Eap!
This weekend, PC/CV did a test of the Emergency Action Plan (EAP) and we went to Yellow Alert (not the real name for what we did, but I like the sound of it more). So there was a bit of wild speculation between me and Darney O’Malley if it meant that the volcano was erupting, or what else could be happening in Cape Verde that would make PC change our alert status. I finally thought about what I would be putting in an Emergency Bag, in case I needed to evacuate site. But then I found out it was only a test. Oh well. No action or adventure for me.
Speaking of that which is known as Peace Corps, my CD and APCD/CD were in town last week for their site visits. Normally, the CD will come visit you once during your service, and we were graced with such an early visit since there was some kind of important meeting going on in Sao Filipe with NGO’s and various governments, so I think he decided to kill two birds with one stone. Though by the end of PST, I was really, really, really happy to get away from PC, it was actually good to see both of them and reconnect with the wider Peace Corps world. The only bad thing about the timing of my CD’s visit is that I still haven’t really done anything yet, so I don’t exactly have anything to report on. If he had come in six months or something, I could have said “Oh yes, I’ve been doing this, and this and that.” But right now, I’m more like, “Um, integrating is going ok. Yes, I am starting to pick up the language more. No, I’m not really doing anything.”
Well, I guess the last line isn’t totally true. Now that I’m here at the Câmara’s Internet café, I have been up to a little more. I spent a week trying to learn the program and solve various technical problems, and this previous week was the first week of us being open. Word hasn’t totally filtered around town, because it’s been a slow week. The only major problem right now is the connection is bad and breaks a lot. But I think that is a CVTelecom problem, and there is nothing I can do about it. Of course, I did break the DSL filter, which allows the DSL connection and the telephone to be used simultaneously. And for some reason, I didn’t think it would be a problem to replace a part that retails for $8 in the States. But I guess the filter comes with the DSL modem and there is no replacing of it. So, I feel bad since I broke it (I don’t remember if I mentioned it before, but I also pulled the main receptionist’s phone jack out of the wall in the Câmara, which I think resulted in no phone service in or out of the whole Câmara for like three hours. Now that was embarrassing. Especially when you don’t have enough language skills to apologize more profusely.) and might try to get one sent, or have Karate Catholic pick one up when he is home. Not sure yet.
This is also the first week where I’ve spoke more Kriolu than English. I’m sharing an office with Lady N, who has a bit of English from high school and her night class. But she’s not at the point where I can explain something to her in English, and she’ll understand what I’m saying. Of course, I’m barely at the point where I can explain something in Kriolu that she will understand, but we’re still able to get kind of understand each other.
Now that I am actually speaking Kriolu with people, little cultural/linguistic differences between Fogo and Santiago are slowly becoming apparent. When I was in Sao Dao, I was given to understand that “namorada” meant your girlfriend, and “pikéna” was the second or possibly third girl that you had around, mainly to have sex with. But I guess here the words are fully interchangeable. I learned this when I was asked if I wanted a pikéna, and I said no, because I’d rather have a namorada. So, basically, they understood me to say, “No, I don’t want a girlfriend, I want a girlfriend.” “Bazófa,” which literally means stylish or well dressed, is more of an insulting term in Santiago. It basically means you’re show-offish or snobbish. Many people in Santiago say that people in Sao Filipe are bazófa, and that isn’t a good thing. But here in Fogo, being bazófa can be a compliment. So that threw me for a loop because when I was told I could use that term, I’m like “are you sure?” But I’m sure I am only scratching the surface of the differences. Good thing I’m not on a northern island.
Of course, one of the constants across all the islands is the big inequality in the housework done by men and women. Back in Sao Dao, my mom, sister and cousin were perpetually amused when I tried to take on any domestic tasks such as washing clothes or cleaning. One time my mom let me mop my floor, and she just stood in the doorway, staring, grinning and making sure that I got all of the floor with my mop. When my sister and cousin heard that I was mopping, they ran over and stared over my mom’s shoulder. It’s like they had never seen a guy do housework. Oh wait, they probably haven’t.
I also remember this one time I had to ask my cousin and sister some questions about the role of women in Cape Verde’s society. The first question was who does the housework. After we established that it was women, I asked why it was like that. They couldn’t think up a reason, and my sister went to ask my mom. When she came back, she was laughing, and she said that my mom had said, “because men are stupid.” She then went back and got a more serious answer, which I will have to try to dig out.
I bring this up because last week I was talking with Lady N about her weekly schedule, and she was saying that she helps clean the house on Sunday. I asked if everyone in the family helps, and she said no, it was only the women. She said something about the only thing the guys do is eat food. When I think back at this conversation, I really wish that she had seemed resentful about this. But I didn’t pick up anything like that from her. She was just stating fact, not complaining.
The next day, she was mopping the floor and I scraped some stuff off of the little balcony we have. I got the broom and swept the stuff up. The balcony faces one of the town squares, and I felt self-conscious about what I was doing, since this is not a country where men sweep. Since I am already a crazy foreigner to these people, I figured I might as well add the icing on the cake. No one saw me from the street but when I had finished, I was turning to go back into the Internet café, and Lady N saw the broom in my hand, and she laughed at me and said something I didn’t catch.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m used to people here laughing at me here. But it was annoying for me to see a woman laughing at a guy cleaning. It’s gotten to that point where I think the women here (especially the farther you get out in the fora) are resigned to their roles. Despite their resentment at the situation, have no choice but to embrace the idea of housework and make it “theirs” and play it like it’s something that only they can do, that men have no skills for. It’s like a defensive mechanism to cope with getting screwed over.
Though I didn’t really get to know my sister and cousin that well, they seem like bright kids with potential. My parents are chill and seem to be raising them good. But it still gets to me their futures are more likely than not going to include getting married within the next decade, have kids and then spend the rest of their lives cooking and cleaning, which they already do a lot of.
It’s one thing to really be able to make that choice to want to stay home and raise kids, but it’s another thing when that outcome is almost inevitable. Even in the West, when I think of the women I know who say they would prefer to stay home and raise kids, I can’t help but wonder who much of that is her honest desire to do so, and how much of it is remnants of programming from “tradition,” religion and generally conservative ideology.
It’s generally accepted, but not necessarily approved of, for men to have more than one woman in Cape Verde. I got a really big laugh from people when I asked, since it was OK for men to have more than one woman, could women have more than one guy? Lady N said “di mais,” which Toes translated to me to mean “too much,” which I don’t know what Lady N talking about in a sexual sense, or emotional or what. I’ll be sure to follow up on that in a few weeks. It’s interesting to see the justifications that have been created to explain why things are the way they are.
On a separate note, Mary Mary Quite Contrary, a RPCV who served in Mosteiros from 1997-99 was in town for a few days with her husband. Cape Verde has just organized its Community Development Program, so she was the first CD PCV to work at the Câmara. She said that there was much more to do now than there was, which was a very scary thought for the three of us who are here now. We already complain all the time that there isn’t anything to do. I am really surprised that I am not drinking more. I’ve probably been drinking more Fanta than anything else.
Speaking of that which is known as Peace Corps, my CD and APCD/CD were in town last week for their site visits. Normally, the CD will come visit you once during your service, and we were graced with such an early visit since there was some kind of important meeting going on in Sao Filipe with NGO’s and various governments, so I think he decided to kill two birds with one stone. Though by the end of PST, I was really, really, really happy to get away from PC, it was actually good to see both of them and reconnect with the wider Peace Corps world. The only bad thing about the timing of my CD’s visit is that I still haven’t really done anything yet, so I don’t exactly have anything to report on. If he had come in six months or something, I could have said “Oh yes, I’ve been doing this, and this and that.” But right now, I’m more like, “Um, integrating is going ok. Yes, I am starting to pick up the language more. No, I’m not really doing anything.”
Well, I guess the last line isn’t totally true. Now that I’m here at the Câmara’s Internet café, I have been up to a little more. I spent a week trying to learn the program and solve various technical problems, and this previous week was the first week of us being open. Word hasn’t totally filtered around town, because it’s been a slow week. The only major problem right now is the connection is bad and breaks a lot. But I think that is a CVTelecom problem, and there is nothing I can do about it. Of course, I did break the DSL filter, which allows the DSL connection and the telephone to be used simultaneously. And for some reason, I didn’t think it would be a problem to replace a part that retails for $8 in the States. But I guess the filter comes with the DSL modem and there is no replacing of it. So, I feel bad since I broke it (I don’t remember if I mentioned it before, but I also pulled the main receptionist’s phone jack out of the wall in the Câmara, which I think resulted in no phone service in or out of the whole Câmara for like three hours. Now that was embarrassing. Especially when you don’t have enough language skills to apologize more profusely.) and might try to get one sent, or have Karate Catholic pick one up when he is home. Not sure yet.
This is also the first week where I’ve spoke more Kriolu than English. I’m sharing an office with Lady N, who has a bit of English from high school and her night class. But she’s not at the point where I can explain something to her in English, and she’ll understand what I’m saying. Of course, I’m barely at the point where I can explain something in Kriolu that she will understand, but we’re still able to get kind of understand each other.
Now that I am actually speaking Kriolu with people, little cultural/linguistic differences between Fogo and Santiago are slowly becoming apparent. When I was in Sao Dao, I was given to understand that “namorada” meant your girlfriend, and “pikéna” was the second or possibly third girl that you had around, mainly to have sex with. But I guess here the words are fully interchangeable. I learned this when I was asked if I wanted a pikéna, and I said no, because I’d rather have a namorada. So, basically, they understood me to say, “No, I don’t want a girlfriend, I want a girlfriend.” “Bazófa,” which literally means stylish or well dressed, is more of an insulting term in Santiago. It basically means you’re show-offish or snobbish. Many people in Santiago say that people in Sao Filipe are bazófa, and that isn’t a good thing. But here in Fogo, being bazófa can be a compliment. So that threw me for a loop because when I was told I could use that term, I’m like “are you sure?” But I’m sure I am only scratching the surface of the differences. Good thing I’m not on a northern island.
Of course, one of the constants across all the islands is the big inequality in the housework done by men and women. Back in Sao Dao, my mom, sister and cousin were perpetually amused when I tried to take on any domestic tasks such as washing clothes or cleaning. One time my mom let me mop my floor, and she just stood in the doorway, staring, grinning and making sure that I got all of the floor with my mop. When my sister and cousin heard that I was mopping, they ran over and stared over my mom’s shoulder. It’s like they had never seen a guy do housework. Oh wait, they probably haven’t.
I also remember this one time I had to ask my cousin and sister some questions about the role of women in Cape Verde’s society. The first question was who does the housework. After we established that it was women, I asked why it was like that. They couldn’t think up a reason, and my sister went to ask my mom. When she came back, she was laughing, and she said that my mom had said, “because men are stupid.” She then went back and got a more serious answer, which I will have to try to dig out.
I bring this up because last week I was talking with Lady N about her weekly schedule, and she was saying that she helps clean the house on Sunday. I asked if everyone in the family helps, and she said no, it was only the women. She said something about the only thing the guys do is eat food. When I think back at this conversation, I really wish that she had seemed resentful about this. But I didn’t pick up anything like that from her. She was just stating fact, not complaining.
The next day, she was mopping the floor and I scraped some stuff off of the little balcony we have. I got the broom and swept the stuff up. The balcony faces one of the town squares, and I felt self-conscious about what I was doing, since this is not a country where men sweep. Since I am already a crazy foreigner to these people, I figured I might as well add the icing on the cake. No one saw me from the street but when I had finished, I was turning to go back into the Internet café, and Lady N saw the broom in my hand, and she laughed at me and said something I didn’t catch.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m used to people here laughing at me here. But it was annoying for me to see a woman laughing at a guy cleaning. It’s gotten to that point where I think the women here (especially the farther you get out in the fora) are resigned to their roles. Despite their resentment at the situation, have no choice but to embrace the idea of housework and make it “theirs” and play it like it’s something that only they can do, that men have no skills for. It’s like a defensive mechanism to cope with getting screwed over.
Though I didn’t really get to know my sister and cousin that well, they seem like bright kids with potential. My parents are chill and seem to be raising them good. But it still gets to me their futures are more likely than not going to include getting married within the next decade, have kids and then spend the rest of their lives cooking and cleaning, which they already do a lot of.
It’s one thing to really be able to make that choice to want to stay home and raise kids, but it’s another thing when that outcome is almost inevitable. Even in the West, when I think of the women I know who say they would prefer to stay home and raise kids, I can’t help but wonder who much of that is her honest desire to do so, and how much of it is remnants of programming from “tradition,” religion and generally conservative ideology.
It’s generally accepted, but not necessarily approved of, for men to have more than one woman in Cape Verde. I got a really big laugh from people when I asked, since it was OK for men to have more than one woman, could women have more than one guy? Lady N said “di mais,” which Toes translated to me to mean “too much,” which I don’t know what Lady N talking about in a sexual sense, or emotional or what. I’ll be sure to follow up on that in a few weeks. It’s interesting to see the justifications that have been created to explain why things are the way they are.
On a separate note, Mary Mary Quite Contrary, a RPCV who served in Mosteiros from 1997-99 was in town for a few days with her husband. Cape Verde has just organized its Community Development Program, so she was the first CD PCV to work at the Câmara. She said that there was much more to do now than there was, which was a very scary thought for the three of us who are here now. We already complain all the time that there isn’t anything to do. I am really surprised that I am not drinking more. I’ve probably been drinking more Fanta than anything else.
posted by jende turtle at 4:07 PM
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