We are told as Peace Corps Volunteers that we WILL experience the roller coaster ride of our lives over the next 27 months. These words are hard to comprehend as an applicant, and as you wait for your service to begin, hell even during what is known as “the honeymoon phase” of your service. After about 6-8 weeks in country you begin to see the reality of service in another country and the difficulties that come with development work in the third world. I have been at my site for almost 5 months now and believe me; I know this metaphorical roller coaster all too well. The valleys are deep, and the peaks are beautifully high. How does a volunteer come out of the depths and reach a point where he/she is able to see the future?
As I sat at the table drinking my Coke with the Belgium NGO, I couldn’t help but cry. I had been laughing internally so long and hard, that tears had begun to form in the corner of my eyes. The two Belgians, one of them born in the U.S., but at the age of nine emigrated to Belgium, had been in country for roughly 5 days. “Matt” they say “people make appointments that they don’t keep, they make you wait for hours to talk to anyone, and when you finally do meet with someone the meeting is generally unfulfilling”. I tell them whilst laughing/crying “I have been here in Cape Verde for 6 months, I understand your frustrations and if you want to get development work done here, then these are parts of the culture that must be understood. We can’t force development in the same sense of “development” that occurs in Belgium or America”. I think I end that part of the conversation with a welcome to Cape Verde or something else cheesy like that. The conversation then turns to the potential project that was surprisingly good.
There is a part of Sal Rei to the north known as Baraka; this part of town is where many of the construction workers and many lower end laborers live. There is no water, no electricity, no bathrooms, and is in general quite unsanitary. They are without a doubt the ones who need the most help. I have been trying to pitch an idea to the Camâra (government) for public bathrooms/showers. However, I have been met with resistance with the main excuse being, people don’t want public, they will only use private bathrooms. They have a relatively good point; Cape Verdeans are a proud people. With this knowledge I have been asking around to my friends who live there what they think Baraka needs the most, and bathrooms is in the top three always. So I ask them if public bathrooms/showers were there would people use them, without ever hinting that is what I am thinking of doing. Point being, I think I have received an unbiased opinion of the most important things in Baraka, and to my Peace Corps friends reading this blog (damn you PACA).
So back to the Belgians, they had thought of building some communal place in Baraka, and I thought that perhaps a bathroom/shower attached would be a good idea. They loved the idea and were incredibly excited to have met me saying, “the first few days we were here nothing happened, but then the last couple of days everything seems to be coming together. We meet you and you tell us that there is another one of you on the island (Danny)! We are very pleased to see this project coming together”. This is where the peak comes; here I am sitting with two professors from a Belgian university telling me, a 24 year-old inexperienced development worker, they are excited to work with me. We begin talking about all the other projects they will be starting in July, some of them intimately involving Danny and I. Little did they know, they were saving me, pulling me out of the storm.
I have also been taking a few meetings with Turtle Foundation, mostly Christian, the director of the Boa Vista site. We have discussed several projects that could be important, and income generating for Cape Verdeans. One project that interests me in particular is the construction of a field guide to the reptiles and insects of Boa Vista and then having Cape Verdeans sell them to tourists. Christian is a 30 year-old ecologists from Germany, his interests in the animals of Cape Verde is unrivaled. I feel as though he is an ecologist first but, development work seems to be a close second for him, not much unlike me and probably why we get along so well.
Now for those who read this and say, well there are no Cape Verdeans in any of these projects, calm. The man who will be running the main project in Baraka is a Cape Verdean pastor, his name is Francisco. He will be helping with the coordination of people and supplies, and will be an integral part of the entire operation. I made a point during my meeting to stress the involvement of Cape Verdeans to insure the transfer of skills and the sense of ownership.
So, all of that being said, the roller coaster continues. And damn, the peaks are beautiful.
I’ll be in Senegal and Praia for three weeks, so don’t think I am ignoring you, it will just be difficult for me to be in contact. Paz y Amor my landlocked friends.
