I came to the realization that the people that work at the Casa de Juventude (youth center) are not motivated and do nothing but there’s not much I can do about it. I had all these plans for activities and events and they either got shot down or no one would help and they would fail. And I don’t want to do projects on my own- that’s not my job and doing their jobs for them is not my job either, so it’s really frustrating. So I had someone from the Camara (the local government who is in charge of the center) come talk to them and sort of rat them out so after the meeting things seemed better for like a day, I am supposed to start an art class for kids on Feb 5 but as of last week, no one had signed up for it and no one from the Casa de Juventude had followed up with the school. Now I know I can go and follow up but they are the ones who want me to do the class and if they want me to do it, then they can set it up, since none of them are giving any classes or doing anything. Pretty much it’s these 3 people sitting around and watching TV all day. And then they have class in the afternoon so no one is there to even keep the place open unless I have free time but like I said, my job is not to fill in for their jobs. That’s not why the Peace Corps wants me here. There are also plenty of people in Maio with no work and I feel like the people who are currently working there could easily be replaced. But it’s also really political so who gets put in charge is sort of politically motivated and not necessarily what is best for the island.

I met with someone else at the Camara last week who is super motivated and one of the most incredible people I have met here. It turns out she used to work at the Casa de Juventude for like 6 years and when she was there it was super organized and they constantly had events and people running in and out. She told me about a program they had Saturday mornings called “nhos brinka” which means “we play” in kriolu. So we are going to restart it next Saturday and hopefully I can get the real employees to help out. We’ll have different activities in each room and the kids will rotate after awhile. I’m going to do Valentine’s cookie decorations with the sprinkles my mom mailed. Oh, if you have a few free minutes, can you investigate those bright colored parachutes for me and where they can be ordered from? I really want to get one to do activities here.

So that same woman from the Camara, a guy from the Red Cross, and I are putting together a girl’s group to talk about women’s issues, health, sex, etc. No one has really showed up yet but hopefully with more advertising we’ll get a good crowd to do some activities.

I’m also working with a micro-credit and savings group that gives out loans for development projects. I’m helping create a brochure to give out to people to teach about savings and credit and how to utilize it as well as a presentation that can be repeated all over the island. I went to a meeting for the directors on Friday and I know have a better understanding of what is to come.

My absolute favorite work is still with the women’s group in Calheta. English class is going well and the past two Saturdays we’ve been doing beach cleanups. They have both been successful and each time people have offered to make us food or buy us drinks afterwards for doing such a good project for the community. I think its really been empowering the women and I love watching them feed off of each other. They’ve been bringing their kids to the clean ups too and I love seeing the kids take part. The violin lessons are also going well. I’m teaching 3 men in Calheta to play violin although its kind of hard since I’ve never really taught beginners and they learn do read music differently than we do in America, ie they learn do re mi fa so la ti…instead of a b c d e f g. But it has been a lot of fun and I get the chance to play the violin which makes me happy. They are also teaching me to play the guitar.

Life here really has its ups and downs. When they say PC is the “toughest job you’ll ever love” I don’t think they mean tough as in the actual work is hard but a culmination of where we live, dealing with frustrations in the community, and when people pass off significant problems as “cultural” aspects of their lives. For example, there is a huge problem at the high school with teachers having relationships with students. Some of these students are at least 18 but from what I understand, there are definitely some fourteen year olds getting involved with teachers. And the best friend of the director’s daughter just happens to be one of them. And does the director do anything about it? No. And if anyone says something to the director she might have a talk with the teachers but then all the teachers will know who said something and make that person’s life miserable. People here know what’s going on, they know this is happening but no one will do anything about it. And if the director said something, they would all act surprised and just go on with their lives because apparently this is a “cultural” thing. But how can you call sleeping with underage students a “cultural” thing. I’d call it rape, even though the kids are most likely consenting and probably starting the relationships because its “buzz off” (cool) to be with a teacher. So I’m glad I don’t have to deal with this everyday but since I know, I feel that not doing anything about it is also saying that it’s okay.

I think maybe I’m becoming numb to things here or maybe I’m just understanding the lifestyle a little more. Yesterday the new volunteer from France, came with me to the beach clean up in Calheta. The women picked up trash and then put it into piles along the beach and started burning it. New volunteer became really angry that they were burning the trash. Now, I’m not a huge environmental person (I care about the environment but I’m not about to go campaigning and refusing to use certain products) but I do know that burning trash is not really the best environmentally friendly solution but it Maio, it is the only solution. The new volunteer,just being here for a week, doesn’t yet know all the Cape Verdian systems, including the fact that the government burns trash as their way to dispose of it (hey, its better than throwing it in the ocean). Anyways, I tried to calm her down and explain that even though burning the trash may be bad for the environment, these women are motivated to clean their beaches to make them safer for kids, keep animals from eating toxic stuff, etc and that throwing the trash in a bin would only lead to it being carried away to Vila in order to be burned, so they could go ahead and burn it or send it away to be burned. Another woman who lives in Calheta (a German woman who teaches French at the high school) also explained it. After awhile, Sandra felt pretty bad about getting angry with the women and apologized for her behavior. Sabine and her husband told us to let them know when we are doing another beach clean up and they will make pizza for everyone. Apparently they clean the beach a lot and sometimes even pay people to do it. I’m hoping we can keep the beach clean up as a weekly or monthly tradition. It’s a great way to bring everyone together and lots of kids come to help out too.