Tuesday, December 12, 2006
This past weekend was pretty quiet. Sunday afternoon I taught violin and my student brought a guitar along and we spent about an hour after the lesson playing Christmas carol duets. It was pretty fun. We ended up with a small crowd of little boys who came to listen. That night our friends came over, one of them in particular was pretty drunk, and played with the puppies, and gave us a dance lesson. This dance lesson lasted for about 2 hours and was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. Needless to say, my dancing skills are pretty horrific so I kept getting, “no Julia, like this...”

Yesterday the roommate and I went to TACV to get tickets to Boa Vista for Christmas but soon learned that she can’t get away from school so I’m not going to waste the money when I’ll see everyone a few weeks later for IST.

This morning I got up to go to teach computers and found out that someone from Borreiro died this morning which translates into no class this week. So the driver who was going to take me to Borreiro drove me to a store to get a new phone charger. At some point yesterday the puppies got into my room and decided to chew through the old phone charger so that it is in two pieces. Thanks a lot Fubar and Gatsby. So the store doesn’t have any more chargers so now I have to wait for them to order one and in the meantime, my driver friend is going to try to connect the pieces together and make it work.

I’m now reaching my 6 month mark in being away from the states. I can’t tell if it feels like I’ve been gone for a long time or if I’ve just left. Every time I travel its different. When I studied in Senegal I would be back in the states by now. I guess knowing that I’m here for such a long period of time makes me not really think about the time passing. Right now I’m just really looking forward to Mike coming to visit and then I have IST to look forward to so things are good.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006
After the English class yesterday I ended up talking with my counterpart and met up with another girl from the women’s group and a woman from the “alphatabetacao” which is a group that works with illiteracy. Between her group, the women, and Peace Corps we are going to put on a Christmas lunch party for the fishermen of Calheta because every year there are parties for children and old people but a lot of groups are neglected. This includes the fishermen. I couldn’t tell you all that much about their trade or how they are treated but I am happy to be working on projects when people are taking initiative so I am pretty excited.

So we agreed to meet this morning to talk to different organizations. So at 10 this morning we went to the Association of Fishermen, the Post Office, Telecom, the water place, the micro-credit office, Shell, TACV, and random people and asked them for financial help with our lunch. We got a lot of come back later or tomorrows but individual people were being very generous which was great.

I went to the bank this morning to see if my atm card had come in yet like I was told and I get there to wait 45 minutes and ended up getting a piece of paper with my pin number but no actual card. The guy tells me it will be here in 10 days. I never thought this would take so long.

So next week is going to be filled with parties. Tuesday is the fishermen party, Thursday we make cookies at the CEJ for my activity, Friday is a party for the people who work at the CEJ and Friday night is a party for the teachers at the high school which I’m getting to attend because everyone thinks that my roommate and I have to do everything together. Then Saturday is a huge party for all the children in Maio and Monday is Christmas. Too bad no one here celebrates Hanukkah. I think I’m going to invite people over to eat latkes and doughnuts this coming Friday.

Saturday, December 23, 2006
So this was probably the longest week I’ve had. I got a little cold/sore throat/loss of voice but I think its finally recovering. The fisherman party on Tuesday went really well. I left Vila at 9 am to help with preparations and didn’t get home until 7 at night. During the day I ran back and forth from different houses pretty much all day helping the boss lady make sure everything was on task and helped cook. I got to mix cake batter in a large bowl, cut and peel potatoes, and sprinkle cheese on top of pizzas. I finally realized how much work and how many people go into making a party happen in Cape Verde. At one house there were about 6 or 7 women making racoes (a type of fried dough with fish inside and covered in breadcrumbs), 10 cakes, pizza (this includes homemade dough), chicken with sauce, popcorn, and some other fried snack food. At the other house there were another half a dozen people making xeren (kind of like grits but less thinly ground), chicken with various sauces, vegetables- manioc, sweet potatoes, English potatoes, etc, rice, and kongo (type of beans). I orignially thought that the party was a lunch which of course meant that we wouldn’t start eating before 5. So by 2:30 I was starving and the family whose house was making the snack foods fed me lunch of rice, fries, and fish. By that point I didn’t want any of the snacks afterwards.

The whole festa was supposed to start at 2:30 but no one showed up until 4 (pretty typical). Once the actual program started, the head of the alfabatizacao and the micro credit organization came and spoke to the fisherman. Then the head of the fisherman association spoke and then I was forced up front to make a statement. I explained Peace Corps and then not knowing how to inspire the fisherman ended up making a fool out of myself and said “I like fish.” After the speeches a few people put on a skit which I didn’t fully understand but everyone laughed at. And then finally it was time for food. While we were eating I was asked for help in procurring a boat for one of the fishermen and was told that I was someone’s mudjer (woman). I think its absolutely ridiculous that people just sort of claim you and assume that’s cool with you. It was a little weird and he was drunk so I just kind of ignored it.

I don’t know how they knew but apparently everyone at the festa knew that I play the violin or “rebecca” as they call it, and brought one over for me to play. I can tell you this, by the time I leave here I better not be scared of playing in front of people because they put the instrument in my hands and crowded around me like a movie star or something. Since I don’t know how to play Cape Verdian music yet I played a few Christmas carols for them and they loved it. After playing other men proceeded to tell me that they like women who can play instruments- sorry buddy, I’m not interested. One woman invited me to play violin with her batuk (a type of traditional dance) group which could be really fun. It was a really great day and it made me so happy to be here.

Wednesday I went to Barreiro to teach computers and none of my students showed up. I was told that someone else died this week so that could be why or they just didn’t want to come. I got really frustrated that no one was coming to class so I didn’t go the rest of the week. I’m here for them so if they won’t make the effort to show up for something they asked for, I won’t go. In the afternoon I went over to the leader of the group for people with deficiencies’ house to help put together Christmas gifts from the Camara for all of the people on Maio who have deficiencies.

Thursday was another really rewarding day. I went with the woman from yesterday and a few guys from the CEJ and my favorite driver from the Camara to drive around the entire island to deliver the care packages. These consisted of a bag of powdered milk, a 2 liter bottle of soda (or sumol as they call it here), 4 packs of cookies, a pack of spaghetti, and 500 escudos. The smile on people’s faces when we brought them a gift was priceless and it felt really good to be giving to people who could use some extra cheer during the holidays. It also really opened my eyes to the extent of people with deficiencies on this island and how they are treated. Most of them stay inside the house all the time so you never see them but I did get to see that Maio has people in wheelchairs, people whose minds make them think like children, people who are deaf, people with lack of hearing, limbs, even what I presume is Down Syndrome. It was a wonderful experience for me and I hope that the Camara can do more to show the handicapped community that they are important and better integrate them into the community.

Friday was the day of festas. I was supposed to go to 3 but one was cancelled because a few fisherman from the community have not been seen in 2 days so there is a somber mood in the town. The CEJ festa was fun. I helped set up, which is just as important as the food itself. At every festa, the women spend like half an hour just putting things into dishes and arranging them on the table. The 10 o’clock start time for the festa was really the time to start arranging everything so we didn’t actually eat until 1. Can I get another, you know you are in Cape Verde when...? While I waited I went to see my friend who just returned home from having a baby and the baby. She is doing really well and her baby is so cute. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a baby that young before and he’s so little and has these cute little fingers and toes.

In the afternoon I went to Calheta for my English class party. The girls all brought the usual party foods and we had a good time singing Christmas songs in English and learning words about the holidays in English. One of my students made me couscous, one of my favorite foods here (its not like your couscous in the states but more like a dry cake made of the couscous flour stuff, potato puree, and cooked over water so it absorbs the water).