together for an open forum about the problem of Domestic Violence. The discussion began with what was considered harassment, the different forms of harassment, and then different forms of abuse. It stayed on task for the most part, but the conversation inevitably led to gender roles in Cape Verde and how women and men do not see each other as equals in marriage and in the home. “Machismo” and relationships outside of marriages was also a hot topic. The few men in the crowd actually did voice their opinions which helped add fuel to the conversation. It also helped to have “real-time” examples such as stories people knew about from around Sao Miguel, as well as the much talked and reported about stories on the news concerning domestic violence in Praia and Assomada. At one point the president of the Camara showed up to say “happy women’s day” to the women there and also to give a very short talk on women’s roles in development. The forum was concluded with a very prideful and excited Batuk presentation and then lunch was served outside.

Batuk and Dia de Mulheres

Last weekend I went to a Batuk festival in Mato Correia. Mato Correia is a really beautiful place. It is definitely out in the fora and almost seems untouched. Houses sit not only on top of hills, but on sides of mountains. Sometimes I wonder how do people walk home? Or how do the houses stay up? hahaha! It was an interesting experience all together. When we first got there, there were soo many people. Literally hundreds and everyone was eating. At first, I stupidly thought that people brought their own food, but then I was asked by an older woman to come into her house and eat. I realized that not only was I going to eat there but EVERYONE was eating there. Apparently her house was the designated food place. I ate so much I was stuffed. later we walked down to where the stage was set up. We watched about 5 groups perform the traditional dance of Batuk. It was great.
Since a lot of people are moving away, and outside influence is becoming much stronger a lot of the traditional dances of Cape Verde were slowly going away. Other Cape Verdeans noticed this and started a huge campaign in the last couple of years to bring it back to the forefront. So a lot of the zones now have young girl Batuk groups. At the event, we watched as the Batuk group of Mato Correia became an official group. It was actually very touching to watch the girls get encouragement and support from some of the older women.

March 8th was International day of Women (Dia de Mulheres). Unfortunately, like most places in the world the work of the women goes unappreciated and unnoticed. Saturday was a day to say thanks, to recognize, and to also strengthen women around the world. In Cape Verde it was all about awareness. There were different events around the country. In my town, OMCV (local chapter of the national women´s Organization) had a palestra (round table discussion) about women issues. It was interesting to listen to the president, as well as doctors give information to women and girls in the community.

They mainly talked about AIDS and HIV but there was also an overall theme of be good to yourself and take control of your life. Especially when a guest speaker came to talk about her own experience being a women and finding out she had been infected with HIV by her husband. It was sad, interesting, but uplifting as well becuase she gave her story through song (with the help of a batuk group from Pilão Cão). It was inspirational and a definite self-esteem booster for the women.

Dia dos Namorados

I think that life is going to be very interesting for the next 18 months (or maybe 30 months depending on if I renew for another year.Haha!). I am excited, sad, lonely, creeped out, joyous, curious, scared, exhausted, and happy everyday. Not all at the same time but definitely all of those throughout the day. I of course go through these sorts of cultural mood swings but now I am more able to recognize them and I think I am getting much better at dealing with them. I also find that although I remember saying that I was learning a lot about myself at the beginning, I think that currently I have learned a lot more about myself in the last 5 months, which 7 months ago I would not have known was possible. I am learning about my own level of pessimism, my frustration threshold, and my previously unknown to me "set ways." Things that I never knew were important to m e are now very important. Places that I now consider essential were always staples before so I never thought about them. Activities and interests, that I realize now, I truly love and I could not possibly live without and probably would have never discovered had I not come here. I am learning that I care more about people than things, and not having money does not mean unhappiness.
After talking to a constant source of enlightenment, my sister, I have learned that in many ways I am stronger than I know and that when I am weak there is always God to pick up the slack or sometimes just pick me up. I have a passion for other things other than movies and books (although they are important as well) that maybe in the past would not have come up on my top five. So I guess, all in all, I am trying to say that I am learning, and hopefully growing, and that when I finally wake up from this dream I will be a stronger, more knowledgeable, and self aware person.
So work has begun, I am actively working on starting a girl´s summer camp, my roommate and I are starting a girl´s soccer team, and I and another volunteer are working on HIV/AIDS projects for women here. Since you can only get tested for Sexually transmitted diseases in Praia and since half the men and a lot of women think you can only get AIDS if you live in Praia and there is no HIV in the Fora, we are also trying to convince the "cool" guys here to go with us in a few weeks to Praia for a "look even the cool kids get tested for AIDS" field trip...

So two weeks ago, I went to a place called Picos. It is in Assomada and it is this tiny town, but it has one of the most amazing churches I have ever seen. Most of the churches here are painted in some sort of fancy color and this one has about four different colors. I went there because two men got ordained to be priest (Well it is the first stage in ordination; they will not have the official ordination until June apparently). One of the two men was from Calheta, so a lot of people from Calheta and the surrounding area of Sao Miguel went. It was a good event to go to but it was sooo hot. The Red Cross was there as sort of on-hand emergency team and they had to carry a couple of people out on stretchers. None of the churches are big enough to hold all the people so usually services are held outside and every one brings their own stools or chairs. I stood the entire 4 hours.
So two weeks ago was Karnival. Karnival is celebrated on all the islands but is most famous on the Island of Sao Vincent and Sao Nicolau. It is literally like a national Mardi gras before the big religious holiday. On Saturday Whitney and I went to a teaching technique seminar in Praia. The lady who was giving the seminar is actually from the teaching English council or something and she is a representative for something like 27 countries in Africa, but she lives in Senegal. She came and gave a great presentation but she said she was going to let us go at 2 instead of 5 because she knew that most people had children and family members in the kids' parades that day.
We got back to Calheta and everyone was out on the street. I got to watch a little bit of the parade. Kids in fancy colors and funny dresses, it was very cute. On Tuesday was the official start of Karnival and everyone was in the big parade. You wear a skirt and do the Samba up and down the street. It was fun to watch. That night everyone went to the beach to listen to people play music from Brazil, but the weird thing about Cape Verdeans is that although they seem to dance at the drop of a hat anywhere else, they do not dance at concerts. That was like my 6th concert here and yet again no one danced. I am just thinking about how opposite we are because Americans seem shy to dance anywhere other than at a club, wedding, or a concert. Cape Verdeans will dance in the street, outside their house on the porch, in the Hiace butmost don´t dance at concerts.
The next day, was Siensa (Ash Wednesday). I woke up at 7 to my stomach hurting but I decided not to worry about it. I went to Elsa's house and we all went to mass. It was a good service. I got ashes on my forehead like a do every year, but no matter how many times I go to Mass here, people still ask if I am Catholic. They are shocked to hear that there are Catholics in America. Everyone thinks I am protestant. But that is not all that surprising because there are only 4 religions here: Catholics, Jehovah Witnesses, Seventh day Adventist, and Mormons. Then there are other religions that no one talks about: like Islam. People don't talk about Islam because they don't know anything about it. I have yet to meet a Cape Verdean Muslim. Still I think that people respect them because they say they pray all the time (which is a high priority for a lot of Cape Verdeans).
After Mass, my stomach still hurt but I had promised 3 people I would come to their house for lunch. Apparently, lunch on Ash Wednesday is a big deal. My roommate and I went to the closest neighbor's house first. We had soup first; the soup was beans and egg. Next we had rice, this fish called Serra, Kouve (CV collard greens), and carrots, Potatoes (regular and sweet), Mandioke (yucca), and Txeren (kind of like grits). It wasn't that bad until she wanted us to eat 3 plates. After I told her my stomach hurt she didn't pester but she did put out dessert; Cuscus and Mel, which is the equivalent to dry, cold, cornbread and the sweetest honey you could imagine. Let's just say I had to run home. I felt like crap. I decided to lie down and not go to everyone else's house. I did want to go to the beach with everyone though, but I did not k now if I could make it out of the bed.
After about an hour, I decided to go with my roommate to the beach.

Well that officially ends the festa season. There will not be another party until May (well there is a party for Easter but it is definitely more food and family than dancing and parades). I think I am done with all that anyway and I am so tired. So as you know, Valentine's Day was last week, well "Dia dos Namorados" (day of boyfriends and girlfriends) in Cape Verde, Portugal, and Brazil. It was an interesting time. Well I decided I was going to have fun with it! I thought be cute today and, of course, wear the colors of V-day (red, white, and pink). So I wore a pink shirt that looks almost red. The night before we made a huge batch of cookies and I took some with me to work. I went to work and everyone was pretty normal, but when I handed cookies out people were slightly shocked. But it put me in a good mood. So that evening there was singing and music in the praca and everyone went. My roommate had on a bright red shirt and I had on a pink shirt. But the entire night, every one kept asking us where our boyfriends were or asking if we were looking. We later found out that on Valentine's Day if you wear those colors it is the color of "apacianado" meaning passion. Usually only worn by people who have a boyfriend or girlfriend or who are actively seeking "passion" in their lives. I was shocked that I didn´t know this before. On Valentine's Day in the states we wear those colors right? And they don't mean anything, right? I think on the day of love, you are allowed to show that you are happy about love; whether it be love for family, friends, or partners. And even with those colors on, we got about 50 proposals a piece. HAHAH! It was a very hectic day!