More excitement from Maio

Fin de Semana

The weekend was pretty bland. I had stomach problems pretty much every day-
we¹ve come to the conclusion that its because our water level is really low
and there¹s built up sediment on the bottom of our barrel. I¹m going to
guess that no amount of boiling and filtering can get out all of the bad
stuff found in the water. We¹re still waiting for more water to come, we¹ve
been waiting about a week for city water. Our tank still has water but we
were told not to drink water that comes from our tank. So we will wait. Our
neighbor came over to help us figure out if our water was turned off (we had
a little flooding problem the previous week from too much water coming and
had to turn off the water) and he said it was on. So now we are still
waiting for more water.

Saturday night we were invited to dinner at the place where the Americans
are staying. The woman who runs the place is really nice and we¹re going to
be teaching English to one of her employees. Anyways, back to dinner. It was
amazing. They made crustini topped with green olives, onions, and olive oil.
Then the pasta course was gnocchi with a pesto sauce and then they brought
out goat and potatoes. It was delicious.

Sunday was the usual beach day. It was actually overcast on Sunday and not
too hot so I took a nice little nap on the beach. We were going to play
poker at night but it got late so we sat around and chatted and ate our
buy-ins(homemade coffee ice cream for me and my roommate, powdered doughnuts
and cheese-its from the Americans) instead of actually playing.

Travel Problems

The Americans gave me a lift to Calheta for our meeting on Monday. I went
down to meet them at one of the Italian restaurants and sat with them while
they finished their 3-course meal of lasagna, skewers with green pepper,
onion, meat and sausage, and French fries. We got in the truck around 3 to
head over and I was warned that the truck had broken down on their way back
for lunch earlier. We drove a total of about 100 yards before the truck
broke down again. It started smelling bad and then smoking- the Americans
said the radiator was broken or something. Anyways, so we stood on the
street for a few minutes and a nice guy with a truck said that he¹d come
back in a few minutes and take me to Calheta. Before he returned I got a
ride from the other half of the American group- their boss and inspectors
came by in another truck and delivered me to my destination. Really, getting
anywhere here is an adventure. I¹m looking forward to getting my Peace Corps
issued bicycle so that I can get around the island more easily.

Women¹s Group Meeting- 10.09.06 4:00 pm

We had the first women¹s group meeting on Monday. I was under the
impression that the group had already been established and doing activities
and wanted me to help them better organize, etc but during the meeting I
realized that this was the first time they all sat down together to formally
talk about their group. Despite my confusion and lack of speaking ability
(more about that later), I think the meeting overall went pretty well. My
counterpart explained who I was, my training with Peace Corps and our
counterpart conference and then had me talk about what I am going to do with
them and the group. There was a lot of confusion and need for clarification
about what they will be doing and I explained to them that I am here to help
them with the group and that it is up to them to decide what sort of
activities they want to do and what they think are the most important things
they want to learn and do. I said that I am only here for 2 years and I just
arrived in Maio and they have lived here for their entire lives and will
remain here after I leave so it is important that they run the shots on the
group and I am here for support and help in teaching for finding people to
come in and teach how to do things. By the end of the meeting, I think they
decided to meet again next week and each of them will bring 2 or 3 friends
to make the group bigger (there were about 10 women total that showed up)
along with ideas of what they want to learn and the priorities. From what I
gathered, a lot of them want to learn language (English and French) as well
as computers.

After the meeting I talked with my counterpart and another women in the
group about projects that they want to see happen. The woman from the group
is one of the women who makes the amazing woven bags and she said that she
would like to have a workshop or training session so that all of the women
in Calheta who are interested can also learn to make the bags. This way they
can increase the amount of bags made, teach the women a new skill, and
provide another form of income in a country where work is hard to find. I
told her that I would bring a sample project proposal when I return to
Calheta so that she can use it as a basis for writing up one for her
project. I also want to help her advertise the bags. I¹m going to take
pictures of the bags, the women making them, and send them out to help
advertise. Eventually, after we learn computers, I hope that the women can
set up a website to advertise their bags and information about what they do.
I¹m also going to try to contact 10,000 Villages and a few other places that
may be able to help advertise them.

I learned that the focus on learning language directly correlates to the
tourism build up in Maio. I¹m not exactly sure how the tourism will come to
Maio but the government of Cape Verde is investing a lot in building up
tourism and Calheta would probably be one of the places tourists would come
visit when they are in Maio because of the bags and because there are a few
Germans, Italians, and people from the UK who are building homes and resort
like places for tourists. The beaches in Calheta are also nice and
apparently the waves are calmer than they are in Vila. Regardless, pretty
much all of the women want to learn English and French because they are ³the
most common international languages² and they want to be able to interact
with tourists. So, I might be teaching English to the women and looking for
someone to teach French.

We also talked about going to see some of the women¹s groups in Santiago to
show the women how other organizations run and how to set themselves up to
function as an official entity. It¹s still really early, we just had the
first meeting, but the women seem really motivated and excited to start
doing projects. I would love to eventually have a large conference for small
women¹s groups to come together, share ideas, and have skills workshops on
things like micro-credit, using computers, and language. I feel really
positively about this group and I really hope that they continue to be
motivated and can get a lot done while I am here and after I leave.

The rollercoaster of emotions

No mail for me today- we went to the post office this morning and my
roommate received her cookbook and about 15 Newsweeks from Peace Corps but
mine haven¹t come in yet. We took laundry over to the lady who does our
laundry. Its about 5 USD for a load of laundry and a load here is pretty
much as much as we can fit into a basin so the two of us get 2 weeks of
clothes washed for about $2.50 a piece. That¹s much cheaper than washing
them in the coin machines in the states. I¹m excited to have clean clothes
again, I think I sweat through them at an abnormally fast pace, go figure.
So the day started out great and I was on a high from my meeting yesterday.
Then things went a little downhill.

I got to work at the CEJ and was told that I needed to learn Kriolu better
because someone thought I didn¹t understand what she was saying. I did
understand what she said but she wasn¹t very clear in what she was asking me
to do. The way some words translate in Kriolu are very unspecific- for
example, people sometimes refer to things as ³that thing² instead of saying
specifically the name of the object or like what happened today, saying ³its
below² when what is meant is ³its on the bottom shelf of the cabinet in my
office.² Words also have double meanings. The word ³txeu² means both
³enough² and ³too much.² So sometimes it can be confusing. Anyways, it was a
low blow being told I need to learn better. I know I need to improve on my
language but having it directly spat in my face kinda shot me down.

10.20.06

So I guess there¹s a lot to update you all on now. The past few weeks have
been interesting to say the least. The Internet at the CEJ has been
down‹they originally said it was because there was a problem with the
connection, then they said they hadn¹t paid the bill (which is pretty common
here), and then Telecom came to look at the computers and the latest news is
that we need a new phone line. So who knows when it will return. The
electricity has also been having some serious problems. Our nights this week
have been pretty restless since every time the electricity oges out, the
generator for all of the phones in Maio is conveniently located right
outside my window and as you can imagine, its pretty loud. Between that and
the lack of air flow in my room, its been hard to get a good night¹s sleep.

Don¹t forget to teach others how to fishŠ

Last Saturday I went to a town called Borreio (around the south of the
island) to see how the girls group in their town functions. I¹m now going
to be helping their group in preparation for their municipal holiday in
December and help with other activities. For the holiday (which is about 2
or 3 weeks long), they¹ll have soccer tournaments, show films on HIV/AIDS,
have a big party for the town, and arrange other activities. They want me to
teach basic computers to the group so I¹m now going to be going there every
Saturday and Sunday to teach computers. This should be an adventure. I went
to the center where the classes will be held on Monday with the CEJ to take
inventory of what they actually have. It turns out that 2 of the 4 computers
actually work (one of them only has a monitor) and they both are on
different operating systems (Windows 97 and 98). I read in an old Newsweek
(which I finally received from Peace Corps on Wednesday) that Microsoft now
will not help with any problems on their system that are less current than
XP so I¹m ready for these computers to crash and burn on me. Add 20+
students to the mix and one teacher who has never really taught computers
and you get one heck of an experience.

The group also wanted me to help design a t-shirt, get the t-shirts, and
help them secure school supplies. I had to explain to them that Peace Corps
does not give out money to groups- we are not a donation fund, and I
certainly did not have money to buy them all t-shirts. With that being said,
I went home and made a design on my trusty computer using all the possible
skill I have in creating an image using the draw function in Microsoft Word
to find out the next day that they have an emblem that they would like to
use in addition. I learned my lesson that day. After scanning the emblem
into the computer and being asked to take this hand drawn emblem and
replicate it with my fine art skills, I wasted about 4 hours being
frustrated with my handy dandy ³draw function² in MS Word when they had me
take my original design and paste it on top of the hand drawn emblem. I felt
like all the work I had done trying to replicate the original drawing had
been wasted but I learned my lesson. I will never again try to make
something for someone and will instead guide them through it until it is
what they are trying to make. I felt taken advantage of and I did not like
it one bit. It definitely put a spoiler on the day but I¹m not going to let
it get to me.

Why I Should Not Be Allowed within a mile of a kitchen knifeŠ
So the other night we wanted to cook dinner for the Americans because they
are leaving in a few days. For this night¹s feast, we procured some beef
straight from the slaughtered cow, fresh vegetables from the boat, rice, and
our British friend¹s recipe for chocolate ice cream. We were on track until
the freezer and I got in a fight. Because we lose electricity so often, the
freezer will melt and then when the electricity returns, it will refreeze
with all the nasty icy stuff. You¹ve all seen what happens when stuff
freezes and then refreezes. So anyways, in order to get the container with
the ice cream in it into the freezer we needed to get rid of some of the
build up. Instead of being a sane person and letting the freezer defrost
(which I have been told is the correct thing to do‹sorry Mike), I took a
knife and started stabbing the ice in the freezer to break it up. In doing
this, I hit a part of the freezer where the air is kept in that makes the
freezer freeze and in turn released the air and killed the freezer. Way to
go Jules. So now we are waiting for the technician to come back and take our
fridge to wherever it is that they take it and repair the freezer. All of
our fridge and freezer stuff is now split up between the houses of a few of
our friends here.


Women¹s Group update
Since the first women¹s meeting, the women have met one other time, this
time without me, to discuss their priorities as a group. My counterpart said
that the women who were at the first meeting were very excited to be working
with me and for the second meeting they all brought friends and there was a
total of 22 women who showed! So they discussed their priorities which are
the following:

1. To learn English (and French) to be able to communicate with tourists
(apparently everyone in Maio has this vision of the entire world flooding
into Maio by the thousands to visit from the way they all talk about it)
2. To learn how to do a project
3. The 8 women who make the bags want to get funding to teach more women how
to use their looms and make bags.
4. To have a large meeting with other women¹s groups from other islands to
share ideas, etc
5. To build a hair salon and train other women to do hair (this one is
really my counterparts wish because her daughter owns a salon and she has no
materials for it)

So anyways, I¹m going to meet with them Sunday to discuss what hours I am
available to teach English and work out a regularly scheduled meeting plan.
Last night, my counterpart invited my roommate, the Americans, and me to her
house for lobster and drinks. The Americans passed by her house on the way
to work everyday and I think she wanted some interaction with our
fascinating culture. The lobster was amazing and anyone who visits me will
be invited to go eat some. While we were there, we told my counterpart that
we have a neighbor who¹s son¹s name is ³praia di mar² which translates to
³beach.² We always here them yelling to Praia di Mar to come for lunch or go
run an errand and have been thinking there¹s no way someone named their kid
that. Well, the entire situation was clarified by my counterpart.
Apparently, this kid was swimming in the ocean one day and almost drowned so
his family now calls him ³Praia di Mar² as a nickname. It¹s a pretty sick
joke if you ask me. It¹s be like calling a cancer survivor ³Cigarette.² I
don¹t if I¹m missing something here but the whole thing is pretty strange to
me.

After a candle lit lobster dinner (thanks to the electricity being off once
again), we head back to Vila and hit up the British guy¹s restaurant for
some ice cream. Since the Americans were leaving the next day, we had to
help them partake in their last share of the best ice cream on Maio. I¹m
really fascinated by the owner of the restaurant and his job. He and his
crew dig up ships and excavate them. He showed us photos from a long time
ago of a ship they found off the coast of Cape Verde which ended up
belonging to the US Navy. They found old bottles that look like what you see
Captain Jack Sparrow drinking from in Pirates of the Caribbean. It¹s really
fascinating and there¹s talk of a new project for him to work on. I¹d be
really interested in seeing what they find.

This morning I woke up and the Americans came by to say goodbye. This was
especially exciting because they left us a plethora of American treats
including goldfish crackers, wheat thins, cheese its, chewy granola bars,
trail mix, dried fruit, drink mix, rice crispy treats, Monopoly, Risk,
Poker, horseshoes, a Frisbee, and a variety of sunscreens, bug sprays,
soaps, and other odds and ends. Yes, today we were spoiled rotten- its like
Christmas/Hanukkah and it was great. But it is really sad to see our friends
go and we will miss them a lot.

Today must be my lucky day because after lunch, we went to check the mail
and I had 3 packages from my mom, a packet of letters from my World Wise
school, and a letter from one of my good friends. I was so excited. My mom¹s
packages included my birthday present (thanks Mom and Dad), the new Chris
Thile cd (J), shorts, and crystal light mix. It was great. And I was so
excited to hear back from my school in the states. It made me really excited
and I can¹t wait to continue corresponding with them.

This weekend I¹m finishing up plans for the first girl¹s group meeting which
is on Monday and preparing lesson plans for teaching English and Computers.

Ti logoŠ.