Differences, but not the song by Ginuwine…

It’s good to talk how people are alike and we’re a common humanity. I believe it too, though I only know five countries (plus Amsterdam’s airport. I’m told this doesn’t count. It was nice and I think I’ll like Europe immensely). It’s probably more interesting to you intrepid readers, who bravely slog through my awkward and infrequent posts, to hear about differences. I’ll say, in my day-to-day life, what’s different from the US and put approximate prices, to show how expensive it is. Things are often as pricey as the US, yet per capita GDP in CV is less than $1,500/year, and much less for average farmers. Fogo and Santo Antão are the poorest islands.

I wake at 6:45, faintly hearing roosters. Trucks rumble by filled with pilfered sand from the beaches or volcano. I get water from the filter, bleach it, and drink. I put CV coffee ($2.50/250g) in a pot and mix in 1.5 mugs of water. I light the gas stove with a Bic, singeing my hand. The oven is scarier. It’s a mini explosion. On another burner I fry an egg ($0.25). A common misconception is the need to refrigerate eggs. False. I’ve never refrigerated here, and I’ve only been to the hospital twice. Maybe I have parasites or amoebas but raw cookie dough is worth it. Fresh cow’s milk is not. No thank you. But it’s true, some doctor somewhere said eggs are fine at room temp. While coffee and egg cook, I peel a Fogo orange ($0.25), pale yellow, bruised, dirty, sour-ish, full of seeds. They don’t taste bad, and I like to support Fogo. Coffee boils a few minutes, and then I turn it off and let the grounds settle. I slowly pour into a mug, trying to keep the sludge in the pot.

After breakfast I walk to the office, passing women with big bowls balanced beautifully (alliteration!) on their heads, full of produce, fish, or clothes. Men idle near Hotel Xaguate with spear guns and other fishing implements. Kids going to morning session (to maximize existing infrastructure and teachers, school is ½ day) walk by, some in pressed school shirts, knockoff Diesel jeans, and Nike Air Force 1s, others in grubby t-shirts and holey flip-flops, or no footwear at all. Goats graze the ribeiras (valleys) or wander the streets, eating delicious delicious trash.

At the mint green office trimmed in black and white painted stones, I greet Cape Verdean, Portuguese, Brazilian, Guinean (Bissau), Cuban, and German colleagues in Kriolu and Portuguese. If power’s out, people cluster on the veranda smoking and chatting. Farmers fresh from the fields mingle with snappily dressed office workers. Extensionists zoom in and out of the parking lot on 1970s and 80s Honda dirt bikes, past 90s pickups and sparkling 2000s Toyota Prados (Land Cruisers).

In the office I sit with my boss and our colleague, competing for the Ethernet cable. Gmail offline is my savior. I bring toilet paper and hand sanitizer, in the likely situation the bathroom lacks both. To flush, turn on the water to fill the tank as it’s not automatic. I once had to scour the maid closet, finding a bucket of mop water to flush because the tank wouldn’t fill. In this water-poor country, if it’s yellow, let it mellow, if it’s brown etc. etc. I do lunch at 12ish, going home for leftovers and returning at 1ish. I drink “juice,” a catchall term encompassing real juice, Coke, Fanta, and what I have, Foster Clark’s, a glorified Kool Aid. At 3:30 I leave, passing people desiring a ride.

Hitchhiking is normal. If you own a car you help those less fortunate. There are also paid taxis and shared vans/pickups, which run more-or-less fixed routes but stop where you want within reason. There are a few buses, and 40 of us once waited 30 minutes while a rider got a haircut. Most people let you jump in their pickup bed for a lift. If you want to go somewhere, start walking and you’ll get a ride.

For shopping, it’s the commercial district or Super Rodrigo, the cheapest food store. It’s been dubbed, by PCVs, the Wal-Mart of CV. It’s a supermarket, home/building supply, and bulk food store. Supermarkets are stocked like decent 7-11s or gas stations. Sometimes prices are marked. The Shell gas station is open everyday, while everything else closes Sundays. For fresh produce or fish it’s the Mercado Municipal, with women vending what’s in season, from apples to beans to goat cheese. Tuna, serra (sawfish?), grouper, and others are available. Sushi-grade tuna costs $2.50/lb. Unlike other W. African countries, there’s little haggling. For household goods visit Chinese stores (lojas chinés), owned/run by Chinese people. They vend hilariously low-quality goods cheaply. There’s another open-air market, with knockoff and almost new clothes and electronics.

I read, nap, or listen to BBC until 5:30 when run with friends. We go to the port and back, maybe 4 miles? If a ship just arrived we go see, or go to the beach, climb the rocks, or check out the fishermen motoring their little skiffs in from the choppy seas between Fogo and Brava, one of the smallest islands, hulking ominously in the distance. You can also see the Dry Islands (Ilhas Secas), which are uninhabited but intriguing.

Back home, I drink milk with camoca (like ground burnt popcorn kernels that didn’t pop with sugar), relax, and start dinner. Usually I have rice and beans, like a good Cape Verdean. After, it’s reading, meeting friends at a bar, or if Friday the discoteca. Every so often I shower. We have running water, but we do it the submarine way, i.e. get wet, turn off the water, soap up, then rinse. It’s on less than a minute. I hit the sack before 11 and repeat in the morning.

On weekends (not every weekend) I wash clothes, bending over a basin of water with a washboard and a bar of laundry soap, the kind in the US you’re not supposed to touch. At first it makes the skin fall off your hands, but they learn. You can also wash your face with it. After wringing, I hang clothes on the roof, hoping the neighbor’s dog Kiko won’t tear them down and stink ‘em up like she did with my 2nd favorite pair of pants. The sun’s strong, drying clothes in 3-4 hours. I have trouble grasping how a “real” washing machine works now, considering I use about 3 gallons of water and no electricity. Clothes take a beating, but they’re cleaner than with a machine. It’s a good workout, but probably explains why many older women are hunchbacked.

I guess the last difference is total strangers are nice and invite you into their lives, especially in rural areas. I don’t think it’s because I’m white, either. It makes a big difference speaking Kriolu, not Portuguese, the language of colonization, oppression, and starvation (100,000+ Cape Verdeans died of hunger in the 1900s). More so in Chã, I felt like an accepted member of the families.

All right txau. Obrigadu.

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)