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.