So, I just spent the last half hour or so browsing other people's Peace Corps blogs in West Africa (yeah, I know, I'm just wasting time on the internet. Give me a break, it's Monday.) , and thinking about how my own experience holds up. I don't really want to do any heavy comparisons, because I think it should be obvious that the kind of service you do and the place you do it shapes your service enormously. But it's wild about how different it really can be. The blogs I was looking at were mostly in Ghana and Togo, mainly because Rhett (PCV at the Escola Técnica in Praia) and I are trying to plan a vacation to Accra and Lomé, for surfing and other beachy goodness. But I got caught up in reading about people's rural experiences, because of how vastly different they are from mine.

People spend time doing agricultural work, volunteering at the hospital with the Red Cross, helping with childcare and midwifery... The kinds of things that I always envisioned Peace Corps volunteers as doing. People talk about their friendly neighbors who come over to help them with tasks that Americans aren't used to: cooking, washing clothes, minor projects around the house. Many don't have electricity and update infrequently when they travel to whatever city happens to be nearby. But overall I guess, the focus is on the basics of life. The projects tend to be organized around developing services that we might take for granted in the US (or Cape Verde), but don't exist in the bush of Togo. A part of me is mildly disappointed that my experience isn't more like this. Maybe I just wanted to rough it a bit more than I am here, but then again, I'd probably sing a different tune if I were actually living in a rural village in the middle of nowhere. I think the bigger issue for me, however, is that it sometimes seems that Boa Vista doesn't really need volunteers. Don't get me wrong: Boa Vista definitely does need us here. But it doesn't always seem that way.

Nadia's service is a bit more straightforward (which isn't to say that she doesn't have her own doubts and tribulations), because there is a serious lack of English teachers here. If she weren't around, classes just wouldn't get taught and a generation would pass through school with no further language training. But as a technology person... Part of it is that for a place to even have a use for an IT volunteer, they have to have already achieved a certain level of development. You've gotta have consistent electricity, infrastructure, education levels, small businesses, etc. Boa Vista has all this. Which is why I feel like a chair warmer sometimes. My chair is exceptionally toasty today, thanks to my ass. Buuuut, then I start to think about the flip side of things.

You know how sometimes, a random offhand comment by somebody will stick in your head forever and ever? Well, during training, we had many representatives from various agencies come and talk to us about development work in Cape Verde. One of them (I think it was a UN guy) was talking about how Cape Verde will soon be removed from the Least Developed Countries list, because the country has hit several benchmarks, indicating great progress. Removal from the LDC means that you immediately lose many benefits and developmental aid. Without being inappropriately POed about it, but clearly bothered, the guy made a remark to the effect of "Why are we being punished for doing well?" Cape Verde consistently makes the most of the development aid it is given, with very little being squandered by corruption or inefficiency. As a result, it is the wealthiest African country, with a booming economy and fewer of the poverty-associated problems associated with continental West Africa. So if Cape Verde does such great things with the money it is given, doesn't it seem perverse to take that money away? The obvious answer is that now there are other countries in need of that money. So what does Cape Verde get? Me, I guess (not a great prize, though my remarkable good looks may be contributing to Boa Vista's overall wellbeing).

The one thing that consistently keeps me optimistic is that I think I still fit into the development model. It's just not in a place that I ever really considered before. Somewhere in between the US and Burkina Faso are a slew of countries that are pulling themselves out of 3rd world status, but need assistance in getting up to speed with the developed world. So I wander along and start showing them how to use Excel spreadsheets to keep track of monthly expenses, and all I ask for in return are free windsurfing lessons. If I can get done the ONE thing that I want to do here, which is to train at least one reasonably competent technician, I can go back to the US (or wherever) feeling good about it.

Ok, did I rant? I might have. Just feeling a bit useless today, as I have no concrete work to do, except plan my English class for tonight, which I really don't want to do. At all.

And I've been practicing using the harness while windsurfing, and I have achieved some awesome speeds in the last couple days. Some awesome crashes have come along with that (explaining the bruises and roadrash on my arms, chest, and shins), but how are you gonna learn how to fly across the bay without flipping headlong over your board a few dozen times?