August 22, 2001

I addressed the lack of water here earlier, but I thought I might clarify a bit more what my life is really like. Since I've moved, I now live in an apartment complex that resembles the Bronx. The building is white, hasn't been painted in years, and the inside is very run down. Each individual apartment is nice, but the building itself is dilapidated. Each surrounding building is similar, and a basketball court nearby is always full of Cape Verdean youth. I sometimes feel like the token "white" woman living in an impoverished NYC neighborhood (sounds like a Hollywood movie). I feel at home, and yet I know that my neighbors notice everything I do. I felt like I was in a movie the other day when I trashed part of my sandwich that I didn't want. I knew the goats would eat it, but, as I turned from the trash pile, I noticed faces here and there, hidden by curtains and trees, watching, waiting. I just knew that one of them would call my mom and say I hadn't finished my lunch!

Water is scarce enough that it only flows through the pipes into our apartment every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, if we are lucky. My mother Isabel gets up at 5 a.m. to fill 15 different plastic containers with it, which we will use to wash our clothes, dishes, flush our 2 toilets, and bathe. I wash my own underwear a few times a week, and it's amazing how last weekend I was faced with whether to have clean underwear (I'd wear none before wearing dirty ones), save some to flush the toilet or wash my hands before dinner, or to take a shower. It was quite a dilemma. I ended up only washing 3 pairs of underwear, and then saved some for hand washing. The shower would wait. I could always walk to the US Embassy's pool and take a quick shower, unlike my family. Also, you have to imagine that when I had wonderful diarrhea, I had to use about 5 of our containers of water to continually keep the toilet clean. We have a bucket and a cup in it next to the toilet. You scoop a few cups of water in each time you go. It really doesn't do much. Sometimes, I would just dump half of the bucket down to get it really clean.

Playstation. Again, none of you will ever believe that a child in Africa may know your city better than you do! Last night, my brother Giorginho (pronounced Jor-jean-nyoh) calls me into the TV room to show me this driving game he's playing, and the city is San Francisco! He asks me if I know Nob Hill or Chinatown, and I'm like, “Hell yeah boy, I lived there!” He was in awe. I had him drive me over to my old street where the cable car runs, and I sat staring to see if they had actually recreated my exact building in the game. It's not that detailed, but it does have the Presidio park, and the Golden Gate Bridge. Every time I asked him to drive me to the Bridge, he'd get chased by cops, so then he'd have to start the game over again. It was quite funny. When we finally reached Sausalito (across the Bridge, for those of you who don't know SF), we had 3 cop cars racing behind us!

Class. We just finished a 2 day Life Skills Workshop that is supposed to help us teach our communities skills to avoid HIV and AIDS acquisition. Cape Verde supposedly has around 2%, but many think it could be as high as 20% just because nobody is tested here (by choice). Why would you if there were no cures or available medication, and the stigma might mean you’re ostracized from your family and community? Our workshop facilitator, an older guy from Senegal, said that in Uganda, one high school was randomly tested when the teens tried to give blood. 90% of the school had HIV. Imagine how that will affect the development of the country. He also said that 50 teachers a month were dying in many countries, leaving the schools empty. I just read an article on the “Grandmothers of Zimbabwe” who are caring for their grandchildren because all 5-10 of their children have died of AIDS. There is a lot of USAID financing for AIDS related workshops, so I'll surely be giving one in my village. Another volunteer told me had already done one there recently, but that he thought the women would like to speak to a female volunteer about questions they had.

Exactly one week till my site visit. I'm excited, to say the least. I won't be staying there, because the latrine isn't built yet, just visiting. It's now a joke with my friend Dawn that she will have to get the guest bedroom ready in her house in Calheta (CAHL-YEH-TAH) because Kevin and I, both in rural areas, will be visiting often. She will be sharing a large house with Sally, a pre-school trainer volunteer. The house is not only 5 minutes from the beach, but it has a great view of some mountains.

I wanted to write a lot more here, but my time is running out. Maybe I'll try to send an update on Friday including the discussion of sex, infidelity, and whistling (cat calls), all of which are very interesting topics in Cape Verde.