Are you sure you're not Cape Verdean?

by Jennifer Neal (Germany)

Making a local connection Cape Verde

It takes Nicolin a solid two hours before he finally admits that he was expecting me to be a White European woman. And that is only after we stop to twerk on a plateau with coladeira music, where he scolds me softly for saying how much I love his country without having given it a chance to properly disappoint. After all, he was born and raised in Cape Verde—he’s had plenty of time to be both overjoyed and disappointed. I approached the tall hiking guide enthusiastically at the Santo Antão port, and pointed to my name on the white piece of paper in his hands. “You’re Jennifer Neal?” He asked me—twice. I nodded. The look on his face when his eyes cast downward was unmistakable—the betrayal I had committed for having an Irish name, while looking just like him. Since arriving in Cape Verde, I’ve been confused for many people’s aunties and daughters. It’s not hard to see why. We all have bronze skin, and laughs that sound like we’re knocking things around in our ribs. It’s the first time I've ever been to Sub-Saharan Africa, and nearly everyone I encounter insists that I have some local heritage. They ask me about my mother, my grandmother, and her mother before her. I don’t have the heart to turn these conversations towards the subject of slavery, so I just shrug and smile. It makes me feel included, and I interpret their stubborn insistence on our shared ethnicity is an indication of my acceptance here. I feel as if they have some secret they may let me in on if I eat enough jagacida to prove my worthiness, and I refuse to let them down. When Nicolin guides me into the Vale do Paul, I realize what that secret may be—paradise. The moment we enter the snake-like path that winds up and down the mountainside at the start of the hiking trail, I transcend the mortal realm of earth and enter a different dimension altogether, carved out by lush green sugarcane fields, mango orchards, cassava plants, and banana trees. When the thick cloud that sits in the middle of the valley begins to part, I understand why it took three separate flights, and a boat ride to witness the living hand of God at work. Standing before it nearly strips me of words altogether. “Are you alright?” Nicolin asks me. I nod my head, unsure of how to convey my awe—or whether or not I should, since it seems like a very non-Cape Verdean thing to do. We descend the hiking trail, and encounter people he’s known his entire life—farmers, rum distillers, musicians who tell him about the dance party at Ponta do Sol later that evening, the home of the most beautiful sunsets in the entire archipelago. They turn to me and begin to speak Creole, to which I shrug and wince trying (and failing) not to look like a genuinely confused tourist. They turn to Nicolin and ask if I’m mute, and he tells them that I’m not Cape Verdean. Nobody believes him. “Look,” he begins in a tone that implies I’ve betrayed him for a second time. “If you’re going to look like one of us, then you have to speak like one of us.” “But, I’m not…” He waves his hand, dismissing my protest, then we begin to go through the lessons—basic greetings in Creole that he asks me to repeat back to him. When we stop to greet more people, he forces me to introduce myself to a man carrying a bundle of sugarcane on his back, a woman with skin like velvet selling small bottles of rum and mint tea, and a little girl with soft curly hair chasing a rooster. This is the real secret of Cape Verde: its massive heart, which seems to be divided up equally between everyone I encounter, each of whom show me nothing less than the familiar affection they might use to endear their own children, all because of a simple greeting. “Are you sure you’re not Cape Verdean?” He asks me. “Come to the party tonight. Nobody will believe it.” I shrug and nod my head—too happy to argue.