Turtle Season is heeeeeere!!!

In honor of World Turtle Day, (May 23rd - hope you all celebrated!) SOS Tartarugas hosted a small beachside activity. We built sand turtles and made turtle themed mobiles with children and anyone who wanted to stop by. Besides getting a wicked sunburn and it being ridiculously windy (we were constantly chasing after bits of paper), it was quite fun and I think the kids enjoyed it. 

I had just finished making my sand turtle when a fisherman who happened to be watching told me, "That's not a good sand turtle. Let me show you how its done." His was actually much better; he even made little sand eggs. 

Telma (one of my English students) showing off her mobile. 

Ruben (another English student, but this one never comes to class...) shows off his artistic abilities.

Coloring away, while the dogs take refuge from the sun. 

The following day I did the same activity in Cha d'Matias.

Carolene, Erikson and Katilene with their turts.

Some of the finished mobiles hanging from the ceiling.

Brian, this one's for you! Saw this guy playing at open mic night at one of the bars in Santa Maria - he was quite good.

Buracona's "Blue Eye" - One of the tourist sights of the island, the "Blue Eye" is basically a hole in the rocks that looks down into an underwater cave and when the sun hits it just right the reflection is a brilliant blue light. You can also SCUBA off the coast and swim through a tunnel that comes out inside the eye!

The beautiful Sal landscape...so desolate.

June 1 was World Children's Day and I helped work the celebration in Palmeira. It was basically a giant carnival/fair and in the afternoon they had different youth groups perform dance, capoiera and drumming routines. Unfortunately, I got stuck at the face painting table for most of the day and didn't get to see any of the show. I painted at least 100 Spiderman faces...

Some students from Yale University came to Sal on an Alternative Break program and visited Nos Kaza. We had a beach soccer tournament and it was fun to hang out with some more Americans!

Hokey Pokey! I am now noticing that several of the kids are putting up the wrong hand - I guess we need some more practice...

And finally, for your ears, some of my Cabo Verde favorites: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iboXXBgCJLQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP2kVzZfZ6k

Oi Vida!

A quick photo update of some of things that have been going on in my life lately: 

In honor of Dia da Trabalhadores (Labor Day, sort of) the community center that I've been working at celebrated with a weekend camping trip. We set up camp in an abandoned restaurant right on the beach and from Friday to Sunday we ate, drank, danced, swam and laughed. It was a very good weekend. 

People set up a table to play cards. The waves were literally breaking around them.

Saturday morning they killed a pig. No parts were wasted. It fed us for the rest of the weekend and was delicious. In this photo, Mimi is blowing up the pig intestine which was later stuffed with pig inners to make chaurice (sausage).

Helping slice up the pig - I'm not sure what part of the pig I'm holding.

In honor of Earth Day, I, in conjunction with SOS Tartarugas organized a recycled trashcan building competition at one of the local elementary schools. All 4th-6th graders participated and each classroom was given the task of creating a trashcan out of recycled materials. After a week to prepare, there was a presentation of all the trashcans and the best/most creative were given an award. I was so impressed by all the entries. We saw trashcans made from old fruit crates, water bottles, an old suitcase, milk cartons, etc.

All the students (600+) gathered in the school's courtyard for a presentation of the trashcans.

One of the winning trashcans. A cardboard inside decorated with rolled up magazine pages. Each trashcan was supposed to have an environmental slogan on it, this on says, "For a clean and healthy environment - no trash on the ground."

Another winning trashcan, chosen because it encourages separating waste. Gold Star! Each class had a representative come to the mic to present their work.

One of our friends here runs a basketball association and one of his projects is teaching young kids basketball skills ("Mini-Basket"). On Easter weekend they took a trip to the beach and Holly and I tagged along to help out. The scheduled bus that was supposed to take us to the beach never showed up so we had to rent out a couple Hiaces (Astrovans) instead. We packed about 20 kids in each van.

Beach at Murdeira

Lining up for lunch!

Happy Easter!

Boa Pascoa tud gent! Happy Easter er'body!

Family, I expect you all to eat an extra large serving of potato salad for me :)

Love and miss you all!

Easter picnic on the beach! It was quite windy and the sand was blowing everywhere. Nothing wrong with a little texture added to the deviled eggs, right?

Recycled Easter crafts at Nos Kaza in Santa Maria.

Toilet Paper Roll Easter bunnies.

This has nothing to do with Easter, but thought I would add this for your viewing pleasure. A man with a pet monkey on the pier.

A photo update...

Some snapshots from Sal:

This is the usual view out our door and is accompanied by knocking and shouts of, "Oi Sara! Oi Celeste! Open the door! Come play!"

The 2 main futbol teams that people support are either Porto or Benfica (Portuguese teams). When they played each other our landlord brought his plasma TV down 3 flights of stairs and hooked it up in front of the store. Note the man in the background who was in charge of holding the antennae.

One of my favorite dogs in Espargos:

At the Inception Workshop for the launch of the Protected Areas Project with the other EEs (Matt and Scott) and the project leaders (Oliver from the UNDP and Leao Carvalho from the DGA). We got to help finalize the project document and then attended the public launch of the project.

Some of the girls from the community center in Cha d'Matias. (The following photos are courtesy of Couch-surfer Kai!)

During Spring Break the center had a sports day for the kids. The boys had a futbol tournament and the girls played a tag-like/dodgeball game. Things were quite intense on both sides.

These boys have the same nickname and look exactly alike. It was several days at the center before I realized that they were twins and not just one crazy kid running around everywhere. I still cannot tell them apart.

Some contention between teams over the score keeping.

Waiting for their turn on the field.

Finally, a new functioning post...

Believe it or not, its now been 6 months in Sal! Woop woop! I go back and forth between thinking, “6 months already!?” and “its only been 6 months??” Either way, it’s been an unbelievable time filled with lots of highs and lows (I’m definitely riding the Peace Corps rollercoaster we were told so much about during PST). I am still jobless and spend most of my time wandering from one random project to the next, teaching English classes here and there and trying to fight the constant influx of sand and dirt that blows into our apartment. However, the freedom I have (while it sometimes results in a frustrating feeling of lack of direction) allows me to do the things I am interested in and just enjoy life in Cape Verde. I am still learning and experiencing new things all the time; from learning how to control a classroom of unruly kids, to playing the djembe (Leigh and Brian, hope you all are ready for a drum circle when I get home!). However, it’s the smaller and simpler things, like learning how to enjoy just sitting in front of a loja with some friends, taking the time to explore a new part of town, or just striking up a conversation with a new person that I have learned to appreciate the most.

Ok so its been a really long time since I’ve updated this blog and I am too lazy to write about it all so we are going to have a quick photo recap of some of the things that have been happening in my life:

Holly and I (along with 20-something other PCVs) went to Sao Nicolau for Carnaval. It was a 3-day festa with a parade each night down into the town square. The last night Holly and I donned the Team Copa costumes and joined the parade.

Samba-ing our way down to the town square.

After parading for several hours we arrived in the town square to a mass of people, colors, feathers, floats and samba music!

We stayed in Sao Nicolau for a couple days after Carnaval to explore (and recuperate). We visited the national park, Monte Gordo where you can find this awesome tree. Its called a Dragoeira tree and grows only on Sao Nic and parts of Santo Antao.

Sao Nic = the complete opposite of Sal. It was a shock to see green plants. And coming from a completely flat island, those inclines were killer.

In honor of World Water Day I had my students create Water Superheros that had super powers to improve and protect water quality. There were some very creative ideas - including a super hero that would distribute clean water by shooting people with water pistols and, my personal favorite, some yellow, Lochness monster-looking creature that shoots water out of its mouth to water plants.

Happened to be walking out to the pier today and saw that someone had caught and was carving up a shark. You just never know what you'll stumble upon on this island...

Shark heart! It was still beating when they cut it out and threw it on the dock. It was really sad, but also kind of awesome.

Slicin', dicin', and some snoozin'.

Terra Boa - the greenest place on Sal and where all the agriculture happens. It was a little bit depressing. (Please compare with above photos of Sao Nic...)

Birthday pancakes! nom nom nom!

A typical weekend night in front of the loja next to our house. The band consists of guitar, sprite can filled with beans and some sort of metal pipe.

Myself and some friends from the community center.

I will try my best to not let the blog go untouched for so long again...so check back every once in awhile!

Also, a big thanks and hug to everyone who has sent me things in the mail! You have no idea how exciting it is to get mail and it really means a lot to me!

Love and miss you all!