Kites

By Beth

My boyfriend Kilson and I are flying kites off of Ned's dock. It is a perfect day, sunny and, natural to any ocean environment, windy. We found a few kites on Ned's desk, a big rainbow one and a butterfly, and although Ned later tells us that we broke the law flying kites so close to the airport (so sue us), for now we take them for a spin.

We race to see who can unravel their entire kite string first. There are shouts behind us but we are not to be deterred. When the race is over (the winner is debatable- depends on who you ask), we look behind us. There are maybe 10 children crowded on shore, waving their arms, hoping to get our attention. "AMIIIGAAA!!!!" They shout. This is how you get someone's attention in São Tomé. You either "pssst" them, or you yell, "friend!!!"

I motion them to come closer. Do they want to hold the kites? They look at me in disbelief, then run over, scrambling past the house dogs, jumping on tables to avoid the terrifying beasts (in actuality these dogs are smaller than beagles), others climbing up sides of the bridge by way of the ocean. They all make it to the dock in record time, either looking at the kites above or gazing at the ocean below. Their clothes are torn. Their body odor is strong. I see that they are most certainly of the poorer class here. Some hold empty jugs, en route to a water source so that they can fill the jugs and bring them home. The kids are working but they want to play.

Faia comes outside of the house to see what all the racket is. I ask him if it's okay that the kids are on the dock with me. He nods a gradual, unsure consent. I suppose what I'm doing is totally out of the ordinary, but that's okay. I'm pretty used to being out of the ordinary at this point.
After playing for a few minutes of play, the kids look over to me. They ask me where I'm from. I tell them to guess. "Gabon," they guess first. I laugh, no.

"Cape Verde."
"No."
"Angola???"

It's as if these are the only countries they can think of, the very farthest ones from reality, and they're still African, prominently black. One child guessed Portugal. That was a good guess; the only non-African country suggested.

I thought it was funny that these children could only name African countries. And then I realized that they may not even know that there are countries out there where dark skin is not the majority. It's entirely possible that they believe that my skin tone is a rarity everywhere, in the whole world. And for this reason, why would I not be African? They know I'm not from São Tomé. I don't seem like everyone else in the way I talk or dress. But who is to say that I am not from Africa, which is essentially their world?

It was an interesting reflection that made me understand these children's enviable levels of both curiosity and acceptance. Perhaps so many children stare at me from time to time because they do not realize that I come from a country where my skin color is not abnormal (which is why adults don't stare- they know otherwise). Perhaps they think I am the same, an African, but that my skin is particularly different, due to some disease, defect, perhaps simply an unusual birth, like a person with dark hair and blue eyes, for example.

What happens when you are totally ignorant of the existence of another country, another world? These children don't shun the differences that come at them. They notice the differences, they recognize that they are different, but they still accept them as part of their own. I am not a foreigner. I am an African with a different skin color. Why would you possibly suggest otherwise?

It's a beautiful way to look at things. It's also a horrific lack of education. It makes me want to stay and do what I can to teach them about our world, which is so different than they may believe it to be.

When WHITE Penetrates Mother Afrika

But perhaps I have jumped into things too quickly. I haven't really had much of a chance to explain that yes, I successfully made

Airport in São Miguel. Sort of classy for an airport, eh?

it though a wonderful week in the Azores (which I'm sure you all will hear plenty about, especially when I'm sitting in my lonesome back home in DC, whenever that is), arrived in São Tomé, learned how to type accents on my new computer, and, well, have just been having a heck of a time.
I took a plane from Ponta Delgada on the island of São Miguel in the Azores to Lisbon, then stayed with my cousins Marina and Sérgio and their adorable new bundle of baby, Santiago, for a couple of days. After getting a small preview of the awesome effects of Doxycycline if not swallowed under its very specific and rigid guidelines (I say "preview" because there was much more to come but two weeks later), I hit the airport again, bags ready to go, toting a spartan number of tank tops and shorts, a disproportionate weight of candy and books, and a really nice bottle of Azorean wine to give to my gracious host, Ned.

All this was in the forefront of my mind when we traveled from the little mini airport shuttle at nearly midnight towards our plane, an odd time for a flight and a totally disorganized system of boarding that even seemed a little out of the ordinary for Portugal, a country I once lambasted for its own lack of efficiency and charm. I couldn't help but wonder if Portugal and São Tomé were still on hesitant (if not hostile) terms.

My wondering was quickly floored by awe as we approached our plane, a once-a-week luxury of TAP Portugal, and, clear as anything else I'd ever read in my life, in letters the size of people, the name of the plane reads:

WHITE

No, this is not a joke. But you might think the following is: Below it reads:

Coloured by You

White, Coloured by You, courtesy of the White website- http://www.flywhite.eu

Good Lord, how I wish I could make this stuff up.

I could hardly keep myself from laughing. I'm sure people thought I was crazy. The plane is called WHITE? And it's colored by...what...a rainbow of singing, dumb Africans that somehow, at the right time, just showed up for the plane trip of their lives??

Well, what do you do?

You say, okay! We're getting on this huge, phallic machine called WHITE, and we're going to penetrate virgin Mother Afrika at 400 miles per hour.

My life in São Tomé has been peppered with little bits that make me laugh like this. What else CAN you do when a country's history of European control is so recent (they only became independent in the mid-1970s)? Not only this, but their whole home, their entire history began as an overflow zone for starving Cape Verdeans in an overpopulated island to contract into honest work, only to be deceived and thrown into slavery. How do you come to terms with that when it's something the Santomenses deal with every day of their life?

The STeP UP office

Among a few English classes, some translations, some great friend-making (I love standing out; I feel like people in the USA never remember my face but here everyone knows who I am) and other things, the thing that keeps me busy here (and what I originally arrived for) was to help an incredible NGO called STeP UP (São Tomé e Príncipe Union for Promotion) coordinate and work out the kinks of a very generous donation by the One Laptop Per Child Program to a local middle school in the capital. About 90 very excited twelve year olds were handed an amazingly efficient, durable, and inexpensive laptop computer that is complete with photo/video camera, microphone, a swivel frame, multiple USB ports and wireless internet access (you can buy one for yourself or any child for $250, and included in this $250 is the donation of a laptop to a child in a poor country as well- how about that!). I'm here to learn the OLPC platform and teach it to teachers and students alike, then facilitate a way for them to incorporate these computers in their everyday learning environment (both in school and at home).

Yesterday was my first day of class with the kids themselves. While we waited in hopes that the energy would turn back on

The kids wait for the energy to come back on in class. And go camera-happy while we wait :)

(something that is horribly unreliable and inconsistent, and often just doesn't work at all), the poor kids waited, say 75 of them, crowded into one classroom, for hours. I couldn't leave them there so I thought I would at least get their attention and play some games- whatever I could think of on my feet, really- 7 Up, red light green light (outside), and, my favorite, Hangman.

At least it was my favorite, until I suddenly wanted to simultaneously laugh and cry. Here I am, a white woman, of Portuguese descent nonetheless, teaching these African children a really great spelling game that incorporates lynching. I am certainly going to Hell.

Either the kids never picked up the reference, or someone Up There was on my side yesterday, because the kids actually loved the game and it occupied a solid 30 minutes of our time. But good grief, what a trip. I had played my own race card, and it was a wild card, and here I am in Africa, and, from now on, Hangman is going to be something much, much less violent.