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.