Never have I felt so inspired to spontaneously sing and dance. The urge was overpowering, and I quickly succumbed to the sudden burst of energy despite myself. Here are the details. We were watching "Gandhi" this past Saturday night – a great film, by the way, and a pastime (film watching) that we often treat ourselves to on Saturday nights. Partway through, Zachary stirred in the other room, so Kristi went to check on him and I took a quick bathroom break. As I dried my hands after washing, the towel started to slip off its holder, so I quickly grabbed it and pushed it back on more securely. I believe that must be when the transfer occurred. I did not realize it at first, but I suddenly noticed a dark form darting across my chest. In the space of about 3 seconds, here's what happened: I thought "scorpion! cockroach! lizard!" Some of those possibilities are a whole lot less concerning than others, but I did not have time for a cool, calm analysis. Next, I composed a little tune and a jig to commemorate this new, ambiguous, yet exciting information. The tune and jig were performed simultaneously with their composition, being somewhat muted as yet another piece of information pressed itself into my brain with urgency: Zachary had been stirring. If my jubilation fully woke him up, we'd never get back to our movie. The resulting performance approximated a tap-dance routine (in house sandals) with vigorous brushing of the chest by both hands, accompanied by what could be described (and later was indeed described by auditory admirers in the next room) as rapid, percussive, yet muted yelps resembling those of a hound dog yipping at the moon. The spectacle was breathtaking, and I only started breathing again once the 3 second performance was over and the cockroach (one of the more benign possibilities) had successfully dismounted my chest (with generous assistance) and commenced his traversal of our bed. The whole symphony came to a rousing conclusion with the clash of a flip-flop upon the head of the smaller performer in this synchronized duo. The Taiwanese can't come soon enough for our yearly pest-control spray, as far as I'm concerned.
Anthropologists are used to observing others, but it is equally fascinating to observe one's own kind out of their usual environment. I am always fascinated by how different expatriates behave when overseas. There is a dynamic that can best be described as a love-hate relationship with one another. If another foreigner is in trouble, many expatriates will lend assistance, even if it is a perfect stranger. Somehow, we empathize with what the other person is going through, feeling a bit like fish out of water ourselves, and we behave altruistically in ways that we probably wouldn't back home. Our debacle with the lost tickets in Pr�ncipe comes to mind. Perfect strangers (the South African pilots, the South African resort owner, the Portuguese tourists) came to our defense, having never met us before in some cases. That is the love part of the relationship. The flip side is the comically excessive indifference we show toward each other when we encounter each other out of trouble. You would think that we'd be excited to see each other: "Hey, another foreigner! I should go introduce myself, find out what they're doing here, commiserate over our experiences adapting to this strange culture, etc." Yet we barely even make eye contact, and we seem to go out of our way to avoid speaking to each other – less civility than we'd even show to locals on the streets.
Now, this doesn't apply to every expatriate, and I'm certainly curious to meet other foreigners, for one. But I've seen enough of this kind of cool reception in many, many foreign countries that I've tried to anthropologically analyze it. Several hypotheses:
Of course, some foreigners lend an air of approachability, and those are the ones that turn out to be your closest friends and allies anyway.
One of our contractors for the AWARE project took quite a spill the other day. He is a handyman who was contracted to conduct physical repairs to the health posts covered by our project. He was climbing into the ceiling to repair some weakened joists when the ceiling gave way and he fell a good 12 feet to the cement floor below. Thankfully he was not seriously injured, but he had to be hospitalized for a few days for back stress. Our Community Mobilizer for Cau� and I visited him in the hospital, just to be friendly, but our conversation was commandeered by an aggressive companion in convalescence. We tried to speak to Ramos (the contractor), but his neighbor kept taking over. "What do you have in the bag there?"
"Just some fruit juice and crackers to supplement Ramos' hospital food."
"Are you sure there's no money in there? Why can't you share the money with all of us?"
"No, there's no money in there. We're just visiting our contractor to see how he's doing."
"Where are you from?"
"We're from ADRA."
"Well, isn't ADRA about helping people? Look at all of us in this room. We need help. Can't you give us money?"
"No, it doesn't work that way. We have donors that require us to invest money in projects for the collective good."
"Well, aren't we a collective? Look at us – 9 people here in this room. We're a collective in need of help! I broke my leg in a moto accident. I need crutches. This guy here needs a back brace. Are you sure there's no way to buy our equipment for us?" And so on for the entire visit. I almost thought I caught a glimpse of a Robert DeNiro smirk in his eyes a couple of times, but I could never be sure. So was he joking? Just being obnoxious? Or sincere and persistent? I don't know, but Saotomeans are a real dry humor sort, constantly ribbing each other jovially; it was probably a little bit of everything above. You wish you could help everybody, but you just do what you can, like brightening a convalescing contractor's day with a visit and snacks. And honestly, I don't think it's just a ruse; I really do think that the safest way to help people in cross-cultural circumstances fraught with potential for misunderstandings is to work through a system with checks and balances, as long as that system is benevolent and honest. And ADRA seems especially benevolent and honest here in STP. I've had the chance to observe and work for several ADRA offices, and this is one of the best-run operations I've seen.
One of the hazards of driving here (as in most parts of Africa) is not being accustomed to sharing the road with people, bicycles, and livestock. Therefore, the car horn is the most important piece of equipment on your vehicle. The Saotomeans themselves say so. I am quickly adapting, and getting used to laying on my horn around every curve in the road, when passing every pedestrian or cyclist, or when approaching farm animals and dogs wandering aimlessly about the pavement. A few weeks ago, however, I am sure I met a reincarnation of a New York City gangster. Fittingly, he was a pig, a VERY LARGE pig swaggering down the road toward us as we rounded a curve during a field visit to Cau�. I instinctively laid on my horn, but he didn't flinch! He just dropped his head low, glared at us through slitted eyes, and barreled on toward us, chomping on his cigar and saying, "Oh yeah? Whaddya want? Ya wanna piece o' me? Huh? Huh?!" I thought he had to be kidding, so I didn't react immediately. But when it became clear to me that he was NOT going to move and he very likely would assault and batter us with muscles bulging and tattoos glistening with sweat, I swerved at the last minute and barely spared him from the rotisserie grill. In my rearview mirror, I could've sworn I saw him turn, plant his feet far apart, cross his arms, and throw his head back to look down his snout at us we beat a hasty retreat into the distance. Not all hazards are created equal!
July 12th was Independence Day for STP. We naturally had a holiday from work, so we went out on the town to see some of the festivities and street parties that broke out in jubilation. And there is much to be proud of. Since STP became independent from Portugal in 1975, they have managed to put together a civil and governmental system that works: democratic elections are fair, presidents observe terms limits and step down when finished with office, opposition parties flourish and even win elections sometimes (including the presidency), STP has never been involved in an armed conflict – civil or otherwise, fiscal and commercial policies are stable and fair (as evidenced by immense foreign long-term investment), and the bureaucratic system is so light compared to other places we've lived and worked (there is very little red tape, and governmental systems are straightforward). STP lacks much of the same start-up capital as other African countries that is necessary to launch the nation into the ranks of the developed world. But if STP were stock (to use Thomas L. Friedman's analogy from the wonderful book The Lexus and the Olive Tree), I would buy it and hold onto it.
Anyway, Kristi wasn't interested in wading through throngs of people in Porto Alegre (at the southern tip of the island where AWARE works) – the site chosen for this year's official Independence Day celebrations – even though Adam wished we could. The experience would have been so anthropological! But we bypassed the cultural dances, representative foods of each region, and jubilant singing in Porto Alegre to relax at home, making only one foray into S�o Tom� city to see what was happening. In the main plaza was a small crowd surrounding elaborately costumed children dancers, stomping furiously to rapidly beating rhythms and blasts from a referee's whistle, much like Carnival dancing from the Caribbean. There was a guy decked out in red on enormously tall stilts dancing too, leaning down to high-five various dancers as they stomped by. The dancers seemed to be telling a story, which involved interactions with various masked figures. There was a young man lying on the ground, writhing in slow motion, with each gesticulation entangling himself further and further into a very long rope. At the other end of the rope was a young boy dressed all in red with a red cape (I think he was supposed to be the devil). As the young man at the other end writhed himself into a huge tangle, the devil came closer. When the devil was almost upon the young man (and he looked like a yarn ball with arms and legs sticking out), the young man leaped up and shook himself free from the ropes with a loud staccato from the drums. Everybody cheered loudly and whooped and hollered with exuberance. But a man in a rubber skull mask was not satisfied. He had been walking up and down the line of dancers and performers supervising the whole procedure, and when it had not been performed to his satisfaction, he called up 4 or 5 representatives from the troupe and staged a heated and loud argument with them, darting from one to another and getting in their face. Finally, he whacked each one on the side of the face with a loud SLAP! (clapping his hands upon the side of their heads, as this part was also staged), and they started the same ball-of-yarn dance again, only this time even more fervent and jubilant. The atmosphere was exuberant, and there was much laughing and cheering from the crowd of spectators with each antic thrown in for jest. I took lots of pictures and videos, but my language skills weren't quite up to par enough to ask what was going on. By this time next year, I'll have my notebook out taking impromptu ethnographic interviews and deconstructing the scenes before me. If I'd have been prepared, I would've had a notebook with me this time, but since I hadn't thought of it before leaving, I jotted down some notes when I got back to the house.
I am constantly amazed by how many food plants thrive in the wild here. It's simply astounding! The volcanic soil is so rich, the equatorial sun so glorious, and the rain so abundant that plants burst forth like the Garden of Eden. I think it would be physically impossible to starve to death here unless you fasted yourself into oblivion like Gandhi. Aside from the stuff that people intentionally cultivate, just about every other tree or bush you encounter in the wild produces some edible food. The amount of unharvested food that falls to the forest floor and rots away blows my mind. There are coconut trees, breadfruit trees, banana trees, plantain trees, cacao trees (the fruit is edible – and delicious), jackfruit trees, mango trees, papaya trees, palm oil trees, baobab trees (the powdery fruit can be mixed with water to make juice), tamarind trees, cajamango trees, sap-sap trees, guava trees, passionfruit (granadilla) vines – all in the wild, and all belonging to no one. The list could go on. And then there is the sea. With no commercial fishing operations in STP, the waters are teeming with all kinds of edible marine life. You could be completely unemployed for your entire life here and never go hungry. Then again, would collecting food be considered unemployment? Do hunter-gatherers not labor? So they don't receive a paycheck, but they're still getting off their duff every day just to survive, no matter how minimal the labor is when nature disgorges such an abundance of food at your feet for free. There is such an array of edibles that I've never even heard of, much less tasted, that I've asked our household helper to bring me a new fruit every week. I want her to introduce me to whatever happens to be in season at the time so I can expand my palate. It is a delightful enterprise!
When does a person have the right to say that they speak a certain language? "Speaking" a language is a poor way to describe language acquisition, for I can honestly say that I speak Japanese, Russian, and even Yoruba. After all, counting to 10 in those languages requires that I speak words belonging to them, doesn't it? But if that's all I can do (and it is, for those languages), then I don't really "speak" Japanese and Russian and Yoruba, do I? I guess my gripe is that we treat languages as if they are binary: Do you speak Yiddish? Yes/No. Do you speak Hungarian? Yes/No. In reality, language learning is a continuum. Perhaps a better measure of language acquisition would be, "Do you converse in (German, Dutch, Mandarin)?" Conversation implies so much more than speaking. Speaking draws only upon your vocabulary. Conversing potentially exposes you to vocabulary you've never heard before. Can you decipher it? Will you figure it out from the context? Do you know how to respond appropriately? As an example, I studied German for 2 years in high school. I can fairly confidently speak German with relative ease, assured that I am using the right grammar and pronunciation. But my ease is only because I explicitly avoid grammar and vocabulary that I do not know. I speak only of events in the present or simple past tense, because those are the grammar rules that I remember best. If pressed to describe something in past or present participle, my carefully constructed German speech would crumble. If required to talk about a port for oceangoing ships (a word I cannot recall, if it ever was in my vocabulary), I would probably deftly refer to "the place where ships stop" and carry on with my impressive German rattling. But I'd likely be stumped if my counterpart spoke of a port outside of context. I wouldn't recognize the word and would have a hard time deciphering it. Therefore, I do not claim to speak German fluently, but rather at a basic level. I impress all my monolingual acquaintances with my guttural German rumblings, but native-born German speakers are not impressed, and they shouldn't be.
So now the question becomes, do I speak Portuguese yet? Because it's a continuum and not a binary yes/no answer, it's not like one day there will be an audible "click" and I'll suddenly start rattling away in fluent Portuguese. Can I speak sentences with fairly good grammar and pronunciation yet? Yes, more often than not. Can I understand what is being spoken to me? At least 90% of it (remember, it's closely related to Spanish). Last weekend, a small group of us sang a special song in a mixed quartet at church, and at Emanuel's encouragement, I introduced the song in Portuguese, giving a 2-minute description of the history of the song and the circumstances that compelled the songwriter to write it. Afterward, I could pinpoint specific places in my mental replay where I know I didn't use exactly the correct term or verb conjugation, but the important thing is that communication happened. I spoke Portuguese – however broken – and people who speak nothing but Portuguese understood me and got the message I was trying to send across. So, I'm on my way! There's nothing like immersion to learn a language rapidly.
I have some news that we've actually known for a long time, but were not allowed to share until now. The Costas are most likely leaving STP. Emanuel has been the ADRA country director here for five years, after a one-year project directorship in ADRA Angola. This bombshell was dropped on us right around the time we arrived here. The prospect of the Costas' friendship and the perfect proximity of age of their son and ours (5 weeks apart) was an important factor in helping us to decide to come here to work. Because the process was still in its early stages when they announced it to us, we were asked not to spread it abroad. But now things have progressed to the point that they have announced their likely departure before the end of the year to the entire ADRA staff and (this past weekend) to the entire Seventh-day Adventist church on these islands at the annual general congress (campmeeting). They will be moving to Malawi (where Kristi grew up) and he will be the ADRA country director for that office, which is much larger than ours in STP. It is definitely a career move up the ladder for the Costas, and we know they will love Malawi if they have as good an experience as Kristi's family has had with that country throughout the decades. But still there is sadness at leaving an office that Emanuel built from virtually nothing (2 employees) in 2002 to one of the most respected and highly recognized NGO's in the country.
So, who will take the position when Emanuel vacates it? I might. My name has been recommended to the various boards and committees within the ADRA network, and my candidacy is slowly making its way through the bureaucratic tangle. Will I take it if offered? That's a tough question to answer. There are so many factors to juggle that it's hard to say at this point. Purely hierarchically speaking, it would definitely be a step up. But it may not necessarily be more beneficial for my overall career than where I am now. A PhD is a specialized degree. I am a specialist in medical anthropology. I am administering a health project. What could make me happier? As a country director, I'd be more of a generalist, dipping my hands into many things lightly, but never deeply into anything. Is that what I want? There are many pros and cons for each option, and many decisive factors still in flux at this point to make any concrete predictions, so we are just continuing in our current path with diligence and praying for the outcome. We'll keep you updated on the progress, and would appreciate you keeping us in your thoughts and prayers.
Well, my in-laws will be visiting us over the next three weeks, so I'll be more out of touch with email than usual. In the meantime, be sure to check out a new page I've added to my website – STP Videos. You can navigate your way to that page on my website at www.geocities.com/adamkis18. I've got more pictures to post soon, but I can't guarantee anything with family visiting, so enjoy the videos for now.
Until next tome,
Adam