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