When I Fell Down a Big Hill
August 13th, 2005 by Sarin
This story takes place within the first day of staying with my homestay family in Sao Domingos.
“Kori, kori!”
Heltom was encouraging me to run down the hill just like he was. Heel to heel and keep your body straight. Even if I knew what he meant, I didn’t perform it correctly because I wanted to pick up some speed and run down this hill for exhilaration. After his commands, I ran down the hill, heel to toe instead, and lunged my body forward to pick up speed.
Until then, the hike up and down the hill had been easy. It was a short hill even if it still looks smaller from the ground up. And here, about halfway, I found it hard to stop myself while I was running. I picked up so much speed, I was thinking gravity would be my next worry and not the slippery rocky path that I was on. So I decided I would try my luck on air brakes. But I slipped on a rock instead at what felt like 30 mph and my body was flipping itself in the air. Gravity in motion doesn’t give up so easy.
The night before, we were introduced to our homestay families in Sao Domingos with only one creole lesson to help us. We were to begin integrating into our country of Cape Verde and our homestay families would be there to help us with the language and help us adapt in order to be effective Peace Corps Volunteers. In a lot of ways, leaving for your homestay is like throwing you off in the deep end of a pool. For the past week, us trainees became attached to each other as we traveled between continents. For one week, we haven’t left each other.
So here I was, waiting with my host mother with my bags waiting to go to my new home. I wasn’t in any mood to talk about myself even if I knew any creole anyway. After some waiting, I build up some courage to dig down into what I knew in Spanish and hope it does the trick.
“Nos esperamos?” We wait, in my bad Spanish.
“Sin, pa carro.” Oh I get it, we’re waiting for a ride I think. At least that’s what half of ‘carro’ implies.
The ‘carro’ comes as the Peace Corps Van and we ride together to the house. I unload my bags and my family directs me to my room at the end of a long hallway. I breathe a sigh or relief at the sight of a comfy bed and a room with a window and lock. Next, I see the bathroom where I immediately ask how to properly dispose of toilet paper using only hand motions.
“Li, la” Literally: this, there. As my host mother shows me that all toilet paper goes in the wastebasket just as I expected.
After an invigorating and cold shower, all the sweat that accumulated on my body from moving my belongings around all day is whisked away. It is cold water although I still got tired after.
I eat dinner after the shower and am introduced to the oldest brother. My host family expects that I have absolutely nothing to say to them so they just sit there and stare at me as I am sitting with them.
As I stare at the dirty walls in this eating area, I reminded that I am finally in the Peace Corps. This is modest living, and its obvious that I am eating on their best dishes and silverware. The family continues to just stare at me, while I ponder what to do. They must know that I have nothing to say to them. Afterwards, I realize that there was nothing I could do and nobody to help me. I didn’t even know where to find or even call the closest American.
As my family continues to stare at me, I am forced with nothing left to do but eat. And I ate it all. Probably 3 servings worth even though I wasn’t even hungry. I pick up some words that they asked me and the only one I recognized was “deportes”, sports.
I retire early to bed after trying to watch foreign TV. The next morning, after my first breakfast, I am relieved to have to go to my first day of training. On my walk to school directed by my youngest brother, I see hills and mountains to the left, to the right, virtually anywhere you walk. Since the older brother asked me something about sports, I think it would be a good idea to ask him to show me around the mountains.
After the first day of training is over, I put on my flat running shoes (bad idea) and try to converse with my host brother. I run in place and point to the closest hill hoping he would run with me up the side of the mountain. 20 minutes later, time goes completely still as I’m falling headfirst after running and tripping over a thick rock.
At first I felt relief that I ultimately got something to break my speed, but then came the initial wave of panic. I haven’t even been here for 24 hours and here I am in higher altitude ready to pound on the ground and maybe broke a bone or two. I needed most of my body to get back home in one piece before I could tell anyone I hiked up the side of a mountain, but instead I was imagining a Peace Corps helicopter coming by to sweep me off my incapacitated feet. And then I remember that my host brother would not understand a word I would be screaming while under excruciating pain. And then I remember that I had no contact to call, even if I did break a bone and made it back to the house. And then I also wonder how I can think of so many of these possibilities when gravity moves so damn fast.
First things first, CRASH, as my shoulder hits the ground with all my weight on it and hoping the gravity would help my tuck and roll. It did. I recovered quickly and look around for any visible injuries. I was in a sitting position and I somehow survived a huge hump with only scratches on the shoulder. I am speechless for the next half a minute before I decide to pull myself up. So in typical Sarin fashion, I expected some sympathy.
My host brother just laughed at me instead. As I got up slowly, he helped me brush of the dirt. As I’m shaking and slowly going down the rest of the hill, he continues to stare at me looking like he is ready to laugh some more.
The next morning, the mom hears that I fell down a hill and laughs at me as well. She doesn’t even ask me if I have any injuries. And then I realized that if you fall down a hill in Cape Verde, life still goes on. The kids here are tough; they probably fell down dozens of hills when they were kids with nobody to help them up. And when I told the other trainees that I sustained some minor injuries on my first day here, none of them seemed to care.
Lesson learned. If you fall down a hill and don’t say anything, people will just laugh at you. It doesn’t matter how hard it looked, it’s still probably funny to them.
How’s that for one of my first days in Cape Verde.
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Sounds like you are doing quite well. That’s one thing that I learned from Cape Verdeans about child raising. Applying tough love, actually makes the kids stronger. Have you found out where you are being placed yet?
Yes, I do. I will be living in Calheta on Santiago Island. My work will be at the Centro de Juventud (Youth Center). More details will be coming soon, hope things are going great!