International Women's Day

Happy International Women’s Day/ Women’s month! I had a very interesting women’s day. Everyone came to my house around 11 and we got our posters, put on our ribbons and paraded around town. We didn’t have many participants and everyone kept giving us excuses for not participating. When we got back we cooked pizza, pastels, rissoes, and other popcorn and by the time it was all ready it was 3:30. So we head over to the place where we held the activity and set everything up and about 10 people other than our group show up. The association members were going on about why there was low turnout (we had put up posters around town, handed out individual invitations, and put it on the radio) and I was like, ok lets just get started. We played a “game” where you grab a part of a roll of string and say “I am a woman, I am…” or what you want to see happen for women and then throw it to the next person. I like doing this type of string game a lot. After the game, we read a poem about women, each person reading a line and then we talked about the association and our activities for the month. We ended talking about the history of Women’s Day and ate our snack. We get back to my house and clean up and then the novella (soap opera) of the evening starts.

Almost everyone has left, my house is finally clean after a long day of cooking, frying pastels, and rolling out pizza dough. The left over cake and popcorn have been divided and the last few people are mopping the floor. One of them walks over to my large cardboard box by the door filled with sporting equipment for the neighborhood kids to play. At this juncture my backpack is sitting inside to make room for cooking from earlier. In my backpack the wallet containing our groups Women’s Day activity funds is wide open. The money inside is gone. I open my wallet, sitting closed in the backpack. My money is gone. The few women left start speculating who took it, most blaming the same person but at the same time being like I’m not saying so-and-so took it but … Anways, they go and get all the women that were in my house and we go back and forth for a few minutes, with each person retelling what they “saw” or whatever and then I make my speech telling them I don’t care who took the money but it is a lack of respect for me, for our group and I voluntarily came to Cape Verde, leave my family and friends to help them, to be a part of the community and I would never mess with things in their houses, take stuff that isn’t mine, etc. My heartfelt speech ended in a few tears from me and they were like, ok don’t cry, we get the point. There was some discussion as to what to do if the money is not recovered and it was decided that if the money wasn’t recovered by the next day at 9 am then I would call the police and file a report. Then we had another 10 minute discussion on what the police would do in this case and one woman went on about some sort of light that the police shine on your arm and if it was you, the light turns red and if it wasn’t, it turns green. I thought this was pretty hysterical but I kept from laughing. There was some discussion of the chocolate incident from when my parents were here in November. One person outed another on taking the chocolate and eating it. We talked about how to give the money to me: the person could come and give it to me directly, I won’t tell anyone who it is and it will be completely anonymous or they can slide it under my door if they don’t want anyone to know it was them. That idea was tested as we took paper and tried to slide it under the door and then put money in paper and did the same thing. It worked. The door idea was good to go if the thief wanted to give me the money through that method. Finally everyone left and I was alone again. I called Stephanie to give her the play by play and some dude she knows told her he can tell us who did it by morning. Yeah ok whatever. She told my counterpart in Vila that I was robbed and he was on his way to see if he could do anything to help.

Commercial break

Ten minutes later there’s a knock on my door. Oh good I think, the money is back. But no. Its just the person who was outed for the chocolate incident coming to clear her name and blame the person who outed her for eating the chocolate. I really am over the chocolate but they keep coming back to it. She doesn’t want to lose my trust and points out that she always asks for things and doesn’t take them (true) and if she finds money in the house or when washing clothes she always gives it to me (also true). But I tell her I want to trust her but when people talk and all say the same thing then you start believing maybe there is some truth to what they say. She leaves and I am again alone in the house.

Commercial break

I need to get out of my house and clear my head. I go to the roof to see if there’s a soccer game (there is) and I head out to watch soccer. The girls are playing tonight and I am excited to see the team I train with play. On the way to the game, who do I see but chocolate girl from the first meeting and chocolate girl who just left my house and her boyfriend. They are still talking about the chocolate incident and call me over to explain one more time. Ok, I’m done with chocolate for real. I tell them, this happened in November, I’m done with this and lets just move forward. I head over the game and girl #1 is like wait a second and slips my money into my pocket. So I have now recovered my money but the group’s money is still missing. I go into the Polivalente to watch the game and the girls win 3 to 0.

Commercial break.

The game ends and I walk home hand in hand with a neighborhood kid. A few minutes later there’s a knock on my door and its my counterpart and his friends and I give them a brief recall of the story. There’s really not much they can do about it so we go and get a few beers and they make me laugh. It meant a lot that they came all the way out to Calheta to make sure I was okay and they put a happy ending on the night.

Next day

No money was slipped under the door during the evening and I call one of the women to let her know the situation. She says she’s coming over and a few minutes later I let her in. She says its strange that she only gave back part of the money which means she only took some of it and someone else took the other part or she’s keeping it. Talking through it all, what we think happened is the girl that took the money took it in the morning while we were all cooking and in the afternoon when we brought all the pans and stuff back there were extra people running around my house and one of them may have taken the other money then. So I don’t know if we’ll get it back but we are holding a dance tonight which will at least replace what was stolen.

It makes me really upset that people would steal from me. Everyone here knows that if they ask for something I will do all I can to help them- even if I can’t provide them with stuff, I’ll try to find a group or person that can. So when I let people into my house and host things for them, why the need to take my stuff? There are certainly not going to be any more activities in my house after that because that one or two people who took the money lost my trust for everyone in the community.

Alas, life goes on, the money stolen is supposed to go for our party for the elderly on the 27th and will find money to pay for it even if it comes from everyone’s pockets. This won’t stop the group from doing projects and I’m still putting my all into them even, just not access to my house.

Quick update

So much is going on right now. I just finished a 4 day workshop/tournament for 6 soccer teams in Vila- 4 guys teams and 2 girls teams. The doctor, a technician from the Camara, another girl on the “team” and I led 2 days of information on AIDS and HIV and had the teams make posters to put up in the Polivalente (soccer stadium) and gave them information on Scenarios of Africa (Africa wide contest to write 5 minute plays or songs that get played on tv between shows about AIDS). Then the next 2 days were soccer games with the posters up for people to see. There was a great turn out at the games- I only counted part of the stadium but my guess was between 200 and 300 people. We’re doing the same thing in March for basketball and handball teams and will modify it a bit- have a microphone in the stadium to talk about AIDS during the games, etc.

Once this is completed we’ll do something similar but for just girls and girls at risk and the information will be about early pregnancies because clearly that is a large problem here.

The women’s association is working on our March activities for International Women’s Day (March 8) and Cape Verdian Women’s Day (March 27). For the 8th, we are having a parade around town, then having a lunch with a speaker on women’s health and maybe women’s rights (if they are available) and the batuk group will dance. At night we are having a traditional dance with violin music (none of the dj and speakers zouk stuff) along with the Calheta Community Association who has been planning a lot of activities (this dance for example) leading up to our big festa on March 19th.

The 10-14th we are holding a women/girl’s soccer tournament. Then on the 15-17th we’re having someone come give a workshop on business skills- the importance of saving money, how to make a budget and balance it, etc. Then the 19th is our town’s big festa (Sao Jose) which means lots more activites (we started having night activities- soccer games, batuk groups, singers, dances, artisan street fairs, dance competitions- the end of February and they go until the big festa). The day of the festa people go to mass and then to the designated festa house where lots of women cook a ton of food for the entire community. I’ll probably be at the house helping cook. The 25th or 26th we’re (women’s group) having a speaker on drugs and alcohol and then on the 27th for Cape Verdian Women’s day we’ll have a party for the elderly. So my March is pretty full.

On top of that, I’m helping the micro-credit group with their big assembly which has so far been pushed back 3 weeks because we are waiting for one guy from Praia to come balance the budget and meet with the Directors of the group so that we can present it at the assembly. Right now its really frustrating because this guy’s house number, work number and cell phone are all disactivated. The guy in charge in Maio is going to Praia today to hunt the guy down and find out what’s going on. I have a feeling we’ll end up doing the assembly March 9 which will be exhausting after the stuff on the 8th and the women’s group is cooking for the assembly so they would not be too happy. But we’ll see.

In other news, I’ve started teaching again. I know I swore it off but I promised the group that combats illiteracy that I would teach them computers once the other classes ended so I’m now teaching a one hour computer class on Fridays. I figure one hour a week won’t kill me.

I’m working with the guy in Morro again. This time to plan a camping trip in May for 5 youth from each town. We’ll have speakers on issues facing youth, teambuilding games (my ropes corps activities if you will), painting schools that need repainting, sports, and night time activities planned by the kids. It’s still in the early stages but the planning team is going to start meeting soon and get things going.

I also might be going back to Fogo at the end of April. My women’s group is trying to plan a trip to share experiences with a women’s group in Fogo as well as see the island, do a joint project, and have a few speakers that can help benefit both groups. Sarah is meeting with a group of women to see if they are interested and if this is feasible to do. The women in Maio are really excited about the idea and actually they came up with it so its good to see them thinking towards the future.