Kuzas

I’m pretty much settled in São Felipe. Two Thursdays ago I got a boleia (free ride) with a friend to Chã das Caldeiras. I stayed on Lauren’s cot, which is built to comfortably sleep people under 5’6”. I’m not one of them. You kind of have to curl up in Chã at night right now anyway since it’s cold. When I bought a 45 degree sleeping bag before leaving, I thought, “Ha, 45 degrees I’m going to Africa this is overkill. I’m getting screwed!” Incorrect.

We made the rounds, saying hi to everyone. We spent time at Ramiro’s, but that goes without saying. Everyone was nice but it was hard to go just to leave. I need to quit Chã cold turkey. I’m losing my cat eyes too; walking in the dark without a light was somewhat difficult.

We left Saturday, so Friday night Lauren and I had dinner with a visiting Peace Corps boss and a mutual friend. The mother of my favorite village girls works at the restaurant. Friday those three, their son/brother, and another restaurant worker watched Home Alone on a portable DVD player in the kitchen where there are outlets connected to the generator. I had a good time explaining, as it was in English with Chinese subtitles, inexplicably.

Odja kel jelo na txon. E sima nha zona na merka. (Look at that snow on the ground. It’s like in my zone in America). E verdad? (Is it real?). Sim, e verdad. (Yeah, it’s real). Es sta na Paris. Es skesi ses fidju. (They’re in Paris. They forgot their son).

The next morning as we got in the pickup, the mother ordered a daughter back to the house, and moments later she returned breathlessly with a sack of potatoes and apples for me. Just another reason why I love it there. It’s not the free food, but it’s that they need it much more than me but wouldn’t think twice about sharing.

I finally got the rest of my stuff from Chã, including my clothes hanger thing, oven with gas tank, mattress, bed frame, and shelf unit. I never managed to get a park car, so we loaded the winery pickup with some stuff and put the bed in a work truck full of bottled wine for sale. The driver, Adriano, took it straight to the house in São Felipe, while we went to Ponte Verde and Curral Grande. Then I went to São Felipe with the stuff and finally put together my room.

It’s worth mentioning that the Chã winery will export wines to the US for the first time, in the Boston/Brockton area. Every year production rises, so winos be on the lookout. They produce white, red, rosé, passito, grappa, grogue from quince or grapes, and several liquors, like pomegranate and one infused with local herbs (digestivo).

A few weeks ago a neighbor girl in Chã was wearing a midriff-length shirt. She raised her arms and Lauren and I saw a bright white streak across her belly. “Psst, ben li. E kuze?” (Hey, come over here. What’s that?) She had a nasty burn from hot jam, football-shaped, maybe 2in X 1in. The white stuff was toothpaste. I ran and got my PC med kit and we instructed her how to properly care for it and gave her triple antibiotic and bandages.

I feel the office slowly crushing my soul, to exaggerate slightly. It’s tough to maintain Kriolu sitting at the computer all day. One benefit of living in São Felipe is I’m learning Portuguese. I’d never speak it to the average João, but it’s imperative when working with international consultants, who of course don’t know Kriolu. It’s useful in a lot of places too, like Brazil, Moçambique, Guiné-Bissau, and Angola. It’s the 7th most spoken language in the world…

This Saturday Jonny and I got together with friends at one of their houses for lunch which ended up lasting ‘til eleven. The guy with the house is a Luxemburger working for the water company on Fogo. Two of his colleagues, another Luxemburger and a Columbian came. Then there was a gaggle of Portuguese, three nurses and three dentists. Two Cape Verdeans came. One German working to develop the wine industry made it. And finally three Turkish rock climbers showed. It’s a really nice group. I like everyone and getting to practice Portuguese. I don’t feel comfortable speaking it to Cape Verdeans, being the language of colonization and oppression.

Sometimes I feel so far from what I imagined before leaving the US. One of my first projects will be a website, far from community development for which I volunteered. If I can make an impact on people’s lives here, that’s good, but still I feel, so, I don’t know…

Thanks for reading. Nhos fika kampion (You all stay awesome)