“I’d really like to get something to drink, if you could help me. Euros are fine,” says the nice, cleanly dressed young man who has been “disinterestedly” helping me put my stuff in a cab at Senghor Airport in Dakar, Senegal at 2 Am.

I shake my head.

“Then how bout some kisses.”

I shake my head, and offer my hand out the window.

He shakes it, closes the door and disappears.

“Ugh” says the driver, in visible disgust, starting up the ignition.

“What,” thought I, “an ally in the driver, someone appalled by the opportunistic young man, cooly requesting nookie when money was denied?

“He didn’t shut the door.”

I chuckle, open and close my door again, and regain a little realism.

But everything is right. People are friendly, slow-moving, relaxed. The night air is soft, just barely cool and smells of the sea. The driver never forgives me for getting a bit of a deal (8 bucks for 10 minutes is hardly a deal, but less than the 10 bucks that are the norm for white passengers after midnight) and even tries to charge me another two bucks for the receipt. At no point, do I feel in danger.

I peel off my black clothes, meant to make me fit in during a day’s layover in Madrid, and instantly forget the chagrin at having had no boots like the other girls. I throw on a sundress, with bear arms, uneven seams, ready for sweat, wispy tangled hair and the translucent sunscreen that brings the scent of American drugstores with you everywhere. I pay for my room, head up for my shower. Even the cold water is pleasant, startling and a little harsh like getting clean should be. I’m back in Africa.

6 minute film I made documenting a day in the life of Condor Crew Biologists at Pinnacles National Monument. Through tracking, health checks, food supplementation, etc, they work to create a condor flock that is wild, healthy, and self-sustainin. Pacific Coast Science and Learning Center sponsored it. Forgive me for the music. It was free.

The frogs in the pond between Ikea and the outer loop of the Beltway are singing. The streetlights tower above us as the cars whiz by loudly, until there’s a pause in traffic. Then you can hear my footsteps and the frogs.

The shoulder is loaded with fascinating stuff--a belt, a credit card, a wrench, pieces of tire, stuff left on purpose or inadvertently by all those people who had some reason to be walking along the side of the beltway at night.

I am walking back to my car. It’s blinking, with a flat, somewhere up ahead, past an overhanging bridge where the shoulder narrows to a foot, and just beyond the spur for highway 95, whose two lanes I will again sprint across. This, unfortunately, is where the AARP will send a car repairman to meet me.

It’s 12:20 a.m. At 10:00 p.m., when I had heard the grating noise, I parked and walked back up the ramp and into the first business I saw, a Holiday Inn, for a phone. No pay phones, but a sense of public duty got the concierge to offer me his. I called my dad, and asked him to call AARP (the policy is in his name).

“Can they meet me at the Holiday Inn and we can go to my car together?”

“No. She says it’s against policy rules.”

“What? So I have to cross the beltway again? It’s dangerous.”

“I know. I asked twice, she says absolutely not. Just be careful.”

The cars are whizzing at my back as I make my way up the shoulder. It’s not as scary as on the way there, when I had gasped every time a car seemed to lock me in its headlights, head towards me murderously, and veer off course at the last minute. I chided myself for thinking these silly things. I also tried not to look back.

At the bridge, an eighteen-wheeler seems nearly to clip me and I scramble up onto the embankment. Maybe I’m not being silly. If so, why is AARP, an organization that purports to aid stranded car-owners, permitting me to be in this roadside peril?

My thoughts travel unavoidably to Africa. The time I biked through a village that had saved a water bottle I had left for trash months before. The reliable supply of unofficial mechanics who fixed my bike with pieces of rubber they found on the road. A world where you felt like, penniless and unknown, you could show up anywhere and find strangers to help you, and that they in turn would expect the same thing of you, showing up or your doorstep with a broken bike or a missing water bottle.

At the same time, I remember my revulsion at Blanche Dubois’ famous line from Tennessee Williams’s Streetcar Named Desire: “I always rely on the kindnesses of strangers.” How awful to feel so assured of help from strangers that you excuse yourself from taking necessary precautions. I felt slighted the other day when it rained and I walked 50 yards from gym to parking lot beside a fellow student with an umbrella who didn’t share it. “How absurd to have the power to help and not use it,” I thought at the time. And now walking along the shoulder to my car, “how absurd to expect others to help you!” Had Africa made me needy? If I had been able to fix my own tire, wouldn’t I have been able to avoid this beltway promenade, not to mention ire towards AARP’s hypocritical policy?

The answer, of course, is somewhere in the middle. If fear of relying on others prevents you from taking risks, you are missing out on lots of safe adventures and the opportunity to discover the truly genuine kindness of most strangers. Alternately, if you are constantly making forays into the world without taking precautions, you are taking advantage of them, asking to be disappointed, and exposing yourself to needless danger.

I arrive at my car. The repairman is waiting, his blinking yellow lights trained on my car’s bumper. I open the trunk, he pulls out the donut, hands me the flashlight to illuminate his work, and begins.

A police car pulls up. “Was that you running up the road?” he asks. I nod. “You in trouble?” I look at my watch. It’s almost one a.m. I wanted to say, “I was at ten,” but I thank him for asking.

He parks and walks over, pointing a flashlight at the wheel I am already illuminating.

“This isn’t the kind of stretch where, you know, people get out and help you,” he says.

(written April/2009)

I am sitting on my bed pouring over the Guinea Chapter in The Rough Guide to West Africa, like it matters. There are notes in the margins, highlights, even comments scrawled in my binder, as though the facts about prices, decent hotels, and good bike rides will make my trip better. I close the book. I’ve been to Guinea, why am I doing this? Nothing I could possibly do with a guidebook—place it under a wobbly table or memorize it--could affect my trip in any way.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the Western world, what they tell you is true: bad things happen to good people who don’t plan. A thriving community of conniving, unscrupulous evildoers pounce on good people who don’t check their tire pressure, don’t book hotel reservations in advance, don’t buy luggage insurance or those handy, irredeemably tacky money-hiding fanny packs.

In Guinea, no one believes in this adage, not because they are backwards, but because it doesn’t hold true there. Plan and spend as you like in Guinea, unaccounted, bizarre things, often of a biblical character, occur that can subvert your plans, big time. Dust storms, floods, pre-Islamic ceremonies, sudden deaths, snakes, strikes, inflation, illnesses, any sort of element from a Magical realism novel, could smite you without warning, humbling you into phrases like “It is in God’s hands,” “Man proposes but God disposes,” and “if it happened, it must be for the best.”

Once on the way from my village to Kourrousa, the barge that usually carried us across the river ran out of gas and began slowly to float down the river, thudding against the banks of the Niger as the women screamed and grasped at branches. Twice that same night, muddy roads and a steady downpour caused me to fall under a motorcycle. A few months later, my neighbor was bitten by a snake while milking a cow and promptly died.

Bad things occur with no warning, but the opposite is true too. You can impulsively jump on a notion to travel across the country with no money, and no plans and magically, through the goodness of people you meet, and thanks to the absence of unscrupulous evildoers that pounce on hapless adventurers elsewhere, it works out. That same night on the Niger, I slept at a stranger’s house many miles short of where I had planned on ending up, and made one of the few Guinean friends with whom I am still in touch. A world without consequences, a world where saying “it’s in God’s hands” is not a cop-out so much as a statement of fact.

I exaggerate, of course. There is a time when the “It’s-in-God’- hands” mentality is a sorry excuse for inaction that perpetuates the awful things that do occur so regularly. Once, very early in my Peace Corps service, traveling by bush taxi to Conakry, our car puttered to a halt as we came upon a bus slanted into a ditch. Several dead bodies covered with cloths lay beside it. Flies buzzed and landed. The bus’s other passengers cried quietly, or sat and stared at the road, waiting for Conakry-bound cars with vacant spots. My car took one of them. It had been a collision, she explained. Among the dead was a woman who was traveling to Conakry to meet her fiancé, who was arriving from France after years abroad. “God didn’t will it,” she explained, and I grimaced.

Peter Hessler, a former Peace Corps Volunteer in China and writer of River Town: Two Years on the Yangzte River, posits that this is why volunteers go on to “achieve” little in life. Forced to adjust to regularized chaos, he says, they can no longer see action as tied to results, nor failure as the result of inaction. In this world, struggling to prove a correlation between input and output is too frustrating. So volunteers often give up, sit back, and (ironically) prove the rule, that man is mostly powerless to determine his destiny.

But hope exists and, wonderfully, it is irrational. The people who do manage to change things manage to forgo reason, the reason that tells them their efforts will likely fail. Instead they rely on their convictions, irrational gut-instincts that their efforts could change something. (And while these convictions ARE irrational, the only guaranteed way to fail is never to try). So we have heard of these people: the Steve Jobs, the Bill Gates, the Isaac Newton, the Louis Pasteur, etc.

So when will someone demand or undertake to ensure better roads, better drivers, safety standards for cars and cargo carriage in Guinea? When will there appear journalists, op-ed writers, politicians and NGO’s that draw international attention to these awful accidents in a way that foments action, in a way that allows most Guineans to mock those who say “It’s in God’s hands” for blinding themselves to their own agency? If Peace Corps volunteers themselves, the supposed change-agents, can adopt these attitudes themselves, the magnitude of the challenge is clear. But hope, wonderfully, is irrational, and though I will soon give up on planning this trip, I hope that Guinea will one day become a place where all manners of planning are richly rewarded.

I didn't vote for Obama to make it easier to tell people in Africa that I am American, but it sure has helped. Here are some indications of his mass appeal from my whirlwind trip through Mali, Guinea, and Senegal this May.

Ziguinchor, Senegal (Basse Casamance) 05/09

These are excerpts from essays I wrote to apply to Columbia Schools of Journalism and International Affairs, where I will be attending this fall.

Why Journalism:

Three plumes of smoke rise above downtown Kankan, Guinea, from burning truck tires lit by protesters. I am standing on the Peace Corps’ sagging plastic water tank, watching. Abou, our guard, in sandals and a silk shirt, leans against the mango tree, smoking.

Shots are fired nearby. I slide off the water tank, and crouch behind the tree. A military vehicle charges up the deserted street, turns, and heads downtown.

* * *

Peace Corps volunteers are by mandate apolitical. But after two decades of corruption and growing poverty under Lansana Conte, Guineans had organized in opposition and we were exhilarated, even if it meant a premature end to our service.

Two strikes earlier that year had led to clashes only in the capital. In my village, where agriculture was the crux of every conversation and news arrived at the weekly market, violent protest seemed implausible. Then, in December, Conte released two cronies jailed for state embezzlement, and sector-wide strikes erupted in cities throughout the country.

The six volunteers who had gathered in Kankan listened to the radio and neighborhood hearsay to try and piece together what was happening.

I had joined the Peace Corps with ambivalence. Internships at a radio station in Napa County, an environmental newspaper in Ecuador, and a political media website in San Francisco convinced me I wanted to be a reporter. Curiosity and a predilection for interviews as a complement to textual research drew me to journalism. I also love writing: ordering facts analytically and hooking readers creatively proved eternally intriguing and challenging.

What troubled me was my desire to advocate. “Can I dedicate myself to informing alone when enormous social, environmental, and health problems affect the world’s poor?” Introducing soil improvement techniques and providing nutritional training to villagers fulfilled this desire to contribute. The frustration of watching passively as Guineans protested decades of unaccountable government confirmed it. While I loved journalism, could I spend an entire career in compulsory neutrality, when part of what drew me to news was my desire to influence it?

Coverage of the strikes transformed the question. The French BBC reported, “Protests in Dalaba, Pita, Kankan and Labe, resulting in one death.” The English BBC mentioned no death, and protests in Kindia and Zerekore, but not Kankan. Radio France Internationelle (RFI) offered still more conflicting accounts. One prized visit to Kankan’s only internet cafe revealed that googling “Guinea” summoned more pages on Guinea pigs than the country.

Strike coverage was so faulty or nonexistent that to reveal the facts accurately to the rich world was itself an act of advocacy, an essential precursor to socioeconomic change. A career in journalism could both advance humanitarianism and fulfill my passion for reporting.

Why International Relations:

“How is the world ruled and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read.”

-Karl Kraus, Austrian Journalist and Press Critic

Cape Verde’s economy appears to be weathering the global credit crisis and record oil prices well. Based largely on remittances (34% of GDP in 2007), foreign aid, and a growing tourism sector, it is less vulnerable to global credit trends. As recently as September, Cape Verdean GNI per capita was a robust $2,430 US, more than twice the average for sub-Saharan countries. At a glance, economic indicators are positive.

However, a closer look at the community level reveals a different picture. The cost of bread--and other foods that require energy to produce--has increased significantly. Power outages, due to oil shortages at the national electric company, envelope the capital in darkness periodically. Water, much of which comes from oil-guzzling desalinization plants, is cut frequently. “If it’s not water, it’s electricity. If it’s not electricity, it’s water,” one resident complains.

As a Peace Corps volunteer, I am uniquely positioned to know and document the impact of domestic and international forces on Cape Verdean lives. With a good grasp of local language and a mandate to integrate, I have enjoyed privileged access to the problems behind the World Bank figures, which I have documented through my blog, radio programs, short films, and published articles.

When reporters break domestic and international news, they too must include these stories for the macro-trends to have significance. How can one communicate the meaning of a higher gas price, without a bus driver’s worries, or the significance of scarce credit, without a small businessman’s struggles? For readers, macro-trends are meaningless without case studies. Peace Corps service has rendered this journalistic responsibility intuitive, which will serve me well as I pursue a career in international reporting.

Nevertheless, equally fundamental to good reporting is an understanding of the international political and economic framework that causes, contextualizes, and is ultimately affected by these daily struggles. What underlying factors provoked the high oil prices internationally that led to bus strikes locally? One bus driver’s struggle is poignant, but meaningless, if not couched in the broader issues that represent, cause, and are shaped by it.

I seek admission to garner a sound framework that extends around the world and into recent history; one that encapsulates markets and governments, as well as people, cultures and languages; one that will allow me to become a balanced, responsible, international reporter, with an emphasis on environmental, energy and social issues in Africa.

It’s Saturday and there are no students in the courtyard of Pedro Badejo’s Vocational Education School. The sun is shining on a series of Greek arches---the final exams of the school’s stone masonry students--giving the school courtyard the odd feel of an ancient mosque. Andrew is standing beside a table saw talking to the wood shop professor.

The wood shop teacher flips the switch and the two excitedly watch as the saw begins to spin: Pedro Badejo’s technical school hasn’t had electricity in about a month, which hasn’t exactly made it easy for Andrew to begin teaching electrical wiring to his students. A strong wind blows through the courtyard and the saw slows, stops, and begins turning in the opposite direction. The two chuckle. No more power.

Andrew is a first year Peace Corps Volunteer, a recent electrical engineering graduate of Drexel University, and the son of Columbian immigrants, who wouldn’t have made it to the United States if it hadn’t been for the Peace Corps, Andrew says. “Like all other volunteers, I guess, [I joined because] I wanted to help out…I really saw the impact first hand of another generation of Peace Corps volunteers.”

His mother and father, Aura Maria Rosa Vernaza and Jorge Enrique Vernaza, immigrated to the United States in 1976, eventually settling in Mount Laurel, New Jersey to raise their two sons. His father learned English from an ESL volunteer at the Universidad de Valle in Bogotá where he studied engineering. His excellent English skills aided him in his embassy interview and subsequent transition to America. His mother, from the rural suburb of Tenza, watched as an irrigation volunteer helped her family greatly improve their farm’s efficiency. “We still go back there for vacation and eat the tomatoes. They’re really good,” says Andrew. “The reason the farm is still in the my family is probably because of that Peace Corps Volunteer…My family really understands the impact Peace Corps has had on their lives.”

Andrew joined the Peace Corps to give back, a decision he is still committed to, though his job isn’t always easy. “I’m not a teacher, I engineer things,” he says. As he glowingly describes “cool circuits” like burglar alarms, it’s easy to imagine he is happiest when working on his own experiments.

Teaching, he explains, “is so frustrating sometimes. Once we were doing this problem with the equation V=IR. Its like the most important equation of electricity.” He writes it, voltage equals resistance times current. “I gave the students simple numbers for resistance and voltage, but they couldn’t come up with the current. They hadn’t learned that you could divide both sides of the equation by the same number. A lot of them didn’t go to high school and don’t have basic math skills.”

Nevertheless, there are definite eureka moments.

A student once confessed to Andrew after class that she still didn’t understand an equation. “I just couldn’t explain it again, so I asked this other student if he could.” The student answered that he thought so.

“And then he just totally nailed it,” Andrew recalls. “He derived the entire equation perfectly, and the girl got it, and I hadn’t said a thing. I was like, ‘oh my god, I think I have just built capacity.’”

We leave the school and head down the road to the stadium where his students have a soccer match. Half-clad children run across the cobbled road, which narrows to a few feet in places where most of the stones are missing. Unpainted rectangular cement homes line the hilly, winding street that descends towards the expansive ocean, which eats up most of the horizon. A few women wash clothes in cement basins. Most people sit on stools and stone walls along the side of the street that still has a sliver of shade.

While Cape Verde is one of the most prosperous countries in West Africa, Pedro Badejo is among the poorest towns on the island of Santiago, with frequent power outages, high unemployment, and poor infrastructure. “It doesn’t make sense that the only school specializing in electricity is in this poor town with bad power.”

But Andrew is working on that. In the evenings he repairs broken street lamps with some of his motivated students. He is writing a proposal to install a wind turbine at the school that would generate power to offset the malfunctioning generator, and allow him to teach his students about renewable energies, an increasingly important field for a country with no petroleum resources and growing electricity demand.

For other challenges, Andrew turns to his parents. “I was complaining to my mom about not having running water. And she was like ‘you should do what we used to do—soak a towel in water and shower with that.”

Many of Andrew’s anecdotes about Columbia are funny or touching. But when he explains that drug-related violence claimed the lives of his father’s two brothers, you are reminded of the real suffering that Columbia’s infamous problems mean for its people.

And yet, knowing what his parents escaped from--and seeing how far they got—gives Andrew a clear sense of what he can achieve in Cape Verde. “The Peace Corps gives hope. If we weren’t here, they wouldn’t know their abilities. When I leave here they will say, ‘Oh I can do that.’”

When other volunteers second-guess the Peace Corps’ potential for making a difference, Andrew unthinkingly replies, “Volunteers have an impact. You probably won’t ever get to see it, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have one. Twenty years from now, someone may do something because of something you said and you will have no idea.”

We reach the stadium, a cement, walled-basketball court on the edge of town. Andrew’s students, the red shirted “biscuits”, file by and greet Andrew before the game starts.

“See that one, number eight?” He points to a player. “That’s the one I was telling you about, who explained the equation. He is super motivated. Sometimes he asks if we can go fix another lamppost and I am like, ‘how about tomorrow, ok?’”

Andrew leans forward as one of his student shoots on goal, and then continues.

“Maybe he won’t get to America. But he will get a good job, give a good life to his kids, and maybe they will be able to go.”

It’s summer in Praia and it’s so hot I can barely keep my clothes on. There are several shirts strewn around the floor, tossed down around 1:00 pm each day when I get home for lunch. Yesterday’s is still soggy.

Today is Saturday and I am back from the beach, sandy and hot. I open the faucet more out of curiosity than hope or expectation. Still nothing. Not even the trickle of the last few days. I peer into the blue plastic barrel that holds our water reserves. The shimmering circles around my reflection are far away, four feet down and maybe a foot up from the bottom. By Monday, it will have been two weeks without water.

I look around the kitchen, prioritizing. The dishes march across our spacious counter. At mealtime, we either eat out, or on chopping boards and Tupperware tops. Still, dish washing is not a priority. The kitchen floor is covered with brown blotches, from the days when there was enough water for it to spill from the sink and mix with the ubiquitous dust. This muck too is not a priority. I have two more pairs of grandma underwear—the kind you almost throw away every few months but for some clairvoyant voice that warns you of it would be rash. Looking nice at work is getting challenging… but laundry is still not a priority.

It’s the murky smelly toilet, the vacuous drinking water filter, and the bathtub—oddly devoid of water droplets--that have to come first. The two of us—my roommate and I, sworn joggers, who easily chug several 1.5-liter-bottles of water a day, who dump copious amounts of it down our long tresses, and who always gut up for mysterious street food only to repent before the porcelain god later that night—use a lot of water. Drinking, Bathing, Sanitation. There they are, our water priorities in descending order.

The reason for our water problem, we learned finally, was a neighbor’s unpaid water bills. But water outages arbitrarily afflict different neighborhoods in Praia on a fairly regular basis. 58% of urban residents are connected to the central network. 88% of the water from the networks comes from desalinization. Desalinization, the process of turning salty seawater into potable drinking water, is the country’s main response to low rainfall and dwindling subsoil resources. It is energy intensive, requiring 2-3 kilowatt hours to produce a cubic meter of water. When Electra, the national electricity and water company, runs out of diesel fuel to power desalinization, water is cut intermittently in different neighborhoods to ration use. Periodic malfunctions in the pipes also provoke cuts. When you’re not in the mood to tackle last night’s dishware, it’s awesome. When you’re fresh out of even the most inelastic of underwear, it’s infuriatingly uncivilized.

Lack of resources, insufficient financing, and poor management are clearly at play here. But there is a greater significance. It’s relative water consumption. My roommate and I--two Americans accustomed to infinite sprinkler systems, bountiful toilets that flush at will, and faucets left running while teeth are brushed-- can’t make a barrel of water last a week. A barrel contains 240 liters, or just under a quarter of a cubic meter. How long could a Cape Verdean family make that barrel last, without ever having to forgo clean dishes, floors, and snugly fitting underwear?

On average, rural Cape Verdeans consume 15-25 liters of water in a day. City dwellers consume roughly 40. It is thanks to residents’ conservative use of water that Cape Verde’s water situation is even tenable.

But what would happen if our Praia neighbors suddenly began to consume like Emily, me and other Americans? Americans consume 200-300 liters per person per day, for domestic use alone. That’s between five and twenty times as much as Cape Verdeans. Such an enormous growth in consumption would overwhelm a system that already struggles to meet current water needs.

Ok, but is it likely that 500,000 Cape Verdean residents suddenly start using 20 times more water? Nope. Electra has registered only modest average growth in demand of 4.4%, per year over the past five years (and actually recorded a 3% drop from 2006-2007). The world financial crisis may serve to slow growth further.

Still, our hypothetical situation is not off the mark for global trends. In quickly developing countries like China and India, more and more people are reaching a point of affluence that allows them to consume like Westerners. In one sense, it’s wonderful to see high standards of living reach previously impoverished countries. On the other hand, the earth can barely support the excessive consumption of one America. How can it support the excessive consumption of many?

In “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” Tom Freidman quantifies the problem. “Not only will the world’s population grow from around three billion in 1955 to a projected 9 billion by 2050, but—much, much more important—we will go from a world population in which maybe one billion people were living an “American” lifestyle to a world in which two or three billion people are living an American lifestyle or aspiring to do so.”

Jeffrey Diamond breaks down the numbers in a fabulous January, 2008 New York Times article. The 1 billions people who live in Japan, Australia, Western Europe and North America consume about 32 times as much water, metals, and oil as most people living in developing countries. So, for example, when Kenya’s population balloons, as it is expected to, it will still take 32 Kenyans to consume as much as one American. That’s grossly unfair, but it means we can worry less about the impact of population growth impact on global resources, right?

Wrong. China and India are catching up quickly. China’s 1.3 billion people, according to Diamond, currently consume at a factor of 21.

“China's catching up alone would roughly double world consumption rates. Oil consumption would increase by 106 percent, for instance, and world metal consumption by 94 percent...If the whole developing world were suddenly to catch up, world rates would increase elevenfold. It would be as if the world population ballooned to 72 billion people (retaining present consumption rates).”

So what to do? How can we eliminate socio-economic inequalities---that leave Kenyans consuming 1/32 of the water we do---without destroying the planet? Moreover, how can we convince developing countries, eager to finally achieve the high living standards we have enjoyed for so long, to pitch in and fight the environmental problems that we created pretty much on our own? Says Freidman: “As an Egyptian cabinet minister remarked to me: ‘It is like the developed world ate all the hors d’ouvres, all the entrees, and all the desserts and then invited the developing world for a little coffee’ and asked us to split the whole bill.”

We Americans can, at the very least, set an example, by reducing the consumption that so many poor countries seek to emulate. As Freidman says, in his book,

“I certainly don’t blame the citizens of Doha or Dalian for aspiring to an American lifestyle or for opting to build it on the same cheap-fossil-fuel foundation that we did….We Americans are in no position to lecture anyone. But we are in the position to know better. We are in a position to set a different example of growth. We are in a position to use our resources and know how to invent the renewable, clean, power sources and energy efficient systems that can make growth greener.”

It is going to be hard. Neither prices nor government legislation have forced us to do it yet. Most Americans today have never had to limit resource use and cannot directly observe the effects of unequal consumption or resource depletion, which could shock us into behavior change.

Emily and I are lucky: each period of forcible grandma underwear use has ingrained in us the preciousness of water, and other resources that are already scarce in parts of the developing world. Will we retain this awareness, when we return to the land of sprinklers and motion sensor toilets? Will we effectively communicate it to other Americans to bring about behavior change? Who knows? But it’s the 9 billion person question.

It was just a B. I had drawn them many times with the standard Cape Verdean blue pen—four white rings around the base and tip, a pinched top, in the hands of students or guards or secretaries. This particular pen belonged to the U.S. Embassy in downtime Praia. A thick glass separated the waiting room from the office. It would have made any American convenience store owner weep with envy. There was a cooler with amazingly cold water, posters about visas in Portuguese and English. And now a blue “b” drawn on a write-in ballot.

President/Vice President. Home address. Date of birth.

I liked writing his name, but it felt silly. After so much pomp, it had come down to this? To me, holding a pen, trying to remember how to spell his name? I thought about chads, about how the devil is in the details, and how “e” misleadingly comes before “i” in “Hussein”. That our hallowed democracies should depend, even in part, on the orthography of its dyslexic citizens abroad!

I also had butterflies. My bizarre Peace Corps extra-curricular—of plopping down at the internet to watch debate footage in buffering jolts, to scan opinion pages, and forwarded op/eds—had been silly, when my daily conversations were about corn and rain and zouk songs. But suddenly it was relevant. I was a part of that strange parallel universe of "bailouts" and "surges". So much so that though it affected me little, I could affect it. No matter how far away, how uninformed, or how dyslexic, I got to help pick.

B.

A-R-A-C-K.

Barack Hussein Obama/Biden.

(Joe, right? Yeah, Joe.)

Mariama looks at me.

“You suck at this,” she says.

She is seated on an overturned mortar, removing chunks of ginger from the caldron of juice. It is pungent and opaque, almost ready for the children who will purchase it in plastic bags after school.

“I know,” I say.

My job is to peel open the baggies for the juice. It is like prying a piece of masking tape off a sheet of plastic wrap, except less fun. My fingers are red, my eyes ache, and I’ve opened about ten bags.

Teneh laughs and leans towards me. The mayor’s wife, her hair is elaborately braided, her complet new and starchy. Today she has a bad cold. Her eyes are small and watery. Seated on a stool beside me, she sniffles and snot droplets fall on the dust.

“Tubabu,” she rolls her eyes, smiling. “White people.” She snatches a pile of unopened bags off my lap. She grasps one and blows deeply into it.

“TENEH!” I yell.

She is startled. Mariama stops stirring. They stare at me.

“Uh, bad things, the cold, bad, in the thing there,” I say in Malinke. “Person drink juice, bad thing there, cough cough bad.”

Teneh stares at me and then she gets it. She starts to laugh. It’s deep and throaty with phlegm. Tears of mirth and cold germs dripping down her cheeks, she turns to Mariama, who is still confused.

“Listen to this: tubabu is saying that if I blow into this bag, and someone drinks the juice--are you listening?--Then they are going to get sick, too.”

Mariama jerks forward. “Get sick? From drinking juice? No way! Are you serious!?!”

Teneh yells to a group of farmers who have appeared around the corner. “Mamadi! Sidi! Come listen to this!” They file over to her and form a wall of loud ridicule.

“Germs cause disease! Germs cause disease!” I keep insisting. Western science is as useless to me here as my usually potent powers of persuasion. To them, I am hysterical, absurd. I am funny to look at, I lose half a bucket of water every time I carry it home from the pump, and my prepositions are a mess. And now this.

A childlike petulance wells up inside me. Where is teacher? Who will tell them I’m right? Just think how they’ll feel when they find out I’m right!

But there’s no teacher. The doctor is out of town. Educated Guineans, other volunteers, America, are too far away to tell them I’m right.

I run to my hut and I sulk, with a profound sense of entitlement. I came all this way to help and no one listens! If people won’t even trust me on basic western science, how will they ever be open to my other ideas?

These issues grated, but what really upset me was that nobody liked me. My best friends, Mariama and Teneh, thought I was a fool. They would tell their families that night over dinner and have another good laugh. From then on, people would surely laugh and retell the story every time they bought juice.

I lay under the mosquito net, contemplating early termination. Strangely, what popped into my head were those painfully obvious adages from anti-drug campaigns and the biographies of great men. “You have to believe in yourself.” “There’s no guarantee people will accept you even when you are right.’ “You mustn’t rely on the approval of others.” So this is what they meant. Those vacant, hackneyed phrases from so many mandatory middle school reading lists actually meant something quite valuable.

How strange to learn it in a village in Africa! How strange to let the opinion of foreign villagers matter so much that I might learn it here!

But it really makes perfect sense: being inescapably absurd for two years to strangers (who can’t help but become your peer group) is arguably the best lesson in strength of character. If everything I do is crazy, I must give up on being sane. If I give up on being sane, I can promote crazy new ideas, weed out the open-minded people in town, dance miserably and unabashedly in a drum circle. Maybe I can even go back to America and do the same thing.

It wasn’t easy being the lone believer in germs in Banfele. I got a cold, along with everyone else, a few days after the vendors started sneezing. I got ridiculed if I suggested the existence of disease vectors, and I never knew if anyone changed their minds. All I know for sure is that so many needless episodes of sinusitis resulted in my acceptance of being unaccepted, arguably the best outcome of Peace Corps service---and excessive phlegm--ever.

“So there we are, cleaning the gutter, and Mary looks in the drainpipe, and guess what?” Bob leans forward. The sweat on his forehead matches the condensation on his margarita glass. It is 8 pm, a muggy summer evening in Austin, and the sky above the deck is still bright.

“You’ll really never believe it!” Mary stands behind his chair.

“What?” Brenda asks.

“It was our cat! She had come back!”

“No!” Paul says. His bite-size carrot stands erect in the hummus bowl.

“She had come back?! Ah, I bet you were just…” Brenda searches the deck floor for the word.

“Just flummoxed!” Mary says. “What was it, four weeks, five weeks later?

Bob nods. “We were really surprised.”

All pause, relishing the significance. Minutes before, I had told them of my Guinean village, how my friends get skinny each rainy season, when last year’s harvest has been consumed, but this year’s crop is just being planted, and Ramadan keeps them from eating all day anyway. They had paused with the same solemnity.

Luckily, I didn’t need people to be curious about Africa. After a year of unpaid therapy from Volunteers in Cape Verde, I didn’t have the urge to pour my heart out about Guinea anymore. Cape Verde, to which I would be returning shortly, didn’t elicit the same nostalgia in me that begets long and painful monologues...

..which was fortunate, given my stateside reception: “How was Africa?” people typically asked. “Good,” I replied, and we moved on to gas prices, i-phones, the fist bump, and other topics currently transfixing the American psyche.

I honestly didn’t judge: it’s human nature to be uncurious about things beyond your worldview, I reasoned, things about which you know so little that it’s hard to formulate good questions. Americans, with its economic might, vast territory and autonomous entertainment industry, may be a bit more prone to it. But for that very reason, it's even harder to condemn. And besides, I was thrilled to talk about the iphone myself (you can use it to turn on your itunes!).

So when a few curious guests approached me at a homecoming party and requested a speech, I declined.

“If people are interested, they will ask me privately.”

“But will have to repeat yourself!” they protested.

“Trust me, I won’t,” I smiled. “Since most aren’t interested and since I don’t need to talk about it, it just doesn't make sense.”

Then someone asked what I would pursue after Peace Corps.

“Journalism.”

“Why?”

“Because I think the first step in human rights and economic development is getting more attention to suffering people. The media does a great job at spurring awareness, and that is what leads to government and NGO projects, and ultimately change.”

I started. I’ve just stated why I needed to give the speech, I thought. I was so proud of myself for not needing attention that I was actually undermining an opportunity to get Africa attention.

“So I’m just going to talk a little bit about what I’ve been doing in Guinea and Cape Verde and then I’ll let you ask me questions if you have any.”

To my surprise, with a bit of background information, people asked great questions. The guests I had imagined least curious thanked me sincerely as they left. Perhaps ignorance and not lack of curiousity was the real reason for the apparent disinterest; even the iphone had to be hyped a bit before we cared about it.

Looking down at the tray table in front of me, I see the wad of neatly folded American dollars peaking out of my bra. For two and a half years I have guarded my money this way. In Guinea, Mali and Cape Verde, this improvised wallet had done good by me.

But what’s there is crisp and green now, the color of money spent in a country where currency is placed unthinkingly in wallets, where unclasp purses are swung carelessly on city streets at night, where crime happens but I do not stand out, and where abundance—so unfair among nations and so destructive to the environment—is uplifting to behold. I am going home, home to America!

Escalators, hallways, baggage carousels. Things are vast, shiny and efficient. The softly lilting Cape Verdean Creole of the other passengers mixes with the harsh Boston accent of my language spoken everywhere. English, you all speak English! I watch customs officials and janitors. “Tudo bom?” escapes every time I try to greet someone.

“Hi, how are you?” I say as the customs official takes my passport.

“Good. You?”

“I am so good!” I breathe. “I’ve been in the Peace Corps in Africa for two and a half years and I am so happy to be back in America!”

“You sound like your nose is stopped up,” he says, turning to another official with a look of “crazy”.

Don’t be too warm with strangers in America

In the baggage room, a stream of antsy passengers circulates from the carousal to the Dunkin’ Donuts. Its 10 pm. Could the Americans be hungry? Or do they eat because they can’t sit still?

I approach the check-in counter for my flight to Austin. An idle attendant directs me to a row of computers. You’re human, and unoccupied. Can’t you help me? The computers, manipulated expertly by travelers, are daunting.

“Good morning,” my machine says disarmingly. “You will need your airplane ticket, license, or passport to proceed.”

I have all of those! I am totally gonna rock this.

Grasping all three documents, I pass them under the machine’s red-lit scanner. Nothing. I flip them over, alternating circular motions with left-to-right jazz-hand movements. A few travelers glance over, but my machine relentlessly wishes me a “good morning.”

You see, I’m not from here. It’s a lie, but it doesn’t seem like it is.

We board, and Massachusetts’ deep forests, curving rivers and neat suburbs open up below us. New England---not even our nation’s greatest environmental treasure--is astoundingly vast and lush, dwarfing the images of Cape Verde’s miniature barren peaks and sandy planes that slip into my head.

But surprisingly, instead of awe, I am reminded of an essay question from US History class: How was the North’s civil war victory predestined from before the war? The North, enfeebled by its comparative agricultural weakness, was forced to develop the industry—for roads, railroads, arms—that allowed it to prevail in the war. The South, blessed with long growing seasons and abundant harvests, was never compelled to build the technology necessary for military success.

Cape Verde—barely larger than Rhode Island, with a population smaller than Albuquerque’s, whose list of natural resources is topped off with “salt and basalt rock”---is investing in renewable energies. Its government has pledged to attain 50% renewable energy by 2020. The US has not signed the Kyoto protocol. Renewable energy accounts for 6% of total US energy consumption. Has American timber, hydraulic power, oil, and arable land rendered us complacent, an ironic victim of incidental gifts, as the long summers rendered the Civil War South?

“Salt, basalt rock, limestone, kaolin, fish, clay, gypsum.” So reads the finite list of Cape Verde’s natural resources, giving insight into the tremendous challenge that existence here has always posed. And yet, in a world where the price of fossil fuels climbs ever higher, Cape Verde has at least been blessed with the need to innovate. Critical deficiencies in water, agriculture and energy are compelling the country to become an innovator, and maybe a leader, in exciting new technologies, from growing plants without soil, to capturing water from the fog.

But the difficulties are formidable, and the lack of water is perhaps the most. Rainfall averages 200mm per year, barely enough to replenish the natural springs that supply much of the rural population with water. As the springs slowly dry up, salt water is seeping into the aquifers, contaminating the sources that remain.

Desalinisation technologies provide water to the majority of urban residents but is very expensive (see box).Agriculture presents challenges also. Throughout Cape Verdean history, severe droughts have caused epic famines, killing thousands and driving many abroad. Erosion, caused by agriculture, grazing, and wood-gathering in a delicate ecosystem, has decreased the quality of the soil, while much of the country was originally sand and rocky mountain slope anyway. Indeed, only 10% of Cape Verde’s 4,033km2[[?]] of land mass is arable and home-grown food provides only 10-20% of what is consumed. Nevertheless, a large number of Cape Verdeans are still involved in agricultural activities, planting corn, beans, peanuts, squash, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, bananas and other crops each year. Some farmers plant corn only for animal fodder, knowing it will not reach maturity.

The rest of Cape Verde's food is imported, and transportation requires energy --another scarce commodity for a country with no fuel reserves. The country also needs fuel for depends on electricity, for cooking (butane gas) and for desalinsation (see box). Cape Verde spent EE54.4m on petroleum derivatives in 2007 alone, and domestic fuel taxes are high compared with other African nations. When local prices for gas and diesel climbed to EE1.28 and 1.32 per litre [[?]]respectively in early 2008, hiace drivers on Santiago called a strike, protesting at the government’s high gas tax. In the meantime, rural Cape Verdeans rely largely on dwindling forest resources for their cooking needs to supplement expensive butane gas. This constitutes a great pressure on Cape Verde’s fragile ecosystem. With the rising tourism, and population growth of about 2% the demand for cheap, abundant energy will only rise.

Precisely because of the gravity of these challenges, Cape Verde, with the help of foreign governments and NGOs, is trying to pioneer green technologies. The country has promised to achieve 25% renewable energies by 2010, a figure that should rise to 50% by 2020. Cape Verde also hopes to have one island with 100% renewable electricity by 2020. It is offering tax deductions for expenses related to renewable energies.

With 3,000 hours of sunlight per year, Cape Verde has promoted solar energy to pump and heat water, and to illuminate homes in remote areas. The Cape Verdean government and the European Union have begun a campaign to disseminate solar water pumps to 30 rural communities on Santiago. That will go far to help rural Cape Verdeans, most of whom make up the 40% of the population that still lacks electricity.

In one rural community in Serra Malagueta, a pilot project sponsored by the Protected Areas Programme is underway to disseminate more efficient wood stoves. It aims to reduce wood use among residents who can’t afford butane gas for cooking, thereby protecting the endangered forests.

Wind energy is another promising technology (see box). In consultation with the Danish company Wave Star, the government also began exploring the possibility of wave technology for electrical power generation. Still in the test phase, Wave Star’s machine consists of 20 half submerged hemisphere-shaped floats that float upward when a wave passes. Ocean waves offer a more potent and constant energy than wind. Still, wave technology must overcome the formidable challenge of keeping costs low while resisting storms and salt damage over the long term.

The government has also begun considering a floating nuclear island to supply 70 megawatts of energy, which would meet Santiago and Maio’s total energy needs. The nuclear material would be provided by the Russian Company Rosenergoatom, who would also be responsible for removing and treating the waste. Though it would provide cheap and abundant energy, the proposal is vcontroversial and still in the early stages.

Cape Verde is also innovating in water, in part, through fog collectors (see box).

Agricultural innovations are perhaps even more promising, with the advent of hydroponics and the spread of drip irrigation. Drip irrigation, called gota-gota or “drip-drip” locally, utilises a series of plastic tubes running the length of plant bed. They feature tiny holes that allow water to pinpoint the plant roots alone, bringing water use down by 80%, and diminishing weed growth. Materials are somewhat expensive and must be replaced after 3--5 years. However, the technology allows for year-round cultivation, and local governments and NGOs are helping to fund it so, of the 17% of farming families who use some sort of irrigation, 45% use gota-gota.

Soilless culture, or hydroponics, incurs astronomical start-up costs but cuts water use by 90--95% percent, land use by 90%, and produces much healthier crops (see box). Cape Verde is still far from the paragon of green technologies it could be, and may need to become, to deal effectively with rising fuel prices and its own historic lack of resources. Hopefully by 2020, the efforts underway now will be paying off.

Deep in the heart of Sal’s desolate moonscape, amid boulders and barren sand dunes, you might just come across a 30-centimeter cucumber. A desert mirage? Hardly. Robust cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, peppers and other crops are harvested year-round from Milot’s 15.500 kilometer farm thanks to a promising technology called hydroponics.

Hydroponics is soil-less culture (“hydro” water, “ponos”, labour). Developed by Germans in the 1860’s, it features the use of nutrient solution in place of soil, which allows for more robust yields and greatly reduces water use. While hydroponics is practiced widely in Europe, the Americas and the Middle East, it is nascent in Cape Verde, where low rainfall and little arable land (only 10% of total land mass) make it an ideal candidate for the technology. Hydroponic farms currently operate in Sao Francisco (Tom Drescher’s “VenteSol Cultura Hidroponica e Turistica” ) and Sao Domingos on Santiago in addition to Sal, while adult education classes in Santiago aim to expand it.

While techniques vary, one of the most popular is the Nutrient Film Technique (NFT). In this system, a shallow stream of nutrient-rich water flows constantly along a slightly tilted trough, which holds the plants. A non-soil medium like gravel may be used to anchor the plants, while a mechanized pump ensures a constant flow of nutrients, air and water. Usually a mesh enclosure covers the crop, retaining moisture and protecting against insects.

The advantages are tremendous. Water input is reportedly between 1/10 and 1/20 of that necessary for normal agriculture, even less than drip irrigation. That’s because no water is wasted through soil absorption or excess evaporation, and because water can be recycled through the trough. Hydroponics also uses only 1/10 the land required for normal agriculture. Indeed, it can be implemented anywhere, year round, and calls for no weeding or ground preparation. Crops are usually healthy and mature quickly, because the microbes that cause weak plant growth reside only in soil, and hydroponics allows you to control the ratio of nutrients in the solution exactly.

Still, overhead costs are high. One farmer estimated spending 6,000-7,000 euro to set up his 500-meter farm. Nevertheless, monthly yields were so good that he had recouped his investment after only seven months. Operation costs are also a factor since NFT requires constant energy to keep the water flowing. In fact, with no soil moisture reservoir, plants are prone to die quickly if watering ceases even briefly. Certain plants with deeper roots are more challenging if not impossibly to grow hydroponically.

While hydroponics is still novel in Cape Verde, diminishing rains, rising import costs, and a growing tourist market may render it essential. As the technology grows, don’t be surprised to find cucumbers in the country’s most barren landscapes.

Sweeping across the Caribbean and Africa, the alize trade winds have brought ships to Cape Verde’s shores and dust into newly swept homes each summer for centuries. But today, these winds may prove more useful than ever, fueling a clean, renewable energy that powers homes and businesses, and reduces dependence on foreign oil.

Wind energy has a long history. For centuries peoples have harnessed the wind’s power to sail ships, crush grain, pump water, and cut wood. Fossil fuels virtually replaced it by the 1930’s, but oil shortages in the 70’s forced many countries to revisit it. Today, just over 1% of world energy comes from wind, but wind generates 19% of energy in Denmark, while Germany, the U.S. and Spain each produce more than 15,000 Mega-Watts of wind power.

In sharp contrast, only 3-5% of Cape Verde’s energy comes from wind. But with wind speeds averaging 5-9.7 m/s2, and electricity demand increasing by 8-15% per year, wind has huge potential. Electra built its first wind park on Sao Vicente in 1989, and today there are three functioning wind parks on Sal, Sao Vicente, and Santiago. In concert, they contribute 15,000 kW to the electricity grid.

Each of these wind parks is composed of 2 or 3 wind turbines, each with a rotor, a generator, and a tower. The rotor captures the kinetic energy of the wind through blades designed to be lifted by the wind, similar to airplane wings. The motion then drives the generator to produce electricity.

One major constraint is financing. With each turbine costing many thousands of U.S. dollars, and producing at best 322 kWh per month, each one will pay for itself only after 4.5 years. Fortunately, Infraco, a US company, in collaboration with the Cape Verdean government with invest 40 million euros to build new plants on four islands, increasing the power to 17% -25% of total energy production. Wind power will then total 20-25MW.

Wind is highly erratic--changing direction and intensity---wind energy is difficult to store. That makes wind an “intermittent generator”, meaning its guaranteed output must be valued at zero, and therefore that diesel capacity must be able to meet 100% of demand. Wind’s intermittency is what prevents it from supplying more than 25% of any country’s total energy.

Current efforts aim to address these difficulties. A proposed Thermo-Wind-Solar Power Plant could provide constant, storable energy by generating thermal energy. Wind would be used only as a cold source, while the soil, oceans or warm water sources on Santo Antao would provide the warm source.

Proposals like these are promising, but their implementation is urgent, if Cape Verde is to meet its goal of 50% renewable energy by 2020. If they do, it will be worth catching wind of.

What could be less thirst-quenching than a mouthful of salty seawater? Perhaps nothing, thanks to desalinization plants that are turning salt water into one of the most widespread sources of drinking water for Cape Verdeans. With 965 kilometers of coastline, and dwindling underground sources, the arid nation has reason to seek solutions to its water problem through desalination. Plants on Sal, Boa Vista, in Praia, on Maio and on Sao Vicente--managed by Electra, the state owned energy company, and Aguas da Ponta Preta, a private enterprise--produce roughly 4,109,229 cubic meters of water annually. That supplies almost 30,000 Cape Verdeans with water and means that ocean-bathers are not the only ones drinking seawater regularly.

While plant technologies vary, the preferred, and most pervasive method in Cape Verde is Reverse Osmosis (RO). In regular osmosis, the solvent (in this case, salt) moves from an area of high concentration to a lower one through a semi-permeable membrane, equalizing the substance’s distribution. In contrast, during Reverse Osmosis, the salt water is pressurized to encourage highly concentrated salt water to separate from clean water, which collects on the opposite side of the semi-permeable membrane. Once this water’s salinity has decreased from about 38,500 mg of salt per liter to 400, it is treated and sent to a holding tank. RO Plants in Cape Verde produce between 1,000 and 5,000 cubic meters of water per day respectively.

RO boasts lower installation costs and is cheaper that Vapor Compression Distillation, and Mult-effect distillation, two other desalinization technologies used in Cape Verde. Still, operation is far more expensive than other water collection methods, like drilling and rainwater collection. Even modern RO plants that recycle energy require between 2 and 3 kwh per cubic meter of water. That is an enormous amount of energy for an island nation that must import most of its energy, especially when a single kilowatt hour costs about $0.30 US dollars. For a 1,000 cubic meter capacity plant, that’s about $600-900 dollars a day.

Moreover, because only 43% of the seawater is converted to potable water, the remainder—a highly saline “brine”-- is dumped back into the ocean. Scientists assert this saline concentrate is very harmful to marine life.

Other forms of desalinization are being tested to address these problems. Two Peace Corps volunteers, Brian Newhouse and Nick Hanson, are working with students at Assomada’s technical school to develop solar stills that use sunlight alone to convert seawater into fresh water. As sun light filters through a glass pane, the salt water heats and evaporates within the hot black box. Fresh water condenses on the glass, dripping down into a catch basin. While construction costs are low and materials readily available, so far the prototype produces only about two liters a day.

Nevertheless, Cape Verde is counting on desalinization for the future. Two new RO plants are under construction in Santiago’s Interior, which will produce a combined total of 12,000 cubic meters of water per day. Public-private partnerships modeled on “Aguas do Porto Novo”, established in 2007 on Santo Antao, will likely sprout up elsewhere, while private golf courses and hotels will continue to run their own private desal plants. If all goes according to planned, underground water sources will be left exclusively to agriculture and Cape Verdeans—ocean-bathers and otherwise--will drink seawater everyday.

High along the jagged cliffs of Serra Malagueta Natural Park, a series of green nets billow in the wind, like a half erected modern art installation. They are, in reality, fog collectors that harvest water from the clouds that shroud the park in almost year-round mist. The technology is simple: water collects along the mesh surface, forming droplets that fall into a gutter below. The water passes through a tube, arriving in a tank to be distributed to communities.

How much water could that possibly provide? More than you might think. Fog contains .05 to 3 grams of water per cubic meter. Serra Malagueta, which receives only about 900 mm of rainfall per year, has a semi-permanent layer of “stratocumulus”—low lying clouds—pushed upwards from the coast by the mountains themselves. Thanks to these clouds, Serra Malagueta’s 120 meters of netting (8 installations) produce approximately liters per day, with production reaching 75 liters per meter of net per day in the rainy season. That’s a big help for the park’s 488 families, who rely principally on local springs, wells, and private cisterns for their water. As rainfall diminishes and ground sources dry up, 80% of the community continues to work in agriculture, making fog water a much needed alternative.

Fog collectors were first developed in Chile in 1987. Before researchers installed nets in Chungungo, this high-fog, low-precipitation community had always depended on trucked-in water. Now it is able sustain itself and even grown crops and trees. South Africa, the Dominican Republic, Israel, the Canary islands and Nepal are also benefiting from this ingenious technology.

The benefits are manifold. Fog water is free from microbes that contaminate ground water, requiring no treatment. Construction materials—mesh, plastic tubing, and wood or metal poles--are cheap and readily accessible worldwide. The most challenging aspect is positioning the nets accurately.

Despite the enormous potential, fog harvesting does not constitute a major source of water in Cape Verde. While 1133 hectars are considered sufficiently foggy, fog is currently harvested only on Santiago (though experiments have been conducted on Fogo, Sao Vicente sao Nicolau, Santo Antao and Brava as well). With steep desalinization costs, dwindling sub-soil resources, and abundant foggy areas, fog harvesting may yet become a viable solution for highland areas. National output potential is estimated at several million meters cubed of water per year. At that rate, a lot more people may be drinking clouds in the near future.

Eking a living out of these dry islands has never been easy: with no rain and no natural resources, existence has often been precarious in Cape Verde. Still, there were certain points in Cape Verde’s history when it did make economic sense for people to live here. In the 16th century, the lucrative slave trade along the Guinea coast turned these islands into an important trading center. Slavers who wanted to avoid the dangerous coast could pay a higher price for pre-selected, baptized slaves here.

Years after the decline of slavery, the coal-powered transatlantic shipping of the 19th century made Sao Vicente’s natural port an important victualling station. Its deep, calm harbor, halfway between Europe and South America, was an ideal spot to stop for provisions.

When steam, and later airplanes replaced coal on the world stage, it seemed Cape Verde had again lost its financial base. But in reality, a new era of industry was emerging with tremendous economic potential. Mussolini built an airport on Sal in 1939, for better access to Latin America. It returned to Portuguese hands in 1945, but a powerful phenomenon was underway.

Thanks to the airport, Sal became the major refueling point for South African Airlines, which was barred from most African countries, in protest of its apartheid regime. To lodge SAA staff, Georges Vynckier, a Belgian businessman, built the “Pousada Morabeza”, a small guest in 1967. Europeans began visiting and discovered the endless, white beaches of Sal, more lodgings were built to accommodate them, and the tourism industry began in earnest.

Hotels, condos, resorts and golf courses continue to sprout up on Sal today, but this promising industry—which registered 11.7% growth in 2007--is spreading to other islands as well. Boavista now draws some of Sal’s devoted beach-lovers, while hikers marvel at the stunning topography on Fogo and Santo Antao. The music scene and colonial history draw others to Praia and Sao Vicente. If carefully managed, tourism may herald an era of unprecedented prosperity for these infertile, windswept islands.

Ethnic conflict may be the story of many countries in Africa today, but this old saying is perhaps the extent of ethnic rivalry in Cape Verde. It compares the Badiu, who inhabit the southern islands, to their northern counterparts, the Sanpadjudu. Both are descended from the same mix of African tribes and Portuguese that settled the islands 500 years ago. They speak dialects of the same Creole, root for the same soccer teams, and vote for both political parties.

Yet there are notable differences. The quaint farmhouses, the lighter complexions, more lusophone Creole, and Portuguese-influenced morna of the north indicate the more “European” aspect of northern culture. In contrast, the darker complexions, more African Creole, and the thriving traditions of continental origin—from the raw beats of the batuk dance, to the intricate patterns of the pano de terra weaving—denote the vibrant African traditions still alive in the south.

It is said that Sanpadjudus look down on their southern counterparts as less “sophisticated”. Badius would counter that their culture is more authentically Cape Verdean, pointing out that singers from both regions usually choose to sing in Badiu Creole. ALUPEC, the current Creole alphabet, is modeled on the Badiu dialect.

These time-old stereotypes are rooted in the very origins of the names. Badiu most likely comes from the Portuguese word “vadiu” or “lazy”. It is said that the Badiu slaves ran away from their masters to farm their own plots along the steep ridges. When Portuguese masters would demand their labor, Badius would refuse. Their subsequent label “Badiu” persists as a proud symbol of defiance, even as their alleged “cracked feet” belie the truly formidable Badiu work ethnic (or lack of sophistication, as the Sanpaduju might say).

The origins of the word Sanpaduju are more obscure. Many think the term comes from the phrase “são pa’ ajuda”, “they are for helping.” This may refer to the Santiago-inhabitants who were convinced to emigrate northward, to populate and cultivate the Barlavento islands, which did not garner a sizeable population until centuries after the settlement of Santiago. Their “potato bellies”, according to Badiu lore, refer to the only crop that they managed to cultivate, despite their alleged laziness.

These stereotypes mostly serve as fuel for good-natured teasing. As Heavy H, a Sanpaduju rapper sings, “Sanpadjudu ku Badiu, nos tudo, nos e kul” (Badiu and Sanpaduju, all of us, we are cool”).

“I like it. It’s a great stove.” Maria repeated.

We stared at the cement structure, built by an “improved stoves” project over a decade earlier for residents of Cape Verde’s “Ribeira Seca”. Barely visible in the blackened kitchen, it was covered with cobwebs, scrap metal, and wood for the fire that was blazing in the traditional three-stones stove nearby.

“So why don’t you use it?” we asked again. “If the improved stove cooks faster, uses less wood, and produces less smoke, why do you still use the three stones?”

She smiled bashfully and glanced at the cachupa, the national corn dish bubbling above the stones. “It’s a great stove,” she repeated. “It’s just that.. it has a small opening. You have to cut the wood to use it.”

We peered at the wood opening. It was small, but of course it was: the point of improved stoves was to maximize wood combustion, heat retention, and heat transfer to the pot. All that would cut down on unhealthy smoke, decrease pressure on dwindling forests, and limit the arduous task of wood gathering. A small opening was fundamental to achieving these ends. Clearly, for maximum effectiveness, the well-financed team of engineers would have added such a feature.

Nevertheless, these engineers created a stove less effective than even the three stones, simply, profoundly, because no one would use it. Community rejection of an efficient stove renders it worthless, just as acceptance of an inferior model renders it optimal, if it convinces residents to abandon the inefficient traditional model. Unbeknownst to those well-intentioned engineers, one clever design feature precluded the stove from having any impact at all.

* * *

Winding up the cobbled road, past the shingled farm houses that dot the climb into the jagged mountains of Serra Malagueta Park, one instantly grasps the Park’s two major goals: to protect one of Cape Verde’s few remaining forests and to reduce poverty. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I reckoned an improved stoves project had enormous potential to tackle both of these problems. But Maria’s comment troubled me. How could we ensure that our project would sustainably impact the community and the forests, and not become another forgotten wood box in a blackened kitchen?

Judaism offers uncanny wisdom on these complex questions, which continue to baffle aid organizations today. When Rambam organized the Talmudic teachings on tzedakah into a hierarchy, he placed at the top: “enable the recipient to become self-reliant.” This idea paraphrases one of the hottest concepts in the development world: sustainable development, defined by the Peace Corps as improvements that can continue on their own without outside support. Our goal--to equip locals with a lasting way to cook cheaply, that protects their health, the trees, and saves time--serves as a good example of both concepts. But how?

Judaism might offer an answer here, too. Israel means “he who wrestles with G-d.” The Torah is filled with examples of Jews fearlessly negotiating with an all-powerful G-d. Abraham bargained for mercy on Sodom and Gomorrah, and Moses asked G-d to reconsider his punishment for the sin of the golden calf.

Perhaps from these brazen heroes emerged the Jewish value of dialogue, a fearless commitment to uncensored debate between parties at all levels, based on the assumption that good solutions only result from a truly free clash of ideas.

In the tzedakah context, this value could be interpreted as a call to consult the beneficiaries on the best way to foster self-reliance. Who, after all, has better insight into successful project design than those for whom the project is designed, even if that means building stoves with large, inefficient openings? It is still preferable to golden calves.

With that in mind, we designed a pilot project featuring several stove models that will be given to the community to test. Only after locals discuss their impressions, following a month-long trial, will we decide jointly which models to produce on a larger scale. As long as there is no actual wrestling, I think Rambam would be proud.

*Written for Panim El Panim's May Newsletter

Sources:

Using Participatory Analysis for Community Action, Peace Corps, 2005

Jews are Different by Virtue of Their Values, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, www.shmuley.com

“I was raised in grogue,” Budinho says as smoke billows from the lambique—distillery—behind him. Bubbles of Cape Verde’s historic moonshine shimmer in the coconut shell he has poured with confident strokes to check the quality. “This stuff is ready. It’s not too strong, not too bland. Have a sip.” As I let the camera face the ground, and take the shell to my mouth, I wonder what “too strong” could possibly taste like.

But grogue wasn’t always “forte”. Here in Hortelão, one of Santiago island’s more fertile valleys, grogue began as idyllic fields of sugar cane. After months of watering, the tall stalks bloomed feathery flowers, locals took machetes to their fields and grogue making season began in earnest.

In January, when I visited, bundles of cane balanced on the heads of women and children were already making their way to the trapiches. These oxen-or motor-powered machines crush the stalks to extract sweet cane juice. “A lot of people think it’s too expensive to use oxen, but some still do,” Budinho explains. When we can’t find a traditional one in action, he good-naturedly demonstrates the monotonous circular trek of the oxen as they crush the cane. “Its tiring,” he says. “And they work all night.”

After the trapiche, the cane juice is placed in barrels to ferment into an unappetizing beige liquid. After a few days, the liquid is poured into a tremendous stone caldron, the lambique. A fire lit below heats the liquid until it evaporates and passes through a tube. The tube enters a vat of cold water that converts the gas back into liquid, that is, into a clean, incredibly potent alcohol, that was first called “grogue” by English sailors some 500 years ago.

‘Its about getting a good buzz and drinking a little,” Budinho says. “You drink too much, your head spins and you fall.” Laughing, he demonstrates the motions that are not uncommon sights at the corner bars that dot towns across Cape Verde.

That good buzz depends on an ever-scarcer Cape Verdian resource: water. From cane irrigation, to lambique operation, water is an essential ingredient. With poor rainfall and salt water flooding the aquiver, access to this vital substance is increasingly threatened. “The majority of grogue is water,” Budinho says. “If you have more water, and the water is good quality, you will have more grogue and it will be high quality….If water is lacking, nothing goes well.”

Just outside Serra Malagueta’s Protected Areas office, a cluster of volunteers and Cape Verdean and American officials milled around a massive bus. Inside it, on an obscured seat sat congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-Rhode Island), nephew of the illustrious founder of the Peace Corps. With each moment of waiting, the gulf between his family’s enormous legacy of service and our own comparably paltry Peace Corps projects seemed to grow.

He dismounted, a sandy haired young man with a sincere smile. As introductions were made, thunderous beats emerged from the office. The batukadeiras of Serra Malagueta had begun pounding rhythmic beats on improvised drums to coax their leader to dance.

Suddenly, Kennedy jumped into the circle and with good-natured abandon, tied a scarf around his waste and began to gyrate himself. Batukaderias, volunteers and officials all relaxed and smiled.

The whole entourage clustered at the door, to watch: Roger Pierce, the U.S. Ambassador to Cape Verde; Patrick Dunn U.S. Chargé d’affaires; Fatima da Veiga, Cape Verdean Ambassador to the U.S.; Maria de Resereção Lopes da Silva, the Deputy of the Cape Verdean Diaspora, Dr Stahis Panagides, Director of the Millennium Challenge Corporation; Cristano Barros, the Vice Rector of UniCV, and Dan Murphy, congressional aide to Representaive Kennedy. Representing the Peace Corps, Country Director Hank Weiss, Education APCD Yonis Reyes and volunteers Nick Hanson, Courtney Phelps, Brian Newhouse, and Alex Alper also attended.

As the drumming ceased and Kennedy untied his improvised pano de terra, Maria Teresa Vera Cruz, National Coordinator of the Protected Areas Project, briefly presented the project’s history, goals, and current works. Early that morning, he received a similar briefing at Assomada’s Grão Duque Henri technical school, where he learned about Newhouse and Hanson’s solar still project, and received general comments on technical education in Cape Verde.

“It was clear he didn’t just want to know what projects we were doing,” Newhouse, ’09 said. “He wanted to talk to the técnica students and really see what kind of an impact we were having.” Beyond the successful construction of the still, for example, Kennedy wanted to know if the students were really involved in the project and could apply their knowledge elsewhere.

“What I liked best was how intuitive Kennedy was with his questions,” said Nick Hanson, ‘08. The Representative, according to Nick, cut to the heart of the schools’ current challenges. He touched on issues like employability of graduates, the need for teacher training, use of hands-on teaching techniques, and sustainability of volunteer projects.

Courtney highlighted his egalitarianism. “He didn’t direct his questions only to the highest officials, but rather to the people who could answer the question best—to students, volunteers, or to the School Director.”

For Hank Weiss, the visit had a more personal significance. “I was a young man when Patrick Kennedy’s uncle created the Peace Corps, and when Robert Schriver became its first director. Knowing Patrick came from their family was very powerful.”

As Kennedy held out signed copies of Rhode Island souvenir books to us at the visit’s end, we received a souvenir of much more lasting impact: He told us that Washington was not currently promoting and supporting programs like the Peace Corps. Despite that, the Peace Corps volunteers of Cape Verde had chosen to serve of their own volition. He promised to do what he could to improve the current situation, and commended us for our selfless choice.

“Its like what your uncle said,” Hank said. “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.”

“He sure knocked that one out,” Kennedy responded, smiling.

*For PC CV Newsletter

“I mean, what’s culture? People live their lives,” Kyle, a Peace Corps volunteer on Sal explains to me. “They go to work, they go home. They go drinking...” He shrugs. “Just like anyone anywhere.”

“What about music,” I ask. “Do they listen to Cape Verdean stuff ?”

“There is some mourna and zouk. But, its pretty awesome: a lot of people like rock.” We pass a house that’s blasting Linkin Park. “I mean, that’s pretty awesome.”

We find a table outside on Bom Dia’s patio. The sun beats down on umbrellas adorned with beer ads, icy beads dripping down each oversized bottle. Silver belt buckets, cell phones, and sunglasses glint amid the white and black faces, smart suits, plates of chicken and tuna garnished with lettuce and fries. We could be anywhere.

“What are you doin’ here, Jackass?” Joe says flawlessly. “I come here to have a beer, and get away from these Jackasses.”

Kyle grins. “We didn’t know you would be here.”

Joe is a native Salense who has returned after 40 years in the shipping business in Florida, Massachusettes and Rhode Island. He’s building a house, but his workers got in a fight today and left. ”Where does that leave me?” he says.

The waiter, also a jackass according to Joe, comes over and we order cachupa, the corn stew found on Cape Verdean tables countrywide, morning and night, steamed or fried, garnished or straight up.

“Corn is for horses,” Joe laughs.

* * *

Perhaps on Sal it is. Sal, Cape Verde’s flat, sandy, and most easterly island, was discovered by Italian tourists early on and serves a lot of pasta. The island, which is home to around 10,000, was populated only 150 years ago when salt mining became profitable. Through the 1930’s, as the salt industry declined, Moussilini bought the rights to build an airport, and the tourist industry began. Joe says he was “raised by Italians”.

What drew them is clear: the entire southern half of Sal is bounded by white sand beaches that descend gently into calm bright waters. Colorful salt mines, nesting turtles, a giant crater, a lava pool, scuba diving, wind surfing, and deep sea fishing, are additional draws. The international airport and great restaurants cater to visitors, but the boom is only getting started: en route to Santa Maria, the upscale tourist town, along one of Cape Verde’s few asphalt highways, massive hotels, a golf course, and apartment complexes are being erected in large tracts that evoke mining boom towns. Hilton Hotels is set to begin construction here, the first international hotel chain to set up shop in Cape Verde. In Santa Maria itself, the windows of real estate offices are plastered with pictures of current projects and appeals to invest.

Outside these real estate offices is a conspicuous absence of Cape Verdean culture. Without the woven pano de terra and rhythmic batuk of the southern islands or the quaint farmhouses and sorrowful mournas of the north, Sal gets aptly described as “that island that doesn’t belong to Cape Verde.”

And yet, when employing a liberal definition of culture, Kyle is right: if people are living, they are doing so according to certain commonly held beliefs, practices, ie a culture. If this “culture” happens to evoke suburban Maryland more than subsaharan Africa, who’s to judge?

In fact, perhaps we should celebrate: whatever lack of “authentic” Cape Verdean culture is directly tied to the tourism industry, which is prompting unprecedented prosperity. Sal boasts the lowest unemployment rate of any island. People from Sao Nicolau, Santiago, and Senegal migrate to meet the labor demand in hotels, restaurants, and construction. Pockets of rural and urban poverty don’t seem to exist like they do on other islands. “Tourism has been here forever… Its good,” one older local explains to me in Palmeira, a port town far from Santa Maria. She rubs her thumb and forefinger together. “Its money.”

The growth does have downsides that aren’t purely cultural. Sex tourism is flourishing in Santa Maria and crime is on the rise. The wells and sole desalination plant barely meet the demands of locals and the ballooning tourist population. Kyle says, ”Tourists come and take 30 minute showers, like they do at home. If they use too much water the city shuts it off for the town.”

But the cultural issues are worrisome, too, because of their applicability: it’s easy to imagine Sal’s story becoming a paradigm for the country—a tourism boom spurs grow and quietly obliterates the country’s unique blend of African and Portuguese cultures, which has withstood centuries of migration and foreign influence. All the investment ads that tout Cape Verde as “Europe’s nearest tropical islands” begin to seem prophetic and one can imagine the birth of another Bermuda.

* * *

Next to a Santa Maria real estate office, tourists stroll into an Italian ice cream shop advertising sundaes. A group of white teenagers finger non-descript tee-shirts that read “Cape Verde Zone” in a clothing boutique. A restaurant called “Kretcheu”-- “my love”--and a business called “Cachupa” remind you are in a creole-speaking country, but I haven’t seen more than a handful of Cape Verdeans on this street.

On each corner, West African salesmen lounge in front of makeshift craft stands, occasionally calling out “Hello, my friend, Bonjour mon ami” to passing tourists. Their shelves are lined with ebony statues, tie-dye dresses, and sand paintings of angular black women, pestle in hand, backs laden with babies, or heads burdened with jugs of water. Inconceivably, “Cape Verde” is painted across the bottom.

* * *

Perhaps the prosperity caused by the tourism boom justifies the decline of local culture. If Lincoln Park is on the rise, and corn is for horses, so be it, if the locals are healthy and employed. Beach tourists aren’t likely to mind either: they aren’t known for their patronage of museums and local poetry readings. And yet, where there is tourism, there is money to be made in souvenirs. Sal might be wise to offset its beaches and preserve and market its culture, combating tourism’s culture-killing effect in order, ironically, to further the industry. If Sal doesn’t get on it, some more enterprising, and not necessarily indigenous, vendors will.

Tucked snugly into the folds of a woman’s large bag, as the minivan sped out of Praia, I craned to chat with the nice man flanking the left side of her bundle.

From the driver’s poor taste in zouk* we came to my nationality.

“I’m from America, but I didn’t vote for Bush.”

(Usually people shake their head and say “Now, Clinton, that was a good president”).

“You are from America, ok!” the man smiled. “I have two sons, actually, who are---“

I was not listening. Brockton, New Bedford, or Pawtucket would get mentioned, I would refocus, and say “Oh, I actually went to school around there.”

“Iraq.”

I turned back towards him, vaguely aware that here was not a suburb of Boston.

“Iraq?”

He nodded.

The woman stopped smiling and stared down at her bundle. I stared at my own empty lap.

“My friend, her Fiancé is there and she is having a hard time,” I fumbled.

He nodded, unoffended. “Every morning I wake up, my heart goes like this.” He

pounded his chest.

* * *

Its election season and we are all getting complacent. McCain is old and sang a mediocre bubblegum song about bombing Iran. Romney prays to a God who condoned polygamy, but he is not sure about gay marriage. Money has been poured into ad campaigns at unprecedented levels, state primaries have been held so early as to disqualify their votes, and Republicans are turning out in unusually low numbers.

And yet, far away from New Hampshire and Iowa, on buses in developing countries, nice men chat about their sons, who may die at the hands of a president they couldn’t pick. Further from Washington than Cindy Sheehan, there are some 60,000 sets of parents whose chests pound each morning as they picture their kids in unprotected army tankers, but whose only recourse is to watch the international evening news roundup (there are roughly 60,000 “immigrants” in the U.S. Army).

Sure, it doesn’t make sense to give the vote to the parents of U.S. citizens, just as it doesn’t make sense to give the vote to the Iraqis and Afghanis, whose lives are even more directly affected by our President. But before we become totally immersed in the election apathy that may appear at times to be totally justified, we must recognize that it is a privilege to be part of the process of choosing one of worlds’ most powerful leaders. With the privilege might come a moral obligation, to exercise it on behalf of the millions who lack it but who may be more affected by the election outcome than ourselves.

“Things made of corn, they are all good foods,” Rekina explained, hushing her three grandchildren in the living room overlooking the valley of Ribeira Cuba. “Cuscus, cachupa are good,” she said, referring to the steamed corn bread and corn stew popular here. Camoka--the toasted corn flour enjoyed with milk as a breakfast beverage--and Sheren--ground corn served like rice top the startlingly varied list of corn-based favourites, which, combined with beans, rice and fish, constitute the local diet. But behind this seeming diversity is one unpleasant reality: the mortar and pestle. For cachupa, “if you are good at grinding, you can grind it in ten minutes,” she says. “If you are not, you will take a long time….Me, I can’t do it. With my arm, I will start and then fall down on the floor” she says laughing.

In her sixty-eight years in Serra Malagueta, Rekina has cooked for children at the local elementary school, as well as her own nine kids who now live in Assomada, Praia, France, and Portugal. Rekina, whose real name in Joana Guincho, currently fixes lunch for the Protected Areas project staff three days a week.

She first started cooking when she was about twelve. “Sometimes it would burn, sometimes it would turn out good, sometimes it would be a little off,” she says, “but it always worked out.” When it didn’t, her mother would show her again. “Did she hit you?” I asked. “Oh yeah,” she responds, smiling. Some of Rekina’s specialities—like squeezing a bit of lemon on her cachupa, may have come from her mother.

But the diet has changed a lot in Serra Malagueta over the last few decades. “We didn’t have noodles, flour for bread, oil. Crackers came from far away…Even rice came in small quantities. Poor people could only eat rice during festas.” Today, these imported foods are essential supplements to the insufficient corn and bean harvest: Cape Verde produces only about 20% of its food, even though 80% of its population are employed in agriculture.

In the past, when rain was more abundant, local farms were able to grow a wider variety of crops and maintain more animals. “Almost everyone had animals,” she says, “cows, chickens, goats…We didn’t need oil, we had animal fat,” she mentioned, in addition to eggs and milk. At the same time, “we had lots more sweet potatoes, and manioc. We even made cuscus out of manioc. Now it costs 360 escudos per kilo.” This greater abundance and variety of produce flavored the Feijoadas (meat-bean stew) and cachupas of the past.

These local dishes are what she prepares for the Serra Malagueta staff three times a week. Not long ago she couldn’t have imagined serving local dishes to foreigners; “Ze [the local coordinator] and Iacopo [an international volunteer] visited me one day and asked me to make them lunch. I begged their pardon, because I didn’t have anything. But he said to just prepare cachupa, feijão, congo [beans]…Now I think its good when foreigners like you come. You get accustomed to our food. And now I don’t think it’s strange to prepare a cachupa, a beans, sweet potato for you.”

It is in this spirit that she has contributed her recipes to this book, a careful compilation of Serra Malagueta’s favourite dishes. Enjoy them while you are here and after you have left.

*Written for Serra Malagueta Cookbook

I cornered a current volunteer named Amanda* at PC Guinea’s welcome party. Decked out in one of those sundresses that combine African fabrics with American immodesty, she regaled us newbies with fabulous tales of diarrhea, gens d’armes encounters and parties.

“Do you feel like you have an impact?” I asked.

She looked at the floor like she didn’t want to lie, then raised her beer a little and smiled.

“You’ll have a really great time.”

* * *

Robert Strauss, Cameroon’s former Country Director, eloquently criticized the Peace Corps in a New York Times Op/ed on Jan 9th:

“…Too often these young volunteers lack the maturity and professional experience to be effective development workers in the 21st century….In Cameroon, we had many volunteers sent to serve in the agriculture program whose only experience was puttering around in their mom and dad’s backyard during high school.”

As an “Agroforestry Volunteer” who barely even puttered before arriving in country, I felt uneasy about this very issue. How could I give agricultural advice to a community of lifetime farmers? Perhaps they had not yet discovered the virtues of watering? If not, could anything other than arrogance or apathy drive an organization, ostensibly committed to development, to send me there to suggest such a thing? When, one month in, I uprooted twenty healthy teak seedlings--that would look like weeds to any liberal arts major--my uneasiness and Strauss’s point were confirmed.

Yet his point is overstated. The notion that youth and inexperience preclude effectiveness is based on a lamentably untrue assumption: that the world is far more developed than it was in 1961. “Back then, enthusiastic young Americans offered something that many newly independent nations counted in double and even single digits: college graduates.” Unfortunately, in Guinea, where literacy is estimated at 30%, a college degree is a powerful development tool: critical thinking skills and the scientific method alone make you an asset. Plus, we can compensate somewhat for our lack of expertise through our information access—the fact that we can pay for and use Internet. Google knows what a Teak seedling looks like, even if I don’t.

Another argument is simple practicality. Old professionals would trump young Googlers for skills, making for a more effective Peace Corps. But how many well-paid adults want to take bucket showers and pooh in a hole for two years? At least in the countries that need us most, perhaps only rookies will consent to the conditions.

If we must rely mostly on tenderfoots for our development staff, skills must be enhanced in other ways:

1) More Selective Admissions: As Strauss notes, hard skills, not just good will and interest, should be, but aren’t, requirements for acceptance. “The name of the game has been getting volunteers into the field, qualified or not….What the agency should begin doing is recruiting only the best of recent graduates — as the top professional schools do…”

2) More Rigorous Training:the 9-12 week training at the beginning of service should teach highly specific, technical, skills tailored to the country’s stated needs. Methodology should be hands-on and there should be tests and consequences for bad performance, like a real school or job. Currently, vague tech sessions get lost amid a barrage of culture, language, health and security info.

Peace Corps effectiveness requires other organization changes, as well:

3) Performance-related incentives and disincentives—“Men are not angels,” Madison writes in Federalist # 51. Neither are volunteers. In keeping with our beloved capitalist doctrine, we must use rewards and consequences to encourage good work. Currently, lackluster volunteers and overachievers get the same pay, privileges, and (lack of) chances for advancement. Media recognition, invitations to relevant conferences, or some sort of promotion could serve to motivate capable volunteer and pressure slackers.

4) Partnerships with big NGO’s: Peace Corps volunteers are never going to have technical expertise or funding comparable to big NGO’s. We do, however, offer the best grasp of local language and culture, because one of Peace Corps’ unique doctrines is that we live, not just with, but at, the level of those we serve. That makes us ideal local point men for busy, large-scale development projects. Such partnerships would also give tangible jobs to the many bright, motivated volunteers who achieve little for lack of job structure.

5) Impact Evaluation: “The agency has no comprehensive system for self-evaluation, but rather relies heavily on personal anecdote to demonstrate its worth,” Strauss notes. Quantifying impact in development is hard, but any organization serious about achieving its goals must try. “Perhaps…the agency fears that an objective assessment of its impact would reveal that while volunteers generate good will for the United States, they do little or nothing to actually aid development in poor countries.”

* * *

If Strauss were right, and an objective assessment revealed that volunteers generate goodwill and/or broaden their own horizons while achieving no impact, Peace Corps would still be accomplishing two thirds of its goals:

1) Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women

2) Helping promote a better understanding by Americans of other peoples.

3) Helping promote a better understanding by other peoples of Americans.

In other words, Peace Corps plainly acknowledges something that Strauss forgets: that saving the poor is only part of the mission. Besides ineffective development workers, we are a cheap diplomatic corps (transmitting happy US thoughts to the poor Muslim countries that might hate us) and a Democratic campaign rally (exposing the human side of poor would-be immigrants to young Americans). That’s not bad for 300 million dollars—half the cost of the Army’s recruiting office. As Senator Christopher Dod, a former Volunteer writes:

Every American of good will we send abroad is another chance to make America known to a world that often fears and suspects us. And every American who returns from that service is a gift: a citizen who strengthens us with firsthand knowledge of the world.

With taxpayer dollar ever more tightly stretched, these intangible goals may still seem trivial. But watching Amanda sob as she kissed her sobbing host mom goodbye, I personally felt how broad and amorphous the notion of “impact” can be.

*I changed her name to remain popular

See Strauss's Article

It is the third day of Assomada’s famous “festa da Santa Catarina,” and there is a large goat strung up in Maria’s courtyard. American rap music blasts from her empty restaurant. A duck, its young, and a small pig amble by Maria’s girls, who are hacking up the meat. “Goat’s meat and ground corn….Its going to be a good party,” she says, watching as Nin, her daughter-in-law breaks its right leg with a small axe.

But more customers for the holiday doesn’t mean a steady source of income. “Business is slow, and I don’t have any money,” says the 46-year-old mother of two. High cooking fuel costs and few alternatives make her situation even more difficult.

Wood, the first option, is a scarce commodity in Cape Verde’s arid, over-harvests savannahs. Inhaling wood fumes from the inefficient traditional three stone stoves can cause serious health problems, in addition to environmental damage. Wood cooks slowly. However, it is cheap or free and is supposed to produce yummy food.

Gas, the more usual choice in urban areas like Assomada, burns clean and cooks quickly. But prices are prohibitively high for some families: around 1,700 escudos per 12 kg tank, or a roughly 20 dollar purchase more than once a month. Food cooked on gas stoves is not supposed to be as yummy, either.

Maria has an innovative solution. “I have a stove that my friend taught me how to use…that saves me a lot of gas” Her stove, which requires three large sticks, one six dollar metal canister, and sawdust from the carpenter next door, allows her to cook virtually for free. She fills the metal canister with sawdust, packing it down compactly with one stick and a little water. The other two sticks are positions in a L shape through the center to create a temporary chimney. She lights it with a match and some paper, and can cook a large elaborate goat dish and heat bathwaterfor the family for a net fuel cost of zero.

The price isn’t the only benefit. “It cooks quicker than a gas stove…It doesn’t produce smoke…and the food is tastier than with gas.” Nin, after doing most of the butchering, cooking, and serving customers, is certainly ready to sample it. She places a large pot of water on the still-steady flames. “This is to heat water so I can take a bath…now lets go clear their plates so we can eat.”

PORTUGUESE VERSION!

“So, I got in!” I said the day my transfer came through for Cape Verde. “I can’t believe I am going to ditch you guys for an island paradise.”

The only Guinea Volunteer who had been to Cape Verde glanced at me with palpable gravitas.

“You know, Alex….”

“What?”

“There is…

“What?”

“…one ugly island.”

“Nah-uh.”

“Yeah. Maio.”

Maio. Maio is Portuguese for May, named as such because it was spotted on May 1st,1460. May day: poles and ribbons and virgins. Julie Andrews singing about “the lusty month,” and all the hot love scenes with Lancelot that that might conjure up. These are not things that bring to mind ugly islands. Clearly this was just another volunteer with preemptive jealousy of my nascent caramel tan. That’s ok. She would have lots of character building experiences in her hut that would teach her to love her pasty complexion.

But perhaps she wasn’t so unspeakably jealous: Maio’s interior, when I visited, looked more like an overgrown parking lot, in places, than an ocean idyll. Possibly an extension of the African mainland, the island’s flat, rocky 268 square kilometer expanse is covered in sparse shrubs, reforested acacia, some coconut palms and pebbles of varying shades of brown and black. One virtually bald mountain, Monte Penoso (437m), shoots unimpressively out of the deforested savannah, flanked by sections of well built stone walls. The walls seem to indicate a not so distant past in which something—animals—was kept from eating something—crops. But today flora and fauna is decidedly puny: the moon may rival Maio for biodiversity.

And yet Maio’s coast is arguably the loveliest Cape Verde has to offer. Pastel blue and green waves roll up on spotless white and black sand beaches. The least developed of the country’s beach islands (over Sal and Boa Vista), virtually no trash or tourists mar the beauty, and sand abounds because it has not been sold off for construction. Plodding around the delightful ocean-side patch of sand dunes fulfills all your Laurence of Arabia fantasies. Learning how the historic salt flats are mined is engaging, and may explain why Maio’s cachupa (the national dish) is tastier here. Throw in the charming, reasonably equipped port town, Vila do Maio, and its friendly residents and you have the makings of a charming beachside getaway.

But the aridness of the interior reflects the daunting water problems that call into question whether Maio can support its own population, much less a tourist one. In the days of greater rainfall and lesser human pressures, underground sources sufficed. Now wells are drying up and yielding salty water. Two desalinization plants distill up to 4000 liters of seawater into potable water every day, supplying Vila do Maio and outlying communities. Another one under construction will supply Figueira, the Island’s only vegetable farm, now that Mount Penoso’s deep sources are drying up too. That’s well and good for the easterly areas, but what about everyone else?

Calheta, 11 kilometers west of Vila do Maio, is everyone else, a quiet town, off the guidebooks. Its wells are virtually dry. It used to rely on water piped in from Mount Penoso, but competition from Figueira for its dwindling supply precludes this as a long-term solution. Its only option currently is the veritable sloppy seconds: now that Vila do Maio is completely served with desalinated water, Calhetans get Vila do Maio’s well water.

“Calheta needs clean water. People get sick to their stomachs when they drink this water,” Ricardinha, a Calheta school teacher says. “You would think that being so close to Praia would give us an advantage in these types of issues,” she adds, referring to the 23 kilometer, two hour boat ride to Praia. “But the government forgets about us.”

Water problems damage the economy, as well. Maio, historically a supplementary grazing land for wealthy Santiago landowners, is famous for its meat, milk, and cheese. No rain means less fodder, hungrier cows and goats, and the deterioration of this important local industry. “What do you do if you don’t have enough plants to feed your animals,” I asked one local. “You kill them,” he said simply.

The animals that do remain mostly eat the stunted corn and bean plants. While Maio was never a breadbasket, these staples used to offset food imports, back when the rains were better. Now these crops, still planted but rarely growing to maturity, go almost exclusively for fodder, while pricey food imports from Praia supply nearly 100% of local demand. Other industries that don’t depend on rainfall---fishing and salt production—are sustainable, but only support a few. Maio’s youth emigrate to Praia, Holland, Portugal, to send back the critical remittances that meet the high cost of living on this island. Keeping them here may require turning this island into the tourist destination that does conjure up may poles and virgins.

* * *

But can Maio really draw tourists, despite its arid interior?

At a British-owned café in Vila do Maio, “stir fry” is scrawled in English on the menu a few lines down from the local “churrasco” (and the mysterious entry “crack” which we just can’t figure out). An Italian resident, mustering impressive Creole, greets the waiter who has just served us the English breakfast. Locals and foreigners walk by at a pace that evokes permanent vacation, while cars speed in from the port. They loop back enough times to demystify the false sense of hurry. A group of Cape Verdean men lean against the beachside wall, watching the cars loop. A few meters up several Italian men do the same.

This could work. This quiet spirit of unending vacation could agree with many foreigners, whose investment would boost the economy and help finance badly needed infrastructure improvements. And perhaps “May” is, after all, the perfect metaphor for this pleasant atmosphere, virgins and may poles or not.

“Why are fishing towns here always dirtier?” I asked a Cape Verdean Peace Corps staffer. “Are they poorer?”

“Fishermen don’t care about the appearance of their homes like farmers do,” he said. “It’s always been like this.”

Rincão, Mike’s fishing town, embodies the stereotype: Waves crash against the black basalt rocks littered with human feces. There is no sand on the wide beach that holds several wood fishing boats because people have sold it. Climbing the trash-strewn hill up from the ocean, you see rows of unfinished cement houses, shaped like boxcars, which blend into the matching grey rock beneath them. Rusted bent wires jut out of the roofs where people plan on building a second story. Construction is unlikely and maybe unnecessary; the roofs are perfect for drying corn, washing and hanging out laundry, and chatting with the neighbors.

Mike’s balcony sits a bit higher than the neighbors’ roofs. From its railing, you can sea the ocean, absurdly lovely above the grey unfinished homes. Beyond the ocean, is the mammoth silhouette of a black cone—the volcanic island of Fogo, even more incongruously magnificent.

Mike is not here. He is looking for fish for dinner. It’s harder than usual because its Christmas and everyone in Rincão is eating meat tonight. He walks by once with a child strapped across his chest. He walks back a little later with the same child strapped across the other shoulder and two more in tow.

A girl with a massive Tupperware of pasteis on her head stops in front of him. “Mike, what are you going to give me for Christmas?”

“Want one of these?” he says, throwing the child towards her. She laughs. The kid screams with delight.

Mike doesn’t have his notebook with him. Usually he does when he goes out. It’s for writing new words he hears to improve his Creole, but he doesn’t write much now, because his language is excellent. “This is all I do,” he says. “I really do nothing.”

He is not exaggerating. Each day, after swimming and/or soccer and/or a jog, he sits in different parts of town and talks to people. One day he is down by the local bar where the half drunk men tease him about getting a local girlfriend. Most days he is in the eating fresquinhas with a group of kids or talking to the vendor-women about the price of transport to Assomada. Unlike most volunteers he rarely goes to parties with other Americans, or even takes private time at home to read or write.

“I haven’t read in so long.” Mike says, as I leaf through his books. “Maybe I should, I must be getting so stupid.” He looks off thoughtfully for a moment. “It’s funny, you know, ‘cause I used to study so much.” He was a physics major at the University of Wisconsin, and later worked at the University of Texas, Austin. In both places he published original research.

Studying doesn’t further his current goal: “I just want to know how people think; understand the limitations and the benefits of thinking like them.”

To know how people think you need to integrate: Is integration really possible? “Do they ever really forget you are white, American, different?” I ask.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, they totally forget I am different,” He says adamantly. “Its just the money. If I weren’t richer than them, they would totally forget.”

At the beginning especially, the money issue was hard, he says. People would demand gifts and money and get angry when he refused. Kids would steal stuff. Even now, food items sometimes go missing when he has people over for dinner.

Mike doesn’t see it as malicious, or personal, though. “Its really just that here richer people are expected to give stuff out. Its part of the culture.” Now when he goes out, he brings only change, and keeps a coin in each pocket, so it won’t clang.

Although he’s loath to talk about it, Mike does take advantage of his integration to do development work. He taught a daily English class despite poor attendance, he is working on a business skills training, and he compiled a concise Creole manual for new volunteers. When an American NGO funded an elaborate irrigation project, installing a huge water tank fed by a distant spring, Mike tried to mobilize people to take advantage of it: they needed to buy tubing on credit to install drip irrigation systems to hook up to the water tank. With this free water, they could sustain year-round vegetable gardens that--in a community that subsists on fish and imported rice-- could fetch a good price locally and improve nutrition. So far, few people have jumped at the opportunity.

Experiences like these confirm Mike’s view on development; to succeed, projects require a substantial contribution on the part of the beneficiaries. Just that morning, a car-full of Christmas presents came down from the local government for Rincão’s kids. Mike was visibly disappointed. “They get so many presents, so many handouts, that it’s really hard to convince people to work.”

“So you think it undermines your projects here?” I asked.

He nodded. “I don’t even think they should even have electricity,” he said, explaining that the community has recently been electrified through a completely subsidized generator-run system. “They would kill me if they knew I said that, but its true. Handouts make sustainable development a lot harder.”

Mike doesn’t have any illusions about the marketability of the knowledge he has gained in Rincão. “It is probably the most useless skill ever,” he says, smiling.

If he is right, it’s the large NGO’s and communities like Rincão that stand to lose. Successful development projects do require the things that most NGO’s have in spades: big money, skilled technicians, structure, deadlines, and incentives for employee excellence. But they also depend on what the Peace Corps may have in spades: People like Mike: integrated enough to know what locals think, and yet able to communicate effectively with project heads.

Sure, a local with this skill set would be the ideal community liaison. But with their unique knowledge derived from their unique community intimacy, plus decent educational backgrounds, Volunteers should not be overlooked as potentially vital point men in projects like the irrigation system.

A little while later, Mike comes back with two bright orange, frighteningly-fanged Galopa. I have told him I don’t know how to prepare fish. “Here, come cut this one,” he says, pulling two buckets and two knives into the light outside his host family’s house. “I mean you don’t have to. But if I were you, I would want to learn.”

Sitting in my thesis advisor’s cramped office at Brown, the requisite stacks of papers and esoteric book titles lending authenticity to the moment, I receive a nugget of wisdom for the future of my Latin American Studies:

“Why take Portuguese? Its just Spanish with a bad Russian accent.”

He was mostly joking, but I would learn he wasn’t entirely wrong, when I traveled to Cape Verde as a Peace Corps transfer. On the Dakar-Praia leg, armed only with half-forgotten Spanish and my Guinean French, I felt palpable relief as I eyed the flotation device instructions on the seatback in front of me:

No caso de emergência use-se o seu assento como aparelho de flutuação.

Oh. Okay. We can do this.

I flipped through the in-flight magazine and experienced a similar, understated glee.

Sure, there were the pretentious tails-on-the-c, the swiggley flourishes-atop-the-a, and the Latinate “m’s” at the ends of words. But these only denoted a language of unsurpassed classiness. Mostly it just looked like methodical doodling around the misspelled Spanish that could show up on any seventh grade exam.

And it should be just so: I had been accepted to this country because local staff thought that with good Spanish, I could learn Portuguese without training. Doubt faded. I thought about all the Cesaria Evora songs I would translate and send with a note of gratitude to my wise thesis advisor.

“A senhora gostaria de beber alguma coisa?”

“Huh?”

The stunningly handsome flight attendant tried again. “A senhora não fala Português?”

The nasal humming and the laborious “sh” flustered me. This was not Spanish. Putin didn’t sound like that either. The seat cushion in front of me had lied. Everyone had lied!

“Vous voudrais boire quelque chose? Would you like something to drink?” he ran by me in most of the major languages spoken at the U.N.

I muttered something in French, Spanish and Malinke.

“Ok, so you want a coke?” he said, in English.

“Yeah,” I said. I didn’t ask for a refill.

If Cape Verde was in fact a former Slavic colony, this was going to prove more challenging than I had thought.

So Portuguese was not going to be a piece of cake. But my deflated ego was not the worst of it: it was being compelled to speak with the eloquence of a precocious three-year-old that was going to be the rub. Gracious people who had never learned a second language would have a hard time believing you weren’t as dumb as you sounded. Conversations with thoroughly fascinating people--who would manage to sense your subterranean non-dumbness—would still be relegated to subjects like food, hobbies, and the weather; politics or culture were simply too painful to broach without the proper tools.

Dona Malucy, the sweet Peace Corps nurse, asked me a my check up that first day if I liked Cape Verde. I wanted to tell her that despite being a few miles away from West Africa, it felt surreally like Latin America. Instead, I said “yes”. I could have added “me no like shots”, but the needle would have been in before I remembered the word for shot.

Reverting to this infantile state was even more excruciating, because my Malinke was only now entering puberty after a year in Guinea. The grueling regimen of gestures and monosyllabic responses was finally giving way to humor, ideas, multi-clause sentences, and the occasional comprehensible third party conversation. People would ask me if I brought them a present. I could say it died on the road. They would ask me if I woke up with four legs. I could say, “no, just two, you know I don’t have a boyfriend.” I could even sing a song about the name of my hoe (its name, like everyones’, was “hunger is bad.”) Not top 40 material, but triumphant nonetheless.

As it turned out, I got off easy: Portuguese was, in structure and vocab, quite similar to Spanish, once you learned to pick it out of the Russian that got spoken to you. The only problem was that, barring formal events, no one speaks Portuguese. Cape Verdeans speak Creole, the hybrid African-Portuguese language adapted by the slaves of multi-lingual origins brought here by the Portuguese from the late 15th century on.

Admittedly, Creole would be much easier to learn than Malinke. Malinke, with its mysterious excess of prepositions and its wholly foreign structure, was spoken by people who mostly knew no French. Thus progress was snail-like. Creole, on the other hand, is based overwhelmingly on Portuguese. Its structure is simple, its grammar rules fluid, and most Cape Verdeans also understand Portuguese. That means you can get direct translations and advance quickly. The large number of Portuguese and Brazilian immigrants who have picked it up is testament to that fact.

And yet a serious malaise prevented me from really undertaking to learn it. Portuguese got me by at work, I spoke English with my roommate at home, and even in the market and on buses people understood Portuguese. One year and three languages into my Peace Corps service, did I really need to talk like a three-year-old in a new one?

I did. Language is not just about communication. It is about good will. The Peace Corps is founded on the assumption that before you can do development work, you have to integrate: to integrate, you must gain people’s trust, get to know them well, learn the profound and subtle bits of their culture. All this depends not just on communicating effectively—for which creole is helpful--but on demonstrating a willingness to learn, for which Creole is essential.

This is one of Peace Corps’ most unique and worthwhile philosophies. In a world of aid organizations that rely on translators and barely get to know the communities they serve, it is bordering on revolutionary. And in a country like Cape Verde where tourism is fast becoming a major industry, it is more important than ever for aid workers to distinguish themselves from vacationers. Learning Creole is the best way to do this.

The difference in my interactions, now that I speak it, is overwhelming. Talking to Dona Malucy is just one of the benefits. Of course, knowing the word for shot does not necessarily get you out of them.

Malinke is an ancient language spoken throughout areas of West Africa that once made up their 13th century empire, including eastern Guinea. Free from outside influence, there is a remarkable harmony to it; that is, words for related concepts sound alike. If they don’t seem related, but sound the same, that sheds some light on the culture (what malinke culture sees as related):

o baara is work, and office is baaradiya, the work place.

o Fin is charcoal. It also means black. Farafin is black person or literally “skin of charcoal”

o Sanji is rain. San is year. Malinkes, mostly farmers, mark the year by when the rains come. Caro means both moon and month, just as teleh means both day and sun by similar logic.

o Human body parts account for a lot of other related words, especially location-prepositions. Kun is head. Kunti is the head of the village.

o Kono is belly. It also means inside. Mobili-kono means inside the car.

o Some words that relate to religion and writing are Arabic, since the Muslim conquerors brought both of these to the Malinke. Allah is God. Ka makaran means to learn and has the word “koran” in it. Karandiya is school, or the place of study, place of koran.

o The only other foreign words I know in Guinean Malinke are inventions the French brought: car (mobili), spoon (cuyeri), window, (fineteri), Saturday (simiti-lon) and Sunday (dimanshi-lon).

Creole on the other hand is so worldly, that despite being based mostly on Portuguese, it contains vocab that comes from many European languages. At the crossroads between Europe, Latin America and Africa, slave traders, pirates, merchants, colonists and sailors from all over passed through, leaving their mark on the language.

o Badja, Creole for dancing, comes from bailar, the Spanish word for dance.

o Boite, Creole for nightclub, comes from the French.

o Grogu, the word for Cape Verde’s national moonshine, comes from early contact with English Pirates (include Sir Drake).

o A lot of words relating to “cool” come from American English, because of large Cape Verdean immigrant communities there, especially in the Boston area. Tug Life (thug life) and tuggi (thug) are used among youth to refer to da glamourized gangsta life. “Fishi”, which allegedly comes from the English word “fish” means “cool.” I have no idea.

o A lot of imported goods take brand names: razors are “gileti” and minivans are called Hiaces and trucks Hiluxes after their Toyota model names. Oh yes, and “daipis”—diapers.