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.

As a warning, I might write a lot here, and I might brag excessively about how great my life is, so if that’s going to piss you off, just go look at porn instead.

So I had a great weekend. No no, really. I had a GREAT weekend. And I’m going to tell you all about it, because I can. So where to begin…

My class on Friday went very, very well. I am teaching Excel now, which I don’t have to tell you is pretty hard to teach and understand anyway. The whole idea of spreadsheets and formulas is tricky at best, particularly in a language like Creole, which doesn’t have any mechanisms to explain complex ideas. But I apparently did a damn good job, because nearly everyone finished the exercise perfectly. Having failed utterly at explaining cell selection and formatting on Thursday, I took a different approach that I think I will now stick with. So I was already in a good mood when I got home and Paulo picked up Nadia and I for dinner.

We went to a restaurant that I had never seen, or even heard of. It was closer to the fisherman’s harbour, and it was rooftop, bar and everything. Paulo took charge and ordered everything for us, including pinchos (little shish kebab kinda things, but with pork) and grilled lobster for me and Nadia. And ohhhh man, I’ll be damned if it wasn’t some of the best lobster I’ve ever had. This could be a problem if I develop a lobster addiction, because that shit is expensive. After the food, plus plenty of wine and whiskey, we left to go elsewhere. We heard live music coming from a different rooftop, so we went up to check it out, and lo and behold, the omnipresent morna band Djalunga was playing. Seriously, they’re everywhere. More on that later. I was a bit tipsy and feeling friendly, and spectacularly enough, the roof was filled with people I knew. After spending a while chatting with people and listening to the music, we decided to leave, but took a detour at Pub Makena, which I normally avoid because it is way expensive and is entirely geared towards tourists. The bar was filled with them, but we just sat and chatted until 1-ish and then headed home. So, really fun night #1 ended.

Saturday, I spent all morning in bed reading, which was fine. In the afternoon, I headed to Boa Vista Wind Club to try (again) to catch a windsurfing lesson. There was only one teacher there, and he was occupied, and by the time he was done, it was too late to start. But it wasn’t a total loss, as I made some friends. First, I hung out with Te (spelling?), the instructor, for a while. Then his student (who had waved to me from the water already), came ashore and turned out to be a cute Swiss girl named Veronique, here on vacation alone. So I made another friend. I loafed around with them and François most of the afternoon and made vague indications that we should try to find each other later in the night. I relaxed at home briefly and then went to the praça to try to catch a car to João Galego, because I had been told that there was a huge party there that night and I could get a car at around 7. Well, there were no cars and nobody at the Coke kiosk where the cars generally gather to go to other towns. So I gave up and dropped in at a local bar where I know the bartender, a mellow guy named Alves from Guinea-Bissau. I mentioned a thought that I might go to Mazurka (the only discoteca around, an idea suggested by Veronique), and he said he would close up around 11 and go with me. So I struck off back to the praça, having sighting someone with a guitar heading that way. Sure enough, Djalunga again. I hung out a bit and ran into Nadia on my way back. She was all about going to Mazurka, so we met up with Alves, and waited the hour-plus it takes to catch a ride to the disco. Everyone just clusters around the Coke kiosk and when the bus arrives (I guess Mazurka hires it every week), everyone pushes and shoves like 4th graders to try to pile on. When we finally got on, people were even opening the windows and climbing onto laps to squeeze in. It’s Africa, maximum capacity is just a vague suggestion. In any event, the club was packed and totally different than the last time I was there. People were mingling, tourist and local alike, drinking and dancing. I had a damn good time, though I could do without the slow music. They have a tendency to play a lot of couples dancing music, which I don’t dig at all, mostly because I have no clue how to dance like that and could only succeed in making an ass of myself with some poor unsuspecting, but probably attractive, Cape Verdean girl. Veronique was there with some friends, including Te, and she seemed to be enjoying his company an awful lot, so I threw out the idea of flirting more, which I had intended to do. But the important thing is that I danced and drank and revelled until 4 am and had a fucking blast. Awesome day #2: check.

I woke up early, despite a headache, and headed back to François’ shack, as I had promised him I would do. Te showed up late, so in the mean time, François set up a board and sail on the sand and told me that everyone has to practice there first. It saves a lot of time falling over in the water all the time. So I practiced regulating the sail and adjusting to wind changes, as well as using my weight to balance the sail against the wind. I got the hang of it pretty well, so I think I’ll do all right when I get in the water. Veronique showed up with Te and they clearly had a hell of a night together and spent a lot of time making out everywhere all morning. Ah well. At that point, the previously calm bay erupted out of nowhere with waves and conditions quickly turned very bad for a first lesson in the water. So instead I practiced on the sand a bit more and hung out with Te and Veronique. Some of the more expert windsurfers hopped on their boards and took off, and god damn it looked like fun. François’ oldest son, Shon, is about 11 years old and already good at virtually every watersport ever invented. I guess that’s what happens when you grow up on the beach and your dad is a former windsurfing champion. I also met Tony and Spela, two Slovenians who are business partners with François. They are going to help me find a used board and sail so I don’t have to waste money renting all the time. François gives me a discount, for being a volunteer and a semi-local, but I think this’ll be better in the long run. In two years, I’ll just leave it for the next volunteers here. An Italian showed up, and everyone decided to go surfing. Spela showed me how to stand on a surfboard, and it’s fucking hard. I accompanied them down the beach to watch them, along with the Italian surfer’s girlfriend, who spoke no English. So I sat on a dune with her for about an hour and tried to hold a conversation in Italian. She was blessedly patient and helped me out a lot, and overall I did better than I have in the last few weeks. Still, there’s plenty of room for improvement. I made my way home after a full five and a half hours of fun in the sun.

I got home and showered and had a brief nap, interrupted by Cecy knocking on the door, saying that Iva and the CEJ needed me. I had already agreed to help out at an event that night, so it wasn’t a surprise, but I though I had plenty of time. Anyway, there was another homage-style event, this time for a guy named Plá, who plays with… Yeah, you guessed it, Djalunga. I had made a slideshow of about 150 photos of Plá and the band during the week, and they needed me to do projection for the event. I set everything up and then proceeded to wait while everything started two hours late. But no big deal, my friend Joari (man, I just don’t know how to spell these names) was there and he fed me ponche and beer the whole time. Veronique and François were there as well, though they both left shortly afterwards. The music started, I projected my little thing, and all went pretty well. Iva and Cecy were there, as well as some other friends. Veronique came back and we hung out until midnight or so. The music finally ended at about 1 am, and I packed everything up and went home, completely and totally exhausted. But I had the best weekend I’ve had in Cape Verde so far.

I am mostly still elated by the feeling that I live here and have friends. I also have given up on disliking tourists and I now view most of them (the younger, cooler ones at least) as vehicles to practice languages. François’ shack is ground zero: I can practice French and Italian, chat in Creole with the windsurfers, and every once in a while run into someone who speaks some crazy language I’ve never heard. Windsurfing lessons are just icing on the cake.

So what I’m saying is that my life is awesome and you should be jealous. Road race in 5 days… everything seems to be set up to go smoothly. We’ll see…

So I though I would be starting my Excel class today, but apparently it starts on Wednesday. Which gives me a slightly longer break from being here all night. But it turns out the class is 2 full hours, and I will be here pretty late, so that kind sucks. Ah well.

I had a pretty satisfying weekend. It was kind of divided between "friendly active Leland getting out and meeting people" and "semi-comatose relaxed Leland who just wants to stay in and watch moves in English." I thought it was a good mixture. The latter personality managed to watch the entire series of the show Firefly, which I apparently missed entirely while it was actually on TV. In any event, it was actually a good show, and now I'm kind crabby that it got cancelled. So that took up about 9 hours spread over 3 or 4 days. I've also been reading Greek history for fun, because apparently the Classics major in me has not yet been fully purged. I am at risk for reinfection. If I try to enroll in grad school for it, somebody put me down.

Nadia invited two of our friends, Tony and Helena, over for dinner on Thursday, along with their kids. We made pizza. This was a breakthrough event. I made the dough, Nadia made the sauce, and we put together a melange of toppings. And I'd have to say that it was some god damn delicious pizza. Friday night... Umm... I don't remember what we did, so clearly it wasn't exciting. On Saturday, we took a walk up north, past MarineClub (the huge Italian resort), because a friend had told us that there was a little protected inlet "like a swimming pool." So we found it, right near the ruins of an old colonial church by the ocean. But the waves were gigantic, so it wasn't particularly swimming pool-like that day. On the way back, I stopped to go for a swim while Nadia continued home. Again, the waves were gigantic, and I gave up after about 15 minutes of playing in them, after I got annoyed with being knocked over by waves above my head. If I knew how to surf, I probably would have shat myself with joy. So Saturday night, Nadia and I made a quick dinner and sat around drinking grog and beer. We ducked in at the small bar across the way, because I made friends with the bartender there earlier in the week. After a few more beers and some ponche (if I haven't explained that before, it's grog mixed with honey, sometimes sweetened condensed milk and various other flavors: coconut, strawberry, lemon, whatever), we returned home. Booze makes Nadia sleepy, so she went to bed. But I was feeling antsy and friendly, so I struck out for nowhere in particular. I head music from the praça so I went over that way. Per usual, there was the standard morna band playing in the café. I grabbed a beer and joined a friend and his brother whom I had spotted. We chatted for a bit, and then he announced that he was headed to a birthday party, and asked if I wanted to come. Of course I accepted, and before too long, I was at a small party for someone I didn't know. But Iva, my counterpart, was there, along with Cecy, a mutual friend. I met a few random people, and more drinks forced on me. Note: It is not really possible to refuse a drink from a Cape Verdean. They will give it to you anyway. Ex: "Leland, would you like another beer?" "No thanks, I'm all set." "Ok. Here." "Umm, thanks." Anyway, I stayed out late and generally had a good time, particularly when I noticed that I was speaking Creole without even noticing anymore.

Sunday, I spent the morning reading and generally combatting a headache caused by the night before. I tried to go for a bike ride in the afternoon, but was thwarted by the pressure valve on the inner tube spontaneously popping off for no particular reason. It is actually physically broken, so I have to find a new inner tube somewhere here. Hmm. So I substituted another swim with gargantuan waves and had a hell of a time, even though the big waves threatened to de-pants me pretty much every time.

So my only fuzzy realization to make here is that I actually feel like this is home now. Sure there are a few things that irritate me, but over all, I really really like it here.

The grad school thing captured my mind for about 4 hours last week. I spent a while looking into programs in the US and Europe, and I am tantalized by all of them. The University of Geneva's Master's in International Affairs still is the forerunner, but I'd have to find substantial aid to afford it. Oxford is another one, but I'd probably be trying for a Fulbright on that front, and both are a long shot. 25 slots for the MPhil (300ish applicants), 3 for the Fulbright. Yikes. On the domestic front, the University of Denver, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Yale, and Harvard's Kennedy School have all caught my eye. I suppose I should also develop some safety schools instead of a fantasy list... UD and Yale have Peace Corps Fellowships though, which will help a lot. But before any of that becomes really relevant, I need to figure out what to do about another year of work in the interim. I sent an email to my friends the Helseth family, most of whom work or live abroad now, in Afghanistan, Sudan, and Cambodia. I am trying to see what direction they can throw me in, particulary Gary, who has been working with the UN for years. One of my mother's students worked with them for a while and now she is with UNOPS in Sudan, just barely out of undergrad. Now THAT is a hell of an opportunity.

Now off to try and get a fucking phone line installed. This shit is impossible.

One more class down. I finished up with my Word class the other night by giving an exam. It was actually more frustrating than running a class, which I had grown used to and was starting to enjoy a bit. It's frustrating because, while you expect high school kids to cheat, you don't expect it out of 25 and 30 year olds. There was a point where I had to walk individually to three pairs of people and tell them to stop talking and looking at one another's screens. One person in particular I had to tell about 7 times, because she just kept asking other people how to do things. Anyway, I think a lot of it is a cultural thing. Not like "Cape Verdeans are cheaters," or anything negative like that. But I don't know if having a silent, do-your-own-work computer exam is something they are used to. And since none have a university education, the idea of working with one another on a test probably seems fine, as opposed to the violently fierce anti-plagiarism policies most of us have had rammed into our heads during college. Ah well, other than the one case, very little helping went on after I made it clear that they were not supposed to. And in the end, nearly everyone seems to have done well, though I have yet to correct them. I am waiting for one guy to finish up right now, because the poor fellow finished the whole test and then somehow lost everything, so he is back this morning to do it again.

I went down to Tortuga beach over the weekend to talk with François, but unfortunately there was no wind at all, so lessons never happened. But I hung out with him for a couple hours, and made friends with his bartender and some random Italian guy named Marco (of course) who is visiting for a month and spends all day just chillin there. I was reminded once again how far my Italian has fallen. I tried to make conversation, but I kept forgetting stupid things like the loro form of potere (yeah, it's possono, I remembered half an hour later). Fortunately, I can still understand pretty well, so we did all right. Anyway, because there was no wind anywhere, the bay was glassy calm, so later in the afternoon I came back with Nadia and we floated in the warm water for a while, until the sun went down and it started getting chilly. By chilly, I of course mean 75-80, but I am already turning into a cold-wuss. How's the fall treating everyone?

I also went for a bike ride, which was nice. I haven't ridden a bike recreationally in many, many years. Yes, my thighs were less than happy the next day. I'd like to continue to do it as part of my "Leland actually gets in decent shape again" plan for the next two years, but my schedule is so damn irregular that I don't always have the time to exercise every day.

Also, HOW 'BOUT THEM DEMOCRATS?! Wooooooha! Ok, we're not supposed to put political things in our Peace Corps blogs, plus this is about Cape Verde, not the US, so I'll stop there.

Oh yeah, my English classes have been postponed/cancelled. After several weeks of having sign up sheets available, NOBODY signed up for the beginner's class, and only 4 for the advanced, including my counterpart and a friend in the câmara. I'm pretty sure it's because the class was too expensive, which I had mentioned before, but I deferred to the knowledge of people who actually live here, thinking maybe the price was more normal for Boa Vista. But no. Lots of people told me they wanted to sign up, but couldn't afford it. So we are waiting for 6 more people to sign up for the advanced course. After the holidays and IST (In Service Training - we all reconvene on Santiago for a conference), I am going to give the beginner's class another shot, only at about half the price. I would just as soon not charge, but the CEJ needs to income to fun other projects, and to pay for materials for the class.

I am running out of things to blog about these days. Maybe I should just make these things weekly.

Still permanently exhausted. We are all moved in now and the bathroom is finished. I even got to shower last night. Not that I smelled or anything. Oh wait. Yeah, I did. The only thing missing is the shower curtain rod, which they are putting in tomorrow morning. Also, I dunno what the hell is going on with the water there, but when you take a shower, the sink turns on. No kidding. It's like Poltergeist. Also, the (extraordinarly attractive) girl who works here just gave me some kind of fruit called a tambro (I have no idea how to spell that) that is small and yellow. It was kinda dry, but tasty in it's own way. Continuing...

I actually had a fantastic conversation today entirely in Creole. I was on my way with a coworker to meet the head of the Assoçiação de Atletismo in the câmara, but he turned out to not be there. This is in no way unusual - scheduling a meeting with someone doesn't guarantee that they will be there, or even on the island. In any event, we decided to wander into a little hole-in-the-wall bar/restaurant that I've been to a couple times. It's usually packed, and only has 4 tables, most of which are occupied by European tourists. But today it wasn't, so we settled down and had a couple beers. In any event, I actually held a long conversation about politics, religion, economics, immigration, war and peace, the weather, family life, and on and on, entirely in Creole, with no trouble, for about an hour. Needless to say, I feel pretty damn good about that. I also have almost no problems teaching my classes these days, and even my listening comprehension has picked up, which is hands down the hardest thing for me.

The road race planning continues. Once we get the athletic coordinator from the câmara involved, I just have to hook the Red Cross, but they have already expressed interest. All I really need from them anyway is pamphlets and informational materials, and hopefully a speaker as well. In return, we are going to help them with their own activities for WAD. The high school is also doing a march around town with signs and posters and stuff, so I'm sure we'll dig our grubby little fingers in that and help out, too. My counterpart spoke with one of the vareadors (like a local government department head, or the President's Cabinet on a smaller scale) about the 5k, and he absolutely loved the idea. So to get funding, which is tough to come by here, we are petitioning a Spanish construction company that has projects on the island. Good publicity for them, provides t-shirts and water stations for our race. Rock on. My aunt got Brooks, the shoe company, to donate 200 number bibs and two pairs of running shoes, for male and female winners. Did I write this already? I don't even know anymore.

Nadia made me a curtain for my bedroom window, so I no longer have to deal with the street lights. She made one for herself as well. Mine is blue, hers is red. When the sun shines really brightly, her room glows hellish red and mine is electric blue. It makes for an interest effect when you look down the hall. Also, the dog heavy metal band has eased up at night, so I haven't spent too much time glaring out the window praying for a slingshot. We hooked up the stove today, because the boat carrying the propane tubing finally arrived, two days late. We'll hopefully do a bit of cooking tonight. We do seem to have a minor cockroach problem in the apartment, but it's not all out awful. Just mildly gross. We do however have a severe lack of furniture problem. We just found a local carpenter who is going to make us shelves and bookcases for our rooms, but we don't have anything in the way of a couch. The living room consists of lawn furniture basically. It's nothing to complain about really, but the only soft surface to relax on is my bed. I'd rather use the not insignificant space in the living room.

This weekend, I am going to go back and visit François and hopefully get my first windsurfing lesson on Saturday. My only plan for Sunday is to maybe go on a recreational bike ride down to Rabil or Estância de Baixo. I've been slacking on the exercise this week, mostly because I've been totally pooped since Saturday.

Gotta continue planning out some English classes. Now that I have an idea of what to teach, I just have to come up with plans on how to actually teach it. This is where my expertise runs completely dry and I am stumbling blindly. But hey, try everything once, right?

First: VOTE. I don't want to hear any bullshit about "my vote doesn't even matter," because anybody out there with a brain knows that that is a load of crap. If you do not vote, and you whine about what's happening in the country in 6 months, I will slap you. Hard.

Ok so today I'm going to talk about some good things, then some bad things, then some more good things. It's what I like to call a "compliment sandwich..."

Well we moved into a permanent apartment yesterday. So finally I can settle myself in (two months later) and start really living. Our neighborhood is much more Cape Verdean oriented, instead of being full of tourists. We already know some people in the area, and there is a store across the street, where people hang out on the porch all the time. There is apparently a British woman living in the building, too, but I have yet to meet her.

All right, I'm going to move into my negative whining binge ahead of schedule, and then talk about more good shit. Problems with the apartment: bathroom isn't finished yet. Nope. Has a toilet, but with no back, i.e. no flush. Has a shower base, but no head, i.e. can't shower. Has a si- no, scratch that, sink is on the floor of the living room. So what happened when I woke up to pee last night? Plastic water bottle. Welcome to the Peace Corps. Please don't drink that, it's not scotch. What else? Ah yes, because our previous apartment was furnished, we now have to buy everything. We spent all day yesterday buying stuff and lugging it around (note: it was 90+ degrees), but still don't have much stuff. The kitchen is still being touched up, so we can't plug in the fridge, thus not much food. And we just got gas for the stove this morning, so we will actually be able to cook tonight. Also, my bedroom window is right next to a street light. Fortunately, Nadia is sewing me curtains, because otherwise, there is not a chance in hell I could sleep. I didn't much last night. But that was also partly because of the dogs. Oh the dogs. I'd guess there were about 15 of them last night, in full choral arrangement, for just over an hour, with short breaks to catch their breath and sniff each other's butts. Lovely.

Also, I broke up with Natawnee last week. There were several reasons for this, all catalyzed by an incident that I will not publicize here. A lot has to do with the fact that it wasn't much of a real relationship. Considering I only knew her for about 10 weeks before splitting to other islands, maybe it's that I didn't know her well enough or feel close enough to her to make it work. But even though I am not the type to think about the future with a girl, which has bitten me in the ass more than once, I kind of had to realize that living apart on other islands for two years, seeing each other every 2-4 months for a week, and then moving back to god knows where in the US isn't much of a relationship. Anyway, I had kept these thoughts private while I worked them out, but then aforementioned incident occurred, moving along the process in a much quicker, if less pleasant, fashion. Oddly enough, I'm not too bothered by it. Don't get me wrong, I liked her a lot, and still do. But when you've already been apart two months (almost as long as we knew each other beforehand), it somehow just isn't all that strange to lose that one last connection. So that's that.

Ok, onward to the good stuff. My road race project is in full swing. I wrote up a proposal for it last week and translated it into Portuguese yesterday. We've contacted the high school gym teachers, who are going to tell their classes about it and get them to participate. We've spoken with the local Red Cross, and they have lots of info. They are doing a bunch of World AIDS Day activities on the 1st, and then they will help us out with materials and information for the race on the 2nd. I wasn't sure how to get numbers for the race, until I emailed my awesomely cool aunt in California. She's a marathoner and all around serious runner, as well as an AIDS activist and volunteer, so I knew she'd have ideas. Well, she got Brooks, the running shoe company, to send me 200 race numbers, and she is working with the owner of a San Diego running store to donate two pairs of new running shoes, one each for the male and female winners. Score! That should encourage people to get involved and get competitive. So far basically everyone we've spoken with is really into the idea and is pretty excited about it. I've got a lot of planning work to continue to do in the next few weeks. I've gotta plot out a 5k course, pick a start/finish line, show the map to the police so they can block off the roads, contact several organizations to get materials on HIV/AIDS, get a speaker for the post-race event (with music, of course, because it's Cape Verde, and everything has music), and recruit volunteers to man the finish line and water stations. It's a damn good thing I've run a lot of races or I'd be totally lost. So even though it's a lot of work and was pretty stressful yesterday and Friday, I think it's going to be endlessly satisfying when it actually happens and is hopefully a success. Whew.

So I'm actually pretty much busy all the time now. I worked basically a 13 hour day yesterday, probably 10 or 12 on Friday, and I expect to be here all day again today. I don't mind so much though, because being at home is so quiet, and this gives me something to do. Plus, when I'm at work, I can always stop to write an email, or a long blog entry. But the overall point of this is that despite the stress from moving and organizing this event, not to mention breaking up, I still finished this last week feeling great. OH, and I forgot to mention that I met François Guy, a former international windsurfing champion, who is going to teach me how to windsurf for a discount. Scooooooore. So basically, none of the bad or stressful things are bothering me. It's awesome.

Posting again this week. Not too much to say though. I've settled into a pretty comfortable routine here that I am enjoying. The good thing is that I shop at the same stores often enough now that I know all the people who work there. João the baker is a particular favorite of mine. His breads are pretty damn good, and I have told my father that I will try to buddy up to him and get his recipe for coconut rolls. They are damned delicious. I think I will be modifying my routine somewhat, because I'd like to fit in some more activities. Mainly once I get some watersports gear, I'm going to have to fit in some surfing/bodyboarding time in the afternoons, meaning that I won't be able to run then. So I'll have to wake up early to run. Ugh. I HATE waking up early, especially to expend that much energy. The shipment of stuff from PC included a bike for me, so I also may start biking around for exercise. Running, surfing, biking, swimming... I'm getting tired just thinking about it.

The first person of our training group has officially ETed. For those of you not in the loop, ET stands for Early Termination. It's the PC lingo for leaving service before your 24 months are up. There can be many reasons for it. Some people are administratively separated, which is I guess sort of like being fired... You fuck up and they send you home. There is also medical separation, which happens if you need lengthy medical care out of the country, get pregnant, something like that. But then there is just plain deciding to go home. Some people can't deal with the stress, some people want to return for a boyfriend/girlfriend/job, and for some others, PC just isn't right. This is the case for my buddy Jean-Claude. His work at site is just not going well and they barely have any thing for him to do, and the idea of staying for two full years and having to fight to have something to do just doesn't sound so good. I don't blame him. It's wild how two people in the same country can have such different experiences at their work. In any event, I bring it up because it sucks that he's leaving. I hung out with him a lot during training, so it's shitty that he won't be around for more gatherings of volunteers. Fortunately, he's from NYC, so it's not like I won't be in his neighborhood in the future. Also, kind of a wake up call that PC service can some times just not work out, even for really committed and competent people.

What else? Oh yeah, Halloween was a bust. People here know of it and call it "Noiti de bruxa," translated more or less as Witch Night. But no one here does anything. Apparently in São Vicente, there are all night parties. Even in João Galego, there is no party on the 31st, but starting at midnight on Nov 1st, people go wild and party all night. But nope, not here in Vila. Fortunately, the 1st was All Saints Day, so it's a national holiday. Nadia and I got to stay home from work. Since nothing is open (at all), there was basically no reason to go anywhere or do anything. I relaxed, read, and went for a swim. The waves were absolutely ridiculous, most of them towering over me. A few times I got good positioning and managed to body surf them a good distance. After a while though, I started getting tired and the waves kept pulling me further out away from the beach. I got worried and swam back in and went back to relax.

Ok, I'm going to finish making my action plan for next year. I'm going to try to make a calendar of all my classes and when I want to work on certain projects. I've gotta get all this organized in my head.

Also, I have noticed a pattern here. Whenever I write an email to someone, I generally get one really enthusiastic reply ("Leland! Oh man, how have you been?! How's Africa?!"), to which I then also reply, but then the next exchange... just stops. Some people have broken this pattern, such as the one and only Jess Paga, and more recently, Miss Grace Chu. So thanks. The rest of you, get on your shit or we're gonna have an awful lot to catch up on when I get state side.

Well, I had a great weekend, how about you? Really though, after a long string of satisfyingly relaxing but dull weekends, this one was pretty non-stop and fun. To start with, on Friday night, we were invited to dinner at a friend's house, though we were very late, because I had to teach until 8:30. So after arriving late, we ate a bit, had a drink, and went to the praça in town for live music. For the first time since arriving in Sal Rei, there was a crowd in the center of town, drinking and listening to music. I'm not sure if it's just because it is starting to be tourist season and they want to put on a good show for the cash cows, I mean, visitors, but it was a good time. We got pretty tired pretty early, because it was such a long and exhausting week, so we were back home by midnight, and I was asleep by 12:05.

We had invited a lot of people over for dinner on Saturday, promising Mexican food, so we spent a lot of Saturday preparing for that. I spent all morning walking around town, buying a few things for dinner, but mostly trying to organize picking up some of our stuff from the port. Peace Corps sent us our beds, tables, and chairs from Praia by boat, so we had to get them. Unfortunately, this involves finding someone with a truck we can use while both the port and the future apartment are both open at the same time. Harder than it sounds. Turns out that neither were open Saturday morning. So hopefully that will happen early this afternoon. Anyway. I relaxed a bit in the early afternoon, and then we tackled making dinner. We made enchiladas, refried beans, and spanish rice. To those of you in the US, this is not terribly exciting. To anyone who has lived overseas, this is earth-shattering. Nadia's mom sent her some spices you can't get here, like chili powder, so that is what made a large part of it possible. In any event, 6 or 7 friends came over and ate with us, and the dinner was a huge success. The enchiladas were awesome, and the rice was also very good. The beans were good, but I think I need to work on that one a bit. Not that it really mattered to our guests, considering that I don't think any of them had really had any of these things before. So everyone stuck around until eleven or so, and took off. One guy promised to return in an hour to pick us up to go out to Mazurka, the one and only real discoteca around here, but three things prevented that: we passed out in the living room of sheer exhaustion; the power went out at midnight, as always, thus ensuring that we would not wake up again; and Paolo never showed anyway. He just told me this morning that he fell asleep at home. And a bird just smacked headfirst into the window of the CEJ. Lovely.

Which brings us to Sunday. We had planned on not doing a damn thing all day. At least, that's what I planned. Reading, running, swimming, napping were the only agenda items. But Helena, a Portuguese teacher at the high school, called at 10 asking if we wanted to go on a little trip with her and her family. So obviously we said yes. Helena and her boyfriend Tony came with the two kids and we drove to the opposite shore, in the northeast corner of the island. After picking up two more kids in João Galego, we went to a place called Baia das Gatas, where the water is calm, shallow and warm. So I spent about two hours floating in two foot deep bathtub-warm water, sipping cold beer and eating watermelon. I can think of at least 7 million worse ways to spend a Sunday. We went to a little fisherman's shack nearby, where we bought some fresh fish and eel. We then returned to João Galego, where Tony is from and where most of his family lives. The whole family was absolutely amazingly nice, and it also turns out that at least two other people I know in Sal Rei are immediately related to them. That's just what it's like here. One big family. My counterpart also has family there, so she was there with a coworker, and we chatted with them briefly. We hung out with Tony's family until about 8 pm, drinking beer, chatting, eating, and just hanging out. I got to witness my first goat killing, followed by my first goat skinning, gutting, and dismembering. My only observation is really just that there was a lot less blood than I thought there would be. I guess the goat was pretty small, but still. We deep fried the moray after it got dark, which was delicious, as always, though the little spine bones are a pain in the ass. Tony's uncle and their neighbor, who also works at the high school here, were particularly drunk and were desperate to practice their English. I obligingly had many long, drunkenly repetitive conversations with them about various and sundry topics, but mostly we just reiterated many times over how Boa Vista is the best island in the country, and how they also think it is the best place in the world to live. Anyway, other than the conversations in English, one of the best parts of the day was realizing that I had almost zero trouble with Creole all weekend. I managed to carry on conversations with a minimum of pausing and repeating, and overall had a damn fine time of it. Go me.

So that's all for now. Back to putting together an English course.

I'm going to try a somewhat more thoughtful post today. People always say that Peace Corps service is a lot of ups and downs, and that's very true. But not quite in the way I was expecting. I guess I was expecting some loneliness, challenges with language, difficulties with food, water, electricity, etc. But none of those things have bothered me: I haven't felt alone since the first week or two, my language needs work but is progressing nicely, and food, water, and electricity are blessedly stable and adequate here (mostly). No, the thing that has been bothering me the most has been me.

When you are put somewhere alone to do a self-motivated, self-designed job, you quickly learn the most difficult part, which is the "self." It's not that I'm lazy. I hope. It's more that, because I am young and only a year out of college, I am pretty used to having someone prescribe my work for me. When I was manager of the helpdesk at Wes along with Justin, I had the most say in my job that I've ever had, and I liked it a lot. I'd like to think I did a good job. But even then, I had a director who worked really hard to keep us afloat and we received a lot of direction from her. The most guidance we receive from Peace Corps is some information on how to get ideas for what to do, or how to plan a conceived project (ok training in that area was less than adequate, but that is another story). Not to say that PC doesn't support us; they do, fully. But they aren't there to give us a job description. Also, my counterpart here, though she has ideas, isn't pushing any one job on me, other than the English classes. My computer classes are going well, but they are mainly designed by the training coordinator here.

Now, as far as what to do, I have no shortage of ideas. I've got about a dozen ideas for projects, both major and minor to do in the next couple years. I've been mostly thinking about the major ones, but I haven't yet started them because I keep thinking it's too early for them, and I don't want to get involved in something huge now while I'm still such a newbie at planning and teaching classes. But there are also minor projects I could be tackling.

So what is bothering me about me? That fact that I have yet to tackle one of these projects. Now, the Peace Corps, along with most sensible people, would say "Oh come on, you've been there a few weeks, take your time." And in fact, PC recommends that community development people take about 3 months to just kind of watch the community, build contacts, find out what people need, etc. So I'm only about halfway through that period. And every PC volunteer I've spoken to has said not to set high expectations and not to push yourself too hard, because the end result is disappointment: one person can only do so much in such a short period of time. But nonetheless, I can't shake the feeling that I expect a lot more from myself. I don't expect to change this place in 2 months, let alone two years. But I do expect myself to do lots of small things, and so far I haven't even dented my list.

So what am I going to do? Organize a road race for World AIDS Day. It's short notice (5 weeks away), but I think I might be able to pull it off. Most of the burden of organizing falls on me and Nadia, but if I can do a lot next week, I bet we could have a successful event. The idea is that, in conjunction with this global event, we have something to promote health and bodily care in general, with additional focus on AIDS.

Anyway. It's not that I'm disappointed with what I am doing. I just kind of feel like after spending so much time in the youth center here, I should have more to show for it. But starting on Monday, I have resolved to spend less time on the internet here (it's incredible how addictive it is), and more time getting around and doing things.

Ok, back to writing about Cape Verde, I promise. Oh wait, first though: damn it all, the Mets lost. I didn't get to see the game, which makes it worse, but apparently a crappy reliever by the name of Wainwright struck out Beltran with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. Maybe next year. In the mean time, we can only hope that Detroit will take out the Cards. Bleah.

Last week was interesting, especially the second half of the week and the weekend. I can't remember if I mentioned it or not, but the whole Peace Corps staff came here last Thursday for a staff retreat. I didn't get to spend too much time with the staff unfortunately, other than the director, assistant directors, and medical officer. I spent a lot of time with my immediate technical boss, who runs the community develpment part. He obviously had to meet with me, check up on my progress, remind me of some things I had neglected, talk to my counterpart here, etc etc. The country director also took us out to dinner one night. He is really cool, and I'll be sad to see him go in January, when his service is up and he will return to the US. We ended up going to a restaurant that we had never tried before, which turned out to be a mistake, as it is also apparently the most expensive restaurant on the island, if not in Cape Verde. Some Portuguese architect/macrobiotic chef runs it. Cool guy, good food, too much money. So where was I? Ah yes, we also had dinner with the medical officer last night, who is also really nice, and like everyone in Peace Corps, has interesting stories about all the places she's lived. Saturday, we had dinner with the whole PC Cape Verde staff, 17 people in all. I met the regional training director (for West Africa, I assume), and of course she graduated from Wesleyan, class of '86. We're everywhere. Overall, it was really good to see familiar faces, not to mention speak in English to a whole table full of people. It's the most I've spoken my own language since leaving my fellow volunteers after training. Some people had ideas about things I can do here, other people just had some feedback on what I've already done. I feel a bit reenergized about my work here, after hearing some positive things, and also realizing that I've done a bit more than I thought I had.

Friday night was one of the most fun nights I've had on Boa Vista. Unfortunately, Nadia missed out on it because she was sick. The CEJ had a little event to celebrate Cape Verdean culture: music, art, crafts, people, etc. We had some random carvings, instruments, hats, clothes and whatnot hanging around the entryway, but the main even was a sort of homage to a local woman for her contributions to culture through music. The woman, Valda Vieira, is an older lady from Vila Sal Rei, with kids and grandkids. She has an amazing voice and has sang a lot over the last few decades. A friend had taken videos of interviews with Valda, her family, and neighborhood friends, and my part in this whole thing was to piece it all together into one video. So I made a 22 minute video of everything, and Vilma made a 42 slide powerpoint of photos of Valda's life. So during the event, I hunched over in the front and manned the projector and laptop, changing between photos and videos as the whole thing progressed. The meat of the whole thing was the music. A morna (more on that in a sec) band came and played instruments, while various people sang. It's eerie that all 15 or so people who sang had amazing voices. In a room of 100 people in the US, I don't think you'd find 15 people who could sing like this. Valda sang a few, as well as her family, and all of her friends. The whole event went on past midnight, and I was exhausted by the time I made it home.

Some notes on music here. There are three distinct styles of Cape Verdean music. The type that has its roots on Boa Vista is called morna. Morna is very slow, acoustic music, usually a couple guitars, drums, and mayba a bass, accompanied by very emotional, heartfelt singing. It's mostly love songs, or songs about life on Boa Vista. It's not exactly dancing music, but it's really nice to listen to. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there is funana, which I think I've mentioned before. Funana usually has an electric guitar, bass, accordion, a kind of percussion thing I can't really explain, synthesizer, and a drum machine. It consists of a loud repetitive beat, accompanied by frenzied accordion, guitar, and organ. It is unbelievable annoying to listen to, especially in a packed and crowded hiace with a massive woofer under your seat. But it is really fun to dance to, plus the beat is simple, so it's easy for pure honkeys like myself to grasp the rhythm and not look retarded. The third type of music is zuke (spelling?), which is basically Cape Verdean pop music. It's much like standard pop music around the world. It's a little R&B sounding sometimes, maybe some reggae and hip hop influences, depending on the song, along with some generic pop influences. I dunno, I can't really make many comparisons, since my background in pop music is weak at best. It's entertaining enough in bars and clubs, but (like most pop music) a lot of it sounds exactly the same. The most famous CV musicians are probably Cesaria Evora and Tito Paris, but there are some younger ones getting more famous in the world at large, like Gil Semedo and Mayra Andrade, whom I actually kind of like. And she's really hot. Horrendously, American rap culture is invading here in a huge way, and has yet to do a single positive thing for this society. People here are dangerously obsessed with 50 Cent, and for some reason they love Akon, who fails to be relevant almost anywhere else in the world. So kids here dress like they think big rap stars in the US would. You see a lot of NBA jerseys around, even though games aren't broadcast here and most people don't know the teams, baggy jeans with huge logos, bandanas, chains... I dunno, I find it to be pretty irritating that their own culture is getting drowned out by rap drivel, musically and socially. Not that I have anything against some quality hiphop - I love some good Mos Def as much as the next guy. I'm talking about the really lame, corporate gangsta rap that is as much marketing machine for a fake lifestyle as it is anything close to music. So it's sad.

Ok, time to try to figure out how to teach beginning English.

Wrote this last night...

Ok, in today’s blog entry, I’m not going to comment much on Cape Verde. Instead, I am going to vent on America. American politics in particular. But first I’d like to mention that I just reshaved my head and it is fuzzy and pleasant. Also, there is a dog in our neighborhood who has decided to start barking all night, inspiring the whole local gang to join in. Would I be a bad person to big rocks at somebody else’s pet? Anyway. Since coming here to Boa Vista, I’ve taken up the habit of spending some time every day reading the newspaper. No no, I’m not having the New York Times delivered here, though if any wealthy readers of my blog would like to arrange to have it sent to me, I will love you/marry you/give sexual favors. But I read the Times and the Washington Post online for a while. Partly it is because I am a hopeless politics nerd (among my other nerdisms), but also because if I didn’t do so, I would probably not even notice World War 3 happening. We’re that isolated. But enough on that.

So this may sound cheesy, but one of the things that is so important to America and the developed world at large is democracy. We don’t really think about it much, and a depressing number of people don’t even vote (note: I have not missed a single election since turning 18. Not even state and local ones. Yeah, I care that much. Ok, fine so I may have missed a school board election or two. Shut up.) But the point is that we have the luxury to pick and choose candidates based on our infinitely picky standards and personal opinions. We have the choice to choose between multiple people representing different ideologies. Want tax cuts? You’ve got your man. Against the war in Iraq? So is this guy. What I never thought about until recently is that a lot of places don’t have these choices. This may seem obvious, and perhaps people more aware than I made this realization before the age of 23. And I don’t mean just knowing it, because it is an obvious fact, but I mean really thinking closely about it. But a lot of other countries (my current residence being a fortunate exception) either do not have the choice, because they do not have a democracy, or they have the choice between someone corrupt and someone who is not, or at least is acceptably so, which isn’t really a choice at all. You don’t get to pick ideologies. You just get to pick someone who won’t starve you, kill you, or squander your money.

So here is where current American politics comes in. For the first time in my admittedly short life, many districts are facing a different choice than usual. I’m going to go ahead and target Republicans here, because they have made it so damned easy lately. The corruption rampant in the GOP has surfaced in so many places recently as to be unbelievable. It is something that I have always been aware of, and that most well-read people have probably also been aware of. But it until recently has not been something criminal, provable, and public. I won’t pick on Foley here; he’s fucked. Everyone left and right of the aisle can write him off as a creepy pedophile. But the House leadership that cared more about damage control than his behavior is blameworthy. Bob Ney admitted to selling influence to lobbyists as part of the Abramoff scandal; who knows how many more will be implicated, or worse, escape unharmed or unnoticed. Then this new lobbying scandal investigation involving this other guy (can’t remember his name right now – Wolder?), who is accused of heavily helping out a sketchy Russian oil and gas company who was on his daughter’s firm’s payroll. I can’t say whether he is guilty of anything illegal or not, but it still makes him an asshole in my book.

So the point is this: next month’s elections are no longer about whose politics you side with. For the first time since I have been politically aware, the vote is about driving out the corrupt, the disgusting, the bought-and-paid-for. It is something wholly incredible and inimical to the American spirit, or at least what I desperately hope/wish the American spirit is. It is something reminiscent of the third world. Of course they’re not killing people or holding indomitable military power. But the corrupt control more than most of us can imagine, and it’s killing the country. There is no choice right now in many parts of the country. It’s not about who supports gay marriage or medical marijuana. It’s only about a citizen’s attempt to drive out a culture of corruption and influence peddling that pervades the current government. We’re finally at the point where our democratic choice is only vaguely a choice.

I know, the Democrats aren’t wholly innocent. I understand that the same mentality pervades part of my party, too. And I know that a right winger would invoke Harry Reid’s name here, but if you go ahead and read the details of his story, you will notice that his infraction was quite minor, and actually rather silly. All he did is neglect to declare a change in property ownership from personal to a corporate half owned by a friend. He has apologized and agreed to enter his oversight into his financial declarations. Nonetheless, I am sure that there are some jerks out in the Democratic party as well. But in no way, shape, or form does it even begin to approach the awesome level of corruption in the Republican party. I could go on for pages about it here, but this blog is supposed to be about my experience in Africa, not my American political opinions. Nonetheless, I had to get it out there. But whatever I think, get out there and VOTE on the 7th. Please. I don’t give a damn who you vote for (well, I have a preference). Just do your part.

I should also note that times like this are probably the major reason why I have abandoned previous thoughts of a US political career. Those of you who knew me in high school might remember me telling you that I had every intention of running for Congress one day. Sorry, I’m reneging on that. I just can’t get myself involved in this system. So instead I’ll be wandering the globe, working for international organizations, and having a much better time.

Ok I’m done now.

Well, I'm sitting in my classroom, watching all my students take a test. It's weird. I've never been on this end of the spectrum before. Oh wait, except TAing Latin 102, but that hardly counts. In any event, they are taking a 2 part exam on what I've taught them lately. I think they should be able to do it. At least 75% will be able to with out a problem.

Also, I am immensely pleased that the Mets have tied it up with the Cards. Obviously, I wasn't able to watch any games, and I have in fact nearly missed out on an entire season, but I check online in the morning for 15 minutes of sports reading to catch up. Mondays are the most exciting, because I get to read up on weekend games. I was vaguely nervous going to espn.com today, seeing as how I was about to find out about 2 key games. So it looks like I missed a 13 or 14 inning hitting slump and then a hell of a come back. Go figure my team waits until I move to a country without cable to get this far. Now if they can whip the Cards twice more, we'll have... a Mets/Tigers WS?? Wow. If Delgado ends up pitching again by the Series (if we make it...), I think we

Anyway. I had a freaking great weekend. Guess what I did? ...Nothing. I relaxed, took walks around town, ran, swam, read, and just chilled the fuck out. Now, this isn't any different than any other weekend in Cape Verde, really, except that this time I did it with a different attitude. Before, I always kind of felt like if I was relaxing, I wasn't being a good volunteer. Like I should be improving my Creole, or meeting people, or trying to do something else volunteery. But I've pulled away from that. My Uncle John, who did PC in Nepal in the 60s or 70s, had one piece of advice for me, and that was to just take it slow and not have huge expectations. He said that as soon as he stopped trying so damned hard, great things started happening, and he ended up being a phenomenally successful volunteer (he worked with the Red Cross to set up the Himalayan Mountain rescue system that is still in place today). So after laying the pressure of myself, I am enjoying myself more, and actually meeting new people much more easily.

I also have continued my running a bit. After running, I'm usually so hot and sweaty that even 5 minutes of freezing shower can't cool me down and I start sweating again as soon as I get out. Any runners will know what I mean, and I hate that shit. So yesterday, I didn't even go straight home. I ran to the other side of the road, across the beach, stripped off my shoes, socks, and beater and dove right into the water. And let me tell you, it was probably one of the best ideas I've had in the last 10 to 15 years.

I wandered down a long beach to where the watersports guys have their little shacks set up and asked around about equipment for sale. No one sells it. One guy pointed me to a street in town where he said someone had a shop that sold snorkel gear. But I went there, and the shop didn't exist. It's a frequent problem here: people will be certain that something is there, or that you can buy something in town, but really it just does not exist. It's odd, like people don't really know their own town that well. Nonetheless, I got a nice long walk out of it and met a few people.

One unforseen blessing of teaching a class in Creole for an hour and a half every night is that I have improved my speaking a lot. My listening is still so-so, I often don't understand when people speak fast, but that's just how languages are for me. I find them easy to form, but difficult to comprehend. Kind of the opposite of most people I think. But practice will improve.

Ok, kind of worried, some students have asked me many questions about the test. Must tend to them.

Well, it's Friday and the end of my 5th week on Boa Vista. It's gone a lot faster than it did in São Domingos. I wonder why... In any event, all I've really done this week is teach classes and write a proposal for two English classes. Some thoughts on teaching here...

I had a really, really awful class on Tuesday. Now keep in mind that this class is just Windows Explorer: Make a folder, copy a file, make a shortcut, move this, cut that. I got up and went through a few miscellaneous things and handed out a sheet of exercises for them to practice with. It was basically making a series of folders and subfolders and copying some files into them. The mega problem came when people all of a sudden didn't seem to understand making a folder inside another one. I noticed that about half the class had just created about 15 folders all right next to one another, in clear defiance of the directions, which very clearly had the word "dentro" (inside) over and over again. So I tried explaining it, and received blank stares all around. Frustrating. So the next day, I went into the room before class and deleted all the extraneous and ridiculous extra files all sitting around on the computers, and re-explained everything to them. It seemed to work. I handed out the exercises again and they all got it. Whew. But one of the problems I have noticed is an all around difficult time following directions. Sometimes a student will get to, say, exercise 8 which asks them to copy a file into a folder. They can't find the folder. Ok, look at exercise 3, where it asks you to create the folder. Did you do that? No? A-ha, therein lies the problem. It's very strange to me, but seems to be pretty universal here. But it's not all bad. The class is pretty clearly divided into three groups: those who have a really hard time, those who get it after an explanation and some practice, and those who get it before I'm even done talking about it. I have one last class of miscellaneous stuff to do today, and then it will be followed by a test on Monday, which they have to do alone. Given the general difficulty with following guided, written exercised, I wonder how some of the students will fare. Many of them understand what they have to do perfectly well, but nearly always need verbal nudging to get it done. I have been told by PC volunteers the world over that this is a common issue. American and European school systems stress problem solving skills, but here it is generally rote memorization that is emphasized. As a result, people in some developing countries have difficulty applying a skill in an abstract way, i.e. any way that isn't exactly how it was originally explained.

Anyway. I am planning a pair of English courses now that will start in November. Both classes will be aimed at slightly older folks, because English is already required for 7th through 12th grades. The first will be an introductory course for those with little to no experience in English, and the second is a more advanced conversation course for those who just want to improve grammar and vocabulary. I finished up with the proposals the other day and am going to start planning out classes today. I was a bit disinterested in the idea for a while, but I'm starting to get excited about it. The beginner class will be fun to just teach the most basic aspects of our language. And for Leland the Language Nerd, it will be interesting to kind of dissect English in a way that I haven't ever had to before. For the advanced class, I've picked a list of real world topics to discuss, mainly shamelessly stolen from an advanced textbook I found in the library of the CEJ. So the goal will be to facilitate (bonus peace corps buzzword) discussions and use them to clarify grammar confusion and pick up new vocab. Not bad.

What else... Nothing really. I still live on the beach. Tomorrow, I'm going to wander down a stretch of beach on the other end of town to see if I can find some of the watersports guys. I want to ask them where I'd be able to buy a bodyboard and snorkel gear, and maybe get some connections for windsurfing lessons. They cost about $40 otherwise, and I clearly cannot afford that. So let's hope... Ok, time to plan some English lessons.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to explain copy and paste to 16 people who have only just learned how to use a mouse last week? Really hard. Really fucking hard.

Sound the trumpets, folks, because we finally have a home. Temporary, of course, but it's not a hotel room. So here's what happened last week: The country and regional safety and security coordinators were going to be visiting Boa Vista anyway, to check out the island, add to the notes that they already have. So PC basically enlisted their aid in helping us get a place to live. So Mike and Hilario showed up on Thursday and saw some places. Then we spent nearly all day Friday looking at potential houses and apartments. Nothing was really to perfect satisfaction, unfortunately. Everything was either too expensive, too old and crusty, too not-entirely-built-yet, or too one-bedroom-ish. As for that last one, you wouldn't think that this would be an issue. But on no less than half a dozen occasions, we have showed up to see an apartment that we have been ASSURED has two bedrooms, only to find that it has only one. It defies all sense and reality. If I were a scholar, I would make this my life's research: How does the number one, in passing through a single human beings eyes and brain, suddenly turn into two? It's spectacular. But that is neither here nor there. We did revisit an apartment we had seen before and were pleased to see that it only has a few weeks more work to be done on it. Obviously that is no good for now, but it is absolutel ideal for a permanent residence in size, price, location, everything. So in the mean time, we are shacked up in the only other two bedroom place we could find: an Italian tourist apartment just outside the main cluster of town. It kinda sucks that we are not as inside the community as we would like. It also kinda sucks to be associated with the tourism industry. It definitely sucks that it is costing way more than it should. But oh wow is it a nice place. It's nice enough that I feel guilty having it. As much as I like it, I definitely prefer the more humble place in town. Nonetheless, it is never bad to eat dinner on a balcony overlooking the ocean, or spend Sunday reading with a nice beach breeze blowing. It was also fully furnished, which was pretty necessary given our situation. It just wouldn't make sense to have to buy all our furniture and then move again a month later after barely settling in. So yeah, that's where I am now. I can finally relax and enjoy myself a bit.

I also am halfway through teaching my first computer class. It's going pretty well as of now. I have to teach in Creole, which was a frightening though at first, but that has actually not been the hard part at all. The most difficult thing is forcing myself to go at a pace suitable for someone who has literally never touched a computer before. In the US, even people who don't have computers or despise them know how to move a mouse, know the difference between right and left clicks, know where the start button is, etc. Not so much here. And concepts that seem easy to me aren't. In giving instructions, I might say quickly "Ok, go to the Start menu, click on the Control Panel, find the user accounts icon." But it's not that easy. I usually have to specify which mouse button, and say exactly where to click on each screen. It was frustrating at first, but now I don't mind so much. The good part is that my class is interested, attentive, and nearly always on time. Because they are older, they are mature and don't give me shit ever. I like it. I have another class, in Microsoft Word, coming up at the end of the month. Also, my counterpart is pressuring me to start teaching an English class soon. I certainly don't have a problem with teaching it, and I would actually love to get it started, but I'm a little lost on it, to be perfectly honest. It's not exactly my element and I don't even know where to start. Nadia has been giving me ideas, and I think that the first class is going to be a very basic conversational class, with the material dictated by the needs and levels of the students. I can see that either going really well, or really badly. We'll see... For people who already know, I think I'm also going to try to organize an informal discussion hour with friends that we've made around town. They always want to speak English with us, so I figure why not get them all together at once and have a chat?

Also, North Korea just tested a nuclear weapon. Yikes.

Well, I just visited our potential "two bedroom" apartment. The reason for quotation marks? It doesn't have two bedrooms. I have no idea why we were told that it it does. But it doesn't. It has a futon, in the living room. And by living room, I mean kitchen. It would be a really really nice place, if you were a tourist couple looking to stay here for a summer. But not if you're a pair of Peace Corps volunteers. Who aren't married.

Well, now I have to call my asst director and tell him that we still don't have a house. Not only that, but we no longer even have any leads to find a house. According to Nadia's boss last week, this means we have to move to the other house, an hour away, in the interior of the island. Shit. Not that that makes any sense, moneywise, because the cost of transportation would actually come out to the price of an entire other apartment for the two of us. Fuck.

I still haven't taken any pictures of Boa Vista, but I did find this on the computer I'm using, so I decided to upload it. I have no idea where on the island this is, but this could basically be any beach anywhere, except Vila Sal-Rei. Beaches are beautiful, interior is heinous. See what I mean?

As I indicated in the last email, I've been struggling to get this apartment thing handled. But of course, we weren't able to see it last week. The landlord got back from Italy yesterday, so we are waiting for him to show it to us. We bumped into his wife last night, and she said that it is best if we wait until evening to call him and set it up. Clearly, this is not ideal, but I am slowly learning to deal with things like this. Hopefully (HOPEFULLY), we will be able to see the place by tomorrow morning and we can tell our director to jump on a contract. Holy shit, do I ever want this apartment. It's located in another section of town that I very badly want to live in...

Ok, to explain that: I've sort of figured out how this town is divided up. Nadia and I always just thought that this was a quiet and less social town than São Domingos. Not so. On weekends, there is never anybody in the praça (town square), and the whole end of town that we are on just seems deserted. But a walk around on Saturday with Nadia, and then a separate solo journey of my own on Sunday proved otherwise. The other, older part of town is buzzing with life. Every Cape Verdean is sitting on the stoop, drinking at a bar, lounging by the boats, playing soccer, swimming, or one of any number of other random weekend-y kinda things. So yeah. It was very uplifting to see that this town has more than meets the eye. With some luck, we'll get to live there and then we'll have a balcony to relax on and make friends with our neighbors. Ohhh, the balcony... It overlooks some rocks and then the bright blue harbor filled with fishing boats, with Ilheu de Sal-Rei just past it. The ilheu (a long island that protects the harbor from the ocean) is almost totally barren, except an abandoned 16th century Portuguese fort and a lone church. Anyway, the point is that every evening, the sun sets over this nice little vista right in front of my potential future balcony. Oh god, I will cry tears of blood if I don't get this apartment.

So last week was kind of a downer. I think other volunteers are having similarly rough experiences. Natawnee and I (obviously) keep in constant contact, and she had a bad one as well. I was feeling pretty down all week about the housing thing. I can't possibly express often enough or strongly enough how much I despise living in a hotel room. Ugh. So I ended up downloading a bunch of cheap games to my laptop and hiding in my room for like 4 hours on Sunday. Not the most constructive way to deal with the situation, but sometimes it can't be helped. Afterwards, I decided to get up and go for a walk. That's when I wandered through the cool section of town and my spirits were much uplifted. Saturday, we just kinda floated in the bay for a while in the sunshine, and did a little shopping. I also bought a backpack for work, which is significant because it is the only concrete purchase I have made in over 3 months. Wooha.

Also, I miss my girlfriend a lot. A lot a lot.

Ok, off to do some work for a while, because I teach my first computer class tonight. Introduction to computers, 17 students, 7 pm to 8:30, Monday through Friday, for two weeks. Fun.

I'm sitting in the fully functional cyber café in the CEJ now, with a bunch of teenage boys all gathered around one computer to my right. Every time I get up and walk past them, they quickly close all the windows on the computer. Gee, I wonder what's keeping their attention... The CyberCaféPro software arrived on Monday morning and I installed it along with Vilma, the CEJ technician and computer teacher. We set up the server and a couple client machines to test it and make sure it was all satisfactory. I spent last week learning the software with a demo copy, and I taught her all I had figured out. She's pretty smart (getting a comp sci degree in São Paulo, Brasil), so she picked it all up quickly, and was teaching it to the other employees not twenty minutes later. I spent the afternoon installing the client software on all the computers here while Vilma finished ironing out the rest of the server configuration, and by the time I left at 5:30 or so, there were half a dozen customers and the girl who works nights was handling it fine on her own. So there you have it, first project is done. Go me.

I've felt a bit aimless since finishing up this project, so I just ducked into my counterpart's office, and talked with her a bit about where to go next. Apparently, she wants me to start teaching computer classes on Monday. This is tricky, considering I've only ever taught two computer classes ever, and I have no lesson plans. So I guess I will have to cobble something together in the very near future. Of course, I am not sure what topics I will be covering, or what skill levels my students will have. So basically, it's exactly what I thought Peace Corps would be like. And the solution is, as always, to just roll with it. I'll start working with Vilma today to put together a course. I've got sample lesson plans from a book from the PC resource library, as well as lesson plans given to me by Brent, a 2nd year volunteer on São Nicolau.

We may have found an apartment the other day, so I am going to visit it this morning. If it is satisfactory, hopefully we can move in soon. One of my coworkers lives in the building, so I've seen what it looks like. Apparently one of the bedrooms is pretty small, but I really don't care. Clearly, I came here with not that much stuff, and I definitely don't need a desk and chairs and shit. So I told Nadia that I will take the small room, just so long as we have a place to live, and soon. The building is about 50 feet from the water and is in an older section of town. The location is prime, so hopefully the apartment is as nice as I hope it is.

Ok, Paulo (guy who works at the camara, and our apartment-savvy hookup) is here, and it's time to visit what is hopefully my future home.

This is my little brother Maniyky, in my room wearing all my stuff. It's just a good picture.
Me and Natawnee. I am including this partly because I just think it's a good picture, and partly because I think she will be at least mildly embarrassed when she notices that I have posted a picture of us on the internet.
This is the greatest goat of all time. Full credit must go to Jean-Claude Lebec for both the photo and noting that this is the sort of goat that probably did blow with David Bowie back in the day.
This picture is just a god damned great photograph. Darrell, Kyle, Jean-Claude, and me at the youth center where J-C now works in Praia. Oh right, that's me with a shaved head.
This was just about a month ago, at a party for Jacob, a volunteer who was finishing his two year service. The theme of the photo was intense concentration. Anyway, I am at work right now, so I need to not post any more pictures and get back to working. I helped put together a cybercafé yesterday, which appears to be running smoothly around me. Nice.

Here is São Domingos towards the end of the dry season. This is where all the training went down. We all lived in separate houses around town. Note the funky brown color. That is the color of Cape Verde 9 months out of the year. It is also why I thought the Portuguese were lying through their teeth when they named this place.
But no, they weren't. They just arrived in the rainy season. This is a picture taken not far from the other, but at a different angle. My home stay house is just above that square walled-in area (a cemetary). The entire island changes to this amazing electric green color. The brown patches in the hills are just cultivated areas with crops.
And this is our first weekend of training. This is at Bar Estudante, where we stopped going after two weeks because they stupidly decided to start overcharging us for beer. Everyone else was paying 100 escudos, and they asked us to pay 120. So we started going to other places. Two people of particular note here. My girlfriend, Natawnee, is the very tan girl right above my head. And the other dark girl to the right of me is Nadia, my current roommate on Boa Vista.

Here is Praia, the capital of Cape Verde. It's a big city by standards here, but is only a bit over 100,000 people. There are no tall buildings as you can see. Not much else to say about Praia... We only spent a little time there, but this is where the Embassy and Peace Corps offices are.
Somewhat out of order, but here is a view of Dakar, Senegal from the balcony of my hotel room. We only stayed there one night as a layover, but the beach was just really pretty, so here it is. This is the edge of the city, on the north side of the peninsula. Downtown Dakar is much larger and less picturesque.

Ok, gonna post this now and try for some other pictures in a sec.