Hello all, here is what happened in my life on Thursday! Enjoy!
6:00 a.m. The donkey alarm clock goes off earlier than
usual, so I too am up early. I take the time to do a bit of extra lesson
planning, get ready, and head off to school. Today it is chilly as I walk to
school wearing a sweater, a refreshing yet strange contrast to the blistering
heat of yesterday.
7:30 a.m.-10:10am- Every Thursday, I teach only three classes as I have an
English coordination meeting to attend in São Filipe, the island’s
capital. Energy levels are high as students are anxious to start their break,
but I manage to gain their focus and participation for the three morning
classes. Then after wishing them all a bon
feria, I leave for São Filipe.
10:10-11:45p.m. The transportation from my zone to the
capital is in the form of mostly very old Toyota Hiaces which come and go on a
usually sporadic schedule. Car watching is a regular past time for many people
in my community. When cars pass, they will run to see which car it is, and do
to their vigilant observations of the road, they usually know exactly when cars
will be coming, something I still have not been able to master. The cars ordinarily
ALL go at the same times, and if you miss them, you are out of luck, and have
to walk or wait for a bolea (ride
from a passing car) which is a fairly common way to get around. Since everyone
knows everyone here, there isn’t really such thing as getting into a car with a
stranger, and boleas are almost a
standard form of transportation on the island.
My meeting is not until the
afternoon, but I have a lot of errands to do in town today, so I go and wait
for a car in the road in front of my school right after class. I wait a few
minutes, chatting with my students who have a free period and then begin
walking towards São Filipe. I prefer to walk then to sit and wait for cars,
and while here I have truly come to appreciate the capabilities of our feet. I
am famous in my community for giving up on waiting for cars and just walking. Since I go to São Filipe every Thursday, I
always just begin a pe (on foot), and
sometimes a car catches up to me quickly, but sometimes, I manage to make the
whole beautiful, and luckily downhill, two hour walk without seeing a single
car on the road. Today, I walk about 45
minutes and enjoy the silence of the road. I stop to greet people when I pass a
house, but other than that it’s just me, the road, and the birds singing.
12 pm- We txiga in
Bila (what everyone calls the capital
town), and our car load of people disperse on their respective errands. My
first order of business is to go pay my electricity bill, so head to the small, tucked away office where I
wait in a hot, hot room with about 20 other Cape Verdeans waiting to do the
same thing. There is one attendant who sits at his desk, while everyone waits,
packed together in a quiet, sweaty group to pay their bill. There is no line,
you just have to know who was last when you arrived and remember to go after
them. When it is your turn, you go and sit in the chair with the attendant, he
tells you your balance, you pay, he prints a receipt, and you escape into the
hot, yet relatively refreshing air outside.
This process can take hours depending on how many people are there, but
today I am in and out in less than an hour! Sweet!
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| The outside of the market from the car as we leave town! |
Next, I
do my grocery shopping. There is not a market in the fora (rural area) where I live, so I do my grocery shopping once a
week when I come to town. First I head
to a loja(store) to buy flour, rice,
milk, dish soap, and a few things my neighbors have asked me to pick up while
in town. Then I head to the market for some veggies. The market is one of my
favorite places in Bila. Here,
vendors come from all over the island to sell their fresh produce, meat, and
cheese. The hustle and bustle is constant, and the vibrant colors of freshly picked
fruits and vegetables are remarkable. I like to wonder for a few minutes,
soaking in the sights and smells, and checking out what kind of produce is
available. Then I go towards my favorite vendor. She is a woman who lives in a
zone close to mine, and has been a friend of Peace Corps volunteers for
generations. Today she sees me coming
and bursts into a huge smile as I greet her saying, “Bo tarde! Sodadi de bo, todu dretu?” (Good afternoon, I have missed
you, everything good?). I buy a kilo of sweet potatoes, half a kilo of kale,
some carrots, some bell peppers, and some tomatoes. I stay to chat a bit,
talking about her family, her work, and how school is going for me, then I
pay. Unlike in many markets of the
world, there is no bartering over prices here. Things are a set price, which
everyone knows, and generally the price only varies a tiny bit from store to
store or vendor to vendor. She throws in
a few oranges for free as she gives me a hug before I am on my way.
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| The streets of Sao Filipe |
1 p.m. With an hour left before my meeting, I head to a good
friend’s house for lunch, as I do every Thursday. This woman and her husband are friends of my
landlord, and I met them when my landlord brought me to their house for lunch
for the first time. They are some of the kindest, most fun people I have met,
and I have been coming to their house for lunch on Thursday for months, with an
invitation to please come over whenever I am in town. Stepping into their house, is like stepping
off the baking hot streets of Cape Verde and into air-conditioned America (they don’t
actually have an air conditioner, but their
house is in the shade of a tree and has great ventilations, so it’s always very
cool inside). The kitchen is stalked with organic American cooking products
from places like Trader Joes, they have a microwave, a beautifully decorated
living room with couches and a TV, houseplants, and many other amenities which
could be found in any upper-middle class Massachusetts home. Like
many Cape Verdeans, they have family members living in the Boston area and even
lived there themselves for a few years.
Cape Verdeans were some of the earliest immigrants to the Unites States
as they worked on whaling ships from the New World even before the revolution
and the formation of our country. Ever since, there has been a strong Cape
Verdean community in Boston, and to this
day, nearly everyone from Fogo has a family member living there or has lived
there themselves.
I
always enjoy sitting in the shade of their beautiful home and talking with them
about their week, my projects, and what is happening in the world. I usually
sit and watch the news with them (a welcome treat since I do not have a TV in
my house) and then we eat lunch over fun conversation. They are always very
appreciative of the work the Peace Corps is doing in Cape Verde, have been
friends with volunteers in the past, and are inspiringly supportive of the
projects I talk with them about. Today
we chat about an upcoming summer leadership camp for girls I am planning with
other volunteers on my island, and they both have some great ideas for sources
of funding and even offer to help recruit people for a career panel we are
planning, as they know nearly everyone in the capital. We eat a delicious (as usual) lunch of
grilled fish, rice, beans, and SALAD (a rare find in Cape Verde) complete with
organic BALSALMIC VINIGRETTE (an even
rarer find) and chat about their upcoming trip to Boston to visit their
children. Then, it’s time for my meeting and the brief trip to America is over.
I hug them good-bye, say my farewells, and head off to the high school as they
wave to me from their porch and remind me to come back next week.
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| cobblestone streets of Fogo's capital |
2-3 pm I arrive at
the main high school and am the first one there. As I take my seat at our long
wooden table, other English teachers from São Filipe and from other rural
satellite schools like mine slowly trickle in, and we begin our coordination
meeting. We meet each week to discuss the week’s curriculum and share ideas on
how to teach the material, but today’s meeting is different as we will be
collaborating to write the English portion of the standardized test that all 8th
graders in our district must pass before moving to 9th grade. We discuss all the topics we have covered
this year and chose an hour and a half’s worth of subjects to put on the test.
Then we write the test topics on slips of paper and each teacher draws one
which they will be responsible for writing. I unfold my slip and read that I
will be responsible for creating the “future tense” portion of the test. After
discussing possible exercises for each section, the meeting comes to an end,
and we all go our separate ways. I hurry to the street above the market to look
for a car heading to my zone. Luckily, as I am walking a car heading to my
community passes me and recognizing me, stops to ask if I’m going home. I get
in, saving me a sunburn and a 10 minute walk to where the cars usually leave
from. The car quickly fills with passengers and we set off towards the fora.
3:15-4pm The trip home takes a bit longer than usual since
we take several people who live off the main road to their houses. The car’s 11
seats are packed with 20 people and all their purchases from the day in town. I
have not only my groceries on my lap, but also a toddler and some of his
mother’s groceries as well. We stop along the way to pick up a few more people,
some piping for a man who is building a house, two sacks of rice, a baby
goat, and finally to tie a load of rebar
to the back of the car for the same man who is building a house. There is no
such thing as a car that is “too full” here in Cape Verde, and somehow
everything fits, although very, very tightly. We also stop at a local farm and
people get out to buy fresh cabbage before piling back in, having to rearrange
the puzzle pieces of people and cargo to make everything fit.
4pm-6pm. I get to my house, put my groceries away, wash my
vegetables and head across the street to hang out with the neighbors. I play
with my baby friend who is obviously proud and amazed at his new found talent
of sitting up all by himself and have a great time relaxing with my neighbors
and all the kids who come to play.
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| Rinsing my fresh veggies! |
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| Our Fogo crew! All 6 of the volunteers on our island during a beach day! |
6 p.m. I spend an hour or so talking on the phone with a
fellow volunteer and very good friend about life. We chat and laugh about school, how crazy it
is that we will only be here for another 5 months, and make speculations about
what our lives in Mozambique will be like. We have a great group of volunteers
on Fogo, and it is always fun to catch up and hear about what’s happening in
other zones on the island!
7p.m. I pick ANOTHER ripe papaya from the roof and share it
with my 6th grade neighbor. The baby goat has “sodadi di bo,” (the baby goat misses you) she tells me and we laugh
as we cut open the bright yellow fruit.
8p.m. Dinner time! Today I just heat up rice and beans from
yesterday, add put and egg on top for a quick, easy dinner. Then my neighbors
call me to come watch the news and novella
with them, so I head across the street to hear about what is happening in the
world and gossip as we watch the Brazilian soap opera.
9pm- I get to use my land lord’s phone to call home! Dad
picks up and I get to hear all about how life is going back in California,
catch up on my life, and hear our family’s new dog barking through the phone
for the first time! It is so great to hear Dad’s voice and as I hang up and
head upstairs to my part of the house, I can’t help but be a bit homesick.
Although I have an amazing life here, it is hard to be so far from family for
so long, and I love you all so much! I
hope you are enjoying and appreciating the Humboldt County springtime, since I
would do just about anything for some cool, refreshing fog and some rain right
now!
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| sodadi di springtime in Humboldt County |
10 p.m. I take a quick bucket bath, sit down to write my
blog post, then get ready for bed, tuck in my mosquito net as the mosquitos
seems to be multiplying exponentially lately, and go to sleep.
Again thanks for reading, and I really appreciate all the
comments and support you all have been sending! Oh and I forgot to take pictures while doing
errands in São Filipe today, so the few that are
here were snapped from the car window as we left town.
Love,
Szasha
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