Thursday, January 25, 2007

New Year

Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Yeah, I know its been awhile since I’ve written. I’ve been in a slump recently so I haven’t felt like really doing much at all. I had problems with transportation which turned into an enormous pain and then I was really frustrated with the youth center for not really holding any activities and not helping make my ideas turn into reality. They pretty much shot down my Global Youth Service Day project idea because one person was “busy” and the other was “uninterested.” I spoke with my counterpart at the Camara about my frustrations and we held a meeting for the employees at the youth center. So hopefully things will start picking up. I’m going to be teaching an art class (which really means I will be doing art projects with 8-11 year olds) and English classes for kids. By having more activities I didn’t necessarily mean me leading more activities but if this is what it takes to show them that more people need to be leading things then I’m happy to do it. They are talking about arranging chess, uril (like mancala), dominos, ping pong, and card tournaments but I’m a little skeptical as to if they’ll really happen. I have a meeting tonight about something with the CEJ but I’m not sure exactly what.

In good news, the Ambassador is coming to visit Maio and my roommate and I have been invited to some sort of activity/ceremony thing with the Africa Development Fund and the Ambassador. So that should be interesting. It will also be nice to chat with the Ambassador and his wife. If I remember correctly from swear in, this will be his first trip to Maio.

Wednesday, January 24
So last week I had a meeting with a person from the Camara who wants me to help with a project to keep girls from becoming promiscuous when all the tourists come to Maio. So we are going to work with the Red Cross and the girl’s group to plan activities, have speakers, etc about women’s issues, health, reproduction, volunteerism, etc. Hopefully we’ll get a good crowd. Unfortunately, both the person from the Camara and the Red Cross person are going out of town today so I’ll be starting this myself, not that I mind but I really want Cape Verdians to be doing the majority of the work since it is benefiting them. But, nevertheless I hope it all works out.


So I hit a new low today: a guy asked me to copy a dvd for him. He brought it in an envelope because he “doesn’t want people to talk.” Inside the envelope was a hard core porn film. I think I almost peed in my pants. Anyways, I was at the CEJ and was thinking this is ridiculous and there is no way I am going to copy a porn for someone, especially being at a youth center where we are supposed to be enriching the minds of the youth, not introducing them to hard core porn. Luckily the blank dvd didn’t have enough space anyway so I had even more reason not to make the dvd. Anyways, it was definitely a new experience here. Good thing the Ambassador didn’t walk in during the episode.




Monday, January 8, 2007
Happy Birthday Daniel! Sorry I haven’t written in awhile. Mike came to visit on the 28th and I just came back from Praia today after a little crazyness. I flew to Praia before he arrived and stayed with two other volunteers. I had fun getting ice cream and hanging out with them. I ran into a one of our trainers from PST and it was really interesting seeing him in a social setting outside from the usual professionalism that we get during PST. We eventually ended up at another volunteer’s house and hung out for awhile before my all nighter waiting for Mike’s flight to get in at 4 am. I ran into our Country Director at the airport as well as another volunteer who was returning from Christmas vacation. It really shows how small this country is when you run into 2 people you know at the airport.

So the next day we slept in and got a hotel. We pretty much slept all day and later went to the PC office where I got to introduce him to everyone and ran into yet more volunteers. I can see how the Praia people can get tired of playing host since there really always is someone in Praia for one reason or another.

The next day (Friday) we took a plane back to Maio and went straight to Calheta for English class. I was really glad Mike got to be there to see what I do at least for part of my work and I think he had a good time getting students to yell words back to him in English and learning a little kriolu from my counterpart. He tried his first moreia, eel, and a shot of grogue. During the visit to Maio we also managed to walk up on the pier where someone was dissecting a pufferfish that they had just caught. I asked them if they were going to eat it and was informed that they don’t eat pufferfish, they are just used for art.

New Years eve was pretty calm- watched a few movies and had some wine at midnight. The real party didn’t start until about 2:30 or 3 and we didn’t stay too long because my stomach was having issues. The roommate lasted at the festa until like 8 am. Anyways, the festa was on the beach under this big tent thing with a spread of food that included whole baby pigs, lobster, pizza, cake, sangria, and enough beer, ponche, grogue, and wine to get the US Marines drunk. They also had a big bonfire on the sand.

The next few days we spent on a mission to get Mike’s plane ticket moved from Monday to Friday since the roommate and I had to go Praia on Friday for IST (In Service Training). Unfortunately it was full so no dice on that one. Instead we ended up buying boat tickets for Thursday and headed out on a 2 and a half hour boat ride to Praia.

The boat was pretty awful and rocky and the guy next to me was puking the entire way. I decided that my pirate fantasy will have to take place on dry land since I don’t think I could handle being in a boat for a long time, much less living at sea. I got a phone call from Peace Corps while I was on the boat telling me to take a boat to Praia because the planes weren’t going to be flying. I thought it was a little strange that someone would call me and tell me that when I had spoken with the same person the day before to let them know I was going to take a boat. So they got in touch with the roommate who was planning on the plane and she ended up having to take the later boat. Unfortunately for her, her motion sickness kicked in and we’ll just say she didn’t have the best ride over.

The next morning I get a call from Peace Corps saying that IST has been postponed because the sand storms coming from the Sahara are stopping flights from coming. So my roommate gets on the plane, an hour later, back to Maio and I decide to stay in Praia for the weekend with Mike. We ended up going to Sao Domingos to visit my host family and it was so wonderful to see them. I finally met the sister who studies in Dakar and she seems really nice. The 3 year old was so cute. He came up to me and gave me a big hug on my way to the house. My host mom was at the hospital with her niece, visiting from France, who had just had an allergic reaction to peanuts. I thought that was pretty funny considering my allergy. After she calmed down from the shot and meds she was really active and had fun playing with us. We met up with the volunteer that lives there and hung out for a bit. We also went on the hike I used to do during training and it brought back so many memories. I had such a good time. It was also fun watching Mike interact with my host mom and her trying to teach him kriolu. I and everyone else must have looked like him when we arrived- with the sort of deer caught in headlights, overwhelmed sort of look.

We spent Sunday in Praia getting some shopping done (with what was open since everything closes down on Sundays). It was kind of nice to walk through the Sucapira (a huge outdoor market) with only a few stands open and not a bazillion people. In the afternoon we learned that a few other volunteers were in town so we all met up for dinner.

I’m now back in Maio and getting things cracking. I taught English today and spoke with one of the weaving people about setting up a meeting to make plans for a project so hopefully we’ll be meeting by the end of the week to do something concrete. I also talked with my counterpart about getting the women together to make an activity plan for the next few months. So hopefully this week will be really productive. I ‘m going tomorrow to the micro-credit place to work on the brochure and power point presentation and the CEJ to figure out a plan for Youth Day and what sort of activities we can to in the center. I’m working on a project proposal to do a “what to do after high school” class sort of thing where we bring in professionals from different fields to talk to high school juniors and seniors and allow them to ask questions and get more information. Maybe it could be something done jointly with the high school. So I’m trying to keep myself motivated, especially after all the holidays and stuff that seemed to sort of slow down for a bit.