This is where I'll be staying for two nights, whilst in Calhetona to organize Justina's birthday party, which will be held on the 11th of June. This house belongs to the Schellmann's, who have been living here for a few years and whose support to the local school and the recent bd sport active association could be a role model for other private groups or organizations wanting to help local communities.
They have a restaurant, organize a wide variety of cultural/trekking circuits within the area and most important of all Sibylle Schellmann is the patron of Escola Velhinho Rodrigues, therefore being able to directly intervene in whatever is necessary. They are the ones who have been lodging me and providing me with the daily meals since I have started carrying out the various workshops in this area. Knowing the local reality and the difficulties the families have to go through, they are also the ones who have been sellecting the children for the activities and those liable to need external support to further continue attending school.
The community is a rural one, which compared to the urban life like I am used to seems like a totally different world ... but it is when one feels what simplicity is about that one balances out the real values of life.
Cape Verdians are hard workers and are known to "make wonders" when it comes to cultivating dry and gravel stoned ground and Calhetona is no exception. Women work from morning till dawn in an almost non-stop sequence of outside activities and chores. People rarely complain about their living conditions and seem to proudly focus on whatever they have achieved taking into account the circumstances.Although I have been coming here as a teacher ... I don't know who has been "teaching" who!...
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