"We have nothing to offer the world here," says Alvair "Vai" Lopes, 49, the only female deportee in Brava, the smallest of the Cape Verde Islands. Vai left Brava when she was 5 years old. She moved to Boston, MA with her family and when she was 15, she moved to Clearwater, FL. She never naturalized in the United States and in 2003, after domestic disputes, she was deported back to Brava. She was 39 years old. She had no friends or family on the small island and she didn't speak the language. She says at the time, she was so upset about being returned that she had to be sedated to board the plane. "[Brava] is a nice place to visit - you can hear a pin drop, it's so quiet. But to have to live here every day, you can't make a living. There's no work." She has difficulty finding housing. "I pay my rent every month, my lights are on, but they won't rent to me because I'm a DP [a deportee] .. I used to wear $200 shoes and now look where I have to sleep." She pays 3,000CVE (~$40) monthly rent for a small dilapidated apartment with no bathroom. Her apartment was recently been broken into, her phone was stolen. "I don't even have a door." Despite the hardships of her life, she has found some community among some of the other deportees on the island. "We stick together," she says. "We're the only family we have so we support each other."