Another excellent weekend passed by. Spearfishing with Gerry and Daniel, Mazurka until 5 am, lounging on Estoril all day with pretty girls... Overall not a bad way to spend a couple days. Of course, it makes me pretty disinclined to leave here in two weeks. Yes, that’s right, two weeks. My flight out of Boa Vista is Sunday the 10^th. I have interviews and medical stuff in Praia for three days, and then I have a few days of just bumming around, because I couldn’t get a flight to Boston until the 20^th.

So how does all that make me feel? It makes my head want to pop. Two years is a long time to live somewhere. Ok, maybe if you said in the US “Yeah, I lived in Cincinnati for a couple years,” it might not mean much. Cincinnati doesn’t have much of an effect on people (or anything, I think). But two years of being here is really intense. It’s like living 10 years anywhere else. Not only is Peace Corps in general an extreme experience, but doing it on an island of 4000 takes it to a whole new level.

In any event, I’m excited to go back, but anxious. I don’t know exactly how I’m going to react, but I know it’s going to be strange. Every time I’ve hung out with a European here for the last couple months, I’ve noticed that I don’t understand why they act the way they do. They are bothered by things that I don’t notice. They take too long to get ready. They get anxious and worked up over minor details. They try to get to places on time. I dunno. If that’s how Americans are, it’s going to be a tough adjustment. But I honestly don’t even remember.

I’m not in a particularly philosophical mood at the moment, so I will once again postpone writing about any reactions. Also, I have no idea how I actually feel, because it seems to change every 15 seconds or so. So I’ll let you know once I’ve figured it out. In the mean time…

Things I will miss:

• Estoril beach
• Swimming on my lunch break
• Windsurfing on my lunch break
• 2-3 hour lunch breaks
• My friends
• Crystal clear, warm, blue water
• Being the only white guy at the party
• My work
• Confusing people with baseball references
• Crioulas
• Free time to read a lot
• Telenovelas (oddly enough)
• Cachupa
• Loud drunk Cape Verdeans
• Festivals
• Fresh fish
• Lunch at Gerry and Orquidea’s
• Conversations in 3 or more languages
• Complete silence after 11 pm
• Sitting in the praça for hours for no particular reason
• The desert
• BBQs
• Perfect weather, every day
• Not having to worry about rent, health insurance, car payments, money in general…
• Wearing t-shirts and jeans to work
• Living the rest of my life shirtless or sleeveless
• Being tan all the time
• Games of chess at the wind club
• Ridiculous Creole slang
• Speaking Creole in general
• Coca-Cola made with real sugar
• Riding in the back of pickup trucks
• Shameless dryhumping at Mazurka
• Sitting on my balcony with a beer and chatting with passers by
  

Things I will not miss

• Flies
• Mosquitos
• Struggling with water constantly
• Tourists
• Getting all my sports news in online highlights
• Shitty Portuguese beer
• Eating the same 10 meals on repeat
• Lousy fruits and vegetables
• Obnoxious quads
• Inflated prices
• Street dogs
• Zouk

Things I am going to eat in the next couple months

In no particular order...

• A huge beef burrito at Los Amigos in Elk Point
• Grilled hot dog
• Grilled steak, medium rare
• Mountains of sushi
• Pizza at Pepe's - this will happen multiple times
• A napalm burger: it may be off the menu at Eli's, but they will make me one anyway. Or else.
  
• Everything on the menu at Typhoon
• All my favorite beers, including Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA, Anchor Porter, Guinness, Boulevard Wheat, Sam Summer, Sierra Nevada Pale, and so many more than my brain is racing to come up with names and flavors
• At least one fancypants meal in Sonoma with Lennon and Rebecca
• Buffalo wings
• Fajitas
• Something obscenely delicious that my sister will make that I will not be able to predict and couldn't come up with on my own in 150 years
• SALAD
• Piles of fresh fruit
• Delicious South Dakota corn with butter and salt
• My dad's caramelized onion and goat cheese pizza, featuring my mother's homemade goat cheese - my family is ridiculous(ly awesome)
• Terrible faux Chinese food
• Deli sandwiches - I have been craving these for MONTHS. Especially a reuben. And I could go for a Bob's Cardiac Attack from Neon Deli (hot pastrami, provolone and mayo on a buttered toasted roll). And a classic Virginia ham and gouda cheese with honey mustard.
• My mom's preserved lemon and garlic pasta
• A meatball grinder with provolone and hot peppers

I gotta stop making this list, not because I'm out of food items, because it's killing me inside. I am in my last month of service officially. Unfortunately, I had an awesome weekend yet again, and I really don't want to leave. Shit.

And the festa is over. Last week was our municipal festival and saint's day (the saint being Santa Isabel), which is of course, the biggest party of the year. I still need some more recovery time, I think.

Last Wednesday, I went to the finalistas (high school graduates) ceremony and party. Now before you think I am sketchy as hell, remember a few things. First, there are not all that many people my age here, and yeah, I have a lot of 18-20 year old friends. Second, a lot of high school seniors are well over 18, because a lot of people take time off or fail a lot of classes. Third, they all look like they're 25, because this is Cape Verde. Fourth, the drinking age is 18 here and there was an open bar. Fifth... Well it was just a great party is all. The DJ was really good and a lot of my friends were there. The party was so good in fact, that I found myself among the last 10 people in the last car home.

I was supposed to go to bed early on Thursday to rest up for the main event over the weekend, but my "short walk" brought me in contact with the surfista crowd and I got dragged out to the festival area, where I stayed until 2:30. I wasn't even out getting drunk or anything, but it's tough to leave those guys once they get on a roll. It's like a crude comedy show all the time.

Shon came over around noon on Friday to spend the weekend at my place so he didn't have to shuttle back and forth between Vila and Estância de Baixo. We were at the pier most of the afternoon watching the events and whatnot. There was a race of the traditional fishing boats out to the shipwreck in the bay and back, followed by swimming races and beach volleyball. After that, we wandered around between the barraca, the praça and the pier, just mixing with various people and having fun. The barraca is an area on the beach where they set up a bunch of temporary bars and restaurants and whatnot, and it pretty much doesn't close for 4 days. The beer is usually not particularly cold, but the grilled chicken is SUPERB, so I can let it slide. Anyway, the festival usually migrates between there and the palivolente, where they set up the stage for the music. I meant to rest up a bit for the music part, but I couldn't get myself home at all. That's just Cape Verde for you: you try to go somewhere, and all of a sudden you've got a beer in your hand and you're being dragged somewhere else entirely.

The live music this year was Livity, which is one of CV's most famous bands, going back to the late 70s. They had some of the biggest hits of all time back then, so they're very much a part of musical history here. One of them, Kino Cabral, played here solo last year, but he was even better with the rest of the band. My friend Mel compared the singer, Jorge Neto, to Little Richard, because of the way he dances around stage and gives these little "YOW!" yelps all the time. He is awesome. He also has a great quotation: "Na Cabo Verde, nu tem cantores tcheu, artistas pouco" - In Cape Verde, we have a lot of singers, but very few artists. I think that pretty accurately reflects my views on pop music here. Most zouk is just a bunch of pretty faces singing uninspired trite love songs, while the real musical artists are fewer and farther between. But I digress.

Saturday should have been a nice quiet day to recover for more music at night, but Shon and I are incorrigible and ended up staying out all day, and then on until 5:30 am Sunday. I went for a nice long swim, drank a ton of water to rehydrate, and then shmoozed around all day and all night. I also accidentally broke a bottle with my hand while swimming (someone had tossed it in the water), so my knuckles are all cut up. Overall, Saturday night wasn't as good. Cape Verdeans aren't much for pacing themselves, so there were about 30% less people out. Still, I danced all night and generally made a fool of myself. Like Friday night, I managed to position myself in the midst of the prettiest girls on Boa Vista, including the incomparable Kristy, winner of this year's Miss Bubista beauty pageant. If you saw her, you'd understand.

My attempts to get out of the house on Sunday were thwarted by pure exhaustion. Which is too bad, because there was a lovely young lady on the beach on whom I've had my eye the last week or so, but I found myself sounding like an ass while talking to her. I decided to go take a nap, figuring to avoid any more damage that I might inflict. I got in a nice swim though. No broken bottles.

Anyway, I had planned on saying a little something about my crazy whirlwind feelings now that I am poised to leave here in 5 weeks. But I am tired and need some lunch, so it will have to wait.

Continuting with my pretty standard once a month blogging...

We had our COS conference a couple weeks ago on Santiago. Back to that in a second. Before the conference, Kyle and I decided to head over to Fogo for a few days. It was really a pretty inconvenient time for me to go, being in the middle of classes and a great week of windsurfing, but it was really my last chance for any kind of vacation until COS, and I desperately wanted to see Fogo. Turns out it was worth it.

Most of the island of Fogo is a volcanic cone. Some time ago (I have no idea when), a massive eruption blew the entire top off and shot out sideways and eastwards, leaving a large caldera that is open to the sea on one side. In that gap, a small volcanic cone has risen up. There have been dozens of eruptions over the last few centuries, including half a dozen in the 1900s, 1995 being the most recent. Anyway, my friends Mel and Sam live in the caldera in a little town called Chã das Caldeiras. Sam got stuck on Brava for the week due to a sunk boat (wait for it), but Kyle and I spent a few happy days with Mel. Chã has no running water and no electricity, which is surprisingly not much of an inconvenience. When you build your life around it, it's pretty easy to get by. Although, with no refrigeration, you don't get much meat, which is pretty sad. And the total lack of light makes it the darkest place I have ever been in my entire life. The bordera of the crater is hundreds of feet high and blocks out any light you might see from São Felipe, which isn't much anyway. So we pretty much went to sleep just after dark every night. And on the second day, we climbed the volcano. Chã is about a mile up already and the peak is at just about 10,000 ft, so our climb was probably around 5000 ft vertical. With a few stops to rest and enjoy the view, it probably took us 3 1/2 hours total to reach the peak. I hadn't done a good hike in forever, Boa Vista being entirely flat, so it felt really, really good to get my legs working. The view from the top is pretty awesome and is probably the highest I have ever been (except maybe freshman year - hey oh!!), marred only slightly by the stanky sulfur smell coming from the active crater. The descent down makes the tough climb totally worth it, too. The slope down is mostly fine black gravel, somewhat easier to maneuver on than sand. So to go down, you just half-run and half-slide your way down. It takes about 20 minutes. And then you spend 5 minutes dumping more gravel out of your shoes than you would have thought could possibly fit in there and still leave room for your feet.

After Chã, we visited Dave and Sean in Mosteiros on the other side of the island. We spent a couple days there, mostly just mellowing out, being dudes and drinking the Coronas that the store in their building mysteriously acquired. Corona is weak and watery, but it is heaven after Superbock and Sagres. I crashed for a day in São Felipe with Lauren before flying to Santiago. Incidentally, São Felipe is a really pretty and picturesque town. I wouldn't be upset to live there. A bit heavy on sketchy deportees though...

Oh, about the boat. Natawnee was on the Musteru en route to meet us in São Felipe when the boat sunk. Not even kidding. Nobody died, and Natawnee is fine. Some cargo wasn't properly tied down and shifted to one side of the bay. The boat tilted, more cargo shifted, and basically the whole thing just filled with water and went down. They turned back 3 hours out to try and make it back to Praia, but didn't quite make it. The boat sunk just off the coast of Porto Mosquito, and a bunch of fishermen from the town sailed out and rescued everyone. Still, most people on board lost everything they had with them, which in at least one case was everything that they owned. Apparently one guy was moving his family to Fogo, so the entire contents of his house were on board. Yikes. Plus, this is the 2nd Fogo-Brava-Praia boat to go down in a month. Also not even kidding. The Barlavento sunk off the coast of Cova Figueira, Fogo in late April when both the guys in charge of steering fell asleep and the boat hit rocks. So now there are a limited number of boats running double time in between islands, including the Sal Rei, which normally does Praia-Boa Vista-Sal. This could explain why we haven't had any flour in 10 days... I need bread, goddamnit.

Wow, I started this to talk about the headfuck that is COS. COS stands for Close of Service, so you can imagine what it's for. There was a bunch of administrative stuff. We had to sign papers, talk about insurance policies, make some decisions about our readjustment allowance, etc. There was a bunch of time to work on writing our Description of Service, which is the official document that Peace Corps/Washington keeps on file to send to employers, grad schools and whatnot. There was also a lot of time sitting around and talking about what we were nervous about, excited about, not prepared for... Something I could have done without. I've already spent the last few months thinking about that kind of stuff. I don't need to hear that other people have, too. There was a career panel with the senior foreign service officer from the Embassy in Praia and the director of the Millennium Challenge Corporation for Cape Verde, and that was obviously great for me. It cleared up some doubts about the Foreign Service for me, so I think I'm going to take the exam next April. It can't hurt.

More importantly is what the conference has done to my head. It's not so much what we did there. It's more the fact that it's come so close to the end of service, and it was just one last doorway to walk through. I have mentally checked out of my work. I'm trying. I am. I come every day and I do what I have to, but I'm not here anymore. Here's what I've got for the next two months:
-one last advanced Excel class for the câmara
-typing up and compiling all my class information for the future
-developing content for our new website
-writing up final reports for PC
-multiple festivals
-diving and spearfishing
-July and August, when all the students abroad come back for the summer
-many visitors from other islands and maybe from the US
So really. HOW could I be focused? I've more or less done here what I came to do. Time to wrap it up and move on. Right?

It's hard to live in two places at once.

My friend Alex (fellow PCV over yonder on Santiago) sent me these articles today.

http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2000/mayjun/articles/strauss.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20080425/wl_csm/opeacecorps

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4295&page=2

Robert Strauss, the author of the first and third articles, is also the guy who wrote a harsh critique of the Peace Corps in the New York Times earlier this year. I disagreed with a lot of what he said, but I can't say he's entirely wrong. So here's some random reactions from me, in no particular order.

Peace Corps needs to focus on hiring older and more experienced volunteers. Yes. My training group had one 64 year old and one 33 year old. Neither stayed for the full two years. One of them left in large part because her extensive experience and expertise was not being used at all, which is pretty depressing. The current group of first year volunteers is slightly older than my group. By that, I mean that the average age is probably 27 instead of 24. A lot of us were fresh out of college when we got here, or in my case, with one year of work experience under the belt. One year of work experience doesn't add up to much. And I do think that in general, older volunteers probably are more effective. There's a sense of work ethic and focus there that just isn't found in twenty-somethings. And we could use a lot more of that.

But... In the NYT article, Strauss made a point that I think is pretty inaccurate. He wrote something to the effect that in the '60s, Peace Corps volunteers offered something in short supply in the developing world: college degrees. But then he goes on to say that this is no longer true. The developed world, according to Strauss, is doing much better, and it is no longer sufficient just to offer a bachelor's degree as your qualifications. Bullshit. Post-secondary education is a relative rarity even in Cape Verde, which comes out at the top of the developing world in sub-Saharan Africa. The government here makes admirable efforts both to send promising students abroad to school and to develop our own national university. But both of these initiatives have a long way to go. Many students languish for years waiting for the mysterious documents to appear that will permit them to go study in São Paulo or Lisboa. I recently looked over the curriculum for a bachelor's in computer science at Jean Piaget University in Praia, and was depressed to realize that I had essentially studied 3 years worth of the program. And I was a Classics major, merely dabbling in comp sci. When mathematics that I studied in the 8th and 9th grades are part of a post-graduate study program (yes, algebra and trig), you cannot tell me that a bachelor's degree in nearly any field does not qualify you for work here. I am one of the only people on this island who knows how to remove a virus from a computer, let alone repair a faulty video card. So are we qualified? Yes, we are.

We don't accomplish much. Sadly, kind of true. In nearly two years here, what have I accomplished? I've passed about 100 students through a basic computer literacy program. And many of them will promptly forget what I have taught them. And I'm OK with that. I really am. But in the grand scheme of things, it's not much. It is pretty widely accepted in PCV culture that accomplishing very little is fine. I was told by many people, including my uncle who was in Nepal 30 years ago, that if you go into your service expecting to change the world, you will be disappointed. And that is a realistic thing to say. Keeping that in mind has kept me sane for quite a while. But I also don't think it's OK to simply let this status quo stand.

Allow me to illustrate a point, using the IT program here as an example. Most of my accomplishments here come from teaching. And that's a role that nearly any IT volunteer will fill, and that is as it should be. But I have spent countless hours putting together lesson plans, developing, scrapping, and redeveloping curricula, writing up exercises in Portuguese, and otherwise preparing for teaching. Well, that's just silly. With the number of IT vols that have passed through Cape Verde, why am I doing this? Shouldn't someone have done this work ages ago, so that I could spend more time doing worthwhile projects with larger impact? I think so. Well, thus was born the PC/CV website, complete with file dumps to store lesson plans. In no way can I take credit for the original idea, nor any of the technical work. But I did put together 7 or 8 course packages, in the hopes that future volunteers will use them, and thus dedicate more time to big projects.

I have digressed. The point of that last paragraph is not "Leland is awesome" (I am), but that there exists no administrative framework to accomplish this sort of thing. Ok, not entirely true: we have a resource center in Praia that is full of good books on development topics, but none of them are quality lesson plans. I grabbed the packet called "Computer lesson plans for Cape Verde." And man was it bad. I couldn't have used more than two or three of those classes. And that was the only book offering any help. But that is just me griping. A much more relevant complaint: Cape Verde has a cohesive information society in the government, with a comphrehensive national strategic plan, qualified employees, and a growing infrastructure. SO WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY DO WE NOT WORK WITH THEM?!?!? My relationship with NOSi (the IT group) is precisely zero, and that is patently absurd. I've attempted contact a couple of times, but generally not followed through, and I'll tell you why: If I work with them for a year, and then leave, what has happened? Nothing. There will still be no relationship with Peace Corps. I make this small point with the admission that I could have worked harder to establish a relationship, but there is a broader lesson. Volunteers are largely on their own. Because of Peace Corps status as "almost a development agency," which Strauss rightly criticizes, we have no meaningful ties with larger groups, nationally or internationally. I understand the fear of politicizing the organization, and I understand the grassroots theme. But that is no reason to cut ourselves off from the development world at large.

Volunteers are/are not excellent diplomats. Well, let's slow down on that word "diplomat." Of course we're not diplomats. But we make nice goodwill ambassadors. Strauss makes a big fuss over badly behaved volunteers who do drugs and drink and make asses of themselves, and he goes out of his way to say that the truly excellent volunteers are a small minority. Again, I call bullshit. Yeah, there are douchebags who make bad names for themselves. But I would say that they are the small minority. Likeable, honest and hard working volunteers are the norm. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm pretty popular in my town. Granted, Cape Verde is not exactly an America-hating country, but I like to think that I've helped undo some of the damage that Bush has done to our reputation.

We benefit more than our host countries. Almost definitely true. But I fail to see the problem with this. Is it a "government subsidized semester abroad?" No, it's not, and that's pretty insulting. OK, some similarities to college: I don't have to worry about bills or food money, because my stipend is provided; there is a lot of partying and festival-going; I am learning a lot. I don't see what's wrong with the first or third, and the second is just a fact of life here. Cape Verdeans like to have fun, and I like having fun with them. It's not all I do, and overall, there's a lot less of it than any semester of school I've ever been in (you can only survive undergraduate once... the body can't handle more than 4 years of that).

But yes, I have probably gotten more out of this can Cape Verde has. Well why not? I am one person trying to affect thousands. There are thousands of people unconsciously affecting me. Naturally, it hits me harder. I've learned two new languages, figured out how to run training sessions and develop curriculum, and a plethora of other useful tricks. More importantly, I've built a basis of skills that I plan on using in development work for many years to come. Don't begrudge me that.

We're cheap. Got damn right we are. We are amazingly cost-effective. I am probably one of the most expensive volunteers in the world, and I hardly cost a thing. You cannot mount any other kind of development plan like this.

Other development workers ain't much better. Read that other article, where Strauss rips into other development programs. I couldn't tell you how accurate that portrayal is, but I've gotten a pretty good sense in the last few years that he is spot-on. At least we're not flushing millions of dollars down the drain on grandiose projects that don't work. In general, our projects, however small they are, are pretty successful. We know our communities in and out, better than any development agency worker ever could. We'd never drop money on a seaweed processing plant where there was no seaweed. But I bet if that company had asked some PCVs in the Phillipines where they think such a plant could go, they'd have built it in the right spot and it would be doing whatever it is that seaweed processing plants do.

Anyway, I've now been writing this on an off for most of the morning, with a break for class, and it's probably time I actually went and did some real work.

August 13th is the new date for return.

Time is accelerating. The last month has gone by unbelievably fast, and every week is over by the time I notice that it's even started. Every second year volunteer will tell you that this is the case, but it's a different thing entirely when it actually happens. Next month, I'm taking a little trip to Fogo to hike up the volcano and visit some friends, and then afterwards we have COS (close of service) conference. And then just three more months in Cape Verde.

I've already partly checked out mentally, I must say. But not entirely. I've still got to wrap up my work here as best I can. Two small tech support businesses have moved to Boa Vista in the last 6 months, so I feel reasonably good about that. Before, I was the only person who could fix a computer here, but now I think they'll be all right without me. But there are no trainers. Tech support is no good if the average person can't use a PC. So the one thing I would truly love to do here is to run a week long course to train some teachers. If the CEJ hires just one person part time to continue with the classes, I'll feel pretty confident leaving this place behind. It's not a done deal that a new volunteer will come to take over my position, so I feel more than a little pressure to make this happen. Plus, it will be nice to actually have a lasting effect here.

Beyond wrapping up here... The question of what the hell I'm going to do in the US is becoming more and more urgent. I actually applied for a job yesterday. My assistant director sent me an email tip for what basically amounts to the perfect job for me, so I immediately fired off an email with a resume and cover letter. So hopefully something happens there. If not, I'll be doing a fair amount of travelling in my first month back to try and find something to do. It's going to be really awkward to be staying with my parents in South Dakota while searching for jobs on the east coast. Oh well. At least the email from yesterday made me realize that there are indeed perfect jobs out there. Now if only I can get an employer to realize just how damn fantastic I am...

The CEJ director is in the US all month. Things have actually been going pretty smoothly, except that some minor things get completely overlooked. When an extension burned out, we just didn't use a printer for like 5 days. I suppose I could have gone and grabbed one, but I've taken an attitude lately of letting things just flow here. It's not laziness on my part, but more than I am curious to see what it takes to impart a sense of personal initiative here. Answer: 5 days or so. Overall though, people have stepped up and taken care of everything on their own. Unfortunately, Jonny is moving to São Vicente in a couple weeks, depriving us of a really solid guy, not to mention the closest thing to another technician we have here. I taught him how to fix up computers last year, and he's since built himself a PC with spare parts. Whenever people come in with really minor issues, he can pretty much take care of them on his own, and he enjoys it (whereas I get annoyed after someone comes in for the 10^th time with the same problem – I can't help it). Before he goes, I've been giving him little lessons on networks in the afternoon. Teaching binary-decimal conversion in a foreign, non-technical language to someone without higher math is tricky at best. He got it though.

I'm having a party tomorrow night. It was fairly spontaneous. I mentioned it in passing and my coworker Márcia latched on to the idea. So now I've got a dozen people coming by tomorrow night. Cool.

Too much work.

I knew I'd work a lot in the Peace Corps, but it got out of hand last week. Normally, I teach two or three classes per day, morning and night, and I have my afternoons free to run errands, windsurf, or just relax and take a nap. But last week, my director had me coming with her on her occasional rounds of all the CEJs on the island, for only vaguely apparent reasons. In general, I was supposed to “take a loot at” the various computers in the CEJs. But when every trip is scheduled for 2:30 in the afternoon, and I end up driving an hour through the desert only to turn on 3 computers and find that they are all perfectly fine, it's a little annoying. Especially since my schedule now runs thus: 8:30 am to 1 pm – work to do in CEJ/câmara (or teach), 1 to 2:30 – lunch/errands, 2:30 to 5:45 – traipsing around the interior, 5:45 to 6 – furious and hectic lesson preparation, 6 to 9 – teaching, 9 to 10 – dinner, and finally 10 pm – pass out from exhaustion. I am not a huge fan of 11 hour work days as a rule. It is especially frustrating when there is good wind, and I have zero time to myself to windsurf. A guy's gotta have a way to release, ja?

Anyway. The weekend wasn't much better, as I got sick Saturday. I went to a dinner for International Women's Day Sat night, put on by the primary school teachers, despite feeling like shit. It was fun, but I went home when everyone else went out to the bars and clubs. I watched half a movie (The Abyss – been forever since I saw it, great movie), tried to sleep, woke up, projectile barfed, went back to bed, and slept/read my way through Sunday. But just so as not to sound completely wretched, allow me to backtrack to Friday, when there was a concert by Tecla 2, a band from Sal. They're electronic, which means that it is two guys with keyboards and effects boxes, which is pretty much always a bad sign. Sure enough, they played the worst/most hilarious Akon remix/cover I have ever heard. And I've heard a lot of them in this country. But it wasn't all bad, and the party went on until 4 or so. A lot of people showed up for it and the beer flowed like it always does.

Hm. Re-reading all that doesn't sound good. So I guess I can say that it's been a rough week. But since I haven't updated in a while, I guess I haven't mentioned this: I know when I'm coming back to the US. Obviously, I'd been debating this for a while, between planning the trip with Kyle and not knowing what I'd be doing for work after this, but now it looks like I'll be back in mid-August. Turns out my sister Caroline is getting married! I could have predicted it, but that kind of stuff is always a bit of a surprise anyway. The week before will be a big family reunion thing at Stout's Island, so I am going to try to get to SD by the 20^th so I can drop off my stuff and drive up to WI with my parents. As for when I will see people on either coast... That all depends on when I line up job interviews.

I'll try to make a trip out west and another out east in the first few weeks back, depending on how the employment world reacts to my plaintive cries. Anyone in San Francisco, New York, DC, or basically anywhere else in the world reading this: find me a job! Just kidding. I'm not stressing about that for a little while. It's not easy to get employment 6 months in advance from 3000 miles away, so I'll just hold off for a bit. But when I visit, I'll try and visit everyone that I can.

I am thinking a great deal about food these days. Sushi, burritos, steaks, fresh vegetables, fruits... these are things I dream about now.

I don't think I need to say anything about how upset I am over the Superbowl. So I won't. Football season is over and it's time to move on to March Madness (about which I am completely clueless this year) and baseball season. Fortunately, the Mets have signed Johan Santana and I am really pumped for some spring baseball.

I'm sick, for the 2nd time in two months. I don't know how. I haven't been sick since the first weekend of training, in July 2006. All of a sudden, I get a bad cold over Christmas (probably something to do with the fact that I partied more than I slept for 2 days straight). Last week I got some pretty bad gastrointestinal fun for a couple days, recovered, then got a cold AND gastrointestinal goodness. I spent the whole weekend lounging around the house reading, so I'm feeling a bit better.

I got the chance last week to test out my windsurfing rig. It's pretty awesome. I'm riding a 105 liter Mistral Freestyle board with a 5.5 sq m Ezzy Wave Special Edition sail, along with a dizzying arrangement of other parts pulled from the back sheds of surf shops. The wishbone, mast extension, mast foot, uphaul line, harness lines, harness, and most of the cords were pulled for free from various cardboards boxes. I bought the sail used (still 2007) from Josh Angulo last month. The board is a bit older, but it's still in perfect working order, except a couple chips by the nose. It's a LOT harder to ride on. I was out with a pretty strong 20 knot wind and I was having a rouch time of it. I spent a lot of time uphauling the sail. Once I adjust to the board though, I think I'm gonna get better really fast. I can already tell how much quicker and responsive the board is. Hopefully this week I'll have time to put in some serious hours on the water, if the wind cooperates, which it should (check out Windguru).

Carnaval was shockingly fun here. Kyle came over from Sal for the weekend and a bit. Unfortunately for me, my case of exploding ass occurred on Tuesday, which is of course the biggest day of Carnaval. I recovered as best I could all day, then popped some Pepto and went to the parties at night. We had a couple friends over for dinner that night too. I learned how to approximate ricotta on the stove, so I made some real lasagna and it came out really really well. There was a party at Cabrer', the big venue in Rabil. It was 1200 escudos to get in, with an open bar and music and snacks. Everyone was in costume, although I couldn't put together much for myself. I'll post some photos on Facebook eventually. Typical things happened: I drank whiskey, danced a bunch, talked to a lot of pretty girls, went home alone anyway. Still, I met a girl I had never seen before and whooo... I won't say anything, because I'll probably curse myself.

I've got a full complement of classes now, including an English class that just started. I am not a fan of teaching English. Even more complicated, this class has a Portuguese guy and two Italian women, so I can't speak Creole when I need to. I have to try for grammatically correct Portuguese. I need the practice I guess, but man is it ever a pain in my ass. Ugh.

The One Laptop Per Child proposal is slowly coming together. More on that if anything earthshaking happens.

I've begun serious job thinking for when I get back. I think it's time to reactivate that resume on Monster.com. Anyone know any good openings in the international development realm?

I will never be a good blogger. But that’s ok.

I am back on Boa Vista after a very badly needed 3 week vacation. I went off to Sal for a couple days before Christmas, to hang out with Kyle and generally have a good time. As usual, crazy things happened, and we stayed out until 8 am on Christmas eve, and not much earlier the next day. It was the first time I celebrated Christmas morning with a beer at 7:30 am on the way home from a party. It is not generally traditional to spend most of Christmas day asleep, but I thought it went very well.

I flew to Italy on the 26th and arrived the 27th, because of course my flight was delayed until night. It was harder than I thought to find the apartment we had rented for the week (every doorway on the block looked just like the picture), let alone get to Rome from the airport due to money and bank issues, but I made it, and my parents arrived that afternoon. Our whole week in Rome consisted of wandering to various ruins, punctuated with delicious meals and rests. New Year’s was ok, but nothing crazy. I met up with my friend Jon, who was in the same study abroad program 4 years ago, and we hit a few bars around the Campo de’ Fiori area. My parents liked the history and archaeology and stuff, and I was amazed at how much of it came back to me. I would look at a temple and all of a sudden realize that I knew what god it was for and who built it. I don’t think I could have remembered that stuff sitting here. My Italian also came back to a smaller extent. I couldn’t form any fancy sentences, but I got us by for two weeks. I couldn’t have asked for much more.

After the first week, my parents and I picked up my sister and her boyfriend at the airport and drove up to where my mother had rented rooms at some sort of Tuscan farm-like thing. But after a long stop at Orvieto to eat and drink some Orvieto Classico, we were behind schedule and didn’t get to the town until after dark. Plus it started snowing about 5k north of Florence. The place turned out to be up a long steep dirt road that was now covered in snow, and our rental Renault was absolutely not going to make it. So we turned around, drove 20k back to Florence, and found a really nice place to stay there. The end result of all this is that instead of staying in one place for a week and doing day trips, we pretty much drove our way back towards Rome through Tuscany, which was a pretty good decision. We spent two nights in Florence, two in Siena, one in Montepulciano, and then the last one at an airport hotel in Fiumicino, plus some lunches at other little towns along the way. I’d be lying if I said we did much beyond just eat. Caroline and Ryan aren’t big into museums, so we mostly skipped them and concentrated on restaurants. On one glorious day in Siena, we woke up, had breakfast, walked to the duomo, discovered it was closed until 1:30, had a brunch-ish snack, went back to see the church, ate lunch, took a nap, had aperitivi and snacks, then ate dinner. Then I went out with Caroline and Ryan and had three pints. Five feedings in a day is a damn good day.

The finale of the whole thing was when I got an email the day before I was supposed to leave from the travel agency in Boa Vista, basically telling me that there were no more seats on the flight and that I didn’t have one. She made it sound like it wasn’t her fault, but I can say with 95% accuracy that she simply forgot to make the reservation until the day before. Those flights just don’t fill up that fast. So I went to the airport, found the ticket desk and managed to get myself on a flight out of Milan leaving two days later. Yes exactly, those flights don’t fill up until the day beforehand. I scraped my cash together, bought the plane ticket, and put myself on a train to Milan. I guess it turned out to be a good thing that I got stuck there, because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to see another city. Still, I spent some money there that I would have preferred not to use. I did eat some shockingly not bad sushi on my first night there, which I was pretty excited about. Milan seems to be a more ethnically mixed city than Rome or Florence, so I had some kebabs for lunch the next day and tried to mix it up a little bit before returning to the land of no culinary skill. I wandered around the city aimlessly for the better part of the day, accidentally ending up on some of the premier shopping roads, where I watched people buy things that cost significantly more than my entire two year Peace Corps stint. I wasn’t too impressed with Milan, mainly because I think shopping is wretchedly lame and there didn’t seem to be much else to do. I went to a natural history museum which was decidedly average and was actually kind of blown away by the Duomo in the center of town, which was probably the most impressive church I’ve seen in Italy. I poked around a few other cool churches and museums, but…. Eh. I wasn’t heartbroken to leave Milan, and I was looking forward to coming back to Boa Vista, but sweet Christ on a bike I miss that food.

Anyway, I am back here and feel very well-rested and motivated for my last 8 months of service. I’ve got some good projects in mind and with any luck things will get rolling this week. I also have a huge wheel of pecorino, some boar salame, and a bunch of wine to tide me over for a little bit.

Also, to whom it is relevant: I have more or less decided to return to the US after my service.

Well, I am enjoying myself again here, but life is changing quite a bit. For starters, Nadia has been transferred to São Vicente, so I am living alone now. It’s a really, really long story, but in short, a single individual on Boa Vista managed to make things difficult enough for her that Peace Corps and CV’s Ministry of Education saw fit to move her. It’s shitty for her obviously, because she had a life and friends here, not to mention a boyfriend. And it’s shitty for me, because I liked living with Nadia. I speak so much less English on a day to day basis already, and the house is too quiet for my tastes. And I don't think the neighbors are enjoying the loud music I now play for several hours a day to make up for it.

On the other hand, some things are looking up. The wind picked up big time this week, so that promises 6 months of great windsurfing. Tony and Spela, the Slovenians from last year, aren’t coming back this year, but a different guy, Sebastian, is managing the club. I went snorkelling with him and Moises a couple weekends ago, and they showed me a great spot out by the islet with a ton of fish. There’s a little reef drop-off that is filled with grouper, morays, and other delicious things. I tried to go buy a speargun, but the guy here wanted 27.000 escudos (~$300) for one. I’ll try and get one elsewhere.

Kyle was here this last weekend, which always results in some crazy things happening. We mostly cooked, ate, and drank. First there was Thanksgiving, which was actually pretty successful. Shon, Betty, and Tânia came over, and I invited François and Moises, although Moises couldn’t make it and François seems to have just sort of forgotten. Oh well. In place of a turkey, I roasted 4 little chickens (after brining them all day with a lot of rosemary) with vegetables, made some awesome mashed potatoes, and baked homemade bread and an apple tart. The tart burned on the bottom because I am an asshole who drank too much wine and put it too low in the oven, but the apples and the rest of the crust were delicious. The bread was absolutely excellent as well, even though it was an experiment in a different method of baking. I think I could have improved on nearly everything, but it was also a first for nearly everything, too. So no complaints. The next day, we put together some ridiculously good pizza. We made an approximation of buffalo chicken pizza, a garlic mashed potato pizza, bread sticks, and then a more normal pizza, too. Those two meals inspired creative leftover meals for about 4 days. He was supposed to go home on Sunday, but TACV cancelled his flight twice, and he stayed until Tuesday morning. On Monday night, we had nothing to do, so we ended up sitting at a bar for about 5 hours, drinking whiskey and messing with the waitresses. They liked us, and we ended up going to their house at like 2 am, but then going home shortly afterwards. The whole event is really pretty blurry.

Anyway, at the moment, Shon and I are planning for World AIDS Day and International Volunteer Day more or less simultaneously. WAD is basically almost put together, with minimal contribution on my part, but we just remembered about IVD two days ago, and it’s Dec 5. So I think it’ll be a small thing. Ah well.

And now I have to go look at the high school’s computer classroom and then perhaps yell at the guy who is supposed to be delivering my water, but keeps not doing it.

I can't believe I didn't get to watch the Colts/Pats game. Seriously. It's pretty upsetting. Especially since we won. I am currently trying to stream highlights. It is not going well.

So I still suck at keeping this thing updated. I'm going to try and get better at it, as I plan on doing some more blogging after Peace Corps service, as I adventure around the world a bit. More on that as details pull themselves together...

I guess the reason I haven't been keeping it up to date is because not much has been happening. Highlights of the last month include:

-The new airport opened up on the 31st. International flights don't start for a few weeks still, but eventually there will be flights to Italy 3 times a week and once or twice to London. Not bad, huh? I think I can expect an influx of English speaking tourists in the future, which means I already know I am doomed to teach many more English classes. Ugh.

-I went to João Galego twice this week to hang out with Nilton (Nadia's boyfriend) and his buddies. Once was for a BBQ on Thursday, and then I was there on Saturday for another BBQ, this time for Nilton's birthday. They're a cool bunch of guys, though I will say that it is difficult to get yourself "in" with a bunch of guys who have been tight friends for 25 or 30 years. Not that they are exclusive, but it's tough to get the thread of the conversation, especially when it's in rapid, drunk Creole. Still. Fun times.

-No water. Nadia and I managed to use our reserves, and our neighbor forgot to come by to refill our barrels. Nothing had come from our taps in weeks, and more like 2 months since we had gotten anything resembling pressure. In any event, we saw a water truck putting a hose up to our roof, so I wandered up there to see what was going on (because we certainly weren't getting anything from up there), and it turns out that the landlord has installed individual tanks for each apartment. This is after he has been telling us for weeks that they haven't managed to arrange a water contract yet. Which is clearly true, though he never once mentioned that we had our own tank now and could in fact get it filled on our own. In any event, I got the water guy to give us the remainers of the tonelada of water that he had been filling from, but still nothing came to our apartment. Apparently, our pipes are blocked. Awesome! Fortunately, our neighbor dropped by with his truck, so we got 3/4 of a bedon of water, which is enough to last us a while. Yeah that's right, 75 liters of water can last me and Nadia most of the week. We are efficient if nothing else. Anyway, the point to take away from this (other than that I didn't shower for 4 days) is that communication is not always, or ever, clear. It is generally expected that you will find out about something, although if you were to ask someone how, they would have no response. Things are not usually advertised here, except maybe on the radio to which I never listen, and word of mouth is everything. Which may be fine, if you are overhearing a lot of conversation. But no matter how good my Creole gets, I am not going to be overhearing conversation on the street, unless I am intentionally eavesdropping. Thus, I miss out on little things like "we installed a tank for you on the roof."

-I've been reading a bunch more lately. I have decided that I am done with fiddling with computers and watching DVDs in my house. Books are better. I'm most of the way done with The Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin. He goes to Australia to learn about Aboriginal Dreaming tracks, which crisscross the continent all over. It's pretty good, and definitely makes me itch to get out and do some exploring.

-I need a vacation. Italy is in about 8 weeks, and it couldn't come fast enough. I've been getting burned out on life lately. I need a good project to commit myself to. My software class ends tomorrow and my English class is done, except for some test correcting today. Afterwards, I won't have to develop any new courses. I've got 6 computer courses and 3 English ones planned out, including manuals and outlines, which should pretty much leave me in good shape for all future material. So now what?

-I am in terrible physical shape. Miserable. I have lost nearly all upper body strength, my legs are twiggy, and my stomach is getting soft. Either my body is just going to be another sacrifice to the Peace Corps, or I need to figure something out já.

Ok. Time to really seriously start my week.

We threw a party last Saturday. Mexican themed-ish. It wasn't huge, just a dozen friends or so, mostly from work, plus Shon's brother and sister, as well as my friend Walter, who has been fiending Mexican food for like a year. Apparently he had tacos once in Praia and loved it. Nadia and I put it together at the last minute, because Boas Compras (the biggest store on the island) randomly got a shitload of ground beef. Like most things around here, it comes and goes at random. So Nadia unexpectedly bought 2.4 kg of it, and we tacoed it up. Nadia made beef and tortillas, and I made some spanish rice and black beans. Everyone else brought booze. So we powered through a couple cases of beer, a bit of ponche, and most of a bottle of tequila. Most people had never had tequila, except of course Walter who refused to drink any for the same reason that most people stay away from tequila (people tend to lose their taste for the stuff after one bad experience, and it seems like everyone has had that one bad night - except me), but I demonstrated the salt-shot-lime method, and it was throughly enjoyed by all. Especially Jonny, who downed at least 7 shots by Shon's count (plus beer and ponche), though he only remembers 4 and thinks we're all lying. In any event, the food was good, and everyone liked it a lot, even the skeptics. And most of us got drunk. Which resulted in...

Verdade ou consequência. If you cannot translate this, go away. Cape Verdeans love this kind of game. Keep in mind that everyone here ranged from 19-30, so this wasn't your average 16 year old's game. That being said, nobody here ever wants to take a damn dare, so I'm pretty sure that I did nearly every one (except Jonny, who was dared to do more tequila shots. what a sport). But the damn bottle kept landing on me, over and over again, and everyone was determined to get me to hook up with Jaqueline. Now, it's no secret among us that I've liked Jaqueline for a while now. I've taken her out before, and I hang out at the café a lot when she is working. Nothing has ever come of it, because she is leaving for São Vicente to go back to school on Thursday, and like a smart girl, she doesn't want to get involved with anyone, etc etc. At least that was my take on it, which turned out to be correct. First, before the game even started, everyone maneuvered us out onto the balcony alone for about half an hour, but she wouldn't kiss me, for pretty much exactly the reasons that I thought. And once we were back inside and the game was on, we were primo targets. First she was forced to admit that she does, in fact, like me (pleased), and then I was forced to do all sorts of ridiculous shit, such as a declaration of love for her, answering all sorts of uncomfortable questions, etc. Fortunately, I had enough to drink that I wasn't feeling shy about it at all, so no embarassment on my part. In any event, she still wouldn't really kiss me in front of everyone, but I settled for a peck at the end of the night. Could be worse. But it was a pretty good party overall, and people stuck around until about 1 am. Half the people don't live in Vila and another quarter had babies at home, which makes all-nighters kind of impossible.

I'll put some pics up on facebook when I get them from Nadia.

Anyway, I'm on the hunt for a new project now. I've got one more advanced class coming up next week, which will last two weeks. After that, I'm going to restart my standard courses, with the new addition of a PowerPoint class. But that's really only like 10 hours a week, so I need something else big to do. Options: attempt to interest the câmara in networking the building. I may drop in there later this week and try to gauge the interest level. It's been tried once before, and met a lukewarm reception. But we are now one of the wealthiest câmaras in the country, and one of the last that still has ancient computers and no network. So we'll see.

Next option: try and get the One Laptop Per Child program to get in Cape Verde. Obviously this is something I would only be able to kick-start. It would be a massive project of several years and encompassing a few million dollars. But if I could get a proposal in and start the coordination, I think it could go a long way. Think about it. Right now OLPC is starting mass production of laptops, but they are having order problems. Apparently Brazil and Nigeria failed to order a million each. I guess OLPC wants to limit orders to a million or more, mainly because they don't have the money or staffing to deal with multiple small orders. But if they are having problems, I don't see why CV shouldn't be able to order 200,000 laptops. We're the perfect fit for the program: a progressive democracy, low corruption, wealthiest country in sub-Saharan Africa, small size, existing national education system. The IT infrastructure already exists, and there is an organization in the government called NOSi (Nucleo Operacional da Sociedade de Informática) that has the leadership capability to oversee the development of such a project. In fact, NOSi's national strategic plan calls for the development of educational programs on a national level, which the OLPC program fulfills in large part. I already emailed a guy in NOSi whom I met last year to see if they even knew about the program (and also to ask about the câmara's potential network). I haven't heard back yet, but that's no surprise. I'll just try again later.

We're also doing another World AIDS Day thing this year. We've already started some planning, so hopefully it all goes down as well as last year.

Lunch time.

Ok. Let’s try to catch up on the last month. Probably they best way would be to admit right off the bat that life has pretty much returned to its normal sleepy ways. I’ve been back in Sal Rei for a month and change, and it comes as no surprise that nothing has changed at all.

Two weeks after coming back here though, I left again, just for a weekend. That weekend was the Festival de Praia Santa Maria over on Sal. It’s a huge two day music festival, second only to Baia das Gatas on São Vicente. So I took the boat over and stayed at Kyle’s house for the weekend. Four other PCVs were supposed to come from Santo Antão and São Nicolau, but Natawnee is the only one that made it. Mike’s boat was cancelled due to lack of passengers, and Jocelyn and Yasmin’s boat was overbooked, causing a near riot in their town that the police had to break up. So it was just the three of us instead of six. But ok.

Maybe I need to elaborate a bit on this boat ride, because… well it was interesting. The boat was late, of course, by about 4 hours. So instead of leaving mid-afternoon, we left after dark. A nice side effect of this is that everyone passed the time by drinking a lot, so a good percentage of the nearly 200 people on board were wasted, and got even more so because of course they sell beer on the boat. Lots of beer. Anyway, I’m ok on boats most of the time, but the sea was rough and it was night, so I was feeling a bit queasy. I chilled in the back with Stravagant and all the windsurfer guys for a while, and then moved myself when the chick next to me almost barfed on my feet. For an island-dwelling people, Cape Verdeans have a serious propensity for seasickness. I’d put the percentage at around 40 for number of people vomiting over the side (or on the floor, on other people, my feet, wherever). Anyway, I was sleepy, so I found a comfy spot by the side and slept for a couple hours. Unfortunately, my comfy spot included some sort of foul dead fish liquid that ended up soaking through my clothing and my backpack, leaving all my clothing for the weekend smelling like… I can’t even describe it. Fucking awful though. I actually had to throw out my belt because the smell wouldn’t leave even after soaking it in bleached water for a night. Anyway, we got to Sal at around midnight and I caught a ride into Espargos, for the low price of whatever change I had in my pocket because the driver didn’t want to deal with finding change for my 1000 escudo bill (1000 escudos = $10-ish. A lack of change is a chronic problem in this country).

Anyway, we passed most of Saturday lounging around and being lazy because we had to reserve energy for the night. Festivals here don’t even start until midnight most of the time. But we went to Santa Maria in the late afternoon to find our hotel room and get some dinner. Which brings me to two side notes. One, the câmara furnished us with backstage passes and a hotel room. Well, the room was for Kyle and his colleague Moises, but four can fit almost as easily as two, so we managed. But the backstage passes got us behind the stage where we drank free beer and munched on snacks with the VIPs and musicians. It was awesome. Second side note: We started drinking at noon. This will be impressive shortly. Anyway, the hotel room was small but comfy (HOT SHOWER. AIR CONDITIONING.), but most importantly right on the beach by the boardwalk where the barraca of vendors was set up. And there was a swimming pool, which turned out to be salt water, but cool nonetheless. The stage was set up right on the beach by the water and there was a big crowd from early evening on. The number I heard quoted was 30,000 people, but I don’t know how accurate that is. I could believe it.

So the music started late and it was good. I didn’t know who most of the bands were, but it was still good. A few: Maria da Barros – lives in the US, has a really nice voice, a lot of fun. Mayra Andrade – amazing voice, but mellow music, not so good for a festival, Kassav – everyone else’s favorite except mine; he was ok, but eh… Banda do Pirata – some Brazilians dressed up as pirates and doing lots of dance-y music; weird but lots of fun. Heavy H – famous, good voice, boring music. African Roots – all reggae covers, but pretty entertaining. Youssou N’Dour – The showstopper. He’s the biggest star in Senegal, and he’s been around for ages. Awesome stage presence, huge percussion section, and just all around ridiculously good. Go find his CDs. Seriously. Live if you can. Anyway, Kyle and I wandered around all night, stopping backstage for beer refills and relaxation in between shows. We hung out with a lot of his friends from Sal, and a ton of people from Boa Vista were around. So we drank and danced steadily until around 7 am. So, that’s 19 hours pretty much non-stop. Go us. Day two was basically identical, except that we slept for 4 hours in the middle of the afternoon.

Monday morning, we got up after 2 hours of sleep, went to Espargos, slept for another hour and change, and then I went to Palmeira and got on the boat to go back home. This boat ride was pretty subdued, because everyone was wasted and exhausted, or just hung over. I sat up top this time with Shon and Betty, who were on their way back from a month of vacations on São Vicente and Sal. A girl I know was sitting across from me and probably wins the prize for drunkest person on the boat. After shouting a lot and then eventually flopping over in her seat, she then slid onto the floor, passed out in the aisle between benches, threw up a little, then peed herself. Awesome. People were jumping everywhere to grab their luggage in time to avoid the stream of piss rolling across the floor from her. Nice girl most of the time though.

Which brings me back to Boa Vista. Where I have been lounging around, working, reading, swimming, and generally enjoying my peace and quiet again. More later.

So I'm back on Boa Vista. And really happy to be here. Helping Peace Corps with training wasn't too bad, but as a friend put it, it's often easy to forget that we work with the US government, but we all remembered during PST. Lots of evaluations, meets, forms to fill out, etc etc. Like any large organization. But I'm back on my comfy island, enjoying my life once more. I spent a couple days on Sal afterwards, just to hang out with Kyle and Caryn. I'll be heading back that way via boat for Sal's big music festival in a couple weeks.

Anyway. Very little has changed since I left, which shouldn't be surprising. A couple of Portuguese comp sci students were here for a month teaching some classes as part of a cooperative program between their school and the câmara. I kind of met them, but we didn't really talk much. For some reason, I am shy about my português do Portugal, and yet I will speak with Brazilians with no problem. Weird. But I apparently missed an awesome music festival here as well as a few really great parties. A lot of kids studying outside the country were back for the summer, but now most of them have gone back abroad, so no more good parties for me. I guess I missed the best part of the summer. Damn.

Still, there was one good beach party on Saturday. It was on a beach about 15 minutes walk north of town, where there is basically nothing except sand, water, and one lone Coke kiosk. I heard about it from a friend and wandered over around 11, and was kind of surprised to find that it was already going strong. Normally this stuff doesn't really pick up until 1:30 or so. At first, they wouldn't let me in, because apparently you had to get a wristband from someone or other, and they weren't letting in any more people. But it's all about who you know, so I asked a couple friends of mine, and I got in after a few minutes. I didn't even pay full price, just because I drink at the same bar as the guys who threw the party. Anyway, they had fenced off a part of the beach, set up some drink stands and a DJ booth, and asked everyone to dress in red and white. I don't have anything red, so I had to go just white. I guess it worked out. It was your usual Cape Verdean party: lots of dancing, lots of drinking, lots of pretty girls wearing almost nothing. Plus, it was right on the beach. Unfortunately for me, I got drunk too early and ended up home in bed by 2:30, which was sad. Because the party went until the next afternoon.

Kyle copied me tons of TV shows he downloaded when he was in the US. I now have 3 seasons of Lost, 3 of Arrested Development, and one each of Scrubs and The Office. Plus a bunch of movies. Good, quality entertainment.

Where have I been, why haven't I been online at all, and what have I been doing? In short: Santiago, too busy, training. The more lengthy answer would be...

Having agreed to help out with training the new IT volunteers, I left Boa Vista last month and went straight to Santiago and got right to work. No, not really. I went on a little vacation first. I flew over to Santo Antao and visited Natawnee in Paul for a week. Alli's despidida (going away party) was on the Sunday that I arrived, so I got straight off the boat, met up with a guy also going, and got a ride there. They were late. I could go into lots of details about the fun that we had, but it was like a month ago now, and well... I just don't feel like it. To sum up a few things, we had a party on basically a farm in the middle of nowhere, and then afterwards ended up in a really nice hotel in Ribeira Grande, where we actually got to swim in a real swimming pool, which was almost the best thing to happen to me all month. And then I spent a week basically just hanging around Paul, relaxing and enjoying friendly company.

I didn't really want to leave there, but I got to Santiago 3 weeks ago, and I have been up in Assomada helping out with training. There are 5 new IT volunteers, all of whom are pretty solid. They've all been assigned a site as of yesterday, and I think all of them are pretty happy with their situation. The rough part about training has been that this is the first IT specific training PC/CV has done. We developed the training material from scratch starting months and months ago, but it still is kind of tough to teach something that you have never seen taught. I think I'm managing to do a decent job, but more importantly, I'm trying to lay groundwork for more successful training in the future. Also, I'm not going to harp on anymore about training, because it just makes for boring blog material, and if you haven't stopped reading already, you must really like me.

Assomada had been fun, because I get to hang out with other volunteers whom I otherwise rarely see. But I miss Boa Vista. I miss my ocean and my friends. So next Saturday, I get to go back. And on that note, it is time for a cold shower upstairs (the downstairs shower, with wonderful wonderful hot water, has starting backing up nasty pipe crud that smells like sewage), and then we are apparently going to a discoteca somewhere.

Forgot: Last Friday marked one full year in Cape Verde. Wow.

Fantastic week. No really, the last 7-10 days mark a high point for the last... while. I guess the logical place to start is the festa. Last week was the Festa de Santa Isabel. Santa Isabel has some sort of significance for Sal Rei, because our praça is the Larga Santa Isabel. Beyond that, I don't know what the deal is with that particular saint. But every year on the 4th of July, we throw a hell of a party in her honor.

Festivals in Cape Verde have a pretty special place in everyone's heart (and liver). Every municipality has their dia municipio, which is basically their biggest festival. Rabil, Estância de Baixo, and João Galego each have their own smaller festival, but the dia municipio is the really baller here. I guess this is partly because Boa Vista is technically only one conselho. Life stops totally for this festival. No businesses are open, unless your business is selling beer, or food to drunk people. The câmara spends enormous sums of money to set up a big stage, attract the best musicians they can, and make the whole town look as nice as possible. In Paúl, Natawnee tells me that they spent basically all their money on their town's festa. It attracts the most people to a place, and gives the biggest economic boost of the year. So as you can see, a festa is a phenomenon without parallel in the US, except perhaps big fairs like the Big E or the Durham Fair (oh Durham...). But even then, it's not the same. You can take a small child to the Big E. I don't think you'd want your 5 year old hanging out at this festa at 4 am. Which isn't to say that there aren't children around... But Cape Verdean children are a whole other story.

So my festa experience: In a word, drunk. If I had to throw out another word, it would be "dancing." And if I had the leeway for two more, I'd probably say "grilled chicken." Because that is what I did. I drank beer, ate grilled chicken wings, and danced my ass off. The câmara inaugurated the new palivolente (kind of an all-in-one sports complex, mostly for soccer and basketball) in town, so the music part was there. We also inaugurated two new youth centers, a new children's park, a new square (Praça dos Namorados... that's hot), some new paved roads, and a buttload of other stuff.* They also set a little shantytown on the beach, dubbed the barraca, with stalls to sell food and booze. It was only about 200 feet from the palivolente, so the whole area is just packed with people. Gil Semedo, aka the Cape Verdean Michael Jackson, and Kino Cabral, aka... no, he doesn't have a nickname. Anyway, they both played for two nights in a row, starting a bit past midnight and going until 5:30 or so. I'm not a big fan of Gil's music, to be honest, because he's pretty much straight zouk pop music, but I enjoyed his show a lot. He has really talented backup musicians (great bass player), plus the atmosphere is just so infectious that you can't not dance. Impossible. Kino was even better. I had a blast. Plus, they are both from the south, so not only did they play some funaná, but they spoke badiu. "Nhos sta sabi?!?!" (Are you all great?!?!) For reference, in sanpajud' we would say "Bocês ta sab'?!?!". We don't pronounce our final vowels. So I liked them.

I ended up pairing up with my friend Praça for most of the night. His name is Praça because he reportedly likes to just sit in the praça of João Galego and just talk to everyone who goes by. That's the kind of guy he is. In any event, we were nuts that night, sucking down beers, dancing with every girl we could find, talking to everyone, and just generally tearing shit up. We held strong until about 6 am, when he asked me if I would mind if he found a pequena to go home with. In the most able act of girl-catching I have yet witnessed, he walked up to a girl he clearly knew, said about two sentences into her ear, waved goodbye, and left. HOW DO THEY DO THIS???? He claimed the next day that he left her house after an hour and tried to find me to drink more. I was comforably passed out by then. Still, I lasted longer than a lot of people. When the music ended, I told a friend that it was time for bed, he looked at me like I was nuts. He said, "Não!!! Nu bai pa barraca!" So we went to the barraca. And the drinking continued.

I spent all day on the 4th recovering, except for an excursion with Nadia to eat more, yep, grilled chicken wings. Shon and Betty, our two close friends, made it out that night, so I spent virtually all night with them. Gil and Kino played again, only this time in reverse order. I drank too many beers and danced frenetically again, although perhaps with a smidgen less gusto than the night before. Corp´tava cansot. Right after the music, they had to catch a car back to Estância de Baixo, so they left me. I went over to the barraca and ran into Praça and another friend Nilton there. A fourth showed up, and lo and behold, the party just didn't stop. When I finally made it home with the sun up, I was probably among the last 100 people still up. Good job, Leland.

After two days of recovery, I somehow managed to have a great weekend, too. On Saturday, I chilled on the beach, did some swimming, played chess with François, hung out with the surfer crowd, and generally took it easy. At night, I went to Mazurka, per usual. I was expecting an average night there, or even a not so good night, because I was feeling a bit out of it. But somehow, I found energy. More dancing ensued, and an abnormal number of close friends of mine where all there. Plus, I got roped into dancing the passada several times. Now this is a dance I usually avoid. It's that slow zouk grind that I just can't seem to get down. But somehow, I pulled it off. I danced with a whole bunch of girls, and even got a couple compliments on my dancing! What the fuck?! It must have been a charmed night.

Before Mazurka, I bumped into one of the windsurfers, Ericson, at Pub Makena, one of my preparty bars. He informed me that Sunday would have good wind, so like a champ, I set my alarm for 9:30, hauled my ass out of bed after 4 hours of sleep, and hit the beach. By 10:30, I was on the water. Now, the wind wasn't great. But it was better than it has been: probably 12 knots or so, gusts up to 15 and change. But I took out a 6.2 sq m sail and paired it with a pretty fat board. Small boards and low wind don't mix well, at least not for a guy with only 6 months of experience. But continuing with my freakishly good week, I had a breakthrough day. I managed to pull off things I've been working on for months. I had my feet in the footstraps, harness hooked in, sail pulled low to catch every gust of wind, body way out over the water, and I flew. I rocketed around the bay for over 2 hours, and when I stopped, I didn't even want to. I was just too thirsty, plus I had already formed and torn blisters on both hands. I still haven't mastered the art of jibing (or gybing, depending on who's spelling it), which is turning the board in a fast arc, switching sides, and then flipping the sail over to face the other way. But I did make more progress with it than ever before.

So there. GREAT week.

I should probably also mention the Miss Bubista pageant of the week before as well, because... it's just worth talking about. Bubista is, by the way, how people here pronounce Boa Vista. The pageant is exactly what you would imagine. Ten girls, between 16 and 19, strutted their stuff on stage, and then the crown was announced. Obviously, they were all hot. Obviously, I felt creepy for thinking half of them were hot, because they were only 16 or 17. But the whole thing was just bizarre, in a really entertaining way. The theater was, naturally, packed to the gills with everyone in town. Guys were hooting and catcalling. Girls were hooting and catcalling. Everyone was just really into it. In between each little walk, there was a short performance, usually of music. Some were pretty good. But I've got to mention the rappers.

Now I know I have expressed my feelings on rap culture in Cape Verde. Guys like 50 Cent and Akon have managed to bring basically all that is wrong with American culture to CV, while managing to entirely leave out the positive aspects of rap (which I'm pretty sure Mos Def epitomizes - that man is a genius). And these guys really showed it. The first guy's song had a bit of English in it. And the English he used is pretty expressive of why I think 50 Cent should be drowned for bringing it over here. The chorus, repeated several times, went something like "Fuck dog, yo yo fuck, I don't give a fuck dog, yo yo fuck." I might have gotten a bit of that wrong, but I think the substance of it is clear. The second guy wasn't as bad. A bit of a poseur maybe, but not as bad as the first guy (sporting sagged jeans, a beater, and an inexplicable white towel around his neck, which I am sure he though was pretty gangsta). As soon as he took the stage, the first guy's "gang" started hassling him and hooting. Then both of their gangs started yelling at each other. And then a fight broke out. The offender turned out to be wearing a striking combination of an XXXXL pink t-shirt paired with a large pink winter hat, which I am sure he also thought was pretty god damn gangsta. I cannot express to you how pathetic the whole scene was. I must admit that Nadia and I were both bright red from laughing hysterically, basically since the first "yo fuck dog," but that doesn't mean I wasn't also at least mildly irritated at what I was witnessing. Of course, Cape Verdeans are more than welcome to choose their cultural influences; I will not presume to pretend that my ideas are better. But I think it is wretched to see what is largely a beautiful culture being ruined, all because they think that 50 Cent is really cool. A friend of mine the other day asked me if I had a gun in the US. I told him no, that I don't particularly like guns. He informed me that he thought guns were awesome and he can't wait to get one, so he can kill someone. Clearly, my friend isn't going to kill anyone. He's a really nice kid. But I think his comment illustrates what's going on.

Ok, I'm done.

*This is partly due to the fact that municipal elections are next March. The president and vereadors want to do as much good as they can, partly of course because they just want to do good in the community (I like them), but also because it reflects well on them come election time.

Boa Vista's festival season is upon us. This last weekend was São João, which was (appropriately) in João Galego. Needless to say, the location made it a pain in the ass to get to, but it was still worth it. I went down around 8-ish with Walter and his girlfriend (Walter was a student of mine, but his English was probably too good to be in my class). When we got there, there were a couple hundred people in the Praça, which already pretty much doubles the population of the town. A musician named Tiolino came on around 9 or 10 and was actually really good. I bumped into my friend Shon and we pretty much stuck together all night, drinking beers and wandering around talking to people. At midnight, another live band came on, and by midnight, I mean one-ish (we run on Cape Verde Time). They're called Cabo Verde Show, and have apparently been around since the late 70s. At first I thought they were downright awful, because they sounded pretty much like live zouk. And if you ever want an earful, just ask me how I feel about zouk, a.k.a. the form of music with no actual musical substance whatsoever. Maybe it was the extra beers, maybe I just got used to it, or maybe I was just having too much fun, but after a few songs I started to dig it. So they played three sets and we danced and drank the night away until 5:30 or so. Fortunately, I managed to snag a car with a friend and get back to Vila shortly after 6, because not everyone had the same luck. Tey, one of the surf club guys, told me that none of them were able to get home until 10 or so. Plus there was a rumble. No, seriously. Apparently, João Galego took on Bofareira. This is hilarious, because if João Galego is tiny, Bofareira is less than a speck. It's about 20 houses sitting in the desert. Plus, a fight in Cape Verde usually has very few punches thrown. Instead, everyone throws bottles and rocks. Not kidding. Fully grown men throw rocks at each other like 6 year olds fighting over swings. Anyway, it was a fantastic night. The festa continued on Sunday, but I was too exhausted/hungover to make it the 45 minutes through the desert to get there. I napped a lot though.

What else? I finally set up a date with a Cape Verdean girl last week, only to be stood up, or so I thought. Apparently she stopped by the CEJ when I wasn't here to tell me she couldn't make it, and an anonymous coworker failed to pass on the message. Damn. I'll try again.

I still swim every day. I don't think I am going to like going back to a place without warm ocean water. I'm slowly getting back into respectable shape, though I am still too skinny for my tastes.

I finished my Excel class last night. The tests were pretty decent, with only 3 people failing. I should probably mention that failing means getting less than a 10 out of 20. Yes, being 50% right is considered a good job. But I have a two week break from teaching right now, until the last computer class, plus a chess workshop I set up. Thank god there will be parties next week, because I might get bored otherwise.

No more. Time for a swim.

Today for an exercise, I asked my students to calculate some percentages. None of them knew how.

I am lazy. Not really, but as far as this blog is concerned, I am a piece of crap. Really I've just been too busy to write anything in it. But right now I have my lesson plans done for English and Excel for the next class, and then it's the glorious weekend. So what have I been doing? Fixing computers, teaching classes, and being generally helpful. None of which makes for good blog writing. But some interesting things are afoot.

Two weeks ago I went to Santiago for a week to prepare for the next Pre Service Training, for the new batch of volunteers due to arrive in a few weeks. I went with the assignment of being a training assistant for the 6 new IT volunteers, the idea being that I would assist a professional trainer. But he flaked out, didn't sign his contract, and guess what? Now I'M the trainer for them. This sucks in some ways. One is that it's a lot of work on top of a pretty good pile of work I have already. Another is that I now have to spend a lot more time in Assomada (where the training center will be), at the expense of my projects in BV. I have already had to delay my technical training course twice, and now I have to push it back yet again to September. Also, I need a fucking VACATION, and it's going to be a lot harder now that I'm already spending 5 weeks away from my site. However, I really actually do want to help out with it, and I weirdly find the training work to be interesting and fulfilling. And it will look good on my resumé. Duh. So overall I'm pleased to do it, so long as I get adequate support from the Peace Corps, considering I can't be there in Assomada before training to organize my component. Fortunately, the new Community Development training coordinator seems really with it, so I should be ok. All the volunteers helping out with PST are going to be living together in one big house. It's going to be The Real World: Assomada, if only we had video cameras. Seriously, half a dozen volunteers, plus two staff members, sharing three bedrooms, one shower, and one kitchen? It's going to get crazy, trust me. Incidentally, if any incoming volunteers are reading this, your training is going to be a LOT better than ours was. I'll see you all at the end of July.

On the way home, I got to stop over on Sal for a night to chill with Kyle and Caryn. We spend a few hours in Santa Maria, which is THE resort town in CV. It was cool, but it sucks when everyone greets you with "Ciao! Come stai?" and you have to constantly assert your nationality and convince people that yes, you can in fact speak Creole. Still, I had possibly the best meal I've had in this country, in a restaurant close enough to the water that waves were splashing onto the seat next to me. (oh come on, am I really in the Peace Corps? I don't even believe it any more) And I bought some swanky stuff from Josh Angulo's surf shop. We also went swimming in the salt pools at Pedra da Lume, where the water is so dense, you practically float on the surface. I got hit with a giggle fit when I first got in, and I just kind of drifted around chuckling for twenty minutes. But the real prize of Sal is Espargos. Seriously. People from Santa Maria talk shit about Espargos like it's lame because it's not a beach town and it doesn't have all the wealth and resorts. But the last part is why it's awesome. In Santa Maria, we were three out of hundreds of white people. In Espargos, we were almost the only ones, and no one tried to speak Italian to us. Kyle and Caryn have tons of friends, and we made more over the course of Saturday night. Kyle and I swilled some coffee at midnight-ish (I was running on under 4 hours of sleep) and stayed out dancing at some disco until 5 am. It was fantastic, despite an ugly incident with a pushy guy and a pretty friend of Kyle's. Plus I met a Brazilian guy who looks like a short version of the Artist Formerly Known as Prince. Can't beat that.

My coworker Diva had her baby last Friday. Last night was the Sete, literally just Seven. It's a traditional party one week after the baby's birth where all the friends and family come and hang out, drink a bit, dance, and coo over the newborn. It wasn't the first one I've been to, but was definitely the most fun.

Well. That's all. Oh, almost. I'm going to Morocco in December. Rhett backed out of the Ghana vacation to spend some time with his girlfriend, and I asked my parents to meet up with me somewhere. My mom and I both suggested Morocco. Fes, Marrakesh, Rabat, Casablanca, and a trip to the Atlas Mtns if we can. Sounds nice, não é?