Well, this past weekend was another to go down in the annals of history. Or at least the annals of this month. Shon, my coworker, invited Nadia and I to Estância de Baixo again, only this time for a grelha in the desert. Nadia and Shon's girlfriend, Elisabeth, have class at the same time Saturday morning, so we went back with her after she did some grocery shopping. We put together a few coolers of food and drinks and walked about 25 minutes out of town to where the desert begins. The Deserto da Viana is weird: it starts and ends really suddenly, and it's pretty small. One minute, you're walking through fields of brown dirt and lava rocks, and then all of a sudden, there are huge sand dunes that go for a few miles and then end just as suddenly. But when you're actually there in the desert, it might as well be the Sahara if you can't see over the next few dunes.

So we set up camp underneath a big tree that gave us shade from the sun. Someone had set up a grilling pit there, but we had to find it under the sand first and dig it up. We grilled fish and some chicken legs that Beti had marinated in something close to liquid heaven because good god damn they were delicious. We had an awful lot of wine and beer, which we polished off while we ate. After the meal, we struck off into the desert to enjoy it. I don't know what the original goal was, but it turned into a booze-fueled romp in the sand dunes. (pics here. The album is public, no need for an account) In the end, we made it home just after sunset, exhausted and covered in sand. I am still finding small deposits of sand here and there. So we relaxed at Shon's and then headed home, only to find... Yep, water's gone. I did the best I could to wash off the sand with a bottle of water, but I still woke up with a few fistfuls in my bed. No worries though, the water is back as of this morning.

Sunday, I woke up and immediately headed to the bay, obviously. Unfortunately, there was a lot less wind out on the water than there was on, say, my street, so the day wasn't particularly good for speed. Still, I cruised around a bit and even caught a few waves. But like a jackass, I managed to get in front of a big one that carried me halfway across the bay and right into shore, because I never bothered to think about how to get off a wave that big with almost no wind to move myself. I looked about 90% retarded. But right until the end, it was just about the most fun I've had on a board. The wind and swell picks up on Wednesday. I am addicted.

I really do have the best post in the Peace Corps. Not only can I play in the desert and windsurf on the same weekend, but I have free internet to write about it afterwards.

Ho hum, it's been another slow week. I started my English class, which is going shockingly well. My students are all mid-twenties to 40s and 50s, so everyone is pretty well educated and most people have reasonably good English. One guy of course speaks nearly perfectly, leading to the question "Why the hell did you sign up for my English class?" No, actually, I'm really glad he's there, because he breaks the occasional awkward silence with a well-formed sentence, and I feel less like an ass. The class is all reading and discussion based, so I'm not bogged down planning grammar lessons. If there is a grammar question, I just answer it on the fly. So this week I had a burst of genius with an assignment idea to kill two birds with one stone. I've been meaning to update the wikipedia entry on Boa Vista and Sal Rei, because they both SUCK. I mean it. Go look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boa_Vista%2C_Cape_Verde The facts are only vaguely accurate and some of the sentences don't make sense. But why write it all myself when I can just get my class of 15 perfectly willing students to do it instead? They practice English and inform the world about their home at the same time. I'm so smart. Look for that stuff to be posted on wikipedia in a couple weeks. There will be entries on Boa Vista, Sal Rei, Rabil, and João Galego.

I just have one thing to vent about, and it's sort of a revisit of something I have mentioned before: the music here. I feel like I'm living in a musical black hole. Anybody who knows me knows that I have a musical fixation, and anybody who knows me really well also knows that I am a music snob. So you can imagine how I feel about a culture that only likes two kinds of music: slow music with an easily discernible beat, and fast music with an easily discernable beat. This is no problem at a club, or from a passing car, or even on someone's stereo every once in a while. About 20 minutes ago, someone came in and sat the computer next to me. He had earbuds in, but I could still hear his music as if he had speakers. While waiting for his ears to start bleeding, I couldn't help but notice that his music was just some generic vaguely R&B-ish American imported crap. They love it. They eat it up. The American music that makes it over here is hands down the bottom of the barrel. It is the most irrelevant, talentless pop garbage you could imagine. Linkin Park is experiencing the zenith of their popularity here. I am not kidding. Linkin Park. Few bands receive more contempt from me (I think only Creed and James Blunt currently top them. Creed has held the number one position for 6 or 7 years now. Oh wait, Good Charlotte might make it, too.). On the rap front, 50 Cent and Jay Z still hold sway, though Akon is also inexplicably huge. I continue to try to introduce people to good hip hop, but I mostly get lukewarm responses, unless the song has a really really catchy chorus, or gun shot sounds mixed into the beat (note: a gun shot sound effect, especially if it is incorporated into the beat, is a surefire way to get me to hate your rap song instantly. it's such a pathetic gimmick). It's an uphill battle I suppose, and most people just don't care much for rock and roll. However, bizarrely enough, the Scorpions are somehow wildly popular in Cape Verde. Yes, those Scorpions. Weird, right? Anyway, sometimes I just can't stand to hear one more generic beat and repetitive pseudo-soul chorus and I have to go plug myself into some Medeski or Led Zep. I have never loved my iPod more.

On to something less stressful. I went to Estância de Baixo on Saturday, where my coworker Shon lives with his girlfriend, Elisabeth, who is a math teacher at Nadia's high school. They are great people, easily my favorite couple here on Boa Vista. Beti cooked up some cachupa (Cape Verde's national dish, if I've never mentioned it: beans, corn, sausage, onion, pork etc all in a big stew-ish thing) and fish, and we had lunch with another guy, confusingly also named Shon. The food was really good, and they busted out with an unbelievable amount of wine. My Creole gets much better when I've been drinking, so the conversation flowed in equal proportion to the alcohol. There was a big barbeque going on right across the street, where they were cooking up a (wait for it) donkey. This is not a lie. I don't know why this is even remotely appealing, but apparently this donkey needed to die and they ate it. Yummy. In much the same way rotten cabbage and sweaty socks are yummy. I wasn't offered, so I didn't try it, but I suppose I'd give it a shot. Anyway. The whole day was great, and I was reminded how different the rest of Cape Verde is than Sal Rei. This town feels more like the world I'm used to: people are nice enough, friendly and easy to talk to, but nobody goes out of their way to hang out with you or befriend you. It's only in places like Estância and João Galego where just showing up in town is reason enough for everyone to learn your name and be your new best friend. There are only 2-300 people in Estância, making it a tenth the size of Vila, so it makes sense. In any event, every friendly gesture in Cape Verde comes with a friendly beer, ponche, grogue, or wine, so by the time I found myself a ride home at about 9 ish, I was pretty far gone. I ended up spending Sunday entirely indoors, partly due to recovery and partly due to a lack of wind. No wind, no surfing.

Ok, no more typing for me. I stupidly cut my finger last night trying to make my fan stop making sqeaky noises. There was much blood and discomfort.

Life is quiet. After the initial sense of limbo when IST was cancelled, I’ve more or less found things to do for the next few weeks. Most importantly and excitingly, I have officially purchased tickets for São Vicente for February, to spend Carnaval in Mindelo. Nadia and I are both going, as are many other PCVs, so it should be a wild time. After Carnaval, I’m taking the boat over to Santo Antão to visit Natawnee in Paúl.

Predictably, I spent the weekend windsurfing. I won’t bore you with the details, but I moved up a couple meters in sail size, and the difference in speed is awesome.

I start teaching English classes tonight. This class is an advanced class, for people who already speak English. I don’t know quite what to expect right off the bat, so I have to spend the first couple classes trying to figure out what level they are so I can work with it from there. Because of the IST fuckup, I now have to take several breaks: one for my internet class (can’t teach both at the same time – it’s complicated), one for Carnaval, and one right at the end for the rescheduled IST. I’d be lying if I said I was excited about the class, because I really don’t care to teach English. I’ve never done it before, and there seems to be a lot of pressure on me to do it well. Then again, I’ve never done any of this before, so who am I to complain?

The library project seems to have come to a screeching halt. Nobody has so much as touched a book in there for weeks. There is still no organization, no plans for organization, and most of the books remain sealed away. To be perfectly honest, I don’t even know why anymore. I don’t know if they just don’t know what to do, or if they just don’t feel like doing it. By “they,” I mean the rest of the staff here. Apparently the president of the câmara is pretty annoyed that it is not up and running yet. So we are having a meeting today to discuss getting it on track. I don’t know how much help I should give, because if they already have a set plan, then I’d rather just let it happen. On the other hand, I am not sure that they have as much experiences with public libraries as I do, having grown up as a little nerd-boy. Hmm.

Otherwise, life is exceptionally quiet. I am going through what seems to be a pretty universal experience with all volunteers. I am bored and restless. This is the longest I have ever stayed in one place in ages. I mean, I never leave town. There is nowhere else to go. Transport even to Rabil or Estância de Baixo is really expensive and there is nothing there that isn’t also here in Vila. On a bored weeknight in CT, I could at least drive down to New Haven and meet people for pizza and beer. Here, all I can do is grab a book. I guess it’s a nice change of pace from the east coast, but I can’t help but get fidgety. I am looking forward to February, not just to have a good time and see other volunteers, but just for the chance it represents to get off Boa Vista for a week. Island fever strikes hard. If it weren’t for windsurfing and the general camaraderie of François’ place, I think it would be a lot harder to deal with.

Interesting. I managed to write a page about nothing.

Well, first of all, why am I blogging from Boa Vista, when I am supposed to be in Tarrafal for training and conferences right now? The answer starts with the Sahara. Whenever there is a strong easterly wind, it picks up dust from the Sahara and carries it straight across the Atlantic to the Carribean. But we get it first and worst. It’s not like there is sand choking the streets or anything (no more than normal at least), but visibility is reduced to shit. Last week, São Vicente had it pretty bad apparently, and no flights left the island for a few days. So even if flights were back on for Sunday, they would have been backed up pretty badly. And considering that Mindelo and Santo Antão have about a quarter of the volunteers there, Peace Corps saw it fit to just cancel the whole thing until the end of the month. So instead of being in Tarrafal right now, starting In-Service Training, I am right where I’d normally be. And the chaos with the flights screwed over Caryn, who is visiting us. She was supposed to fly to Praia with us, and now can’t get a flight back home to Sal. We don’t mind. We like the company.

Mel and Courtney also visited us over the weekend. We spent all day Saturday at François’ shack, which is no surprise, considering that I spend every weekend there. I finally am good enough at windsurfing where I can lean all the way back, pull the sail tight against the wind, and really take off down the bay. This is still with a 3.3 m sail (which is tiny), so I’ve got a ways to go. But I digress. We all intended to hit up Mazurka late that night, but we were all so tired from the beach that we elected to skip it. Instead, we bought two cases of beer and settled in for a marathon game of asshole that left us all hammered and out of control. Pictures to follow if I can remember to post them.

What else? I am just really disappointed that I am not on Santiago right now. I was looking forward to seeing everybody. It’s also really screwed up my work schedule. We now have to postpone two of my classes to begin in February instead of next week. I was putting off started a couple projects until after IST, and now… Well now I don’t know what to do with myself. Sucks.

Oh, and my birthday was good. I spent the day windsurfing (claro), and then we all got hammered at Pub Makenna in the square. Good times. Only annoying part was when Diva from the CEJ came to my apartment to tell me that I was needed here. So I pulled myself together and walked over with her. And it was just this guy who works for a construction company in town, whom I have been helping a bit with a computer problem. And he had been calling every half hour, asking for me constantly (despite the fact that I had already been there earlier in the day), basically to ask me what I could do to help them fix it.

Well, Happy New Year’s all around. I would have written this yesterday, but the CEJ was inexplicably closed, even though I had been assured it would be open. The whole town was still pretty much shut down actually, even though it was the 2^nd.

Our big present from the powers that be on New Year’s was the sudden reappearance of running water sometime between 9 and 10 pm on the 31^st. Nadia and I had already had a pretty good head start on the wine (and grog and whiskey in my case), so the ridiculous celebration that ensued was probably pretty funny. So after 8 days without water, I got to take a real shower that didn’t involve a 1.5 liter bottle. Spectacular.

Afterwards, Nadia decided she didn’t feel like spending the 3000 escudos to go to the big party, but I was determined. I went out to find someone who could sell me a ticket at around 11, but couldn’t. I hung out on the corner with this guy from Ghana for a while, and then found the bus driver going to Cabrer’ (the club), who told me it wouldn’t leave until 12:30 or so. So I went back, had a few more drinks with Nadia and celebrated midnight rather quietly (except for a lot of left over exuberance from the arrival of the water). Afterwards, I bumped into our neighbor, Jirson, who was going to Cabrer’. We had some beers at his place, and drove out to the club.

Ok, so I had never seen this place. It’s not like a normal club – it doesn’t open regularly for normal nightclub stuff. Somebody rented it out and arranged the tickets and open bar and whatnot. It’s HUGE. Not something you’d picture on a random island in the Atlantic. Then again, Boa Vista is filled with surprises like that. It supposedly holds 5000 people, i.e. the entire population of the island. There were probably close to 1000 people there. So anyway, loud music, open bar, lots of people, dancing… Standard New Year’s goodness. I wish I could give details on everything that went down, but it’s a bit blurry. I just know that I talked to a lot of people, friends and strangers alike, I danced a lot, and I drank a lot. Have I mentioned open bar? Oh, twice? Yeah well… open bar. At one point towards the end, after they played the standard 15 minutes of American rap music (fully appreciated by me), I wandered to the outside courtyard section of the club and noticed the sun creeping up pretty high in the sky. I made the move for home shortly afterwards and crawled in bed shortly before 8:30. Overall: great New Year’s. Still no competition for Arraial d’Ajuda though.

Our friend Caryn is here from Sal right now. She arrived yesterday afternoon and is hanging out until we all go to Santiago together on Sunday. Courtney and Mel are coming on Friday as well. Should be a Peace Corpstastic good time. We collectively represent 5 of the 8 Capricorn birthdays. Only Jonah, Rhett, and Sarah couldn’t make it.

It’s my birthday tomorrow. Send me toys.