take a deep breath

“The honeymoon,” as they say, “is over.” The past two weeks have been a vivid and somewhat needed wake-up call. The idealistic image of Ponta Verde has been cut down and rebuilt in a more realistic and disquieting form. It was almost as if the whole town had been holding its breath as we arrived and settled in, but one can’t hold one’s breath forever.
I gave my first test last week. As I was making it I thought to myself how foolishly easy it was going to be. I was afraid that my coordinator and students would discredit my ability as a teacher from the straightforward simplicity of my test…boy was I wrong. From what I hear, my results were normal, but for me, the number of failures was alarming. In Cape Verde, anything above 50% is a passing grade. Out of approximately 100 students, I had 18 failures. Four of my students cheated (that I caught based on blatant copying of a different test…one girl even accidentally wrote the name of the girl she cheated off of on her test!) and the rest were legitimate failures. What makes it even more discouraging is that if anything below 60% were a failing grade, so many more of my students would have failed. I haven’t had the nerves to calculate an average or compare the results on an American scale because I think it would just be depressing.
However, as a former disinterested student of Spanish, I can understand and remember how difficult it can be to learn a language. Plus, I have to remind myself of the many different factors in my student’s lives, like the 1+ hour walk to school, or the hours spent in the fields, cleaning the house or carrying water that absorb their afternoons and the ever important telenovellas that absorb their evenings. Not to mention the language barrier. I am teaching a language I speak fluently in a language that I can barely understand to students who are learning English as their third language. (Portuguese, though the official language of Cape Verde, is not the spoken language. For the majority of students, it is only encountered in school.) Despite these factors, I cannot help but be a little disappointed. Maybe it was the blatant disrespect of one student who, when I asked my class with 10 failures how I could help them to learn better, responded by asking if we were going to play soccer the next day. Hmmph. All of a sudden I understand the frustrations of my teachers through the years. It is not possible to touch, change and educate every little head in that room, but it sure can be discouraging when you don’t.
Well, all of that aside, the rest of the town let out that big breath of perfection as well. One of our colleagues has found it tireless to let us know that everyone is getting a kick out of talking about us, though she chooses not to indulge information, like, what is being said, and I find it harder and harder to believe that she is often not the source of this excitement, or at least a major contributor. I don’t mind that people talk, hell… it is practically on the job description, but it gets old hearing about it.
Anita, our neighbor who has been painfully pregnant since we arrived has finally let out her breath, and her baby as well. A squirming little boy with a full head of hair came into this world Tuesday morning. Wednesday night we received news of the death of the grandmother of one of my best students. Amidst a grand cultural confusion we were swept up the hill to her house to learn that the woman had not yet passed, but instead lay on death’s bed. Unsure of the expectations in such a situation we sat and watched a parade of people come and go with reactions varying from uncontrollable wailing to joking with prodding at the fragile woman who lay beneath the sheets and the candlelight. Life comes and goes with each breath that this quiet town takes.
And today. Today is Thanksgiving, a holiday that does not exist in Cape Verde. At times I think that it is not needed here. For me, Thanksgiving has always been about the collection of my family gathered around a table (or assortment of tables) to share our lives for a moment over a shared and abundant meal. Here, though the food is not always abundant, the powerful presence of family replaces this small gap. Here, no mouth is hungry for long for there is always family or neighbors (who, more often than not, are family of some sort) close by to lend a helping hand. Though I am not with my family today, they are certainly on my mind. However, I am by no means alone. I have an entire village that has adopted me as temporary family. I spent the day today with my students and colleagues (and of course my American sidekick roommate) who have accepted me as a friend and as family, and the afternoon visiting houses of neighbors who want nothing more than to welcome us into their homes, their families and their lives.
Though the honeymoon may be over, and the obstacles and challenges that lay ahead have begun to materialize as the haze of novelty wears off, in many ways, my love affair with this small “town” has just begun. Each day is a new adventure with a million new challenges and even more little things to learn and explore. These two years are like a little gem amidst the whirlwind of life, and I am intent on learning, teaching and experiencing as much as possible that is trapped inside this little gem.