I guess I should write something, huh.

I can't say I've been up to much lately. I finished up my English class (thank all that is holy), so I don't have anything to teach until April 2nd now, which is nice. It means I get to be home by 6 pm every day. So during the day, I've just been fixing computers and planning lessons for my beginner's English class. On that note...

I'm sick of fixing computers. I mean, I know I came here as an IT volunteer. And that's fine. But as of two weeks ago, I flat out refuse to hold a full time tech job, ever again, in my entire life. Why? Because all of a sudden, the few remaining people on Boa Vista with broken computers are now aware of my presence, and they just keep on piling through the door. It's unreal. I am constantly either fixing a computer, or being asked to fix one. In one sense, I don't mind, because I am the only one who can do it, so it's obviously at least mildly rewarding to help someone out. On the other hand, I hate fixing computers, particularly for people who don't understand anything about them (i.e. most, and that's not just here), and most particularly for people who don't understand that some computers are not fixable and are just broken forever.

I was in Praia this past weekend for a workshop on "Training Design and Evaluation." A training guy from Washington was there, as well as the West Africa regional training person, and they introduced what basically was a new way to approach training design. It was, as we say, mais ou menos. It could have been really good, and in some ways, it was pretty helpful. I honestly and nerdily find the whole topic of training to be pretty interesting, especially in light of the whole Peace Corps goal of sustainable development, which I will not bore you with here. What was not so good about the whole thing is that I can't see much of it coming to light in the near future. With the whole training model being changed this year, it's enough of an experiment that I don't imagine that they will also be trying to throw in another whole batch of new ideas. But I did get to hang out with a whole crew of volunteers and we had a pretty good time, even if it was for 2 short days.

Scary experience: I went windsurfing on Sunday, after getting home at the ass crack of dawn and sleeping for another couple hours. I decided to use a smaller board for the first time, since the winds were pretty high, and it's easier that way. So I grabbed a 119 liter board (contrast this with my previous 155 liter board - huge difference) and my usual sail and headed off. At first, no problems. I wobbled a bit, figured it out, and then crossed the bay 4 times. So far so good. Then I'm not sure what happened, but I fell off at one point on one edge of the bay and couldn't get back up. I kept getting on the board, hauling my sail, and then falling off right as I got a good grip on the boom. The balance on the smaller board was just completely different and I couldn't do it with high winds and rough water. So I fell and fell and fell and drifted the whole time further and further out. Eventually, I was exhausted, out of breath, banged up, and waterlogged. Even worse, I was too far away to swim back and further out than any of the other surfers. So after briefly freaking out, I ended up throwing my sail back across the back of the board and paddling to the nearest anchored yacht, where I tied my board up and flopped exhausted in the dinghy. There was no one on board, except a remarkably cute and friendly cat. So I ended up sitting on the this fucking boat for about 45 minutes until my friend Spela surfed over and waved over a friend on a motorboat to bring me in. So there it was, the first time I've had to be rescued on my board. Yeah, and it was scary as hell drifting out towards the open sea. And of course, everyone at the wind club has been making fun of me, asking me how Brazil was (Brazil being the next place you land if you drift out of the bay). So yeah, next time I am sticking to the shallows until I get a hang of the small board.

Ok that's it. That is honestly the most interesting thing that has happened to me lately. I'm reading Hemingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls, which is surprisingly good. I am very, very relaxed.

Three cool things I've learned in the last 24 hours or so:

1) I am going to Praia twice this month. In addition to IST (which should actually happen this time), I was just told yesterday that I'm going in for a workshop in a couple weeks. It's Peace Corps related but I didn't catch all the details. Someone from each technical sector in Community Development will be there, and I'm holding down IT apparently.

2) We have an ice cream store in Sal Rei now. To those of you blessed with a constant supply of ice cream, just go die. HA, just kidding. But you may not understand what this means. We had ice cream before, but only a couple flavors, and it was expensive and only available in a restaurant. But now we have chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, coffee, hazelnut, apple, and lemon sorbet. I also feel I should bring up a point I have made before: I haven't been a junk food person since probably elementary school (excluding the occasional case of the munchies in college). But this place has turned me around. I buy Ruffles like there's no tomorrow, eat chocolate whenever it's available, and now there's ice cream, too. I even drink Coke. Without rum. And still losing weight...

3) We are going to have a watersports championship on Boa Vista. I spoke with François the other day to proofread some stuff in English he had written up, and some of it was about this competition. It will consist of 4 weekends, with the sports chosen based on best conditions. So there will be surfing, bodyboarding, windsurfing, kitesurfing, and boat races. I might actually enter in the windsurf slalom and perhaps freestyle as well. Not that I'll win, but it'll be fun. In any event, I am going to help out with it and see if I can get the CEJ involved as well.

That is all.

Long time, no internet. Actually, I still don’t have any Internet, so I’ll have to post this later. The whole island has been out since last Friday apparently. But I am back on Boa Vista, after 8 fun days of Carnaval and vacation. You’d think I’d feel relaxed and happy and ready to get back into work. But no. Because I all I did for 8 days is party and sleep on hard floors. So I am not rested. And I have a cold. But it was aaaaall worth it.

First, a little something on São Vicente and Santo Antão. Mindelo, which is basically the only settlement of note on São Vicente, is like a small European city. It doesn’t have much more than 50,000 people, so it’s still small enough that you run into the same people all the time. But it’s also big enough that it has real restaurants, shops, and other things that I haven’t seen in 6 months. They also get fruits and vegetables. Even lettuce. Holy shit. Mindelo is also a big shipping port, because it has a large and deep natural harbour. The occasional cruise ship shows up and drops anchor. Oddly enough, Sal Rei used to be the biggest port here and was going to be the capital of the country at one point, until Mindelo started getting more business. Most big buildings have a sort of colonial architecture, and the whole place is very bright and friendly. Right nearby (look at a map) is the island of Santo Antão. The only way to reach it is by ferry boat from Mindelo, since there is no currently running airport there. It is all mountains, and the only airstrip that is built has powerful crosswinds that prevent planes from landing. Smart. Anyway. Santo Antão has a lot of people, and thus a lot of volunteers. The northeastern part of the island actually manages to catch a lot of moisture and is actually green 365 days a year, which is spectacular. Because it is all mountainous, the population of Santo Antão lives in a few ribeiras, again mostly in the northeast. A ribeira is basically just a deep valley cut by millions of years of rainfall, and during the rainy season, they actually turn into legitimate rivers again. The ribeiras grow crops all year, but it’s mostly sugarcane to produce my beloved grog, the ridiculously powerful booze that people drink around here.

On Saturday, Nadia and I arrived with a bunch of other people in Mindelo. We all stayed at our friends’ house, but the first night we didn’t do much. Just got some dinner, had a few drinks, and lounged around the house catching up with one another. Most of us hadn’t seen each other since PST, so there was a lot to say. The next morning, more people arrived, and we wandered around the city a bunch, just sort of exploring things. I can kind of lump most of the next few days together actually: By day, we’d all wander around the city in various groups, constantly bumping into one another and switching off people. All day the streets were packed with people, most of whom were drunk and wearing silly costumes. Most people think of Carnaval costumes as being bright and feathery and fancy (which is also true), but most people were just dressed up as if it were Halloween for a week. There were lots of guys in drag, weird masks, brightly colored wigs, and a lot of random costumes. And several times a day, there were the famous Carnaval parades. Sometimes they were informal, as in a group would just band together and parade through the streets, dancing in costume and banging on drums. Other times it was even less formal, and a bunch of more or less wasted people would stumble through the streets yelling and banging on whatever. But there were also the formal, organized parades that went on for long periods of time, with choreographed dancing, and really, really good drumming troupes. There were one or two a day, except on Tuesday (the big day), which had the three best and longest ones, which were actually judged as part of the whole event. So by day, we enjoyed the spectacle, ate good food, did a bit of shopping, and generally enjoyed ourselves. By night, we’d all get together and go out somewhere for drinking and dancing, etc. On Monday night, we got tickets to a big party at a hotel on the main square in town. There was live music and an unbelievable amount of people. Because it was the post-party for Monday’s big parade, all the dancers were there, dressed up in full costume, so I got more than a few brightly colored feathers in the face, up the nose, etc. I also didn’t care, because I had been drinking since mid afternoon.

I’d like to give more details as to what Carnaval really looked like, but I’d rather just post some pictures. Nadia has some, and I’ll also get some good ones from Natawnee and Kyle, which I diligently forgot to do before leaving.

After Carnaval, I went with Tawnee and Kyle to Paúl to take in a different sort of Cape Verde. The way there is pretty taxing. After the ferry ride, which is only an hour, you then have to grab a hiace to make the journey through the mountains. It takes another hour and change to get to Paúl, most of which is going either up or down and winding along cliff faces that drop hundreds of feet straight down. But once you get up high into the clouds, it starts turning green and stays that way all the way down the ribeira. There are pine forests and grass, with little farms and stone houses perched in the most ridiculous places. People will terrace what looks like basically a cliff, and find ten square meters of farming space to use. Very resourceful. Anyway, the main part of Paúl is Vila das Pombas, where Tawnee and Allie live. Das Pombas is basically one long road of houses that goes by the seaside. Immediately behind one row of houses is the ocean (Allie’s back door opens literally onto the Atlantic. The water used to wash under the door until someone built a retaining wall), and on the other side is the mountains going straight up. There is a second road that goes inland up the ribeira. Paúl is small and rather poor, and has about a 33% unemployment rate, which translates to a lot of people just hanging out around town with nothing to do. But for all that, it’s a cool place. It’s really pretty, and really quiet. And have I mentioned that it’s GREEN? I don’t see much of that color these days. We spent most of the time just relaxing and hanging out. Kyle, Tawnee and I walked a while up the ribeira to go to a restaurant of sorts. There is a German guy who makes his own cheese and grows his own veggies, so we ate a bunch of his cheese, and he smoked some fresh fish. He also produces his own grog, and Kyle and I had a shot of some stuff called ’77,’ as in 77% alcohol. It was not entirely unlike getting punched in the face. But in a good way.

So Friday night, Tawnee threw a party, and by threw a party I mean invited people over to Allie’s for a party. All the folks from Santo Antão came, plus me and Adam (from Calheta on Santiago), though Kyle and crew had already headed back to their respective homes. The party was fun, grilling and drinking and all the usual, but I ended up spending my last few waking hours on Santo Antão taking care of a barfing Natawnee. Ah well. My overnight on Sal was pretty uneventful. We watched Scrubs. Yeah.

Well, the internet is still not back here. I have been informed that DSL is still working in another zona, so it’s not the whole island, but I will be damned if I pay for internet. So this will go up when CVTelecom gets their shit together and gets the CEJ back up.