Txuba txobi, txuba bedju

The rainy season (August to October-ish) is in full force. For me it’s not enjoyable, with thousands of flies in the house; everything damp, chilly, molding; not running much, staying in the house. Flies have an affinity for landing on one’s face, particularly the lips. Their cold, wet bodies scampering along every exposed centimeter of flesh never fails to disgust and annoy. Thankfully when the lights (candles) go out, they ascend to the ceiling and stay until morning.

My house like all others is a concrete box, whose benefits are price and ease/speed of construction. They’re cold in winter (it gets below 0º C, or 32 º F for you Americans and Brits ), leak, don’t hold paint well, take long to dry, and use imported cement and sand stolen from CV’s beaches and volcanoes. Doors and shutters (glass windows are a distinct luxury) are normally wooden, swelling in the rainy season making them difficult to open and close. In the dry season they shrink, making it easy for dust, vermin, bugs, and disreputable people to enter. With all that swelling and shrinking they don’t last long either.

Despite the negatives, the rainy season is essential. Whenever I get sick of the rains, I remind myself of the 100,000+ Cape Verdeans who starved to death during droughts during the World Wars. Consider that CV’s population today of around 500,000. The fantastically terrible colonial masters, the Portuguese, let this mass starvation happen. These famines are sometimes referred to as, “the times we ate dogs.” The international community saved Cape Verde from similar disaster several times after independence.

Every colonial power was dastardly, but Portugal ranks up there with the worst. At least the French and British left infrastructure and decent schools. Portugal left nothing but the misery it cultivated during its rule. There’s much underlying animosity for the Portuguese, who come to work and play. They’re described often as “atrevida,” or “cheeky, bold, insolent.” You see it in the way some visitors behave, how they treat the place and people, looking down on it. I’ve been told Americans are highly attuned to these things: we’re extremely politically correct. I have many Portuguese friends and haven’t experienced mistreatment, though a Cape Verdean acquaintance said of course, because America is better off than Portugal, but it’s different for CV and her people. They look up to America and down on CV, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Moçambique.

I’d like to visit Portugal. It’s also often called “atrasado,” or “late.” I admit taking pleasure in an international development book from the 70s describing it as part of the Third World. It’s a country with a proud, but ancient history. Younger Portuguese, born after colonialism, who seem well-educated, modern, and fun, must come to terms with this. The days of Portuguese dominance in exploration, naval power, and colonialism are long gone. The youth understand this, but perhaps don’t know how to move forward. Many seem sheepish or apologetic when taking about the past and present, and unconfident or worried about the future.

It never fails to surprise me of CV’s smallness. The last time I went to Praia, some other PCVs and I went to a discoteca, where we hung out with one of CV’s newest and biggest rap stars. He was a student of one of them at UniCV. It’s no wonder recently when there was a Celine Dion video on someone asked if I knew her and the people in the video. I identify my state, Michigan, as where “that white rapper, Eminem,” is from. “Do you know him? Akon? Chris Brown?” Otherwise Kriolu pronunciation leads people to believe I’m Mexican. This breeds more confusion when I tell how cold it is, how much snow we have. “I thought Mexico was hot?”

Anyway that’s about it. Thanks for reading. Stay dry!