Serving Santo Antão

 
Santo Antão is the nearest island of Cape Verde to São Vicente where we live. Most days you can at least see its hazy outline from many areas of Mindelo. It is the most western of the islands and the closest we can get to the US and still be in Cape Verde. Agriculture is an important industry there and in certain places it is green and lush with mango, papaya, breadfruit trees and banana plants. Access to the island is by ferry only. There are two companies, and about 3 times in the morning you can go to Santo Antão and 3 times you can return to Mindelo. It costs about $7-8 per person one way. They give a $2.50 discount off the total cost if you buy a round trip ticket! It takes about an hour each way and they always hand out little plastic bags, just in case. We haven’t had any sea sickness problems, but often someone on the ferry does. Even our large ferry boat can roll back and forth pretty well when the wind and waves are high. We seem to like Santo Antão as we have made about 5 trips in September and October!

The BIG project was painting a primary school -- inside and out!

Here are some pictures of the school before any work was done. The 2 church brothers standing in the courtyard are short President Neves, president of the Porto Novo branch of the Church and Brother Oliveira, former president of the branch and currently the Elder's quorum president. They were the ones who spearheaded the project and made it happen.

The Original paint

The front of the school. Needs some work, I think.

We met 5 of our Young Single Adults at the early hour of 6:15 a.m. on Saturday morning, September 3. We asked for volunteers to help paint - promising that if they paid their way over, we would pay their way back. The ride over was quite uneventful. 

The day was getting warm as we left the cool sea breezes and disembarked from the ferry. We walked to the school, about 10 minutes away and arrived as they were unloading the scaffolding.

Getting things ready to work. We all wore our 'Mãos Que Adjudam' (Hands that help) vests.

Then began the sanding, patching, sanding some more, scrape the paint off the concrete wall, sand some more. The school rooms get stuffy anyway, and with working it was very easy to work up a pouring sweat! We were glad for the call to rest and eat breakfast - bananas, milk, sodas and bread.

It doesn't matter where in the world you are. Food always is welcome and rejuvenating! This is the lunch room of the school and the only room we didn't paint.

Katy, one of our young adults, up on the scaffolding scraping loose paint off top of the outside ceiling.

Bella, another of our young adults, has the job of patching holes.

Elder Broderick and President Neves working to prepare window wells for paint. President Neves may be short, but he is a spiritual giant! School desks/tables and chairs were used to reach higher. Cape Verdeans always use what is available for whatever use they need. Did you know that the bottom half of a 2-liter bottle makes a great paint can!

After breakfast we returned to sanding though some of the workers were assigned to begin painting. The rooms are very tall and to reach the ceiling the scaffolding was necessary - and maybe even adding a chair to reach even higher.We had a good crew with the 7 of us and at least that many from the local branch. There was a good spirit there. The ceilings are generally high in the concrete buildings.

Bro. Oliveira, the professional among us, getting the ceiling painted in a school room.

A treat around noon– a popsicle, cold and sweet. Then more sanding, painting etc. etc. If you had a paint brush, you had better keep a hand on it. Put it down, and someone else would pick it up to use it. Work is just work, but we began smelling some yummy food cooking. Around 3 we were called to Lunch!! I don’t know what they called the dish, but it was just very delicious!! I have enjoyed all the Cape Verdean food we had had here.   

We had a 7:00 p.m. ferry to catch. So, our group left with the promise that Dennis and I would return the next Saturday and help finish.

A tired crew on the ferry going home. The cool sea breezes were a welcome relief from the hot day of work.

The next Saturday, September 10, Dennis and I caught the 8:00 ferry and returned to Santo Antão for another day of painting. Since school began the next Tuesday, it was important to have the school ready for the students!

Want to know what happened? Please reread from the beginning of the blog. Only you can lessen the sanding and increase mightly the painting! The breakfast was the same. The lunch was different and another delicious Cape Verdean meal.

Elder Broderick and I were assigned this corridor to paint. It was a little hot as there was no breeze. We did get some help from the young boys. What they lacked in skill, they made up for in enthusiasm.

We are nearing completion on the outside. The school is a bright yellow! A member of the Santo Antão branch puts finishing touches on the wall.

The young like the high places! And to get their picture taken. The white design will be painted orange.

Elder Broderick's height was very needed.

We even painted the outside wall.

The orange accent color.

It wasn't all work!

Elder Broderick proudly standing next to his tall wall.

We are missing only one picture -- the last one showing the work completed. After the 2nd Saturday, we still were not finished. They had plans to return the following Monday to make sure at least the rooms were ready for the students. We need one more trip to Santo Antão to get one more picture! It was a lot of hot and sweaty work, but we enjoyed the experience and are so glad to serve.

Sunrise over Porto Grande, Mindelo Bay

Our next trip to Santo Antão was not, as you might have guessed, to finish the school painting. It was to deliver wheelchairs to the island. It took a full but glorious Saturday. We left home just at sunrise to catch the ferry. You can see the view of Porto Grande as we pull away from Mindelo. Our goal for this trip was to deliver wheelchairs and other mobility devices (walkers, crutches and canes) in the three counsels or areas of the island of Santo Antão. As here in São Vicente, our partner was the Red Cross, but this time there is a separate Red Cross team in each of the three areas we served. Those three areas can be seen on the map below as red crosses (no pun intended).

Our principal partner is the Red Cross of Cape Verde in São Vicente. They are working with local Red Cross organizations on each of the islands we serve. For Santo Antão the three local agencies or counsels are: one in Paul (pronounced paw ool), a second in Ribeira Grande, and the third in Porto Novo, the city where the school that we painted resides. The three counsels cover the entire island, so they include the principle city plus surrounding areas. Our school kit deliveries in Santo Antão were all in the counsel of Porto Novo which covers the left two thirds of the island.

Our first stop was in Paul. You can see the sea of Red Cross volunteers in the room where the official transfer of wheelchairs to various recipient organizations took place. At the table sat, starting on the right, (1) the president of the local Red Cross José Candeia, (2) Dr. João Paulo, president of the Red Cross of São Vicente in his red vest who is our primary contact for this and other projects (you have seen him and will see more of him in the future), (3) Vera, Mayor of Paul, (4) Valdir Monteiro, representative of the Porto Novo LDS Branch leadership, (5) yours truly Elder Broderick.

Organizations receiving wheelchairs acknowledge the donation

After the formal transfer, we were able to meet and visit with family members who came to receive wheelchairs in behalf of family members in need. This group picture shows us with some of them.

The next stop was Ribeira Grande. You have seen the name Ribeira several times. It means stream of water and refers to the many streams that start in the central mountain region and run down to the sea. Obviously Ribeira Grande is just that, a big stream.

The Red Cross group, headed up by Maria Teresa (standing just to the right of Dr. Paulo in the photo below), was well organized for our visit. It was fortuitous that our visit coincided with a celebration of seniors. They had invited a retired teacher who was back in the area to participate and be honored for her many years of serving the community. We began our visit in the Red Cross headquarters, as seen here.

One of the chosen recipients arrived just before we left to recieve her new chair. The Red Cross team

carefully moved her into a new, properly sized chair. Like each of the recipients we met, she showed her gratitude the best way she could, with a simple smile.

Our priesthood representative, Valdir Monteiro, was a little nervous at first as the official representative of the church. He serves as secretary to the branch president in Porto Novo and was asked by the president to represent him at these presentations. He just returned around April this year from his LDS mission in Mozambique, Africa. There they also speak portuguese, but their own variety. He and several young men from Cape Verde have recently served or are serving there now. We caught him in a quiet moment when he was reviewing his notes. He clearly wanted to represent the church well, and he did. He is very tall for a Caboverdean, and will provide great strength to the church here.

From the Red Cross headquarters we entered the hospital nextdoor to meet some of the people waiting to receive wheelchairs. The hospital in Ribeira Grande is the largest and best furnished of all on the island. This man had been confined to this hospital bed for several months while he waited for a wheelchair. He expressed total appreciation for this donation from caring people.

Our chair deliveries took us to unexpected places. This recipient is in prison in Ponto do Sol, near Ribeira Grande. He told us about the wheelchair he has been using for the past 20 years, one also donated by the LDS Church. It has served him well, but is finally worn out. A couple of Red Cross volunteers prepared his new chair as he looked on.

For lunch we were invited to attend the city celebration of seniors in Ponto do Sol. A large number of seniors were gathered in a hall, enjoying local musicians, some dancing and a nice hot meal. We had heard about a couple of families in the area who were all confined to wheelchairs. If I remember right there were close to 20 individuals between three families dependent on these chairs. Here at the seniors celebration we met a group of them enjoying the celebration.

We felt the joy of this group gathered together. We met the mayor of Ribeira Grande, standing next to me below, as well as several seniors whos life is made significantly better by a wheelchair. Here you see again the local Red Cross president, Maria Teresa on the far left.

The final stop of the day was back in Porto Novo. To get there we took the mountain route (see map above) instead of the coastal route. Santo Antão is blessed with many mountains which rise up thousands of feet to where they support pine trees as shown here. These mountains must be strickly carved by wind, rain, and rivers and thus they are distinctly different in appearance from mountain ranges we know in the US. Janet described them as looking like they were computer generated in a DreamWorks studio. Below you see a basin which has a volcanic origin, as do all these mountains, but it was hard to capture on film the many other vistas we were treated to.

Back in Porto Novo we met again a teenage boy who had been severely injured and partially paralyzed while swmming in the sea near by Porto Novo. We had visited with him a few weeks earlier and he was not smiling. He was making progress but needed expensive therapy to continue to progress. When we arrived to present him with a wheelchair we got a big smile from him. He had made significant progress since we had last seen him and the use of this chair signified much of that progress. He has lots of supporters in his neighborhood as well as within his family. There were many smiles for him this day.

The ferry boat back to São Vicente was just about to leave, but Renato (the local Red Cross president with his hand on the back of the chari) didn't want us to miss this opportunity. We raced over to the home of this man and passed him in the street. He is blessed to have a motorized chair he can use to get around town, at least on the better streets. But it doesn't serve his needs inside the house. The LDS wheelchair he received during our visit will do just that. The gentleman in the red shirt on the far left is a representative of one of the other partner institutions we worked with in the Porto Novo area. The Red Cross is very diligent to work closely with government and non-profit organizations in the community.

With the speed of the Red Cross truck we rushed to the ferry port and step onto the boat minutes before it pulled away. We sort of felt like we were with a police escort only it was the good name and influence of our partners that paved the way.

We thoroughly enjoyed this full day, and maybe our last day this year, on the island of Santo Antão. It was a lot less work than our painting days, but both were an important part of our Santo Antão experience. 

We encountered a lot of poverty on this island, but a lot of dedicated people serving as many of their needs as possible. We saw beautiful seascapes along the coast and towering mountains and narrow ridgelines inland. In a way we experienced the pinnacle of human caring as the Church of Jesus Christ joined hands with big-hearted people on this "big island" anchor of the Cape Verde archipelago.