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November 4, 2007

Today marks 12 years since my Bat Mitzvah. It¹s strange to know that it was
that long ago. Time passes so quickly and it seems that each year passes
faster than the last. Its only 16 days until my parents come to visit me and
I am so excited. We¹ve been planning a visit since before I even arrived at
site, over a year ago, and the time is finally approaching. Each week seems
like a day and months seem like weeks. The next 10 months of my service are
going to fly by. People (Cape Verdians) are already asking what I¹m going to
do when I get back to the states and are already saying I¹m going to forget
them. Impossible!

This past week was pretty uneventful. I had my classes as usual and then
Thursday was a national holiday for All Saints Day. I tried explaining
Halloween to some of my friends and they seemed to understand the concept or
at least what the celebration is. They call it ³day of the witches.² So I
celebrated All Saints Day by sleeping in, eating couscous that my landlord
brought over, and eating cabrito (baby goat) at Claudia¹s house. I was in
bed from about 3 to midnight with a killer headache so up until that point
the day was pretty nice.

Friday we didn¹t have our AIDS campaign at the school because the doctor had
just gotten back from Praia so I had Friday afternoon to myself and ended up
working on a booklet I am working on with activities for kids. Its pretty
much activities that I do with Nhos Brinka (the Saturday morning kids group)
and once I get the booklet done, I¹ll be leading a workshop for primary
school teachers in Calheta on the activities for them to incorporate them in
their classes. This week¹s Nhos Brinka was relocated to Bashona (the beach
zone of Calheta. Each town has different zones or neighborhoods. It¹s
easiest to compare to DC where you have Foggy Bottom, Capitol Hill,
Georgetown, etc. So I live in a zone called Ribona and the zone by the beach
is called Bashona. There¹s another zone called Lem Tavares which is on the
way to Bashona.) Anyways, a bunch of kids saw the women¹s group cleaning the
beach last week and I asked them afterwards if they would be interested in
doing a beach cleanup so that¹s what we did. The kids were very enthusiastic
and we cleaned the beach for about an hour until they got tired and then
moved on to futbol (soccer) on the beach. I thought the futbol portion would
be easy, I could stand back and watch them play but just like kids in every
country, some of the better players would make weaker players sit out of the
game and would refuse to leave the ³field.² I kept trying to get them to
rotate and one kid told me ³I am a good at futbol² as his excuse for not
allowing others a chance to play. It made me laugh and reminded me that kids
are the same everywhere you go. I remember in elementary school picking
teams to play kickball and the sportier people were always the team captains
and picked the best players first (boys of course) until the weaker boys and
the girls were left. Its awful knowing your rank based on when you were
picked for a team. I was always secretly upset that the girls were always
chosen last or the teacher told the team captain to choose girls first
because apparently we are the ³weaker² sex and our sports abilities are not
on par with the boys.

Anyways, after Nhos Brinka I went home to bake cakes for the AIDS campaign,
this week in Pedro Vaz, but when I called to find out details I learned we
weren¹t going to do it because the doctor was sick. Sad. I want to get to
all of the towns before World AIDS Day and that doesn¹t leave us any extra
time unless we start doubling up on Saturdays. At night I went out to the
dance for the first time in awhile and had an awesome time. I danced for
about 3 hours straight and was sweating like I had been in an intense
workout but it was so much fun. The ³new² popular song to play at the dances
is that song from Night at the Roxbury when they are bopping their heads to
the beat of the song. I started doing the head bopping here but no one
really got it. Other popular songs played were Prisoner and Smack That, and
this song called Tra Rabu which consists of the lyrics ³tra rabu, tra tra,
tra rabu tra and people shake their behinds. Its pretty much the Cape
Verdian equivalent to the song Back that Ass Up. I learned how to dance
³traditional funana² verses my attempt at moving my hips really fast trying
to copy people. I still don¹t think I¹m doing it right but I had a good time
attempting it. It¹s so much more fun to go to the dance now that I know a
lot of people. I feel more comfortable dancing since I know whom I am
dancing with and I¹m friends with a lot of the women.

This morning I slept in (until 9:30) and headed out to Bashona for our
Women¹s Group beach clean up. No one showed so I ended up cleaning the beach
for about half and hour and headed home. I¹m out of water again so I got
some from my landlord, washed dishes and then headed over to Sylvia¹s for
lunch. There¹s this American who lives in Praia and is dating a Cape Verdian
woman from Maio who I met at Calheta¹s festa last year. Anyways, she came to
Maio for the weekend and is staying with Sylvia so we¹ve gotten to hang out
again. It turns out she¹s the one who made our PC t-shirts. The three of us
had lunch together (cow!!! Its been a really long time since I¹ve had beef!)
and then took a nap together. After dozing in and out I headed home and
napped for another few hours.