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.

Internet is kind of back, but electricity has been coming and going in the CEJ's zona. Enjoy a couple entries:

4/23

I’ll start this out the same way I started the other one (below): My whole body is sore. I was windsurfing all day Saturday and Sunday, in high winds and on choppy water. Yesterday in particular was really gusty and tricky to work with. I had to wake up and stretch every muscle in my body this morning. And I really didn’t want to get out of bed. Not because I am particularly tired today (I got about 9 hours of sleep), or that I was dreading work today, but just because bed was nice.

Anyway, the internet is back, finally. My friend on Sal says it’s been back since Friday, but it’s been coming and going. The full story is that some ship dropped their anchor on a fiber optic cable, which happened to be THE cable in Praia that connects us to the rest of the world. Do not even ask me why a) there was only one cable, with no redundant system b) the cable was unprotected c) it was not buried d) it was placed underneath a harbor e) any other questions where the answer would be that CVTelecom is a bunch of morons. But it happened. As it is, right now there is a temporary satellite system set up until they fix the cable. You may or may not know that satellite internet is a LOT slower than a fiber optic cable. So my connection is constantly coming and going, and isn’t much faster than dial up. Oh well. I shouldn’t complain. I’m lucky I even have it.

I’ve mostly just been working this past week. Uninteresting, I know. But with all the classes, plus all the broken computers, I’ve been mostly just planning and teaching, with the odd repair work in between. In the early afternoon, I usually end up going for a swim and reading for a bit. That’s another new thing, the swimming. I’ve only managed to go a couple times, and it’s rough going. I wanted to start doing it in the morning, at 7, but I can’t get myself to get up. The mind is so irrational when it’s half asleep, I manage to convince myself that it’s not worth getting out of bed just to swim. Plus, my swimming form sucks, so I end up tired really quickly, and taking the occasional gulp of saltwater. Well, I will improve.

I went to a baby shower last night, for Diva, the girl I work with. I’d never been to one before, but I’m pretty sure they’re not usually like this. When the time came to give the gifts, Diva had to guess each one individually. She got four tries, and every time she missed a guess, she had to do something that the other person said. For most of it, we just drew on her with lipstick, but she also had to dance around a lot (awkward when you’re 8 months pregnant). Plus there was wine and pontche, which seemed odd for a baby shower. Good times. Doing things with my coworkers is always fun.

Time to correct some tests. Introduction to computers is done, thank all that is holy, and I get a short break from computer classes.

4/16

My whole body is sore. I’ve spent 3 of the last 4 days windsurfing and I am feeling it. On Thursday, I had a meeting with François, which was followed by lunch and surfing. Then I spent basically all day Saturday and Sunday at the wind club. I’ve started using a 125 liter board, which is not tiny, but small enough. I’ve gotten used it to it though, so the next time we have a good strong wind, I’ll try a 115 or so. Unfortunately, the wind is beginning to die down, and it’ll stay calm until the end of the rainy season in October or November. Sad. But the weak wind gave me an excuse to take out a 6.5 sq m sail (I’ve been using a 5.2) yesterday, and I was FLYING. It was awesome. I’d love to be out there again today actually, but there is just too much to do. I think I’ll go for a swim in the afternoon though, so maybe I won’t feel like I got hit by a bus tomorrow.

So I’ve been busy. I started teaching all my new classes last Monday, so I now teach 18 hours a week, which is more or less on par with a high school teacher. Every day I teach a computer class from 10:30 am to noon, then again (same class, different students) from 7:30 to 9 at night. And Mon/Wed/Fri I teach English from 6 to 7. I don’t mind the teaching in and of itself, but the constant stream of requests for computer repairs hasn’t stopped at all, so I feel like I am doing the work of two people right now. Or rather I would be, except that I’ve just been ignoring all repair stuff, except for things I know I can do in 10 minutes or less. People look at me like “What do you mean you don’t have time? I want this FIXED.” But let’s be serious, it’s been broken for months, if not years, because no one else knows how to do it, so why are you pushing it on me today? Hopefully I’ll get my plans a couple weeks ahead on classes this week and have time to step back and do it. Granted, I do in fact have all afternoon I could use to fix computers. But if I did that, I would be working 12 hour days, and they don’t pay me for that. They don’t pay me at all. Ha! I already have to be here from 9 am to 9 pm, so I’ll be damned if I don’t take a 4 hour break in the day to keep my sanity, get some exercise, and run some errands.

But on the plus side, all my classes are going really well. This English class is going a thousand times better than the previous one. Everyone is one the same level, which is basically nothing, so I know what I should be teaching. It’s weird teaching basic English. I never thought about how one would go about doing that, until about two months ago when I decided to offer the class. And the computer classes are going even better. Because I already taught the class once last year, I just use the same lesson plans, but with some improvements. Now that I know what people have a hard time with and what is easy, it’s been going more smoothly. I’m even becoming a decent teacher. Too bad I’ll probably never teach again after Peace Corps.

Speaking of “after Peace Corps,” my friend Kyle threw out a pretty great idea for a COS trip (COS = Close Of Service, i.e. where I’ll go for a nice vacation when this is all done). He really wants to see Brazil. Since I obviously love Brazil, I am all about going. But our friend Caryn is Chilean by birth and studied abroad there, so she might want in on it, too, so we can visit there. And then who knows, throw in Argentina or Peru, plus maybe a stopover somewhere in Central America, and that sounds like a pretty fantastic trip. Now we’ll see how many times we change our minds in between now and then.

Enough writing. Time to try and get something done in the morning so my afternoon will be more relaxed. I’ve also just been informed by François that the reason we have no internet (I’m writing in Word) is because the whole country has been cut off. Apparently a ship dropped anchor right on a fiber optic cable in Praia and bye bye internet for the whole country. That’s what we get for living on islands. And having only one ISP. Who has only one cable

An interesting last week or so. Well, maybe not for you, but I'm going to write about it anyway.

We went to Tarrafal for IST last week. Tarrafal is on the northern part of Santiago, and it's definitely the best beach on that island. We stayed in a hotel that consists mostly of little huts among some palm trees right along the bay (yeah, sometimes this feels like a really nice vacation). Oh yes, and there were monkeys. If I haven't recently expressed my hatred for monkeys, here it is: I hate monkeys. One morning, they all hung around outside the breakfast room and started stealing food from people as they left. Our training director got mugged for a banana, and another monkey went for Nadia's loaf of bread. I smacked it with my folder. Note: smacking a hungry monkey makes it a hungry, angry monkey. (There was one really cute baby monkey at a bar one night that I actually did like a lot. He was kind of a biter, but really fun to play with.) Where was I? Right, IST. I won't kill you with the details, but I'd have to say that it was more or less what I expected. There were some sessions on administrative policy and whatnot that were boring, but probably necessary. The rest was mostly on project design and management, classroom strategies, etc. Some parts were actually quite useful, and just hanging out and talking with other volunteers puts your own work in good perspective.

But of course, there was partying. Lots of it. All night. Every night. Guess what happens when you put 45 Americans who haven't seen each other in 6 months on a nice beach with access to lots of beer? Madness. On the last night, we had a bonfire on the beach, and a few of us walked up into town at around 10 to get some beer. Well, we ended up clearing two (count 'em, 2) grocery stores out of everything they had in their refridgerators. I also forgot how amazingly entertaining some of the other volunteers are. It was like a non-stop comedy show for 5 days. With booze added. There was also a bit of swimming, of the naked-at-midnight variety. And by a bit, I mean a lot. So the point is that it was awesome, and a really good break from Boa Vista. Although, it's worth pointing out that I started missing this place by day 2, and I was immensely pleased to come back on Friday. I've realized just how much I like it here.

I got a couple days of peace and quiet at home, because Nadia stayed on Santiago for a bit longer. I caught up on some sleep, and had a pretty great night out alone on Saturday. It's amazing what happens when you live in a small town and you just go sit on a bar stool for a night. You see everyone. It's awesome. Now, Nadia is back, and we've got a few visitors. Catalina, Michelle, and Adam are all here right now, and Alli and Natawnee will be arriving later today. The plan is lots of beach relaxation, which so far has worked out well. I've been catching up on a lot of work, too.

One nasty little incident is that Catalina and Michelle got robbed on our beach the other day. They were walking together and two guys stepped out of nowhere and took everything they had. I was floored, because I had never heard of anything like this, but apparently these two guys have gotten like ten people in the last month or so. I don't think of the beaches here as dangerous, but I guess there is a price to be paid for rapid development.

Diva is listening to absolutely horrible music right now. Worse than usual. It might be Celine Dion, if I knew anything she's done other than that Titanic song.

Spela, my Slovenian friend, is leaving today, and I am sad. She had a little going away party last night at the wind club, and it was awesome. Every windsurfer around came for it, and we ended up hanging out there with Tey, Moises, and Yohann until almost 1 am. Damn this place is great.

Oh god, it IS Celine Dion. The fucking Titanic song is on now! I am about to stab myself in the heart with the nearest sharp object.

Ok, enough for now.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A few random things:

1) I hate dogs. I've never really felt like that before, but it's undeniable now. I specifically hate their barking. If you could breed a new species of mute puppy, I'd be ok with that. But the dozen or so neighborhood dogs who now routinely wake me up between 4:30 and 5 am with 45 minutes of non-stop yapping have got to go. In my half-asleep daze of confusion and irritation, I sometimes have extended fantasies about how I would kill these dogs. It's usually a baseball bat, though assault rifles sometimes make an appearance.

2) I am bored. I was just chatting with Kyle (fellow IT volunteer on Sal, just north of here), asking what he does with his days. He is in the same boat as me. He teaches some classes, though his are quite small owing to lack of computers, but during the day, there is not always stuff to do. For instance, today I want to come up with a way to revitalize my sagging English class, as well as come up with a schedule for my technician training courses. The problem is that for the former, I need to speak with my counterpart who is on her daily coffee break, and the latter is just not that urgent, plus it involves coordinating with several other people to avoid stepping on toes and interfering with other classes. According to a very useful sheet of paper that PC gave us during training, "feelings of uselessness" are normal during this time of service. But it's not that I feel useless. Ok, maybe it is that I feel useless. It will pass, I guess. At least I now have a plan for 3 more courses to teach, and I feel like my service is going in a positive direction.

3) I love windsurfing. Yeah, I know, I talk about it a lot. But it's my little lifesaver here. On Monday, I finished typing up several course proposals in the morning, looked over the whole package I had assembled, and decided it looked pretty good. So, I took a longer than normal lunch break and went windsurfing (hey, I'm here until 9 pm most nights. I deserve it). And ohhhh man, it was a breakthrough day. I'm using a smaller, lighter board now, as well as a larger sail, and I finally achieved planing. That is when you plant your feet towards the back of the board, throw all your weight backwards, and lean your sail right into the strength of the wind. The result is the tip of your board angling way up out of the water while you skip across the waves, not unlike a speedboat. And it is a phenomenal feeling. Johann and Tony (guys who work at François' place) tell me that I am ready for the harness next time, to provide a little more stability at high speeds.

4) I am ready for vacation. I will be in Mindelo in 10 days. It couldn't come soon enough. I haven't left my 15 mile diameter island in over 4 months. That is the longest I have ever stayed in one place, at least in recent memory.

5) I need a martini.

6) I have so many books to read, and it no way is that bad. I am still working my way through "Freedom at Midnight," and I think I'll tackle "Freakonomics" next.

7) I am increasingly stressed out by news reports from the Middle East. I know I am not alone in this concern, but it really, really bothers me these days. I may have to start learning Arabic. You know where I'm going with that.

So I just got back from the post office, and I feel I need to say something. The post office here is the worst place in the universe. I know you may be thinking "Really? Well, what about prison? Death Valley in the summer? A fire ant nest?" No, I assure you, it's the post office. Generally, if you arrive before 10:30 am, it's not so bad. You can pick up a package or send an envelope in 10 minutes or so. The problem is that they have several services there: regular post office stuff, all CVTelecom stuff (land lines and cell phones), plus Western Union. So there are people there to send stuff, receive stuff, pay phone bills, get contracts, send money to their families, receive money from abroad, etc etc. So really, it's a madhouse. And it could work well. Except for one guy. He is my mortal enemy. Granted, most things in Cape Verde run a little slower than usual, and I'm fine with that. I can just relax and let things go at their own pace, and it rarely bothers me these days. But this guy... oh man. Nadia and I joke that he is the most useless human being in the world. Sometimes, even when there is no one else there, he will literally lie to you about something to avoid completing some task. He's the reason it took 6 weeks to get a phone installed. Nadia asked him for a printout of our phone bill last week, and he said it was impossible without filling out a request for the main office in Praia. Two days ago, I asked someone else (the manager, who is awesome and supremely helpful), and the detailed bill was in my hand 45 seconds later. Today, I was 5th or 6th in line to pick up a box, and it took over an hour. Just because the simplest tasks take him 15 to 20 minutes. It's really pretty amazing.

On the positive side, my mom's package was filled with good books. I recently became fascinated with Arab history, so I now have 3 books on it, dating from thousands of years ago until the 90s. Also, Nadia got two cool books recently: on reading Hebrew and Arabic. She has a personal goal to read religious texts (Bible, Torah, and Koran) in their original languages, which I think is badass. So between that and the Anglo-Saxon grammar book I found in the PC office, we are nerding it up hardcore in Sal Rei. Who loves other languages? I do.

Also, it RAINED a couple days ago. Seriously. It never even rains here during the rainy season. It's only the 3rd time I've seen precipitation here, and the first time since September. But there was a full on thunderstorm. It moved to the west of the island, but I could see the lightning out over the water, and then the rain caught us. I discovered that the ceiling in my room leaks, too. Hurrah for buckets.

Mostly I just wanted to vent about the post office. OH, but I have another story. I don't know if I've ever mentioned the Chinese loja phenomenon before, but here it is: Cape Verde has a decent number of Chinese immigrants here, because they are able to import inexpensive everyday items for really cheap and sell them here. For instance, there are two lojas (loja is just a store) here in Vila, and they are always packed with people. Someone from São Vicente told me that there used to be Chinese restaurants around, but they all closed when the families decided to open stores instead, because you can make so much more money. Anyway, the point of this is that the woman who owns one of the lojas in town came into the CEJ the other day with her daughter, who had just arrived from China last week. She apparently hates Boa Vista and wants to go back to China. I don't really blame her, considering she doesn't know Creole or Portuguese, and this sure as hell isn't what she's used to. So her mother asked me to let her into my English class, so she can at least do something and maybe make some friends. I agreed, so she's been to a few classes. So on Wednesday, we're having a little class discussion on AIDS, and she's being really quiet. My friend Walter (whose English is excellent) was wondering what the AIDS situation was like in China, so we asked her if she knew. Conversation in brief:

"*girl's name*, do you know what the AIDS crisis is like in China? How do the rates compare with what we just read?"
"I don't know, really."
"Oh ok."
"I don't care about this."
"Um. Ok. Why?"
"Because it is not about me, so why should I care?"
(Jaws drop all around room. Stunned silence follows.)
"Oh. Well. I... Uh... Does anybody have anything to add to that? No? Ok, um... wow. I guess class is over."

Gee, good question. Why should I care? I mean, it's only the largest epidemic in history, killing millions of people per year, but I guess that's no big deal. I personally don't have HIV, so I guess I can just ignore it. Gosh, life is so much simpler now. I guess I could have taken the opportunity to discuss why she should in fact care, but the way she phrases it was pretty confrontational and unpleasant, so I just let it go rather than start an argument.

Ok, well the wind has picked up. Tonight, I teach two classes in a row. At 9 pm, I am free to spend the weekend windsurfing. The storms have been increasing the swell at the outside of the bay, so maybe I can play on the waves a bit.

Well, this past weekend was another to go down in the annals of history. Or at least the annals of this month. Shon, my coworker, invited Nadia and I to Estância de Baixo again, only this time for a grelha in the desert. Nadia and Shon's girlfriend, Elisabeth, have class at the same time Saturday morning, so we went back with her after she did some grocery shopping. We put together a few coolers of food and drinks and walked about 25 minutes out of town to where the desert begins. The Deserto da Viana is weird: it starts and ends really suddenly, and it's pretty small. One minute, you're walking through fields of brown dirt and lava rocks, and then all of a sudden, there are huge sand dunes that go for a few miles and then end just as suddenly. But when you're actually there in the desert, it might as well be the Sahara if you can't see over the next few dunes.

So we set up camp underneath a big tree that gave us shade from the sun. Someone had set up a grilling pit there, but we had to find it under the sand first and dig it up. We grilled fish and some chicken legs that Beti had marinated in something close to liquid heaven because good god damn they were delicious. We had an awful lot of wine and beer, which we polished off while we ate. After the meal, we struck off into the desert to enjoy it. I don't know what the original goal was, but it turned into a booze-fueled romp in the sand dunes. (pics here. The album is public, no need for an account) In the end, we made it home just after sunset, exhausted and covered in sand. I am still finding small deposits of sand here and there. So we relaxed at Shon's and then headed home, only to find... Yep, water's gone. I did the best I could to wash off the sand with a bottle of water, but I still woke up with a few fistfuls in my bed. No worries though, the water is back as of this morning.

Sunday, I woke up and immediately headed to the bay, obviously. Unfortunately, there was a lot less wind out on the water than there was on, say, my street, so the day wasn't particularly good for speed. Still, I cruised around a bit and even caught a few waves. But like a jackass, I managed to get in front of a big one that carried me halfway across the bay and right into shore, because I never bothered to think about how to get off a wave that big with almost no wind to move myself. I looked about 90% retarded. But right until the end, it was just about the most fun I've had on a board. The wind and swell picks up on Wednesday. I am addicted.

I really do have the best post in the Peace Corps. Not only can I play in the desert and windsurf on the same weekend, but I have free internet to write about it afterwards.

Ho hum, it's been another slow week. I started my English class, which is going shockingly well. My students are all mid-twenties to 40s and 50s, so everyone is pretty well educated and most people have reasonably good English. One guy of course speaks nearly perfectly, leading to the question "Why the hell did you sign up for my English class?" No, actually, I'm really glad he's there, because he breaks the occasional awkward silence with a well-formed sentence, and I feel less like an ass. The class is all reading and discussion based, so I'm not bogged down planning grammar lessons. If there is a grammar question, I just answer it on the fly. So this week I had a burst of genius with an assignment idea to kill two birds with one stone. I've been meaning to update the wikipedia entry on Boa Vista and Sal Rei, because they both SUCK. I mean it. Go look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boa_Vista%2C_Cape_Verde The facts are only vaguely accurate and some of the sentences don't make sense. But why write it all myself when I can just get my class of 15 perfectly willing students to do it instead? They practice English and inform the world about their home at the same time. I'm so smart. Look for that stuff to be posted on wikipedia in a couple weeks. There will be entries on Boa Vista, Sal Rei, Rabil, and João Galego.

I just have one thing to vent about, and it's sort of a revisit of something I have mentioned before: the music here. I feel like I'm living in a musical black hole. Anybody who knows me knows that I have a musical fixation, and anybody who knows me really well also knows that I am a music snob. So you can imagine how I feel about a culture that only likes two kinds of music: slow music with an easily discernible beat, and fast music with an easily discernable beat. This is no problem at a club, or from a passing car, or even on someone's stereo every once in a while. About 20 minutes ago, someone came in and sat the computer next to me. He had earbuds in, but I could still hear his music as if he had speakers. While waiting for his ears to start bleeding, I couldn't help but notice that his music was just some generic vaguely R&B-ish American imported crap. They love it. They eat it up. The American music that makes it over here is hands down the bottom of the barrel. It is the most irrelevant, talentless pop garbage you could imagine. Linkin Park is experiencing the zenith of their popularity here. I am not kidding. Linkin Park. Few bands receive more contempt from me (I think only Creed and James Blunt currently top them. Creed has held the number one position for 6 or 7 years now. Oh wait, Good Charlotte might make it, too.). On the rap front, 50 Cent and Jay Z still hold sway, though Akon is also inexplicably huge. I continue to try to introduce people to good hip hop, but I mostly get lukewarm responses, unless the song has a really really catchy chorus, or gun shot sounds mixed into the beat (note: a gun shot sound effect, especially if it is incorporated into the beat, is a surefire way to get me to hate your rap song instantly. it's such a pathetic gimmick). It's an uphill battle I suppose, and most people just don't care much for rock and roll. However, bizarrely enough, the Scorpions are somehow wildly popular in Cape Verde. Yes, those Scorpions. Weird, right? Anyway, sometimes I just can't stand to hear one more generic beat and repetitive pseudo-soul chorus and I have to go plug myself into some Medeski or Led Zep. I have never loved my iPod more.

On to something less stressful. I went to Estância de Baixo on Saturday, where my coworker Shon lives with his girlfriend, Elisabeth, who is a math teacher at Nadia's high school. They are great people, easily my favorite couple here on Boa Vista. Beti cooked up some cachupa (Cape Verde's national dish, if I've never mentioned it: beans, corn, sausage, onion, pork etc all in a big stew-ish thing) and fish, and we had lunch with another guy, confusingly also named Shon. The food was really good, and they busted out with an unbelievable amount of wine. My Creole gets much better when I've been drinking, so the conversation flowed in equal proportion to the alcohol. There was a big barbeque going on right across the street, where they were cooking up a (wait for it) donkey. This is not a lie. I don't know why this is even remotely appealing, but apparently this donkey needed to die and they ate it. Yummy. In much the same way rotten cabbage and sweaty socks are yummy. I wasn't offered, so I didn't try it, but I suppose I'd give it a shot. Anyway. The whole day was great, and I was reminded how different the rest of Cape Verde is than Sal Rei. This town feels more like the world I'm used to: people are nice enough, friendly and easy to talk to, but nobody goes out of their way to hang out with you or befriend you. It's only in places like Estância and João Galego where just showing up in town is reason enough for everyone to learn your name and be your new best friend. There are only 2-300 people in Estância, making it a tenth the size of Vila, so it makes sense. In any event, every friendly gesture in Cape Verde comes with a friendly beer, ponche, grogue, or wine, so by the time I found myself a ride home at about 9 ish, I was pretty far gone. I ended up spending Sunday entirely indoors, partly due to recovery and partly due to a lack of wind. No wind, no surfing.

Ok, no more typing for me. I stupidly cut my finger last night trying to make my fan stop making sqeaky noises. There was much blood and discomfort.

Life is quiet. After the initial sense of limbo when IST was cancelled, I’ve more or less found things to do for the next few weeks. Most importantly and excitingly, I have officially purchased tickets for São Vicente for February, to spend Carnaval in Mindelo. Nadia and I are both going, as are many other PCVs, so it should be a wild time. After Carnaval, I’m taking the boat over to Santo Antão to visit Natawnee in Paúl.

Predictably, I spent the weekend windsurfing. I won’t bore you with the details, but I moved up a couple meters in sail size, and the difference in speed is awesome.

I start teaching English classes tonight. This class is an advanced class, for people who already speak English. I don’t know quite what to expect right off the bat, so I have to spend the first couple classes trying to figure out what level they are so I can work with it from there. Because of the IST fuckup, I now have to take several breaks: one for my internet class (can’t teach both at the same time – it’s complicated), one for Carnaval, and one right at the end for the rescheduled IST. I’d be lying if I said I was excited about the class, because I really don’t care to teach English. I’ve never done it before, and there seems to be a lot of pressure on me to do it well. Then again, I’ve never done any of this before, so who am I to complain?

The library project seems to have come to a screeching halt. Nobody has so much as touched a book in there for weeks. There is still no organization, no plans for organization, and most of the books remain sealed away. To be perfectly honest, I don’t even know why anymore. I don’t know if they just don’t know what to do, or if they just don’t feel like doing it. By “they,” I mean the rest of the staff here. Apparently the president of the câmara is pretty annoyed that it is not up and running yet. So we are having a meeting today to discuss getting it on track. I don’t know how much help I should give, because if they already have a set plan, then I’d rather just let it happen. On the other hand, I am not sure that they have as much experiences with public libraries as I do, having grown up as a little nerd-boy. Hmm.

Otherwise, life is exceptionally quiet. I am going through what seems to be a pretty universal experience with all volunteers. I am bored and restless. This is the longest I have ever stayed in one place in ages. I mean, I never leave town. There is nowhere else to go. Transport even to Rabil or Estância de Baixo is really expensive and there is nothing there that isn’t also here in Vila. On a bored weeknight in CT, I could at least drive down to New Haven and meet people for pizza and beer. Here, all I can do is grab a book. I guess it’s a nice change of pace from the east coast, but I can’t help but get fidgety. I am looking forward to February, not just to have a good time and see other volunteers, but just for the chance it represents to get off Boa Vista for a week. Island fever strikes hard. If it weren’t for windsurfing and the general camaraderie of François’ place, I think it would be a lot harder to deal with.

Interesting. I managed to write a page about nothing.

Well, first of all, why am I blogging from Boa Vista, when I am supposed to be in Tarrafal for training and conferences right now? The answer starts with the Sahara. Whenever there is a strong easterly wind, it picks up dust from the Sahara and carries it straight across the Atlantic to the Carribean. But we get it first and worst. It’s not like there is sand choking the streets or anything (no more than normal at least), but visibility is reduced to shit. Last week, São Vicente had it pretty bad apparently, and no flights left the island for a few days. So even if flights were back on for Sunday, they would have been backed up pretty badly. And considering that Mindelo and Santo Antão have about a quarter of the volunteers there, Peace Corps saw it fit to just cancel the whole thing until the end of the month. So instead of being in Tarrafal right now, starting In-Service Training, I am right where I’d normally be. And the chaos with the flights screwed over Caryn, who is visiting us. She was supposed to fly to Praia with us, and now can’t get a flight back home to Sal. We don’t mind. We like the company.

Mel and Courtney also visited us over the weekend. We spent all day Saturday at François’ shack, which is no surprise, considering that I spend every weekend there. I finally am good enough at windsurfing where I can lean all the way back, pull the sail tight against the wind, and really take off down the bay. This is still with a 3.3 m sail (which is tiny), so I’ve got a ways to go. But I digress. We all intended to hit up Mazurka late that night, but we were all so tired from the beach that we elected to skip it. Instead, we bought two cases of beer and settled in for a marathon game of asshole that left us all hammered and out of control. Pictures to follow if I can remember to post them.

What else? I am just really disappointed that I am not on Santiago right now. I was looking forward to seeing everybody. It’s also really screwed up my work schedule. We now have to postpone two of my classes to begin in February instead of next week. I was putting off started a couple projects until after IST, and now… Well now I don’t know what to do with myself. Sucks.

Oh, and my birthday was good. I spent the day windsurfing (claro), and then we all got hammered at Pub Makenna in the square. Good times. Only annoying part was when Diva from the CEJ came to my apartment to tell me that I was needed here. So I pulled myself together and walked over with her. And it was just this guy who works for a construction company in town, whom I have been helping a bit with a computer problem. And he had been calling every half hour, asking for me constantly (despite the fact that I had already been there earlier in the day), basically to ask me what I could do to help them fix it.

Well, Happy New Year’s all around. I would have written this yesterday, but the CEJ was inexplicably closed, even though I had been assured it would be open. The whole town was still pretty much shut down actually, even though it was the 2^nd.

Our big present from the powers that be on New Year’s was the sudden reappearance of running water sometime between 9 and 10 pm on the 31^st. Nadia and I had already had a pretty good head start on the wine (and grog and whiskey in my case), so the ridiculous celebration that ensued was probably pretty funny. So after 8 days without water, I got to take a real shower that didn’t involve a 1.5 liter bottle. Spectacular.

Afterwards, Nadia decided she didn’t feel like spending the 3000 escudos to go to the big party, but I was determined. I went out to find someone who could sell me a ticket at around 11, but couldn’t. I hung out on the corner with this guy from Ghana for a while, and then found the bus driver going to Cabrer’ (the club), who told me it wouldn’t leave until 12:30 or so. So I went back, had a few more drinks with Nadia and celebrated midnight rather quietly (except for a lot of left over exuberance from the arrival of the water). Afterwards, I bumped into our neighbor, Jirson, who was going to Cabrer’. We had some beers at his place, and drove out to the club.

Ok, so I had never seen this place. It’s not like a normal club – it doesn’t open regularly for normal nightclub stuff. Somebody rented it out and arranged the tickets and open bar and whatnot. It’s HUGE. Not something you’d picture on a random island in the Atlantic. Then again, Boa Vista is filled with surprises like that. It supposedly holds 5000 people, i.e. the entire population of the island. There were probably close to 1000 people there. So anyway, loud music, open bar, lots of people, dancing… Standard New Year’s goodness. I wish I could give details on everything that went down, but it’s a bit blurry. I just know that I talked to a lot of people, friends and strangers alike, I danced a lot, and I drank a lot. Have I mentioned open bar? Oh, twice? Yeah well… open bar. At one point towards the end, after they played the standard 15 minutes of American rap music (fully appreciated by me), I wandered to the outside courtyard section of the club and noticed the sun creeping up pretty high in the sky. I made the move for home shortly afterwards and crawled in bed shortly before 8:30. Overall: great New Year’s. Still no competition for Arraial d’Ajuda though.

Our friend Caryn is here from Sal right now. She arrived yesterday afternoon and is hanging out until we all go to Santiago together on Sunday. Courtney and Mel are coming on Friday as well. Should be a Peace Corpstastic good time. We collectively represent 5 of the 8 Capricorn birthdays. Only Jonah, Rhett, and Sarah couldn’t make it.

It’s my birthday tomorrow. Send me toys.

Perhaps you are confused. When I said I wanted running hot water, I did not mean that you should take away our running cold water, especially if you do not replace it with hot water. Yes, that's right, we're out of water again. It vanished Saturday night, just a few hours after our guests arrived. Worse, the folks at Alavanca were on vacation for 3 days, meaning that we had no water for Christmas eve, Christmas itself, or the day after. Even worse, the normal place to get water from the community tank has incredibly long lines. Jocelyn and her boyfriend, Daniel, were staying in a hotel, so we took turns taking showers there to stay clean for the weekend. But now they have returned to São Nicolau, and we have lost that benefit. Still worse, we have dishes from a Christmas dinner for 7 in the sink, not to mention a nasty toilet, and no water to clean it with. And I haven't showered in almost 72 hours, but I actually don't consider that a big deal anymore. Oh well.

Nadia has just informed me that she spoke with the Alavanca guy today, and our water is not going to return until FRIDAY. He says its a good idea to keep a barrel of water filled for weeks like this. Yeah, thanks asshole, you could have mentioned this a) when we moved in or b) at least before the water ran out. We just asked Eugene, an American guy who has been living here a couple months on his boat, if he had any big rain barrels to sell, but he ran out. So, we can't actually get enough water to wash the dishes, let alone ourselves, until Friday. Great. Well, at least to flush the toilet, I will be walking to the ocean to fill up on salt water. That's free at least.

On the flip side, Christmas was great. Jon, Brady, Yasmin, Jocelyn, and Daniel were all here for 4 days to enjoy the loveliness of BV. We went to Mazurka Saturday night, and hit up François' place on the bay on Sunday. Daniel got a windsurfing lesson, but spent more time falling off the board than actually cruising. It's hard. I took it out for a spin as well, and I was surprised at how well I am doing in terms of not falling, already. At one point, I ended up right over a shallow reef where the waves break low but fast, and I actually caught a wave and took off. Scary for my 2nd time out, but fun. More importantly, I can now brag that I once spent Christmas eve windsurfing. On Christmas, Nadia cooked an amazing meal. We had 3 very small roast chickens, roast carrots and potatoes, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, and of course several bottles of wine. It was very, very delicious. The day after, I took some people up north of here to try to get a good view of the island. Once I was actually there with everyone, I was reminded how very strange BV is and how much I take that for granted. It seemed pretty normal for me to climb a ridge for a view of the desert below, but because it was the first time I've done it with friends, I sort of noticed all over again that my island is not classically beautiful. Unless you're really into brown. But everybody seemed to appreciate the oddness of it.

So, quite the mixed bag these last few days. Food, friends, fun vs dirt, grime, thirst.

Dear Santa,

For Christmas, I would like

• Running hot water: I almost jumped out of my skin when the cold water hit me this morning
• A Napalm Burger from Eli Canon's in Middletown, medium rare, with onion rings
• The following beers: Guinness, Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA, Fuller's London Porter, Chimay Grande Reserve, Victory Hop Devil, Freeminer Deep Shaft Stout, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and just throw in whatever else you can come up with. Better make it a case of each.
• Sushi. Lots of it.
• A good size mountain, covered in virgin Utah powder, and a new pair of K2 Apache Crossfires (172 cm)
• A pile of new music of all genres. Anything that is not morna, funana, or zouk is fine.
• A comfortable couch. You'll never realize how great couches are until they're gone.
• A Tool concert
• A really good martini: Bombay Sapphire, dash of vermouth, a little dirty
• A steak, medium rare, with A1
• Some green grass to lounge on for an afternoon. Foss Hill would be ideal, but I won't be picky.
• Shade.
• A real haircut, i.e. one that isn't me with clippers and a mirror
• Fresh fruit. I should probably put this one at the top. Oh lordy I need some real fruit.
• An evening of bar-hopping with the usual crowd somewhere in New York
• Copies of the newest seasons of Nip/Tuck, Family Guy, Rome, and Entourage
• etc etc

If any of these things seem silly, get them for me anyway. Not to give the wrong impression that I am unhappy here. Far from it. But some luxury would be nice.

Ohhhh man, windsurfing is fun. On Saturday, I actually managed to tool around the bay, zipping back and forth. Granted, the board I was using is for beginners, i.e. huge board, small sail, but François was impressed with me overall, which is good. The one thing I am having a hard time with still is turning around without getting off the board and into the water. You have to kind of twist the sail around and let the wind push the board 180 degrees around, while you shuffle your feet to the other side. I fell a lot trying to do that. But I feel an addiction forming. François still refuses to let me pay for lessons. He says I owe him just a beer.

Sunday, I went for a long hike up north. I went past MarineClub, but instead of exploring the first little valley, I continued past, to where a dried up ribeira has carved a much larger canyon and bay. I climbed up a tall hill, mostly on all fours, and then skirted the edge of the valley, still heading north. The view from up on top was pretty damn good, though a small mountain was blocking my view of Sal Rei. Unfortunately, there is an access road leading to the top of the hills from another direction and it looks like a lot of people have chosen to get tanked and smash their bottles up there. Lame. Nonetheless, my goal was to get a view of the northern coast, so I kept going. After I got to the top of another rise, I found that I could see Cabo Santa Maria, which is a huge sweeping beach that covers about half the north shore of Boa Vista. I could also see the famous shipwreck that is there. Who knows how old it is, but it is a huge rusty cargo ship that wrecked itself right on the beach. For whatever reason, no one ever cleaned it up, and now it is an icon of Boa Vista, appearing on post cards and paintings. It was probably 5 miles away, but it’s a pretty big boat, so I had no trouble seeing it. I also got for the first time a solid view of just how small my island is. Standing on the hill, I could see both the north and west coasts, as well as the long oasis that stretches from Vila to Rabil, not to mention the Deserto do Viana beyond, and the mountains off in the distance. In all, I probably had a full quarter of the island in my field of vision. I guess it helps that it is mostly flat. On top of my small mountain, there was nothing but brown dirt and volcanic rocks everywhere. There are also dry river beds everywhere, and you can see how perhaps once upon a time, there might have been more water here. I’ll bring a camera next time.

Well, as I am sitting here correcting the tests from my Excel class, I can’t help but notice some xenophobic graffiti on my desk. It says “Fock you strangeiro.” Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. I love high school students.

A couple things I don’t love though: The first is not having any running water. Wednesday evening, all running water in our building stopped. The next morning, I asked a guy who works for the construction company that owns the place, and he informed me that “ka ten agu’ na red’,” basically meaning that the water pipes in my neighborhood have run dry. So I am not sure when we will have it again, but it better be soon. I am going to be a very smelly gentleman if this keeps up. And we have 48 hour old dishes in the sink that need to be scrubbed. There is a community well/water tank where we can go, but there is always a wait of many hours to get the water, especially when there are shortages in town. Apparently, this is a problem with Sal Rei, so Nadia and I are going to buy a big rain barrel and keep it filled in the house, to make these unpleasant things a bit more bearable.

Next thing I don’t love: correcting really poor exams. While most of my students are getting in the good to excellent range, and clearly know their shit, there are a couple people who are… not doing so hot. As in, couldn’t do anything at all beyond type in a few numbers. Sigh. I guess there are always a few. But on the brighter side, my two star students have also signed up for my English class next month, and can’t wait to sign up for the next computer class, also in January. I’m gonna have my hands full with all the teaching, but at least I will stay very busy. I prefer that to idleness.

It doesn’t feel like Christmas season. It is sunny and in the 80s right now. There is nary a fir tree in sight. But moreover, there are no crowds of people stampeding for the latest hot toy, or clogging mall parking lots, or bidding $3000 for a PS3. These I consider good things. There are also no overbearing window displays, or holiday songs played ad nauseam. Also good things. We have a small shiny silver tinsel tree here in the CEJ with some lights strung through it, but it’s not really doing it for me. When I told my coworkers that I used to live near a Christmas tree farm, where I could walk over with a saw, pick a tree, cut it down, and drag it home, they thought that was pretty funny. When Christmas itself comes along though, we are going to do our damnedest to make it a good holiday. The crew from São Nicolau arrives on the 23^rd, so they will be around for it. We are going to ask our friend Tony’s aunt out in João Galego to hook us up with a fresh, dead chicken to roast. Nadia and I are both supposedly receiving multiple packages from friends and family in the US. My mom and grandma already sent theirs, so I am just waiting for them to arrive. The postal system is so sketchy here.

Ok, gonna finish these tests.

I posted a bunch of World AIDS Day pics on Facebook. Here’s the external link: http://wesleyan.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016033&l=ad73e&id=4200509

But on to the next project, I suppose. While having dinner with Paulo last week, he mentioned problems he was having getting the library here sorted out and set up. We have a library room here at the CEJ that has a bunch of books in it, even more books still sealed in cardboard boxes, no organization whatsoever, and no way to loan books out or anything. So I offered to do my part and figure out the management software bit of the deal. I did a bunch of searching online, but couldn’t find anything useable. Most software available is for large libraries and costs money. Paulo found a bit of software based on Microsoft Access that looked good, until it didn’t work. But it gave me the idea to just make my own. That way, I can modify it as other needs develop. Unfortunately, I don’t know jack shit about Access. I managed to learn enough about it last week to put together the two database tables for books and library members, but I am a bit lost on how to do the other stuff. I’ve requested a book on Access from the Peace Corps resource library in Praia, but I may have to wait until the conference in January to get it.

This weekend, I did nothing, and it was spectacular. Ok, well not quite nothing, but very little. Saturday, I went for a hike alone north of town, past MarineClub. It is mostly just rocks and sand and hills up there, but there are some interesting things. There are the ruins of an old colonial church and another building right next to it, presumably both from the 1500s. The church is on a rock about 10 ft high and faces the ocean where the sun sets, with steps cut into the rock leading to the door. It looks like someone has at least tried to give a half-assed effort at restoring or maintaining it by strengthening the arch of the door with concrete. There is another bay, and beyond it, a bunch of hills and canyons. I explored one of them, but got tired after a while. Next time, I think I’m going to climb one of the larger hills and try to get an idea of how far away the coast to the north is. There’s a road that goes along the coast past the hills and presumably to the coast there. I’d like to bike it, but my bike remains unusable. I popped a tire and can’t find an inner tube of the proper size to replace it. One store only had 24” tubes and the one that was supposed to have 26” tubes was out of stock. Anyway, the hike was good, and afterwards I just lazed around until late night.

I went to Mazurka at about 12:30, with my buddy Alves again. It was a carbon copy of the last time: same people, same music, same everything. They always start out with techno and Cape Verdean pop music, and then inevitably it leads to the slow songs. I hate them. Seriously. I despise this music. Not only is it awful music, but there is only one dance you can do it, and it involves grabbing a partner and doing this half-waltz, half-dryhump for the duration of the song, or sometimes two or three songs (the norm of releasing your partner at the end of the song isn’t really accepted here). Also, I am a poor dancer when it comes to partnered things, which makes it much easier to dislike the whole scenario. So I stood there and watched everybody dance, waiting until the more interesting music came back on. Then I danced more, until once again, they switched to slow crap. Alves and I were fed up by then, though also pleasantly drunk and tired, so we headed home just after 4. The club was still packed.

The weather has taken a turn for the worse here. It is cold and windy. I say this relatively, as it is in the 60s, but that’s pretty chilly for this neck of the woods. But yesterday, there was a constant strong wind from the north, with gray clouds and not a speck of blue sky. I hope it improves soon, because the São Nicolau crew is coming in less than two weeks, and I’d feel like an asshole if our beachy paradise was cold and windy for their vacation. Last night, we even felt a few drops of misty rain, which is pretty astounding. It hardly rains here during the rainy season, let alone in December. The paltry dozen sprinkles I felt were the first hints of precipitation I’ve felt since September. But of course it didn’t really rain. This is Sahel Belt, what did I expect?

What else? Overall, I am enormously pleased with life. That’s it.

So World AIDS Day has come and gone, and I’m sure that all 4 people who read my blog are just dying to know how my event went. And the answer is pretty damn well. At least, the parts that mattered to me went well. But it wasn’t perfect, and I learned a few things about organizing large events in Cape Verde.

First off, in one of the most important ways, it was a huge success: people. Shitloads of people turned out. We had 250 t-shirts to give out and we ran out with many, many more clamouring for more. I am not so naïve as to assume that at least a couple dozen didn’t just take their shirts and go home, but we definitely had well over 200 people. As for runners, not so many: just 19. But asking around, it seems that this is pretty normal. Most people here aren’t into running for competition. It is especially not normal for women to run, and so we had zero female participants. Weak. So two different soccer schools showed up, as well as a basketball school, a Nazarene youth choir, a theatre group, and an old people’s exercise group.

First we gathered at the CEJ in one huge group, to hand out t-shirts and register the runners. I handed out the numbers and took names, while Shon and Iva tried to maintain some order among the eight billion teenagers and little kids running around, and Diva and Aurite handed out the t-shirts. We were supposed to march around town to the praça at 9:30, but that hour came and went, and we were missing one important person: the vareador. It’s pretty normal for people to be late here, especially a person of such local importance, but it still got on my nerves. He showed up over an hour late, having delayed the whole event. But no big deal, onwards. Everyone marched, while I stayed behind to get the runners going. Djoy, the head of the Associação de Atletismo, was also a bit late, and when he came, we discovered that nobody had organized the cars to drive the runners out to the starting line. Fortunately, Paulo was there and he drove a load of us out. So we drove 5 k down a road through the oasis that runs from north of Sal Rei down to Rabil, and we stopped. At this point, it is 11:15 and WELL past the 9:30 or 10:00 start time that I had tried for. So the African sun was blazing in a cloudless sky when we finally took off. Did I mention that I ran the race? Ha ha. Yep.

I knew I was in trouble when immediately everyone else bolted from the starting line, sprinting ahead of me. Normally, this is a stupid thing to do. If you start a 5k sprinting, you’ll die off fast and end up falling behind quickly. Slow and steady, ya know? In high school, I was always in the bottom quarter of the race for the first half mile, but by the last half, I was usually up in the top 10, having passed 100+ people who were all pooped from running a 5:30 mile in the first third. Anyway, my strategy didn’t work this time, because the sun was scorching, the headwind was strong, I was exhausted and hungry, and I was running against 18 black dudes who play soccer every day. But a lot of the guys who took of sprinting died out, as I predicted, and 5 or 6 of them gave up and hopped in the chase car to be driven back to Vila. So in that respect, I didn’t completely lose… Ha, that’s right, 5 sweaty, scorching, stomach cramping, I-want-to-die kilometers later, I finished last, about 100 feet behind the next guy. Nonetheless, I got a lot of cheering and clapping from the finish line crowd, for representing the CEJ in the race and for finishing despite everything. I don’t know what my time was, but it was definitely the worst I’ve run in years. The winner was predictably, a guy named Adilson, who is literally the best runner in the country. He wins every race in Cape Verde, hands down, no contest, as well as international competitions. He is expected to win the ultramarathon this week, too.

All the groups had done little demos of their trade while the race happened, so things were already seemingly winding down when I got back to the finish line. We put together a kid’s race, which was just two quick laps around the praça, maybe a half mile total. These little kids were pretty fast, despite the fact that not one was wearing shoes. Keep in mind that the road is cobblestone. Afterwards, we all went to a restaurant nearby which has a huge kintal (like an atrium: large open space inside a building) for lunch. These nice ladies cooked feijoado for 300 and I stuffed myself. Afterwards, the plan was to return to the praça for a couple more things, followed by some music and a closing ceremony for the trophies (yes, we got trophies and medals). However, after lunch, nobody seemed interested and virtually nobody came back to the praça. Everyone else went home for a nice long siesta. So after hanging around for a while, Iva decided we could just have the music and ceremony at the CEJ later in the week. So the DJ packed up and we all went home for naps, too.

So overall, successful? Hell yeah. The race was fine, if late. The turnout was huge. Everyone wore our t-shirts, and will continue to do so. One thing that was lacking was the stuff from the hospital. Because the doctor is so hard to get a hold of, we never managed to get the condoms from them to hand out. But the head of the Red Cross talked about AIDS and stuff while he was MCing the whole thing, so we managed to keep the message in the event. We took lots of pictures, so I’ll post them when I get them on this computer.

What I learned is to never plan anything that continues after lunch. Also, never assume that people will take care of things: micromanage if necessary. I let a lot of the events just sort of go, with other people managing them. I think this was ok, except for a few circumstances where I wish I had watched closer. Mainly, I think I stepped back from the event a bit too much, and next time, I think I will try to have a closer hand at everything. But enough criticism. It’s done!

Also, someone broke into the CEJ over the weekend and stole the laptop and projector I use for classes. Who steals from a youth center? The laptop is protected by a system password that can't be gotten around or uninstalled. Ha ha.