Meet Dayse Baba, who flashes color on walks outside the Capitol
Through the end of September, we’re celebrating the people who, every day, make life in the Sacramento region meaningful and interesting. Through 12 stories, a collection of short profiles, you’ll “Meet your neighbors.” Read more here.
Government staffers stride past the domed Capitol building under a gray afternoon sky. So does Dayse Baba, in her flared magenta dress.
She stands out. So does Stormy, Baba’s elderly pit bull, dressed like a toddler at a recital in a neon-green tutu and matching headband.
“She has seven different tutu colors,” Baba says. “One for each day of the week.”
Baba adopted Stormy from the Sacramento SPCA, where the dog had gone unadopted for years.
Baba knows what it’s like to be searching for home.
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Born in 1978 on Brazil’s northeastern coast, she grew up in poverty, moving to Hawaii a year after marrying an American, from whom she was later divorced.
Priced out of Hawaii, a decade ago Baba moved to Sacramento. She lost everything during the several months she spent on a hospital respirator during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When I woke up, my work was gone. My apartment was gone. Everything was gone,” she said.
She’d spend the next number of years unhoused.
Reading and painting have always been Baba’s refuge.
“I’m a library … full of memories, beliefs, experiences,” she wrote in an essay for Cosumnes River College, where she studies art and art history.
She admires Gustav Klimpt and German painter Otto Dix, hated by the Nazis and famed for his dark paintings of war.
“In a time where everybody was putting their heads down, he stood his ground,” Baba said.
In February, Baba found refuge at St. Clare’s — an apartment building for people exiting homelessness — located a block from the Capitol.
A few months later, she adopted Stormy. Baba was lonely, but didn’t want to adopt a puppy, she said.
“I want an old lady like me,” she joked. “Two old girls in Downtown.”
