Well I'm here on my new home island of Boa Vista. Note that I didn't just say "home." That's because, oh yeah, I DON'T HAVE A HOUSE YET. But, hey, no big deal. So here's what's been happening...

Upon arrival, we spent a night in a hotel in Vila Sal-Rei, which is where Nadia and I work (Nadia is my future roommate). The original plan was for the two of us to spend a month living in an apartment in Rabil, a nearby town, until a more permanent house is completed. Well, on Monday we went to visit this apartment and found... well, a few things. One, it is tiny, certainly not big enough for two people. Two, there is no bed or refridgerator, and the table and chairs look like they were pulled from a trash pile. Three, speaking of trash piles, someone's (presumeably the landlord's) stuff, including a motorcycle, is filling up one of the rooms of the apartment. Given the size of the place, this is about 25% of the total room space. Fourth, there is an apartment above that seems to have physical access to the one I am meant to live in, i.e. someone's stuff was in the bathroom. Fifth, Rabil is far enough away that it actually costs more money to get to Vila from there and back than PC actually gives us to live on. Not to mention the fact that I would clearly prefer to live in the town that I work in, so as to really home in on the community part of community development. So, I told the vareador of the camara (basically a head of department in local government... important guy) that I couldn't live there. Here's the kicker: due to some kind of miscommunication, they have already entered into a year contract on the apartment. Needless to say, he wasn't too pleased, for which I don't blame him. The camara has invested this money in getting a volunteer, and look what happens... So, we went back to the hotel for another night, and informed our respective Peace Corps bosses of the situation. We ended up visiting the apartment that is under construction, and found that it is perfect, but we still have to wait a while for it to be done. What followed is several days of calls back and forth between me, Nadia, our directors, the camara, and the owners of several apartments and pensions in Vila, all trying to sort this mess out. As of yesterday, we have been told to relax, stay in the hotel, do our thing, and all will be sorted out by the guys in charge. So ok. Doesn't change the fact that it's a huge headache.

But otherwise.... I'm trying to think of what has happened since my last post over a month ago. Both a lot and a little, I guess. My Creole is very good now. I scored Advanced on the Language Proficiency Interview, which is a standardized language testing process developed by the Foreign Service. My Portuguese is shockingly not bad (Intermediate High), considering I only had two weeks of it, but I can barely hold a conversation. I became thoroughly sick of training shortly after that last post of mine. If it weren't for the other trainees, it would have been pretty hard to slog through it all. Computer model school was a disaster, as was the IT community project. It's hard to pin the blame as to why they went so badly, but it was just really really disorganized. We did the best we could with what we had, and I can at least say that I learned something from both experiences. The rest of training was just a blur of hanging out with other PC trainees and Cape Verdean locals.

Natawnee and I have ended up getting very close, certainly closer than I had anticipated. In the week or two before training we decided to stick it out and give a real relationship a try. Unfortunately, she is in Paul on the island of Santo Antao, which is at the total opposite end of the northern archipelago. To get there from here, I have to fly from here to Sal, then to Sao Vicente, where I take a ferry boat from Mindelo to Porto Novo on Santo Antao, and from there I have to take two hiace rides across the island and down the coast. Yeah, it's pretty remote. Yeah, I know what y'all are thinking... Jackass Leland got himself into another impossible relationship. Fortunately for us, our situation makes it a lot easier (at least in my opinion) to make it work. I don't think I could adequately explain here, but just trust me when I say I'm pretty pleased with how it's going. Though I would be more pleased if she were here.

So my CEJ (Centro de Juventude - Youth Center) here is nicer than I could possibly have imagined. It is brand new, with about 30 computers in various rooms. The main room is a cybercafe that they use to make money and keep the whole thing more or less self-sustaining. There is a computer classroom that I will be teaching in, probably starting in a few weeks. The cybercafe oddly enough doesn't have any cybercafe software running, so that is my first side project here. I found some relatively inexpensive software that I am going to download and install on a couple computers to test out. I'll run it through some tests next week and see if I can procure the $70 it will cost to license it for all the computers here. I don't know a damn thing about cybercafes, but I guess now is as good a time to start as any.

As far as other projects go, I've got more than a few in mind. Peace Corps has linked up with Cisco to get all IT volunteers certified to teach Cisco Networking Academies in developing countries. For anybody who knows me well enough, they may realize that I was studying for this very certification in the US before coming here. So I am going to start up an academy here to train people in networking, software, and hardware. It's an unbelievable program, and I can't wait to get it in full swing. It also ties a bit into another project: There is an organization in the CV government called NOSI (Nucleio Operacional do Sociedade de Informatica... I think) that runs all the government's networks and software for them. They started out with just the Ministry of Finance, but now they work with multiple ministries and have physical connections with all 9 inhabited islands. They host government websites and run web-based software to streamline government applications. We toured their facilities and talked with one of the guys there for about 3 hours last month and it was really unbelievable. Anyway, their goal is to link every camara municipal to their system. My goal is, of course, to get the ball rolling on that for the camara of Boa Vista (the whole island is one conselho... it's that small). That ties into my Cisco project, because they need people on the islands who can handle the ongoing maintenance on this end, i.e. maintaining the Cisco router and other equipment, not to mention someone who knows the software well enough to be able to troubleshoot. Other than those two big ones, I've got some other ideas floating around in my head to keep me busy when I'm not teaching classes.

Now the island itself... Well, it is the classic desert island in nearly every sense of the term. Yesterday, Nadia and I went with the CEJ to the opposite shore (to play with sea turtles! Boa Vista is one of the top spots in the world for sea turtle nesting), and we drove through the interior ...wow. It is nothing but miles of sand dunes, fields of brown, red, and black volcanic rock, and the occasional low mountain. There are a few oases scattered around that are beautiful clumps of grass and palm trees, plus the odd town, but mainly there is nothing whatsoever. I've never seen anything like it. Fortunately, the coastline makes up for it. The whole island is a nearly uninterrupted circular beach. The water is crystal clear and it's that perfect temperature: just cool enough to be refreshing, but warm enough that you can stay in all day. The bay of Sal-Rei is protected by a long islet that makes it calm and easy to float around in, not to mention windsurf. But other coast areas get pretty respectable waves, and I am currently in the market for a bodyboard. I can body surf the smaller waves, but the bigger ones are a bit intimidating, and near the rocks. The clarity of the water also makes for phenomenal snorkeling, so I'm going to try to find a mask tomorrow, too.

The town of Vila Sal-Rei is small, quiet, and beautiful. There is a large square in the middle of town, where people hang out at night. All the houses are brightly painted, and the streets are clean and well-maintained. It has one problem... tourists. This is really only a problem for me, because I am always mistaken for one, until I open my mouth and they realize that I speak Creole, which no tourists know. But I get a lot of "ciao" and "bon soir" when I walk around, since most of the tourists are European; I have yet to meet another American, which is fine with me. Nadia is very dark-skinned, so more often than not, we are assumed to be Italian. The tourism is also a problem (again, only for us) because it has inflated the economy to the point that it is going to be difficult to live in the Peace Corps living allowance. If we keep detailed track of our expenses, we may be able to wheadle some more money out of them, assuming that it stacks up as much as I think it will. But perhaps if we continue to shop at the Cape Verdean markets and drink at the Cape Verdean bars, we will be able to live on what we get. We'll see. For the Cape Verdeans, the tourism is all they've got, seeing as Boa Vista is virtually totally lacking in natural resources. They have salt. Which they no longer produce. And fish. Which they no longer export commercially (there used to be a tuna canning plant here). So tourism it is.

So in sum, I guess I basically love it here. My job is great, my town is amazing, the island is gorgeous. If I could only get my girlfriend here, life would be perfect. Oh, and a house would be nice, too. I've got regular internet access now, so expect somewhat more regular blog postings. And y'all should write me some emails. I like to get love, too.

L