FOGOOOOOOOOOOO

Sorry for not positing the last month or so. The transition from training to actual service was quite hectic, and my site, lacking electricity and thus an internet caf� makes it difficult. Still, I�ll try to get posting more regularly as I have more time to write, once I find a place to charge my laptop.
I live in Ch� das Caldeiras on the island of Fogo (Fogo means fire in Portuguese; the island is a volcano). I live in the crater of the original volcano. Mt. Fogo is the highest peak and is literally in my front year. I climbed it with several Spanish tourists and a local guide, which took around four hours up and 1.5 hours down. Going down is sweet; you kind of ski/run or loose cinders. The volcano last erupted in 1995 (with no loss of life, Mom!).
My house is a two room cinder block rectangular box connected to my landlady�s bedroom and kitchen. She also has several rooms to rent to tourists, primarily Europeans. If you�d like to visit you can stay there, if you don�t want to share my double bed or the concrete floor. No electricity or running water, which was actually quite easy to get used to. I get water from a tank which is filled from rainwater from the roof, bucket by bucket. Thankfully, my most possession, my Freeplay Summit shortwave radio, is solar and crank powered. I charge my cell phone at the winery here, a project funded in large part by an Italian group. It has solar panels and a generator for power, and it�s understood that citizens can charge phones there. I cook for myself on a gas stove, the kind you have to light with a match and almost burn your hand. I don�t keep much food on hand, lacking a fridge. I wash my clothes by hand every so often and am probably scoffed at by the more �traditional� Cape Verdean men.
So this is a rich agricultural area, as a result of the volcanic soil and relatively good rain. Right now is the fijon and nbonji harvest, types of beans. I spend lots of time with local women removing beans from the pods. Apples are just coming in, and grapes, pomegranates, and quince just finished. There�s also coffee, tomatoes, potatoes, and other beans. People keep fewer animals here than in my training village on Santiago, but there are chickens, pigeons, cows, pigs, goads, donkeys, and wild Guinea fowl.
This is a big tourist area by Cape Verdean standards (the country is small, around 450,000 people with a landmass equal to Rhode Island, divided amongst ten islands). Oh Kevin, if you read this, Rhode Island is not an island. I live on an island, which is surrounded on all sides by water. That�s what an island is! There are a few restaurants and hostels as well as the winery. I like talking to tourists, apologizing for the last eight years of American politics (Peace Corps is nonpartisan, but volunteers aren�t required to be), etc. I�ve met Germans, Portuguese, Swiss, Austrians, Spaniards, Brits, French, as well as workers from Guinea Conakry and Bissau, Senegal, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. I never know what language to speak to them, and sometimes I just speak Kriolu to make fun of the tourists.
Sorry this has been rater dry; the next ones will be better. So I guess I�ll go through an average day:
Wake up around 6:30 when the birds start chirping and my landlady stirs. Make breakfast, normally PB and J or oatmeal, and coffee. Listen to BBC and do Sudoku or crosswords for awhile. Read Newsweek or a book for awhile. I try to run a bit either before or after lunch. It�s hard with the altitude and I�ve been sick the last few weeks, but am better now. Then I go up the road to the other volunteer�s house, usually getting diverted to help shuck beans or talk. Then Lauren and I chill awhile, talk to people, bounce project ideas back and forth, etc. For lunch it�s usually leftovers, rice and beans (the local staple), some sort of stew, or pasta. Afterwards it�s more of the same until dinner. After dinner I read by candlelight for an hour or two, until I�m tired. I�ve read 11 books so far (�Siddhartha� was the best, �Naked Lunch� the most difficult, probably because Burroughs was strung out on heroin when he wrote it). Finally I blow out the candle, curl up in my sleeping bag, and hit the hay.
I think the best thing I�ve see, so far, aside from the view from the top of the volcano, was a drunk guy in a hockey jersey, cutoff jean shorts, and Timberlands, riding a donkey down the road, slumped to one side, at 10 am apologizing profusely. The night before I found him passed out on the side of the road in the dense fog.