So i am back in the good ol' USofA. My three week vacation is full of great things to do and visits with the people i love, but man, i cannot get behind the pace of the country!! I have finally gotten some rest and relaxation the past two days after a weekend of "installment 1" of Bethzaida's bachelorette party! It is not as strange as I would have thought to be back here, but there are some things that I am having a hard time adjusting to.
1. The amount of meat and strange spices i am eating is doing crazy things to my intestinal tract (sorry for being so forthcoming!). I am having more "problems" here than when i first went to africa! I think my body misses plain rice and beans!
2. Wow we use a lot of water and electricity! I had the hardest time taking my first shower here. The faucet made it impossible to turn the water off and on between shampooing and rinsing and I couldn't handle it.
I am so excited to be seeing everyone and have love, love, loved watching college football and basketball. Next on the agenda is my big bro's wedding on saturday (yay!!!) and then sacramento for Thanksgiving. I am so happy to be home for my favorite holiday!!
For now, i am just enjoying drinking some good beer and bloody marys and enjoying the company of mom and dad and good friends!!! I hope that i get to see all of you, but if not, know that i am in the home stretch... a little more than half a year and I'll be back in the country for good (well, we'll see about that, but at least for a little while!!).
Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving to all and you'll be hearing from me soon, back in africa and happy about my lack of water and electricity!!!
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
The long awaited update
Well, a lot has happened since the last update. The island is once again filled with volunteers…we are now 10. School has started so the education volunteers basically had a trial by fire, arriving Sunday and starting school on Monday. On Sunday, all of us “old ones” gathered at the airport to greet the new 5 with smiling faces…at least that was the plan. My face was more or less contorted in a look of pain from a massive hangover, which was not the best first impression I could have given, but hey, the night before was worth it so we’ll all just have to get over it!! By about three hours in (and a little of the hair of the dog that bit me) I was feeling much better and ready to be the responsible second year wealth of knowledge! We dropped everyone off at their new sites, including yours truly, as the move to Cha das Caldeiras is official!! I am now living in the crater of the volcano that formed the island. It is really such a trip to wake up every morning and come out to see the sun rising behind the volcano and all of the lava, I call it “camping in a cement house” because now I am without electricity or running water and live in a cement box. It is FREEZING right now, and I am a little under prepared coming from the heat that was in São Filipe, but I’ll get there! Katxupa loves it up there. She had her “big girl” operation last month, so now she is free to run around as she pleases. I leave her out and about when I go down to shop in Bila for the day and when the hiace shows up in Cha at 3 pm she is right there to greet me. I have actually heard that she jumps in any hiace that stops, looks around, doesn’t see me and gets out!! How great is that! When I am just walking around Cha, she always tags along and everyone knows her and lets her in their houses, restaurants or stores.
Right now I am getting ready to go a training in Praia, feeling a little bad as I basically just dumped Katxupa on the new volunteer in Cha. He had only been there two days when I said, oh by the way can you please take her for a week? Luckily he agreed, and as I talk to him more, it seems like they are getting along just fine…she really can be a good tool for integrating into the community.
On the work front, Andrea and I just completed a project where we brought youth from the fora into the city to the Employment Center and they got a basic orientation about how to go about using the resources they have to find a job or job training. Then they went to 5 actual places of work and got to ask questions, etc. It went over fairly well, nevermind that we were about 2 hours late and I got yelled at (ok maybe not yelled at, but strongly talked to) by the employment center man. Things are always late in Cape Verde, yes, we should not have been late, but when cars are late, and then the first presentation is late, there is nothing we can do. Anyways, next on the plate is an income generating project for the single women head of households in Cha. We are hoping to open a bakery since the residents of Cha have no access to bread. There are others as well, but I’ll let you know as they get going.
Right now I am getting ready to go a training in Praia, feeling a little bad as I basically just dumped Katxupa on the new volunteer in Cha. He had only been there two days when I said, oh by the way can you please take her for a week? Luckily he agreed, and as I talk to him more, it seems like they are getting along just fine…she really can be a good tool for integrating into the community.
On the work front, Andrea and I just completed a project where we brought youth from the fora into the city to the Employment Center and they got a basic orientation about how to go about using the resources they have to find a job or job training. Then they went to 5 actual places of work and got to ask questions, etc. It went over fairly well, nevermind that we were about 2 hours late and I got yelled at (ok maybe not yelled at, but strongly talked to) by the employment center man. Things are always late in Cape Verde, yes, we should not have been late, but when cars are late, and then the first presentation is late, there is nothing we can do. Anyways, next on the plate is an income generating project for the single women head of households in Cha. We are hoping to open a bakery since the residents of Cha have no access to bread. There are others as well, but I’ll let you know as they get going.
Monday, August 18, 2008
A COS Christmas
I have found a holiday i like better than christmas...well i don't like christmas too much so i guess it's not hard to do! I have properly named this new holiday "A COS christmas" (COS=close of service). Don't get me wrong, i really do miss the volunteers who left, but getting first crack at their stuff is awesome,especially since i am more or less the same size as two of the girls who left. My wardrobe has been replenished, i got new pots and pans and great leftover american food products. The one downfall to my new holiday is that with the influx of new clothes, i neglected washing my old ones; i mean why wash clothes when there are clean ones around. So now i am getting a little low and fear that it will now take more than 1 or 2 days to wash everything...is it wasteful just to throw all dirty clothes away and buy new ones???
The rainy season has officially begun. I forgot how beautiful this island is when it turns green. It is hard for me to believe it is the same place and not some exotic hawaiian rain forest island. I took a drive around the island saturday (no i was not the one driving) and tried to remember what it looked like just two months before; brown and dry. The rain seems to be constant this year and everyone thinks this will be a good agricultural year. Good news in a world where the price of grains has skyrocketed and another hit to Cape Verdean corn could be disaster. The one downfall to rain (well this may just be me talking) is that now instead of just being hot, it is humid. I think everyone knows how i feel about heat...we are not friends.
In other news, I think festa season is finally over. After the two dispididas and last weekends municipal festival in Mosteiros, I haven't spent too much time in my own town and i think i am just about danced out. I look forward to spending the next few weekends relaxing.
By the way, they never shut down the airport...the new news is there is no exact date for closure so it might be just in time for the newbies, who swear in mid-September, to get to take the boat. but who knows, maybe it will never close!
The rainy season has officially begun. I forgot how beautiful this island is when it turns green. It is hard for me to believe it is the same place and not some exotic hawaiian rain forest island. I took a drive around the island saturday (no i was not the one driving) and tried to remember what it looked like just two months before; brown and dry. The rain seems to be constant this year and everyone thinks this will be a good agricultural year. Good news in a world where the price of grains has skyrocketed and another hit to Cape Verdean corn could be disaster. The one downfall to rain (well this may just be me talking) is that now instead of just being hot, it is humid. I think everyone knows how i feel about heat...we are not friends.
In other news, I think festa season is finally over. After the two dispididas and last weekends municipal festival in Mosteiros, I haven't spent too much time in my own town and i think i am just about danced out. I look forward to spending the next few weekends relaxing.
By the way, they never shut down the airport...the new news is there is no exact date for closure so it might be just in time for the newbies, who swear in mid-September, to get to take the boat. but who knows, maybe it will never close!
Monday, August 4, 2008
Pictures from the despidida.
So Mel and Sam have gone, but not before they had one awesome going away party! We got there at 8pm and went home at 3:30 a.m.! Things that made the party great:
1)Katxupa (the food, not my dog)
2)Katxupa de Texas (Mel made chili and this is the only way to explain what it is to cape verdeans)
3)Free wine!!!
4) The 7 times we heard the song "poi mao na txan".
5) Madonna
6) Tuka's poem for Mel and Sam
7) Cutting a rug
8) Watching Franki dance.
Here are some pics from the night of fun! They are a little out of order but you should be able to tell where in the night things belong...the later it is, the bigger my smile is (this might have something to do with the wine) and the redder Mel's eyes get (not from the wine, but instead from crying...)
1)Katxupa (the food, not my dog)
2)Katxupa de Texas (Mel made chili and this is the only way to explain what it is to cape verdeans)
3)Free wine!!!
4) The 7 times we heard the song "poi mao na txan".
5) Madonna
6) Tuka's poem for Mel and Sam
7) Cutting a rug
8) Watching Franki dance.
Here are some pics from the night of fun! They are a little out of order but you should be able to tell where in the night things belong...the later it is, the bigger my smile is (this might have something to do with the wine) and the redder Mel's eyes get (not from the wine, but instead from crying...)
I am pretty sure that Madona is playing right now!
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