Sta SABI- July 12

*My host mom brother, and niece, and PCV Andrea *

So the last week has been busy. I have been to so many towns in Santiago it´s crazy! Everyday we go somehere different...which is good because it keeps our minds off America and at the end of the day around 5 or 6 you come home and talk to your host family by 9 or 10 you are exhausted. My diet here is actually not very conducive for that whole skinny thing I was going for. I have never eaten so much rice, beans, and potatoes (Arroz, fava, and battatas or Yuccas) in my life!!! Starch is all you get here. However, it is still probably 50 times more healthy than what we eat at home. We have all the meats however I eat a lot of fish and decent amount of chicken (petxi and gallena). My host family is so nice and they try to cook stuff I like.

Cape Verde is such diverse place. Even though the dialect is Kriolu (which varies north to South, island to island) all classes, radio, tv, and official documents are in Portugese. And starting in 6th grade all kids take either english or french. So everyone here can speak kriolu, understand and probably speak portugese, and possibly understand or speaks another language. More Cape Verdeans live outside of Cape Verde than in so everyone has family or friends in Brazil, US, or Europe (London, Portugal, Netherlands). That influence is definitely here (on T-shirts, food, music, etc.). But sadly, 80% of CV´s economy come from remittances ( money sent to family/friends from someone not in CV) which makes it hard for people to see a reason to work all the time bc they are so dependent on the money from other people.
Tomorrow I am shadowing a current volunteer. So I am flying out to Fogo. Look it up...it´s amazingly beautiful and everyone seems to think it is Sabi (C.V. word for awesome!... Which I have added to my permanent dictionary or fave word along with about 5 others!!)!! It is the island with the active volcano (no worries...no eruptions since 1995. hahaa!) I am excited bc the kriolu is different there and it is gonna be a completely different culture. I will make sure to tell you how it went.