Yeah yeah, it's been a while again. Normally, I could say that I don't have anything to write here, because nothing happens much in Boa Vista, but that's actually not the case. First of all, two weekends ago was the windsurfing competition. Ok, I'll start there.
On Friday, a boatload of windsurfers, surfers, and general water enthusiasts arrived from Sal. We had invited teams from Santiago (Praia Baixo) and São Vicente (Mindelo), but they never made it, who knows why. The first disaster came when I wandered through to meet everyone after my last class of the evening, and I found out that François had not arranged food for the competitors and their entourage. So there were 27 starving athletes, as well as some spectators and girlfriends, and all were unhappy about it. By Saturday morning however, he had negotiated some sort of agreement with some local women (including Dona Tuta of the CEJ), and they ended up cooking lunch and dinner for all the survers for the rest of the tournament. The tournament as a whole was a bit disorganized, but overall it went as well as it could. Money was scarce, since the two major sponsors that François was hoping for elected to not give any money at all. Still, we did a slalom, a race around the island, and some kitesurfing events. We weren't able to do freestyle or waveriding for the windsurfers because there were NO waves and we used all the good windy hours for the races. If we had more time, we could have done the sailing regatta we planned, and it goes without saying that with no waves, no surfing happened. So some people were disappointed, but it was a good start. I'm going to try to have more of a hand in organizing it for next year, since François was just too overwhelmed with it this year. We'll start organizing earlier, form a committee, and try to include goodies like a beer sponsor, a DJ, t shirts, and extend it for a week or more to include more events. I'm much more optimistic about it.
This past weekend was the Festival da Santa Cruz in Rabil. I went over there after having dinner with a friend on Friday night, and ended up staying until aroudn 4 am. A funaná band from Santiago called Ferro Gaita played. I had heard the name and music before, but never connected it to their faces, but after they took the stage I recognized them from TV. Nadia went home early because she had a class to teach Saturday morning, and my friend Lucas also took off because he works insane hours all weekend. So I just kind of hung around, attaching myself to random friends until I finally had to go to bed. Hearing funaná live again was spectacular, because Boa Vista just doesn't play much of it. Dancing to funaná is basically just a lot off ass shaking, which makes it way more fun than morna, aka lamest music ever. After a long night like that, I spent most of Saturday doing nothing, except for going for a nice swim in the afternoon. We had a dinner with all the CEJ staff at a nice restaurant in Rabil that night. I love hanging out with my coworkers. Good people, good people. I tried to convince a bunch of them to come to Mazurka, but everyone claimed they were too tired. So I went alone.
I know I've bitched about Mazurka before. And yeah, the music still sucks. But Lucas works there, so when I told him two weeks ago how bad the music is, he told the DJ to play more rap and reggae. And he actually listened. The usual 10 minute good music segment was extended to almost 25 minutes! Exciting shit. But really it's more fun now just because I know more people. There's never any awkward standing there, looking for someone I know. So I've been having a blast. I might start going a lot more often now. This last weekend was just as fun, and my friend Kyle is coming from Sal this weekend, so I'm sure we'll end up there again.
I need to wrap this up so I can get back to work. I've been working unholy hours for the last couple weeks, mainly because my English class is still going on and now I am teaching Word as well. It wouldn't be bad, except that English requires lesson plans and exercises, so I end up spending too much time on it every day. Bleah. Oh well, at least they're learning a bit.
It is completely orange outside. The bruma seca is blowing in off the Sahara again and the air is nasty and dusty.
