Saturday, August 25, 2007

Almost Home

It's Saturday of Week 8 and this week has been the most relaxing since I've been here for training. Week 8 was designated as project implementation week which means that all the CD (community development) groups were confirming speakers, materials, etc for their projects and are implementing them this weekend, and all the ED (Education) groups were implementing Model School. I'm very impressed by this year's group and I think their projects are going to go really well.

The youth development group is doing a fun day this afternoon using adolescents in the community to teach dance, songs, games, and art crafts to kids.

The environmental eduacation group is doing a trash pick up and as I've heard lately, is scheming to have people pick up trash in pairs, using only 2 arms between the two of them.

And the mobilizers are doing a school clean up, fixing broken chairs, windows, washing tables and floors, and then having music and food afterwards.

I'm relieved that mom's surgery is over with and she seems to be recovering well. She has been on my mind nonstop for the past few weeks.

One week left and I'm back in Maio. I'm really looking forward to moving in and getting my life settled.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Photos



Tina and Jonah's Despidida (going away party) with the super hero theme



Mel and Minga- Super Hiaku at Tina and Jonah's Despidida



Statue of women's rebellion in Ribera Manuel



Theater group in Assomada presenting a typical Cape Verdian lifestyle



Ledi, me, and Micha, who work with me at the CEJ



Stephanie's Birthday



These are the girls that we spend a lot of time with on Maio.
hings in Cape Verde are busy. I recently helped with an exchange program with music, art, dance, theater, etc teachers coming from American and teaching along with Cape Verdian teachers in the same subjects. Students from both CV and America will be attending this two week intensive program and my role was to help translate for the teachers so that they could make their class plans. Its a really cool program and the arts are something definitely lacking from Cape Verde. I also found out that the music teacher from Cape Verde was the teacher to the guy I´m teaching violin to and we made a connection. I think in the next few weeks we will get together and play music. He wants to put on a concert somewhere but I don´t know if I´m up to that since I haven´t played in awhile.

On top of that, I´ve been leading training sessions for the new Community Development Mobilzier trainees on finding their role, networking, teaching informal classes, tourism, etc. We're now on week 7 of 9 and they should find out their site placements on Friday. This PST is going a lot faster than last year. The new group is great and I'm enjoying getting to know them. Wednesday is a Saint's Day in Txan de Tanque and I'm planning on spending the next few nights there leading up to the big festa. I've heard there are lots of activities taking place: plays, batuque dancing, traditional music, etc.

In other news, all the flights to Maio have been cancelled for the next 3 months because there is something wrong with the runway. This means all travel will have to be done by boat which pretty much sucks really bad but at least I´ll get back there at some point. Good thing they are so eager to promote tourism...

This past weekend I went on a hike to the Big Tree with a bunch of the trainees and other PCVs. I was planning on visiting my host family yesterday but my digestive system prevented me from doing pretty much of anything.

But anyways, on to a new week. I don't have any sessions that I am directly leading so this will make for a more relaxing week in some ways.