N KA SABI-Aug 18

This week has been crazy!!! Ok so first thing first. I live in a town named Txan di Tanki in Santiago. Most towns in Cape Verde have a patron Saint and they have Saint Days. The saint for TDT is Senhora Graça and her Saint day is August 15th. Although, it is only supposed to be for one day TDT celebrates for an entire week. So starting on the 11th, people were buying clothes and getting food. Music was being played at every house, all day, everyday. There was a huge soccer final game on the sunday before between Txan di tanki and a neighboring town. They got down to the end and neither team scored. So because it was the final they played sudden death. But here, Sudden death is done differently instead of people staying in their seats, biting their nails, and peeing in their pants, everyone, and I mean everyone, gets on the field and surrounds the goal post. So there I was with the entire town standing on the field and watching as txan di tanki ...lost. It was so sad. Everyone was sad...I couldn´t really see any of it but I knew they lost because my host sister pulls me and was like "nu bai gosi" (let´s go now). I was wondering why she was pulling me but then I realized because the other town was going crazy in victory... and tdt was going crazy in anger. There were fights, and a lot of drunk people and a lot of people who were just there for quinze de agosto looking to have a good time. So we left to the safety of our side of town.
Because Community development is the only group in Txan di tanki we were able to get Aug 15th off as like a holiday. My families exteneded relatives came form everywhere (neighboring town, islands, etc.) and stayed in the house. There was always a different group of people in my house laughing, eating, and drinking. I never realized how important food was here but literally they take it seriously. You prepare, cook, and eat all day during holidays. I woke up on the 14th to the sound Pigs, cows, and goats being slaughtered. Literally, starting on the 13th multiple families had the skins of animals laid out in the front or on the side of their houses. Needless to say, it was a party for 3 days prior to the actual party.
Anyways on the 14th everyone cooks all this food and at night people go to the discotec (club). Well me being an American I thought oh we should probably get to the club around 11. Umm no. We actually left our houses about 11 and walked through the streets. It was like a huge town block party. We get to the club around 12am which is still early for Cape Verdeans. Other PC Volunteers from two towns over came and surprised us about an hour later. Let me just say that I thought I had danced before but you have never had a real dancing experience until you have danced to reggaeton, reggae, and then Funana (a traditional dance in Cape Verde...Think of the fastest hip-hop song and then multiply that beat by about 20) in a club with no air conditioning or fans, with windows that blow no air in because it is almost as hot outside as it is in, and filled to complete capacity (a space for maybe 300 with about 600 people there). We left the discotec around 5 and I went to bed around 5:40. But I later found out that wasearly, generally on quinze de agosto you donºt leave the club until 8...so we were lightweights compared to everyone else. ~

I woke up around 10 and watched a huge processional from the city to our village from the town street. I joined in with other Peace Corps Volunteers once they passed my part of town. We walked through the town with the Senhora Graça statue at the front, next to the priest who was giving his sermon over a huge intercom (speakers in the back of a pickup truck). After Misa (mass) we all went to random houses and ate all the katxupa (cuchupa...traditional CV dish), txeren (cheren...cv form of grits), and arroz (rice) we could stomach. Although Grouge (the official liquor of Cape Verde...the strongest form of liquor I have ever encountered) was very abundant. So it was an intense 5 days for me full of random cultural events. I ate, danced, and witnessed a lot... and it was fun!!!
Yesterday was a big day for Peace Corps volunteers. We actually got our site placement. Which means we all found out where we are going to live for the next 2 years. To find out we had to play a game. The current volunteers made pinatas. One was a donkey for all the Community development people and one was a pig for the TEFL people. We had to break them and inside was candy with papers with our names and site written on it. Each person picked up one and read it.
So my wish came true and I am staying on Santiago. I am going to live in Calheta de Sao Miguel. I will be working with 4 different organizations. OASIS (agricultural group) OMCV (the large Women´s association), One of the CEJs (youth centers), and the local Camara (like a city hall). Yeah it is gonna be a lot but I am so excited!!! I am apparently living alone but my current LCF (language teacher) lives in the town and I am soo excited because she knows everyone and that will really help me integrate into the culture there. I am pretty sure I will have electricity and possible water. Oh and I am very close to the beach! Well this was a brief overview of some of the events of the week. I will try to put more pics up soon but my camera died so I need to charge it before I can put all the pics from site announcement day and quinze de agosto. I must take a pic of the wildlife here (roaches, spiders, etc.) because they are unbelieveably big. I actually could here them crawling around my room at 3am. But I couldn´t see because we don´t have electricity after 11pm and didn´t have my flashlight...it was a very sleplees night. hahaha!

The 5th week mark

Well this week we went to a place called Sambala. It is an actual resort that is being built in Santiago. It is massive!!! I mean it is a really cool property and it is going to have some really amazing things there. The villas and houses are relatively cheap for a resort on the top of a mountain next to the beach. It is an odd feeling going there though, because you drive through the capital city (Praia) and through a small village, and out in the middle of nowhere is this giant resort. When we first got there I was shocked by the scale and all the great things that were gonna be there, but then they got to the good part. The group is actually going to move the closest, and only town halfway across Santiago. Granted the villagers will have a better school and access to more water, but they are moving them to add more villas and also so that the inhabitants never have to really see real Cape Verdeans. Samabala will actually employ about 3,000 workers, 800 of which are currently working there. However, about 90% of the workers are not from C.V. they are from the continent. I mean Samabala is doing great thing like eventually it will be a sustainable eco-tourist resort with wind power as well as solar panels for energy to the houses...but that´s 15 years away. This is a round about way of saying that tourism while good in some ways is a shady industry.

The company that owns Sambala is a british company, and they are appealing to the brits because this is their closest group of tropical islands. The people that are going to live here are going to be living in a self-contained environment (grocery stores, shops, restaurants, etc.) and if they really wanted to they would never have to step out to Cape Verde. Cape Verde yells and claps when we get rain (chuva) more like mist (brufa) but this place is going to have 2 pools and a large number of fountains in all of the resort´s villages. They are taking trees out in order to make it more aesthetically pleasing! They will never have to see real villages or the impoverished people that live in the country. Which is probably how they like it anyway. I don´t know it just makes me think of all the ways that I support places like Jamaica, South Africa, or any other place that has a booming tourist economy but a high percentage of people in poverty.
Finally, I saw Sicko on Sunday. I thought it was great. I watched it with about 4 other trainees and 3 volunteers and all of us had the same reaction: wow maybe I should move to France or England. hahahaha! It was actually really weird watching that kind of movie out of the US. I was happy that I got to see it because I thought it was a great movie and it was very well done, but I think it was even better because I wasn´t in the US. I thought maybe I am crazy for wanting to live in another country, but hearing other people say "that movie was great but it kinda makes me not wanna go back to America" was slightly reassuring. I mean I love America and I will definitely be back but I wonder if my time here will make me more critical of things that happen back home. I know that if I make it two years I will come back with a greater appreciation of the country but hearing someone say "look at a country´s greatness not by how they treat the rich or healthy but by how they treat their poor and sick" makes me wonder.
Anywho, have I mentioned how much I miss washing machines and dryers. My host-mom washes clothes for about 9 hours twice a week. I try and help but I suck at rinsing the soap out part. She is always like "nau nau" or "mas forsa" (meaning more strength) because in case you were wondering I am a weakling here! hahaha! oh well. Oh, and that whole thing about not having chicken for 2 years...completely false! I had fried chicken for lunch today...it was good. Fried chicken here is "Frango." Õh and if anyone has any ideaon what I should cook my family for an american dinner on Monday (Segunda Ferra) I am all ears!

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.

Tudo Dretu!-July 20

Well I finally have a minute to tell you about what has been going on the last week. For the last 5 days we have been shadowing current volunteers all over Cape Verde. I shadowed a current volunteer on Fogo. She works in a Camara (governmental building- "city hall") but she also does stuff with kids and women. So I won´t bore you with the technical stuff but I did have an intersting time there. I learned a lot about the relationships between men and women. She pretty much gave us the dirt on how men treat women and how women just seem to take it. She says that if you are going to have a relationship with a guy you have to set up concrete guidelines for a relationships ( i.e. telling him that you believe in monogamy, that as a woman you want to be respected publicly and privately, etc.) I don´t think that all guys are like that but most of them believe in having a lot of pikenas (girlfriend) and having a lot of children not with their wife. One of the guys we met father has 27 kids, 9 with his wife and the others all over Cape Verde; and he is definitely not alone. I met another guy who had 33 siblings...crazy! I mean I hate to generalize but it seems that monogamy is not of great importance. However, it´s partly the fault of the women here, who accept that behavior, thus the low divorce rate. Some women even let the husband´s kids stay with them! But I still wanna make sure that everyone knows that I mean there are a lot of men and women like that not all of them.
We received our site preference sheet today. It is just the sheet that asks you where you want to live (urban, rural, etc.), who you dont want to live with, and which exact job for particular islands you want. Í am pretty sure I am gona end up on Santiago because I have boldly expressed that to my sector leader and I think I might be right in the city (Praia). So if anyone comes to visit I will be able to really show you around the hub of Cape Verde. someone will be staying in Mindelo, which is the center of Karnaval which will be cool bc we will have someone who really knows about the town. I am excited because I am pretty sure I am going to Karnaval this february so i will get to test the waters before anyone wants to come to karnaval in 2009. oh, and a current volunteer is actually starting a trip to Ghana in January and she said that anyone who wants to come can (it´s only about $600!!). So melissa, I might get to see your old stomping ground a lot sooner than I thought. It´s cool here because a lot of the other trainees here are really open to going places with other trainees, and people are already making plans to start a trip to Brazil and Portugal, and since a lot of people will be in fluent in Portugese that trip will be amazing! On a sad note, we already had one person ET (early terminate) which was sad because no one saw it coming and I spent most of my 4 days on Fogo with her. However, it was bound to happen sooner or later, but I am sure it will still be difficult everytime.

Bon Dia- June 29th

Hey everyone!!!
I am sitting in an internet cafe in Praia, Cape Verde at 5:45. Well I just wanted to let everyone know that I did make it from Atlanta, to Dakar relatively safely. We reached the capital with a full entourage of people. The Senegalese ambassador and the Peace Corps Country director came...and from the looks of it so did the entire city of Dakar. They almost attacked our van to say hello it was really weird, nice, funny, and just a tiny bit scary. We went to this really pretty hotel (on the outside). My group (around 30 people) stayed up the entire night and lounged by the pool and ate a senegalese lunch, and stared at the amazing beach as our plane was delayed for a few more hours.

We all were kinda sad when they said that we had to leave. We got to the Senegal Airport (which is much more laid back in customs than America) and boarded our plane for our whopping 1hour and 30 minute trip!
Anyways, we got to Cape Verde around 3 and we had a full welcoming crowd...it was awesome!!!! We got here and met everyone and saw the city which mind you is poor but very beautiful. It almost looks like we are in a latin American community. The scenerly is great, we have a mountain on one side of us and a HUGE beautiful beach on the other. So far I really like Cape Verde. And yes they are beautiful people...
Our orientation/training is alll day!!! from 8:00am to around 5 or 6. Its all really informative but overwhelming and scary. On Sunday we are meeting and moving in with our host families. We are gonna live with them and eat every meal with them. Since my job is Community Development I am actually pretty much only learning Kriolu (pronounce creol-ooo) because that is the local dialect. Like everyone speaks it but the formal and official language is portugese. So I might have to learn a little for writing.
I thought they were exaggerating the fish thing but now I think they underplayed how much fish they eat. All day, everyday, every meal. I have only eaten fish since I arrived in Africa. I LOVE IT!! We have bread, rice, potatoes sometime all three every meal. And it`s good! It is flavorful but without all the jazzy stuff. For lunch today we had eel. oh mind you all the fish is fried. itºs soo funny bc a couple of guys in our group and I were laughing that we only had eel as sushi and never thought to fry it!! I have met some really awesome people and I am having a great time.