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.