Hiking in Sao Domingus with my famly and friends.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Backlog of blogs from PST
Here´s a bunch of stuff to catch you up from training...
Journal entry on thoughts about your Community Project.
The day we learned that we would be planning and implanting projects in Sao Domingus I was really excited and a little nervous. With only four weeks to create and carry out a project in a town we are still getting to know, I had in my mind that whatever we do must not be too complicated or difficult to carry out. Yasmin’s idea of building a movie theater in town was a great idea but a little unfeasible for us to accomplish in 4 weeks so it turned into a community movie night. We’ll have it at the Polivalenti where a lot of people can attend, show a movie that will be entertaining to the community and have someone relate an issue in the movie to the problem in Sao Domingus. It sounds like a great idea on paper but I don’t know how well it will really play out. After two weeks in, I’m a little scared that it will fall through.
We still need to meet with people, reserve the space, choose a movie, get people to participate, find a speaker, advertise, and actually implement the event. With only two weeks and no set date to do the project, I’m very worried that it won’t happen. There also seems to be a lack of time to figure out the details, actually talk to people about the project, and get people together to discuss what we want to do. We’ve already hit a few setbacks with one of our key people being out of town and on a boat to another island and lack of communication between the PCTs who are implementing the project. I’m hoping that we can get our act together and make it really happen. I’m really excited about the project idea and want it to be successful but I also want to be realistic about what we can do and how much time we have to do it. I feel like we should have been told on week one that we would be doing projects so we would have a lot more time to plan and think about them and incorporate different techniques that we learn into our project planning as it happens.
Journal entry on HIV/AIDs and other Social Problems in CV and the US.
I find it hard to compare HIV/AIDs and other social problems in Cape Verde and the United States because they both have a lot of the same problems. Everywhere you go in the world there are problems with STDs, substance abuse, unfair treatment of people for a variety of reasons, etc. When it comes to sex education in Cape Verde, we’ve been told that people have the information but there is a problem with taking it and using it. It’s difficult in every culture to get people to put what they know into practice or to change what they previously do. People in America do not seem any more likely to use condoms than people in Cape Verde despite knowing the consequences. What does work in America is the shock and scare factor. Show people pictures of terrible diseases that they could get and put fear in the American public and then you can change their practices. I don’t know if it works like this in Cape Verde but it seems to do a good job in US society.
What I do think is important socially in Cape Verde is the gender and development component. I think that women’s groups, especially micro-finance, are key to Cape Verde’s development and empowering women. I’m not an expert by any means but from what I’ve heard, helping women reach their potential has been very beneficial to Cape Verdean society. I also think that there needs to be more attention paid to men and teenage boys. From what I have observed, the fathers are not around the family all that much and young boys are missing out on positive male role models who can show them that drinking at the bar is not the only activity they can partake in. Even on a family trip to the beach, all of the adult men were absent. It was very bizarre to me that a “family trip” consisted solely of women and children. I’m not sure how to get the fathers more involved in children’s lives or how to work with teenage boys but I see a lot of potential in working with this group.
Intercultural communication and adjustment skills- Describe an interesting experience you had in Cape Verdean culture and share how you plan to use it in the future by looking at from different perspective.
I normally keep a personal journal and thought I would take something that I had previously written and expand since it describes one experience I’ve had that really gave my perspective a turn.
“The electricity has been inconsistent lately due to the fact that a Portuguese company is supposed to pay the bill and forgets about our small island nation and forces the electric company to turn off our lights until it is paid. It can be really annoying at times but I really enjoy eating by candlelight and learning mornas from my family. My brother and I will often play cards- I taught him how to play “War” and he has taught me a few games. Cape Verde’s style of cards is way different from what we are used to in the US. They always take out the 8s, 9s, and 10s because they want only 10 different types and the rank is switched, Ace is the highest, then 7, then King, Jack, Queen, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The society here is pretty male dominated so the “male” cards are all higher than the female. Its kind of hard to get used to but this is quite the norm in many societies outside the US.”
I feel pretty well traveled, at least through parts of Africa but I have yet to encounter a place where the cards are all switched around because of the function of the society. Hearing that the Queen is ranked lower than the Jack was really weird for me to accept as well as made me have to think twice about playing a card during our nightly games. In the house, the women are the ones who clean, cook, make sure their kids get to school and also work outside the house. With all the work that they do on a daily basis, it makes you wonder why they wouldn’t be “ranked” higher in society. I think knowing how the society functions here will help me with future projects during my service. I would really like to do some work with empowering women and making sure that they feel like they can reach their potential. It has taken years and years of empowerment and women’s groups to bring something that can still be argued as inequality in America and it is something that will not change in one day. Learning about the card ranks really gave me a wake up call to how males dominate society here and I think just being more aware of it encourages me more to work with women.
7.11.06
Here’s a fun story from today. If you ever start learning a new language you are bound to make mistakes. A lot of words may be similar but say the wrong word and you’re either offending someone or saying something bad. In Kriolu, the word coku means coconut. So when I tell someone I am allergic to coconut I’d say “Ami alergico di coku.” If I accidentally say “coco” I am saying poop. I was warned of this a few days ago by a current PCV and really understood today when my 3 year old brother and his friends all had to go to the bathroom to “tem coco” or literally, “have poop”.
This evening I had an embarrassing moment. I was on my way home with my 11 yr old host brother and had just finished escorting a friend of mine home. A man was in the street saying something I didn’t understand but was standing there making what appeared to be strange arm movements and running in place. Since we keep talking about drunk people in Cape Verde I assumed he was drunk and turned to my host brother and said, “Ael moka” thinking I had said, “he is drunk.” He laughed at me and said that the man said that I was strong and was making muscles and running in place because he had seen me running in the morning with my friends. Then when we got in the house he told his mom what had happened and she corrected my bad Kriolu and told me that “moka” means “sex,” The word I wanted to use was “moku” meaning drunk. Once again we all laughed me telling my brother that the old man was having sex. Way to go Jules!
Kriolu classes are going well so far but it’s still very overwhelming. We’ve only been here for two days but I already feel I speak better Kriolu than I spoke French when studying in Senegal. Ha. I’m still not exactly sure what the development track entails but at least I have a better picture of Cape Verde and what its priorities are in development. I think this will help me focus my projects when I get to site.
I’ve got a few ideas already for things I want to do when I become an official volunteer. When we were out running this morning I saw a group of people walking together for exercise. I thought it would be a great idea to start a walking group in my community where they can meet a few times a week and walk and chat together as well as maybe have a few classes on health and nutrition and the importance of exercise. It would also be a good way to integrate into the community.
Another idea I have is to work with young women to form a futbol team and work on women’s empowerment. I was disappointed to see that no girls were playing soccer at the stadium and I was really stoked to play. They tell me I can play tomorrow and we did end up on another field and played around sunset but I think I have a few contacts that may be good resources for starting a team and helping women in the community.
In the past, Community Development volunteers have been given one specific assignment or project they are assigned to but from what I hear, this year we will each be given a few projects so we can find a good match. I think this will be very beneficial in making contacts in the community and getting a step in on working on numerous projects simultaneously. I’m really excited about it.
Time for me to go to bed. A ti logo.
7.27.06
There’s so much to write about I don’t know where to begin. I’ve been in Cape Verde now for about 3 weeks and each day flies by. We spent the first 3 days in Cape Verde in the capital city, Praia, at a school called Madre Teresa Residencial. Its rented out while the school is on summer break.
When you join the Peace Corps you’ll hear the phrases “patience and flexibility” quite often. Our first bout with these words came rather quickly as our flight plans changed before we even left the states. Instead of flying through Amsterdam we ended up flying through Paris and Dakar and ended up in two groups instead of one because of the lack of seats available. I ended up in the first group which spent an extra day in Praia. The other group arrived the next night after spending a relaxing day on the beaches of Dakar.
Three days later we had one Kriolu class down and were off to Sao Domingus to meet our host families. I was a little nervous to go into a situation where pretty much all I could say was “my name is, how are you, and good.” It turned out pretty great and I had an 11 yr old boy and my host mom there with huge smiles on their faces and big hugs to welcome me. The 11 yr old brother’s name is Michel (pronounced Michelle but he’s not a girl, its how Portuguese names are). I also live with a 3 yr old brother, Fred (eriko) but most people call him Fefeo. He is really cute and the two of us share of love of mangos. He also loves cars and putting anything he can find in his mouth, probably the reason why so many of his toy cars have all been ripped to pieces. My host mom’s name is Anita and she is so wonderful. I have a lot of fun chatting with her in the afternoon when she gets home from work (she works at a civil registry place) and asking a million questions about everything. My host dad’s name is Dida and I’m still not sure what he does but he does have a car which is pretty rare in Cape Verde. There’s also a sister, Cynthia, who is studying French in Dakar and a brother, Ronnie, who lives with his grandmother and teaches sports or something related to sports at the high school. Just so you get an idea of how all the families are related here, another PCT’s mom is my mom’s sister, and her husband’s sister is another PCT’s mom and it keeps going from there. Anyways, the community here is very close and pretty much if something happens, the entire town knows within the hour. Keeping in the same fashion, the same happens between PCTs.
The electricity has been inconsistent lately due to the fact that a Portuguese company is supposed to pay the bill and forgets about our small island nation and forces the electric company to turn off our lights until it is paid. It can be really annoying at times but I really enjoy eating by candlelight and learning mornas from my family. My brother and I will often play cards- I taught him how to play “War” and he has taught me a few games. Cape Verdian’s style of cards is way different from what we are used to in the US. They always take out the 8s, 9s, and 10s because they want only 10 different types and the rank is switched, Ace is the highest, then 7, then King, Jack, Queen, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The society here is pretty male dominated so the “male” cards are all higher than the female. Its kind of hard to get used to but this is quite the norm in many societies outside the US.
I’ve been asked to colead a session on developing projects for our Community Development section next week since another girl and I both have significant project experience. This has got me thinking a lot about projects I’d be interested in doing and how to go about doing them. Last weekend, we took a trip to a town called Rue Vaz where we saw a meeting between two women’s microcredit groups who came together to talk about what they have done and for the more established group to show how their community has changed since the formation of the group. It was really fascinating and I’m really interested in helping a women’s group with microfinance. I had a conversation with my neighbor the other day about the reasons why she will not go to university next year. It turns out that right now there is only one general college in Cape Verde and it is private and expensive. There is also a teacher’s college but its not really what she wants to do. The government is currently working to unite the two schools and create a public University of Cape Verde but I don’t know how long it will take and what it will cost people. Anyways, there are not very many local scholarships available, only ones for school in other countries, and I would really like to work with the local government and organizations to create scholarships for women to go to school for higher education. The women in this country do everything and mostly inside the house. It would be great if they could continue education and really get to follow through with their dreams. For some like my neighbor, it seems that these often fall short when feeding 7 people is your main priority.
Tomorrow we have a CD fieldtrip to an orphanage which will be really great to see. Fieldtrips are the best tool we’ve had so far to really see where we’ll be working and what we’ll be doing. We’re still feeling the “working for a government, need to know information basis” right now which can be frustrating but we’ll find out everything in due time. And by everything I really mean our sites and who we’ll be working with. I’m off to watch novellas with the family. Ti logo.
Journal entry on thoughts about your Community Project.
The day we learned that we would be planning and implanting projects in Sao Domingus I was really excited and a little nervous. With only four weeks to create and carry out a project in a town we are still getting to know, I had in my mind that whatever we do must not be too complicated or difficult to carry out. Yasmin’s idea of building a movie theater in town was a great idea but a little unfeasible for us to accomplish in 4 weeks so it turned into a community movie night. We’ll have it at the Polivalenti where a lot of people can attend, show a movie that will be entertaining to the community and have someone relate an issue in the movie to the problem in Sao Domingus. It sounds like a great idea on paper but I don’t know how well it will really play out. After two weeks in, I’m a little scared that it will fall through.
We still need to meet with people, reserve the space, choose a movie, get people to participate, find a speaker, advertise, and actually implement the event. With only two weeks and no set date to do the project, I’m very worried that it won’t happen. There also seems to be a lack of time to figure out the details, actually talk to people about the project, and get people together to discuss what we want to do. We’ve already hit a few setbacks with one of our key people being out of town and on a boat to another island and lack of communication between the PCTs who are implementing the project. I’m hoping that we can get our act together and make it really happen. I’m really excited about the project idea and want it to be successful but I also want to be realistic about what we can do and how much time we have to do it. I feel like we should have been told on week one that we would be doing projects so we would have a lot more time to plan and think about them and incorporate different techniques that we learn into our project planning as it happens.
Journal entry on HIV/AIDs and other Social Problems in CV and the US.
I find it hard to compare HIV/AIDs and other social problems in Cape Verde and the United States because they both have a lot of the same problems. Everywhere you go in the world there are problems with STDs, substance abuse, unfair treatment of people for a variety of reasons, etc. When it comes to sex education in Cape Verde, we’ve been told that people have the information but there is a problem with taking it and using it. It’s difficult in every culture to get people to put what they know into practice or to change what they previously do. People in America do not seem any more likely to use condoms than people in Cape Verde despite knowing the consequences. What does work in America is the shock and scare factor. Show people pictures of terrible diseases that they could get and put fear in the American public and then you can change their practices. I don’t know if it works like this in Cape Verde but it seems to do a good job in US society.
What I do think is important socially in Cape Verde is the gender and development component. I think that women’s groups, especially micro-finance, are key to Cape Verde’s development and empowering women. I’m not an expert by any means but from what I’ve heard, helping women reach their potential has been very beneficial to Cape Verdean society. I also think that there needs to be more attention paid to men and teenage boys. From what I have observed, the fathers are not around the family all that much and young boys are missing out on positive male role models who can show them that drinking at the bar is not the only activity they can partake in. Even on a family trip to the beach, all of the adult men were absent. It was very bizarre to me that a “family trip” consisted solely of women and children. I’m not sure how to get the fathers more involved in children’s lives or how to work with teenage boys but I see a lot of potential in working with this group.
Intercultural communication and adjustment skills- Describe an interesting experience you had in Cape Verdean culture and share how you plan to use it in the future by looking at from different perspective.
I normally keep a personal journal and thought I would take something that I had previously written and expand since it describes one experience I’ve had that really gave my perspective a turn.
“The electricity has been inconsistent lately due to the fact that a Portuguese company is supposed to pay the bill and forgets about our small island nation and forces the electric company to turn off our lights until it is paid. It can be really annoying at times but I really enjoy eating by candlelight and learning mornas from my family. My brother and I will often play cards- I taught him how to play “War” and he has taught me a few games. Cape Verde’s style of cards is way different from what we are used to in the US. They always take out the 8s, 9s, and 10s because they want only 10 different types and the rank is switched, Ace is the highest, then 7, then King, Jack, Queen, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The society here is pretty male dominated so the “male” cards are all higher than the female. Its kind of hard to get used to but this is quite the norm in many societies outside the US.”
I feel pretty well traveled, at least through parts of Africa but I have yet to encounter a place where the cards are all switched around because of the function of the society. Hearing that the Queen is ranked lower than the Jack was really weird for me to accept as well as made me have to think twice about playing a card during our nightly games. In the house, the women are the ones who clean, cook, make sure their kids get to school and also work outside the house. With all the work that they do on a daily basis, it makes you wonder why they wouldn’t be “ranked” higher in society. I think knowing how the society functions here will help me with future projects during my service. I would really like to do some work with empowering women and making sure that they feel like they can reach their potential. It has taken years and years of empowerment and women’s groups to bring something that can still be argued as inequality in America and it is something that will not change in one day. Learning about the card ranks really gave me a wake up call to how males dominate society here and I think just being more aware of it encourages me more to work with women.
7.11.06
Here’s a fun story from today. If you ever start learning a new language you are bound to make mistakes. A lot of words may be similar but say the wrong word and you’re either offending someone or saying something bad. In Kriolu, the word coku means coconut. So when I tell someone I am allergic to coconut I’d say “Ami alergico di coku.” If I accidentally say “coco” I am saying poop. I was warned of this a few days ago by a current PCV and really understood today when my 3 year old brother and his friends all had to go to the bathroom to “tem coco” or literally, “have poop”.
This evening I had an embarrassing moment. I was on my way home with my 11 yr old host brother and had just finished escorting a friend of mine home. A man was in the street saying something I didn’t understand but was standing there making what appeared to be strange arm movements and running in place. Since we keep talking about drunk people in Cape Verde I assumed he was drunk and turned to my host brother and said, “Ael moka” thinking I had said, “he is drunk.” He laughed at me and said that the man said that I was strong and was making muscles and running in place because he had seen me running in the morning with my friends. Then when we got in the house he told his mom what had happened and she corrected my bad Kriolu and told me that “moka” means “sex,” The word I wanted to use was “moku” meaning drunk. Once again we all laughed me telling my brother that the old man was having sex. Way to go Jules!
Kriolu classes are going well so far but it’s still very overwhelming. We’ve only been here for two days but I already feel I speak better Kriolu than I spoke French when studying in Senegal. Ha. I’m still not exactly sure what the development track entails but at least I have a better picture of Cape Verde and what its priorities are in development. I think this will help me focus my projects when I get to site.
I’ve got a few ideas already for things I want to do when I become an official volunteer. When we were out running this morning I saw a group of people walking together for exercise. I thought it would be a great idea to start a walking group in my community where they can meet a few times a week and walk and chat together as well as maybe have a few classes on health and nutrition and the importance of exercise. It would also be a good way to integrate into the community.
Another idea I have is to work with young women to form a futbol team and work on women’s empowerment. I was disappointed to see that no girls were playing soccer at the stadium and I was really stoked to play. They tell me I can play tomorrow and we did end up on another field and played around sunset but I think I have a few contacts that may be good resources for starting a team and helping women in the community.
In the past, Community Development volunteers have been given one specific assignment or project they are assigned to but from what I hear, this year we will each be given a few projects so we can find a good match. I think this will be very beneficial in making contacts in the community and getting a step in on working on numerous projects simultaneously. I’m really excited about it.
Time for me to go to bed. A ti logo.
7.27.06
There’s so much to write about I don’t know where to begin. I’ve been in Cape Verde now for about 3 weeks and each day flies by. We spent the first 3 days in Cape Verde in the capital city, Praia, at a school called Madre Teresa Residencial. Its rented out while the school is on summer break.
When you join the Peace Corps you’ll hear the phrases “patience and flexibility” quite often. Our first bout with these words came rather quickly as our flight plans changed before we even left the states. Instead of flying through Amsterdam we ended up flying through Paris and Dakar and ended up in two groups instead of one because of the lack of seats available. I ended up in the first group which spent an extra day in Praia. The other group arrived the next night after spending a relaxing day on the beaches of Dakar.
Three days later we had one Kriolu class down and were off to Sao Domingus to meet our host families. I was a little nervous to go into a situation where pretty much all I could say was “my name is, how are you, and good.” It turned out pretty great and I had an 11 yr old boy and my host mom there with huge smiles on their faces and big hugs to welcome me. The 11 yr old brother’s name is Michel (pronounced Michelle but he’s not a girl, its how Portuguese names are). I also live with a 3 yr old brother, Fred (eriko) but most people call him Fefeo. He is really cute and the two of us share of love of mangos. He also loves cars and putting anything he can find in his mouth, probably the reason why so many of his toy cars have all been ripped to pieces. My host mom’s name is Anita and she is so wonderful. I have a lot of fun chatting with her in the afternoon when she gets home from work (she works at a civil registry place) and asking a million questions about everything. My host dad’s name is Dida and I’m still not sure what he does but he does have a car which is pretty rare in Cape Verde. There’s also a sister, Cynthia, who is studying French in Dakar and a brother, Ronnie, who lives with his grandmother and teaches sports or something related to sports at the high school. Just so you get an idea of how all the families are related here, another PCT’s mom is my mom’s sister, and her husband’s sister is another PCT’s mom and it keeps going from there. Anyways, the community here is very close and pretty much if something happens, the entire town knows within the hour. Keeping in the same fashion, the same happens between PCTs.
The electricity has been inconsistent lately due to the fact that a Portuguese company is supposed to pay the bill and forgets about our small island nation and forces the electric company to turn off our lights until it is paid. It can be really annoying at times but I really enjoy eating by candlelight and learning mornas from my family. My brother and I will often play cards- I taught him how to play “War” and he has taught me a few games. Cape Verdian’s style of cards is way different from what we are used to in the US. They always take out the 8s, 9s, and 10s because they want only 10 different types and the rank is switched, Ace is the highest, then 7, then King, Jack, Queen, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The society here is pretty male dominated so the “male” cards are all higher than the female. Its kind of hard to get used to but this is quite the norm in many societies outside the US.
I’ve been asked to colead a session on developing projects for our Community Development section next week since another girl and I both have significant project experience. This has got me thinking a lot about projects I’d be interested in doing and how to go about doing them. Last weekend, we took a trip to a town called Rue Vaz where we saw a meeting between two women’s microcredit groups who came together to talk about what they have done and for the more established group to show how their community has changed since the formation of the group. It was really fascinating and I’m really interested in helping a women’s group with microfinance. I had a conversation with my neighbor the other day about the reasons why she will not go to university next year. It turns out that right now there is only one general college in Cape Verde and it is private and expensive. There is also a teacher’s college but its not really what she wants to do. The government is currently working to unite the two schools and create a public University of Cape Verde but I don’t know how long it will take and what it will cost people. Anyways, there are not very many local scholarships available, only ones for school in other countries, and I would really like to work with the local government and organizations to create scholarships for women to go to school for higher education. The women in this country do everything and mostly inside the house. It would be great if they could continue education and really get to follow through with their dreams. For some like my neighbor, it seems that these often fall short when feeding 7 people is your main priority.
Tomorrow we have a CD fieldtrip to an orphanage which will be really great to see. Fieldtrips are the best tool we’ve had so far to really see where we’ll be working and what we’ll be doing. We’re still feeling the “working for a government, need to know information basis” right now which can be frustrating but we’ll find out everything in due time. And by everything I really mean our sites and who we’ll be working with. I’m off to watch novellas with the family. Ti logo.
Monday Blues
Someone´s got a case of the Mondays...So this week started off mas o menos. I was going to come to the youth center in the afternoon but it was closed because all the people that work here had a class and I forgot. Good job Jules. So I went home and checked out my cd from our resource center and read a bunch of materials that will maybe help me later.
At night we went back to the Italian restaurant for pizza- we can´t keep going there or we won´t have any living allowance left- but the food is so good. Afterwards we hung out with the Americans and played Monopoly.
I made it in to the CEJ this morning and learned that the music day has been changed to the 14th because the 1st is approaching quickly and ´we need more time for planning. I was supposed to go to Calheta to meet with the women´s group today but my counterpart called up and said she´s in Praia for the week doing something so that means no meeting today. Oh well, I guess I kind of knew things get changed around a lot here and I´ve just got to take it with a grain of salt. I was really looking forward to the meeting but I guess for now I´ll spend more time hanging out in the community. Tonight our friends from the Canary Islands are making paella for dinner. I´m pretty stoked.
At night we went back to the Italian restaurant for pizza- we can´t keep going there or we won´t have any living allowance left- but the food is so good. Afterwards we hung out with the Americans and played Monopoly.
I made it in to the CEJ this morning and learned that the music day has been changed to the 14th because the 1st is approaching quickly and ´we need more time for planning. I was supposed to go to Calheta to meet with the women´s group today but my counterpart called up and said she´s in Praia for the week doing something so that means no meeting today. Oh well, I guess I kind of knew things get changed around a lot here and I´ve just got to take it with a grain of salt. I was really looking forward to the meeting but I guess for now I´ll spend more time hanging out in the community. Tonight our friends from the Canary Islands are making paella for dinner. I´m pretty stoked.
Yesterday was probably the most interesting and fun day that I’ve experienced in Maio so far. We woke up early in our normal fashion since I’m convinced Cape Verde does not want me to get a full night’s sleep. As part of the tradition of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, people often eat apples and honey to represent a sweet new year. Since the honey here costs about 4 US dollars, I decided it wasn’t in my budget for the day so I substituted peanut butter for my honey and ate apples and peanut butter for breakfast.
We were really excited because today we were going to get in a car and drive around the entire island of Maio. In normal Cape Verdean style, our driver from the camara showed up about 45 minutes late. I think my roommate was a little worried he wouldn’t show but believe me, 45 minutes late is nothing. In Uganda I waited up to hours for our car to show to go on our daily activities. Once we got in the car we picked up a few people and headed to clockwise around the island, stopping Calheta to pick up my counterpart. From there we drove towards the north of the island and stopped in the Morrinho where we met the president of the community development organization in Morrinho and a friend of my counterpart. We followed the road to Cascabulho where we met another community development association president. Since the good road stopped and our vehicle wasn’t equipped to go off-roading, we head back back towards Calheta and saw a project that was put together between the development organization of Calheta, the US embassy, and the camara of Maio. It was a place where they grow saplings which are then sold to people and places to be planted. There are about 10 women who basically run the show and it was neat to see a project that a previous volunteer had helped with. We then drove back through Calheta, through the town of Morro, back through Villa, and around the southern part of the island in the towns of Barreiro, Figueira da Horta, and Ribeira de Joao. Another day we will go into the interior of the island with a jeep-like vehicle.
By the time we got back we were pretty ravenous for lunch and scarfed down one of our favorite Cape Verdian dishes which has become one of our staple lunches (the others being tuna melts or pasta). This dish that we make is Cape Verdian style tuna salad. Here’s the recipe for you all to try out back in the states:
Ingredients:
Can of tuna
Can of chickpeas
Can of kidney beans
One onion (chopped)
Salt, pepper, other spices to taste (we pretty much mix in everything we have which includes: all purpose seasoning, garlic powder, Montreal chicken seasoning, cumin)
Olive oil
Vinegar
Optional: avacado (if they come on the boat and are ripe)
To make:
Drain tuna, chickpeas, kidney beans and mix into bowl. Add onion, spices, olive oil and vinegar.
Note: This makes enough for two people for lunches for 2 days.
Since we’ve been here, we’ve attempted to go to the beach, which by the way is about a 5 minute walk from our house, but have failed in going when the water is good or the weather is good. We were determined that yesterday would be the day to go. So we head over to the beach to get some sun and enjoy the beautiful weekend. In typical Julia fashion, I didn’t actually swim, but I did get my feet wet and the water felt amazing. We’re going back today for pretty much the entire day.
After beaching we came home, read, showered and got ready to go to the Italian restaurant that we’ve been eyeing since we got here. We saved up money from our meek budget to go out to eat at this expensive (in our terms) restaurant all week and were stoked. My roommate, being originially from Italy was excited to practice her Italian and get a taste of the homeland. Now when I say we went to an Italian restaurant, I don’t mean a US Italian restaurant, I mean the owners were from Italy and most of the food ingredients are imported from Italy and Portugual—so this was the real stuff. And it was amazing, We had penne alla vodka and carbonata and split them, We even splurged for wine and dessert- tiramisu of course. What made the night even more interesting was the people that we met. First, a group of people from the Canary Islands started talking to us and bought us drinks. It was really funny because between the group of us we were speaking in Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Kriolu. I think I understood maybe half of what was going on, including some talk about politics in Africa and Europe. From that conversation, we were invited over for cabrita- baby goat the following day.
Not only did we meet other foreigners, but guess who also showed up at the restaurant--3 Americans and a guy from the UK! We were so excited to see Americans and found out that they will be here for a few months working on a project. We immediately became friends, because in countries where no one speaks English, you immediately cling to anyone that does. They also had an abundant source of American junkfood which we gawked over for a good 15-20 minutes. You would have thought we had never seen cheese-its, beef jerky, and starbursts before in our life. You know how skewed our mentality is when we would give away a mosquito net for a box of cheese-its. Anyways, the other Americans are great and I’m looking forward to hanging out with them.
Sunday was just as interesting as Saturday. We woke up, had breakfast, and head out for the beach to get some sun and attempt to swim. The current was kinda crazy and the waves were huge so we pretty much stuck to getting our feet wet. After getting a little sun we walked down the beach for about an hour and enjoyed soaking up the rays. After lunch, one of our Cape Verdean friends came over to help my roommate write up rules for her classroom in Portuguese. While we were hanging out, the Canary Island people showed up at our door and were like, let’s go eat goat right now. So we were taken by car to this dude’s house to eat baby goat and other traditional food from the Canary Islands. There was also music time as they busted out the guitars and started singing songs in Italian, Spanish, and Kriolu. It was quite an interesting experience. When we left, we were invited to coffee the next day by the Italians and were told that the Canary guys are making us paella on Tuesday. The dude also said he’d buy us pizza on Monday when we go to get coffee so we can discuss a time for Tuesday.
When we got back our Cape Verdean friend came over to play Dominos and cards-our new regular nightly activity. The Americans also came by to hang out and bribed us with Jolly Ranchers to entertain them.
We were really excited because today we were going to get in a car and drive around the entire island of Maio. In normal Cape Verdean style, our driver from the camara showed up about 45 minutes late. I think my roommate was a little worried he wouldn’t show but believe me, 45 minutes late is nothing. In Uganda I waited up to hours for our car to show to go on our daily activities. Once we got in the car we picked up a few people and headed to clockwise around the island, stopping Calheta to pick up my counterpart. From there we drove towards the north of the island and stopped in the Morrinho where we met the president of the community development organization in Morrinho and a friend of my counterpart. We followed the road to Cascabulho where we met another community development association president. Since the good road stopped and our vehicle wasn’t equipped to go off-roading, we head back back towards Calheta and saw a project that was put together between the development organization of Calheta, the US embassy, and the camara of Maio. It was a place where they grow saplings which are then sold to people and places to be planted. There are about 10 women who basically run the show and it was neat to see a project that a previous volunteer had helped with. We then drove back through Calheta, through the town of Morro, back through Villa, and around the southern part of the island in the towns of Barreiro, Figueira da Horta, and Ribeira de Joao. Another day we will go into the interior of the island with a jeep-like vehicle.
By the time we got back we were pretty ravenous for lunch and scarfed down one of our favorite Cape Verdian dishes which has become one of our staple lunches (the others being tuna melts or pasta). This dish that we make is Cape Verdian style tuna salad. Here’s the recipe for you all to try out back in the states:
Ingredients:
Can of tuna
Can of chickpeas
Can of kidney beans
One onion (chopped)
Salt, pepper, other spices to taste (we pretty much mix in everything we have which includes: all purpose seasoning, garlic powder, Montreal chicken seasoning, cumin)
Olive oil
Vinegar
Optional: avacado (if they come on the boat and are ripe)
To make:
Drain tuna, chickpeas, kidney beans and mix into bowl. Add onion, spices, olive oil and vinegar.
Note: This makes enough for two people for lunches for 2 days.
Since we’ve been here, we’ve attempted to go to the beach, which by the way is about a 5 minute walk from our house, but have failed in going when the water is good or the weather is good. We were determined that yesterday would be the day to go. So we head over to the beach to get some sun and enjoy the beautiful weekend. In typical Julia fashion, I didn’t actually swim, but I did get my feet wet and the water felt amazing. We’re going back today for pretty much the entire day.
After beaching we came home, read, showered and got ready to go to the Italian restaurant that we’ve been eyeing since we got here. We saved up money from our meek budget to go out to eat at this expensive (in our terms) restaurant all week and were stoked. My roommate, being originially from Italy was excited to practice her Italian and get a taste of the homeland. Now when I say we went to an Italian restaurant, I don’t mean a US Italian restaurant, I mean the owners were from Italy and most of the food ingredients are imported from Italy and Portugual—so this was the real stuff. And it was amazing, We had penne alla vodka and carbonata and split them, We even splurged for wine and dessert- tiramisu of course. What made the night even more interesting was the people that we met. First, a group of people from the Canary Islands started talking to us and bought us drinks. It was really funny because between the group of us we were speaking in Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Kriolu. I think I understood maybe half of what was going on, including some talk about politics in Africa and Europe. From that conversation, we were invited over for cabrita- baby goat the following day.
Not only did we meet other foreigners, but guess who also showed up at the restaurant--3 Americans and a guy from the UK! We were so excited to see Americans and found out that they will be here for a few months working on a project. We immediately became friends, because in countries where no one speaks English, you immediately cling to anyone that does. They also had an abundant source of American junkfood which we gawked over for a good 15-20 minutes. You would have thought we had never seen cheese-its, beef jerky, and starbursts before in our life. You know how skewed our mentality is when we would give away a mosquito net for a box of cheese-its. Anyways, the other Americans are great and I’m looking forward to hanging out with them.
Sunday was just as interesting as Saturday. We woke up, had breakfast, and head out for the beach to get some sun and attempt to swim. The current was kinda crazy and the waves were huge so we pretty much stuck to getting our feet wet. After getting a little sun we walked down the beach for about an hour and enjoyed soaking up the rays. After lunch, one of our Cape Verdean friends came over to help my roommate write up rules for her classroom in Portuguese. While we were hanging out, the Canary Island people showed up at our door and were like, let’s go eat goat right now. So we were taken by car to this dude’s house to eat baby goat and other traditional food from the Canary Islands. There was also music time as they busted out the guitars and started singing songs in Italian, Spanish, and Kriolu. It was quite an interesting experience. When we left, we were invited to coffee the next day by the Italians and were told that the Canary guys are making us paella on Tuesday. The dude also said he’d buy us pizza on Monday when we go to get coffee so we can discuss a time for Tuesday.
When we got back our Cape Verdean friend came over to play Dominos and cards-our new regular nightly activity. The Americans also came by to hang out and bribed us with Jolly Ranchers to entertain them.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
I started "real" work this week. By this I mean I went to the Youth Center on Monday and looked through past PCV´s work to get ideas for what I´d like to do. My schedule probably won´t be finalized for a little while because I´m working with a number of organizations and I need to figure out the times they need me before I try to dive into teaching a class or scheduling a regular activity.
Yesterday I met with my counterpart from the women´s organization in another town on Maio. She´s a member of the women´s group in which I will be helping. In the next few weeks, we´ll put together a meeting of all the women who want to participate in Calheta and talk about why I´m here, what is Peace Corps, and what the women want to get out of their group. It sounds like they want to be more official and have on-going projects, maybe related to domestic abuse, sexual abuse, health, opportunities for women, and empowerment. I´m really excited to work with them. If anyone has any connections with women´s groups in the states or internationally that may be able to help with materials, information on these topics, I would really appreciate it. After sitting down and talking, we went over to the camara and met with the variadors- basically like appointed heads of departments. The camara in Maio has 4- one for sports, social activities, environment, and urban planning. The variador for sports also is the point person for the youth center so I will be working a lot with him.
In the past, volunteers at the youth center have taught English or computers, tutored kids, and had art classes or other sorts of activities. I´m thinking of maybe doing a class on world diversity with an emphasis on a different country each week and an art project for each country. For example, if the theme of the week were Chile, we could make rainsticks out of papertowel roles, beans, and toothpicks. Í´m pretty excited to jump in but I need to talk more with the people I work with and get everything approved and figure out schedules. The scheduling I think will take the longest since I´m still trying to figure out what time/days are best for each group.
The third group I´ll be working with is a micro-credit organization. I´m not exactly sure where they are located or the specifics of what they do but I´m going sometime this week to check it out and talk to the person in charge.
Yesterday I met with my counterpart from the women´s organization in another town on Maio. She´s a member of the women´s group in which I will be helping. In the next few weeks, we´ll put together a meeting of all the women who want to participate in Calheta and talk about why I´m here, what is Peace Corps, and what the women want to get out of their group. It sounds like they want to be more official and have on-going projects, maybe related to domestic abuse, sexual abuse, health, opportunities for women, and empowerment. I´m really excited to work with them. If anyone has any connections with women´s groups in the states or internationally that may be able to help with materials, information on these topics, I would really appreciate it. After sitting down and talking, we went over to the camara and met with the variadors- basically like appointed heads of departments. The camara in Maio has 4- one for sports, social activities, environment, and urban planning. The variador for sports also is the point person for the youth center so I will be working a lot with him.
In the past, volunteers at the youth center have taught English or computers, tutored kids, and had art classes or other sorts of activities. I´m thinking of maybe doing a class on world diversity with an emphasis on a different country each week and an art project for each country. For example, if the theme of the week were Chile, we could make rainsticks out of papertowel roles, beans, and toothpicks. Í´m pretty excited to jump in but I need to talk more with the people I work with and get everything approved and figure out schedules. The scheduling I think will take the longest since I´m still trying to figure out what time/days are best for each group.
The third group I´ll be working with is a micro-credit organization. I´m not exactly sure where they are located or the specifics of what they do but I´m going sometime this week to check it out and talk to the person in charge.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Maio happenings
So I´m officially a real PCV. I feel like I´ve been waiting for this for ever and now its here. I arrived at my site on the island of Maio on Monday and for the past few days I´ve been touring around Vila do Maio with my roommate and another current volunteer who is COSing [close of service] in a few weeks. We spent the first day walking around looking at lojas and buying supplies for our house. Tuesday we went to the school where my roommate will be teaching and met a bunch of teachers, saw classrooms, and toured the library. Yesterday was pretty exciting. We took a car to Calheta, and by car I mean truck with benches in the back, to meet my other counterpart who works with the community development association of Calheta. She introduced us to a few women in the community and showed us the center. One of the coolest things there was a room of weaving looms where a group of 6 women weave these incredible bags that are mainly sold for tourists. I would love to work with them to help market their bags to PCVs and others as well. We also had a cultural experience in Calheta. The neighbor of my counterpart had a baby that had died the previous night so we went over to the house to visit. The custom with death in Cape Verde is that the deceased person is not buried until 24 hours after they have died and they must keep them in the same place in the house until the funeral. Everyone in the neighborhood comes to the house to sit with the family and offer support.
This morning I spent 2 hours going to the bank and getting a cell phone. I´ll have a landline eventually but it takes a little while to set up and we might be moving before then. Basically my house is in front of a bar which we don´t really like so we´re working with Peace Corps on finding us a different house. Other than that, Maio is beautiful but really hot all the time. I guess I´m going to have to get used to the strong sun and heat. Hope all is well in the rest of the world. If you want to send mail my new address is:
Julia Kramer
C.P. 68
Vila do Maio
Republic of Cape Verde
This morning I spent 2 hours going to the bank and getting a cell phone. I´ll have a landline eventually but it takes a little while to set up and we might be moving before then. Basically my house is in front of a bar which we don´t really like so we´re working with Peace Corps on finding us a different house. Other than that, Maio is beautiful but really hot all the time. I guess I´m going to have to get used to the strong sun and heat. Hope all is well in the rest of the world. If you want to send mail my new address is:
Julia Kramer
C.P. 68
Vila do Maio
Republic of Cape Verde
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)