The Camara Municipal (local government) building is definitely ready for Christmas.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Only in Cape Verde...
A random list of some of things that could only happen in Cape Verde (and are reasons why I love this place!):
1. You can walk into a store with a cup from home to purchase just one cup of wine (to either drink there or take back home with you). This applies to other things as well – you can buy a whole pack of printer paper, or you can ask them to open the pack to just buy by the page.
2. Every conversation begins with a back and forth of asking “How are you?” in almost every way this language allows:
• “How are you?”
• “Are you fine?”
• “Are you super?”
• “Is everything good?”
• “How is life?”
Even after the conversation gets going, if there is ever a lull it is almost always filled by someone asking, “So, everything’s good?” and the back and forth begins all over again.
3. You can blast Michael Bolton or Celine Dion in a public space and not get weird looks.
4. When asking for/giving directions, a perfectly acceptable answer to, for example, “Where is the bakery?” is “La (there).” The amount of stress placed on the word, la, indicates the exact distance – La (just there) or Llllllllllllllllllla (wayyy over there).
5. When you visit someone at their home they will always offer you food or drink, even if they have close to nothing and are living in a shack made of corrugated metal and shipping crates.
6. Criteria for something to be considered a real meal:
• There must be at least one serving of rice and/or beans on your plate
• You must use a spoon or fork to eat it
• To make something fancy, just put a fried egg on top (yum!)
7. Going to pay your electric or telephone bill is an all-day event. But nobody seems to mind (maybe because they are the only air conditioned buildings in town).
8. The most popular activity is to stroll around the block to see what other people are up to and stopping to chat with everyone you run into. Or you can just park yourself somewhere on the side of the street and yell to everyone who walks by.
9. EVERYONE (and I seriously mean everyone) watches and loves Brazilian soap operas.
10. When meeting somebody for the first time the line of questioning is often:
(after the series of “how are you?” questions, of course)
• “What is your name?”
• “Where are you from?”
• “Do you have kids?”
• “Do you want a Capeverdian boyfriend?”
(the order of these questions can vary)
11. Everything shuts down when it rains.
12. Justin Beiber and Eminem are national obsessions. And James Blunt is the karaoke artist of choice.
13. From breakfast to midnight snack, anytime is a good time to eat fish.
14. It is possible to hear Christmas songs randomly played in restaurants, year-round.
15. I have thoroughly confused everyone here about my nationality. I’ve gotten everything from Chinese to Mexican, but never American. I can have a 5 minute conversation with someone trying to explain that I am from America and they will still leave unconvinced.
1. You can walk into a store with a cup from home to purchase just one cup of wine (to either drink there or take back home with you). This applies to other things as well – you can buy a whole pack of printer paper, or you can ask them to open the pack to just buy by the page.
2. Every conversation begins with a back and forth of asking “How are you?” in almost every way this language allows:
• “How are you?”
• “Are you fine?”
• “Are you super?”
• “Is everything good?”
• “How is life?”
Even after the conversation gets going, if there is ever a lull it is almost always filled by someone asking, “So, everything’s good?” and the back and forth begins all over again.
3. You can blast Michael Bolton or Celine Dion in a public space and not get weird looks.
4. When asking for/giving directions, a perfectly acceptable answer to, for example, “Where is the bakery?” is “La (there).” The amount of stress placed on the word, la, indicates the exact distance – La (just there) or Llllllllllllllllllla (wayyy over there).
5. When you visit someone at their home they will always offer you food or drink, even if they have close to nothing and are living in a shack made of corrugated metal and shipping crates.
6. Criteria for something to be considered a real meal:
• There must be at least one serving of rice and/or beans on your plate
• You must use a spoon or fork to eat it
• To make something fancy, just put a fried egg on top (yum!)
7. Going to pay your electric or telephone bill is an all-day event. But nobody seems to mind (maybe because they are the only air conditioned buildings in town).
8. The most popular activity is to stroll around the block to see what other people are up to and stopping to chat with everyone you run into. Or you can just park yourself somewhere on the side of the street and yell to everyone who walks by.
9. EVERYONE (and I seriously mean everyone) watches and loves Brazilian soap operas.
10. When meeting somebody for the first time the line of questioning is often:
(after the series of “how are you?” questions, of course)
• “What is your name?”
• “Where are you from?”
• “Do you have kids?”
• “Do you want a Capeverdian boyfriend?”
(the order of these questions can vary)
11. Everything shuts down when it rains.
12. Justin Beiber and Eminem are national obsessions. And James Blunt is the karaoke artist of choice.
13. From breakfast to midnight snack, anytime is a good time to eat fish.
14. It is possible to hear Christmas songs randomly played in restaurants, year-round.
15. I have thoroughly confused everyone here about my nationality. I’ve gotten everything from Chinese to Mexican, but never American. I can have a 5 minute conversation with someone trying to explain that I am from America and they will still leave unconvinced.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Its December, why am I still sweating?
Its December and people are starting to get into the Christmas spirit! Store windows are decked out with lights and Christmas trees and they’ve put lights shaped like stars, bells, reindeer and bows on the street lights throughout town. Its all very festive. But there is something about sweating uncontrollably on a daily basis that makes it hard to believe that Christmas is only a few weeks away. Every morning I wake up and open our kitchen window to find the same thing: blinding sun (seriously the sun feels stronger here; and combined with all the light reflecting off white tiled buildings and sidewalks it sometimes feels like my corneas are being burned), clear sky, blue ocean, wind, dust and dryness. Then I step outside and immediately start sweating. Don’t get me wrong, I would gladly choose being hot over being cold and there is nothing like going to the beach in December, but hearing people from home talk about the changing colors of the leaves and wearing sweatshirts does make me miss the different seasons. But I can’t change the weather here so I am prepared for a hot, white (sand) Christmas.
With the turtle season over, I’ve picked up a couple English classes to keep myself busy. Three times a week I go to one of the youth centers in Espargos to teach English and help out with activities and then twice a week I teach English at a youth center for homeless kids and kids from less fortunate families in Santa Maria. The kids are all really excited and enthusiastic about learning English and its very rewarding to run into my students on the street and hear them say, “Sara! Good morning!” Even if his response to my asking, “How are you?” is, “My name is fine.” At least it’s a start.
Before coming to the youth center in Espargos, I had never met a group of kids more excited for Christmas. Everyday for the past 3 weeks they have been drawing pictures of Christmas trees, Santa Claus (Pai Natal), candles and wreaths and making decorations for their classroom. Today we made a Christmas countdown by making a paper chain with each link representing a day until Christmas. Each kid decorated a couple links and they are all excited for their day to cut their link. There was a small brawl over who would get to decorate the Dec, 25th link, but in the end all was resolved with the decision to have everyone draw a small picture on the link. They also taught me a Christmas song – its to the tune of Jingle Bells and roughly translates to:
On Christmas, On Christmas
Just toys made in China
Play with them today
Play with them tomorrow
And after tomorrow they are broken.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Helping our neighbor's kids put up their Christmas tree!
The "road" to our house.
Santa Cruz - the poorest zone in Espargos. They have no water and electricity only after 5pm. 
Monday, November 1, 2010
Dia das Bruxas
Halloween (Dia das Bruxas) was a couple days ago – our first American holiday away from the good ol’ US of A. There were quite a few Halloween parties happening at some of the bars and discotecas on Sal, but Holly and I decided we would have a little Halloween festa of our own. We invited some of our neighbors, our landlords and their kids over for some chili (which we told them was American cachupa), caramel apples (which were actually apple slices just soaked in hot sugar water, but tasted delicious) and, drum roll please, S’MORES (Cape Verde style)!!! One of my friends from SOS Tartarugas had gone back home to Ireland for a week and brought me back some marshmallows (bless her). Then using graham cracker-like graham crackers and nutella-like chocolate spread we made S’mores. It tasted like home.
I think that the Cape Verdeans liked the food, or at least they said they did. Holly and I were a little aggressive in our pressuring them to eat more – I think we felt like it was payback for all the times during homestay we were told that we kume poku (eat so little) and need to kume mas (eat more). Anyways, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and definitely ate s’mores like the months I’ve been away from s’mores and America was lost time that needed to be made up for. After some good conversation, our kriolu vocabulary was eventually exhausted and we played Uno. For two hours. Afterwards our neighbor asked if we wanted to borrow a scary movie to watch, we said sure and he ran over to his house to look through his DVD collection. He came back with Mr. Brooks (starring Kevin Costner as a serial killer, as well as Demi Moore and Dane Cooke – don’t know what that casting director was thinking). We decided to pass on that one and ended up watching an episode of Glee instead. Don’t judge.
Oh, and Holly and I had our faces painted like cats the whole time. Nobody else dressed up L
Halloween on Sal with our best friend:
Monday, October 11, 2010
Some Photos
The EE picture - Cape Verde style (aka no smiles/looking uninterested)
Me and my fam on my last morning in Achada Liton
The end of our hike through Tabugal
Nature hike through Tabugal
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