One more class down. I finished up with my Word class the other night by giving an exam. It was actually more frustrating than running a class, which I had grown used to and was starting to enjoy a bit. It's frustrating because, while you expect high school kids to cheat, you don't expect it out of 25 and 30 year olds. There was a point where I had to walk individually to three pairs of people and tell them to stop talking and looking at one another's screens. One person in particular I had to tell about 7 times, because she just kept asking other people how to do things. Anyway, I think a lot of it is a cultural thing. Not like "Cape Verdeans are cheaters," or anything negative like that. But I don't know if having a silent, do-your-own-work computer exam is something they are used to. And since none have a university education, the idea of working with one another on a test probably seems fine, as opposed to the violently fierce anti-plagiarism policies most of us have had rammed into our heads during college. Ah well, other than the one case, very little helping went on after I made it clear that they were not supposed to. And in the end, nearly everyone seems to have done well, though I have yet to correct them. I am waiting for one guy to finish up right now, because the poor fellow finished the whole test and then somehow lost everything, so he is back this morning to do it again.

I went down to Tortuga beach over the weekend to talk with François, but unfortunately there was no wind at all, so lessons never happened. But I hung out with him for a couple hours, and made friends with his bartender and some random Italian guy named Marco (of course) who is visiting for a month and spends all day just chillin there. I was reminded once again how far my Italian has fallen. I tried to make conversation, but I kept forgetting stupid things like the loro form of potere (yeah, it's possono, I remembered half an hour later). Fortunately, I can still understand pretty well, so we did all right. Anyway, because there was no wind anywhere, the bay was glassy calm, so later in the afternoon I came back with Nadia and we floated in the warm water for a while, until the sun went down and it started getting chilly. By chilly, I of course mean 75-80, but I am already turning into a cold-wuss. How's the fall treating everyone?

I also went for a bike ride, which was nice. I haven't ridden a bike recreationally in many, many years. Yes, my thighs were less than happy the next day. I'd like to continue to do it as part of my "Leland actually gets in decent shape again" plan for the next two years, but my schedule is so damn irregular that I don't always have the time to exercise every day.

Also, HOW 'BOUT THEM DEMOCRATS?! Wooooooha! Ok, we're not supposed to put political things in our Peace Corps blogs, plus this is about Cape Verde, not the US, so I'll stop there.

Oh yeah, my English classes have been postponed/cancelled. After several weeks of having sign up sheets available, NOBODY signed up for the beginner's class, and only 4 for the advanced, including my counterpart and a friend in the câmara. I'm pretty sure it's because the class was too expensive, which I had mentioned before, but I deferred to the knowledge of people who actually live here, thinking maybe the price was more normal for Boa Vista. But no. Lots of people told me they wanted to sign up, but couldn't afford it. So we are waiting for 6 more people to sign up for the advanced course. After the holidays and IST (In Service Training - we all reconvene on Santiago for a conference), I am going to give the beginner's class another shot, only at about half the price. I would just as soon not charge, but the CEJ needs to income to fun other projects, and to pay for materials for the class.

I am running out of things to blog about these days. Maybe I should just make these things weekly.