Sr. Antonio RIP

Sr. Antonio RIP

So Sr. Antonio dies yesterday morning. I think there is a good picture of him here on my blog somewhere…he’s sitting barefoot on some steps in front of a house with his hat in his hand, and he’s got a few days growth of grey beard.

Today is Monday and I’ve just come back from a weekend in Povocon, and hadn’t heard the news. But about an hour ago, I was in the polivalent (the concrete soccer field/community center) awaiting the guys from the newly formed Txangreja Basketball Club, when I heard the wailing. (If I haven’t explained the Cape Verdian tradition of funereal “wailing” yet, someone please tell me and I will. It’s awful and sad and very common.) Anyway, there I was like a jackass shooting hoops when I hear the wailing and peek my head out the door of the polivalent to see half the town of Txangreja marching and wailing down the hill to the cemetery between here and Cruzinha. Djon stepped out from the procession to tell me that Sr. Antonio had passed away.

Sr. Antonio must have been about 80 years old, but he was very spert (clever). It’s my impression that folks in Txangreja will remember him as an ace-up-his-sleeve-toting wily coyote who liked to drink and harass women during his younger days. I’ll remember him as one of the first people I met here in Txangreja, an unrivaled card shark, and the person who taught me to play (and cheat at) Bisca and TxinTxon…which are ancient Cape Verdian card games. There’s another reason I’ll remember him as well. When we met, during my first week here in town, which was September of last year, he was completely unfazed and unimpressed.

Being the first Peace Corps volunteer to come to live in Txangreja, possibly the first American ever to set foot in this village, and certainly the first white person in this town that spoke a word of kriolu…I was something of a rock star during my first few months. People were excited to meet me, wanted to ask questions about where I came from, what I was doing here, how long I was staying, where and why I had learned to speak kriolu, etc. Not Sr. Antonio. I remember the day I met him he was sitting at a table in a chair in the plaza with his signature road cap on and a weathered deck of disintegrating cards in his hand...looking for his next victim. I sat down across from him and, expecting to get a rise out of him and launch into my schpeel about myself and Peace Corps and all the rest, said in a fairly decent kriolu “Do you know how to play poker?” Without missing a beat he replied “No, but we can play Bisca instead.” I told him I didn’t know that game, and he told me not to worry, he’d teach me…and he did.

We sat in the plaza and played cards and chatted for what must have been about 4 hours that day, and I didn’t get a word in edgewise as he instructed me in the subtle art of playing Bisca. He told me he had 4 wives, 12 children and over 50 grandchildren, and had once seen the Parthenon in Greece, having worked on cargo ships during his younger years. I remember he didn’t ask me a single question about me or my kriolu, or just what in the hell a white person was doing sitting in his plaza playing cards…I was just another victim to him.

After that first day he and I had a more or less regular card game in the plaza every afternoon at 4pm. That must have gone on for about 2 months, until I had to quit going so I’d have time to prepare my lesson plans. During our games I didn’t talk much (I was too busy concentrating on learning the game), but he did. At that point in my kriolu acquisition I didn’t understand a lot of what he was saying, but I was learning from him. I believe I can say with some certainty that he never did learn my name (He only ever called me Merkon), although I must have told him a dozen times. Ironically, through our games I managed to conxe (meet) quite a lot of people in town, as the site of a white person sitting in the plaza playing cards with Sr. Antonio every day did arouse some curiosity, and people would often come up to introduce themselves to me in the plaza, and then ask me what in the hell I was doing here. Most importantly, knowing, and I dare say being good at, Bisca and TxinTxon is an invaluable asset when it comes to meeting people and making friends in this country, and I’ve him to thank for that.

So, rest in peace Sr, Antonio. So long, and thanks for everything.