My grandfather died the other day. He was 88 years old. He died on July 3rd. I heard on July 4th, Independence Day in the United States. When I was younger, my family always made the two hour trek across the tiny, liberal state of Massachusetts to watch the Independence Day parade in Pittsfield. We would swim in the pool at 151 (now 189) New Lenox Road-the house where my father was raised-and set up the net to play badminton in the yard. Past the weeping willow tree, through the secret garden and across the tiny trickling brook was a hidden basketball court where I would spend hours imagining my future as a professional basketball player. It was there, in Lenox, that many dreams began.

My grandfather, Bernard Flood Sr. was a man of his era. He fought in World War II, though I never had the chance to ask him about it. He returned from the war and joined the ranks of the survivors working to rebuild the United States. As far as I know, he began work at General Electric and remained until he retired. He, one of my heroes, worked with another one of my heroes, Kurt Vonnegut, also passed.

His first wife, my grandmother, Joan Flood passed away young in 1985. She was in her sixties-the current age of my parents. I was two. The only Grandma Flood that I have ever known is Mrs. Helen M. Flood, Bernard’s surviving wife. Estranged from my family for a few years, after their marriage, the Grandpa Floods reappeared. I remember Helen as young, exciting and enthusiastic. She drove fast and talked fast. There was always food on the table-cereal with fruit for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and pasta for dinner. Any family event warranted a fruit salad. She introduced me to a melon baller and the magical kitchen utensil unlocked hours of melon balling fun. She took us to the circus, my sister and I, when we were very young. I can still smell the stale popcorn in the air. Youth is magical because there is so much to discover while so much goes unnoticed. It is only in retrospect and the filling in of long-forgotten stories and details that we learn so much.

My grandfather was always a stoic man, a characteristic that my father, and in turn I, have inherited. I have always chewed on my tongue while deep in thought, and I realize now that Mr. Bernard Flood did the same. He always stood or sat quietly in thought, but never failed to have a sharp comment or thoughtful question. He was always aware of his limitations and never asked for much, for this I think the world of him. Since I was young, I have recognized in him qualities that I hope to possess. For the time that I knew him, he did not seem to expect much, so the world was a gift.

I do not know much about the 88 years of his life aside from the few precious moments that we spent together-many of which in the bitter cold on a chair lift to the top of the mountain. Just six months ago we were together, he on skis and I on a snowboard. He could still beat me down the mountain effortlessly despite his 88 years and failing vision. We took a picture together and it is only in looking now that I realize I had grown taller. He always seemed unproportionately larger than life, but my head towered above he and Helen’s. If nothing else humbles, I guess there is always age.

I know that he survived his wife and survived a son, my uncle Michael for whom my brother is named. He also witnessed and took part in the lives of grandchildren, seven plus, and great-grandchildren. To say he didn’t live a full life would be a lie, and I think it would be fair to say he lived a fulfilling life. I have always known him as an intelligent and pleasant man, and for that I will always admire him. I feel myself privileged to have had him as an influence in my life and am only sad that I cannot be together with my family to remember him.

When I left for Peace Corps, my greatest fear was receiving a phone call that someone in my family had passed away. I think I became closer to much of my family through the distance, and now the idea of losing anyone is much worse. While home, I went out of my way to see as many people as possible and those moments that I spent with family are among the best that I had while in the US. Life is short and precious and too often taken for granted.

For what it is worth. Thank you Mr. Bernard Flood Senior, Grandpa, for the formative role that you played in my life. You may never have realized, and I may never have said, but your opinion meant the world to me. Thank you too, Mrs. Helen M. Flood for being a wife to this wonderful man and a wonderful grandmother to me. It has meant all the world.

Today, I walked to the beach. Since my arrival two months ago, I had gently avoided this. Fear of robbery and harrassment, vergonha of my whiter-than-white stomach and general laziness kept me away. As I stood at Cruz de Papa, the brightly colored park looking over the end of the plateau that is Achada Santo Antonio, I almost turned back. The sight of the waves crashing out beyond the dirty coast stirred in me only disappointment. After spending the weekend on the stunning beaches of Maio, the dirt-brown sand and cloudy water of quebra canela seemed a sad joke.

The sound of running water woke me up with a start around six. An irrational fear that it was I wasting the valuable resource tore me out of bed, but just by standing I realized that the sound was coming from elsewhere. Once vertical, the sleep drained through my feet and, though my body was tired and my eyes not yet awake, I knew there was no turning back. My muscles echoed the previous evening’s run and my stomach, normally ready for breakfast before laying down for bed, was calm from the previous night’s feast.

As I stood by my bed, I remembered fondly the feeling of submersion. While traveling around and learning Maio, I took every opportunity to enter the water. Each time seemed better than the last as I let the powerful waves toss me around. The sand on Maio was white and clean and stretched for miles. I have never seen blues that could rival the shades of the ocean and the water was so clear that discarded fin of some fisherman’s morning catch was sighted, dancing gracefully at our feet.

I fought to suppress these images of the idyllic Maio coastline while standing, frozen in indecision. Embarrassment of my fear urged me on and I decided I may as well at least let my feet touch the water, if not for me, for everyone I know who does not live 15 minutes from the ocean. For the entirety of the descent-at least ten flights of stairs separating me from the coast-sleep tempted me from behind my eyes. When I finally reached sand, I could not help but smile. The sound of the water gently rolling in and out deafened the bitter sarcasm that immediately arose as I noticed the trash scattered everywhere. The reason for the dirt-brown sand was that it truly was dirt, a few scattered grains of sand held it together in some semblance of “beach.”

For years, the sand has been stripped from beaches in Cape Verde to mix cement for the rapid development of new houses. This once abundant natural resource has been so overused that it is now being imported for the development of tourism. The result is a few isolated privately (foreign) owned, subsidized beautiful sand beaches, and the dirt left for everyone else.

I realized how absurd I had been to fear this “task” as I watched a handful people walk up and down the confined stretch. A few pudgy foreigners created a humorous contrast to the dark, sculpted figure engaged in his morning calisthenics. My body laughed at my mind’s temptation to join them, so instead, I gingerly removed my sandals and slowly paced the water-land threshold, open ocean lapping at my feet. In a few short minutes, I removed my shirt, clustered my belongings safely behind a rock, and stepped in. The floor was not even and even less visible, so when my foot touched something hard, I immediately began to swim in a mere two feet of water. The name of the beach, quebra canela-quebra meaning break and canela meaning shin-began to make sense as the small but powerful waves tossed me around, my feet grazing the myriad of rocks that lay hidden beneath the dirty swells. My confidence grew though as I headed out and paddled around in deeper waters. Whatever fear that initially kept me from coming was pushed to the side as I swam on. It took me two months to get here, there’s no turning back now.

On a hot day, it’s hard to tell if it is the heat or wind that gives the air its hazy glow. Sitting outside the churrasqueria, the smoke from the grill combats the faint odor of trash wafting from a nearby dumpster. Though hidden from the sun by a tattered awning, I keep my sunglasses on to protect my eyes from the constant battering of sand, dirt and god knows what else carried in the breeze. Nearby, a woman’s dress is lifted flirtatiously and dances in the breeze as she stands perched on 4 inch stiletto heels, impossibly balanced on the cobblestone road. The brightly patterned cloth seems nothing more than an accessory as her full chest nearly pours into the window of the car by which she stands. Dogs and children play in the street nearby.

I am surprised every day by how dirty Praia is. My alarm jars me at 6 a.m. to run, but it is the few moments of peace that exist before the city wakes that gets me out of bed. As I step out into the sunrise, my foot lands in a dirty plastic bag that once held the trash now covering my doorstep. A faint rotting smell rises up around me that I know will only get worse as the sun bakes the dirty streets. For now though, it is cool and quiet.

A few fellow joggers pass by as I watch the street dogs play. Males swarm around females with a playful/threatening air. At least once a week I run past a pack of young dogs mounting some poor bitch and I can’t help but think of the way drunk men gather around scantily clothed, full figured girls as parties carry on into the night. Life here is raw.

I shake these thoughts from my head as I pick up the pace from walk to run. I miss fresh air. Though I am less than a mile from the ocean, what I breathe is heavy and putrid. Though the water is in sight, the sound of waves is swallowed by cars rattling by, spewing exhaust into the air. The steady pace of my footfall brings me peace. Despite the sounds and smells around me, I am able to push on.

A few dogs give a wary glance and a cat streaks from the dumpster as I pass. The scattered trash is brightened by fallen flower petals from the glorious bougainvillea peeking out from over the fence. It seems a miracle that flowers continue to bloom in such circumstances. It is April. It hasn’t rained in seven months, yet the bright purple flowers persevere, a reminder of the resilience of life in dire circumstances.

I have often wondered with amazement how people manage to squeeze out an existence in places such as this. Without people, Cape Verde is nothing but barren rocks, volcanic slopes and alternating stretches of beach and rocky coastline. Unlike the evolutionary Galapagos teeming with life, the islands of Cape Verde would serve as a stopping point for turtles and a few adventurous species of birds. Small lizards will scurry from underfoot, but the dogs, though wild, are not indigenous. Cows are hardly sustained, and the rooster whose cry can be heard even in the city streets is as much an immigrant as I. Goats could survive here, but would never have survived the commute from the continent, almost 400 miles away. Neither would have pigs, cats, horses and donkeys.

And people? I guess there would be people here regardless. In some, there is an undeniable force pushing towards elsewhere. Think of all the inhabited islands in the South Pacific... Since the beginning of time, man has wandered the land under his feet. When he ran out of land, he developed a way to chase the horizon. When he ran out of horizon, he set his sight on the stars. I too shall chase the stars, but let us not forget the ground on which we already stand and those with whom we stand. How many times has it been said that a bundle is stronger than a single strand, yet those who have a bundle will refuse refuge for a single strand. Those with a few will give to all while those with a single strand are too afraid to join together to create a bundle.

I guess what I am saying is that we are all in this together. The good, the bad, the ugly, beleza and everything in between.

It is hard for me to believe that I have been back in Cape Verde for just over a week. It is already beginning to feel like I never left. It is wonderful to be immersed again in Kriolu and the simplicity of life here-despite the differences from my previous home on Fogo.

Praia, the capital, is home to almost half of the population of Cape Verde. It is very much a developing city, proudly displaying major changes from when I left in August. The streets are slowly being paved. There is a single traffic light that dangles precariously above a chaotic intersection. Buildings burst from the ground with the urgency and rapidity that corn grows in my former rural village. People rush from one place to the next, ignoring the obligatory greetings that I had grown to love.

There is trash and filth in the street, unfinished buildings and street children around every corner, but also unexpected beauty. Gardens of cacti peek out over fences and fountains of azaleas pour over balconies breathing life into the street in intervals of purple and pink. Though not always visible, the ocean is always just around the corner. On a clear day, the sky and the ocean dance together in a celebration of blue. Traffic noises melt away at the sight of the turning sky, the blue of the ocean begging the sky not to leave as it changes to its fiery evening robes.

Though I have been to Praia many times, the city is still a mystery to me. I have spent each day taking different routes, losing myself and trying to find my way back home. I take the bus to and from work. I am overwhelmed by the amount of options and have begun to search for the cheapest grocery stores and most reliable market ladies. There are many more foreigners here, so my presence does not command as much attention on the street. It does, however, make me more of a target. I am very aware of my surroundings and am hesitant to step out.

My apartment is wonderful. There are bookshelves that I will never fill, an adorable green couch that is deceptively uncomfortable and a tiny kitchen that is perfect for one. An unbelievably old clothes washing machine is nestled in the corner of the bathroom and I lean out the bedroom window to dry my clothes on a line, five stories from the ground. The most beautiful thing is the wooden staircase that greets you as you enter and brings you up over the sala de estar to the kitchen. The bookshelves and table are wood. The bedstead and chairs are wood. Even the bathroom door is wood. I may not have trees here to hug, but there is comfort in the polished grain of this desk.

In this, the season of generosity and thanksgiving, we live in a country where a man was killed in a shopping frenzy. In the midst of an economic recession, an employee was trampled to death at 5 a.m. opening the doors to a New York Wal-Mart, America’s notorious bargain junk warehouse.

Imagine you are a 34 year old man. After a day of giving thanks with family, you wake up early to “kick off” the holiday shopping frenzy. You arrive at work around 4:30 a.m., an hour unfit for much of anything and find that the customers have beat you there, some bundled in sleeping bags, some huddled together for warmth, others just waiting to beat down the doors.

The frost is starting to re-form on the windshields of the cars around you as you pull in to park. You mumble greetings to your co-workers, none too thrilled to be there, and the frenzy in the eyes of the customers in the line stretching beyond your sight is a reminder that it is going to be a long day.

Residual cheer from the day before encourages you to volunteer to open the store. As you make your way to the double glass doors, the number of people you see on the other side is overwhelming. “At least the sales will take some of the pressure off,” you think to yourself as you paint the greeter’s smile across your chapping lips.

The click of the lock opening is the last sound you hear as the roar of the crowd rises up and approaches you. That click reverberates in your ear as you are pummeled by shattered glass, shouting voices, rumbling carts and thunderous footsteps pouring across the threshold.

The wave hits and knocks you to the ground and you hear your shout join the cacophony of panicked screams. In the sea of bodies, noises and colors, it is impossible to determine what hit you and where, but the panic has turned to pain and it is getting harder to breathe. As the pain drowns out the chaos that surrounds you, you catch the chorus of a remake of “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” meant to welcome the customers with holiday cheer.

A woman’s elbow violently wipes the lone tear that falls as you picture the faces of your family gathered around the plentiful meal whose remnants you brought for lunch, but will never eat.

This is America- land of the spree, home of the mall. This is the season of joy and charity. For this man’s family, “Black Friday” takes on a different meaning as they don the mournful color and gather again, this time not in thanks, but in remembrance of a man who gave his life in the battle for a better bargain.

As we are all subjected to America’s sales, discounts and the pursuit of materialism, I urge you to pause for a moment, take a deep breath and be grateful. Despite the hard economic times, we have many things to be thankful for- our lives for one.

Coming back to the US after two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer means encountering many expected and unexpected challenges. Before returning, Peace Corps does their best to brace you for the anticipated ones. Volunteers are given lists of possible frustrations, tips for reestablishing personal and professional lives and, of course, personal accounts of other RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers). In these personal accounts, the grocery store is almost always cited as ground zero for culture shock. Each one I have read has gracefully articulated the sudden realization that there are just too many options while standing in the cereal isle. For me, it was salad dressing. It suddenly became clear to me how there could be an obesity epidemic as I stood motionless in the middle of the isle. Currents of whining children and frazzled mothers passed me on both sides while miles of cookies, soda and potato chips stretched off into the distant horizon.

I find myself hesitant in almost all public places, especially if there is an exchange of currency for merchandise involved. Each step takes much more cognitive preparation than necessary and the smallest tasks become overwhelming. I remind myself not to stare, slack jawed and stupid eyed, as I take in the millions of products that seem to spring from the earth in a locust-like manner. I like to “practice.” I go to the grocery store and wander for hours before returning to buy groceries. I scope out department stores with awe and terror, but have yet to purchase anything. When I realized that I would need a cell phone, I painstakingly researched the newest technology - and after two years… it was frightening - so that I could at least appear a little savvy underneath the “deer-in-the-headlights” look I knew would give me away.

I picked a day to go make my purchase and set up a plan. That morning I made sure to get up as usual, go for my morning run and eat a hearty breakfast. I examined my scarce wardrobe and picked clothes that I felt said “I am mature and capable, despite the fact that I am unemployed and intimidated by your technology.” It seemed to work while I led the associate around the store, asking various questions and carefully examining each shining model in front of me. Thankfully, it was busy. I shared the associate with other customers and was grateful for the break so that I could walk to the corner and appear to scrutinize a certain phone and its accessories while actually giving myself a pep talk and casting cursory glances to make sure no one had caught on.

After a modest amount of time, I chose the most simple phone available (no berries for me, thank-you-very-much), and proceeded to the counter to sign away my life and keep my spinning head under control as the associate read me my rights. I must admit, I was pretty proud of myself while the numbers were transferred from my ancient phone to the sleek little piece of equipment I could now call my own. I could not help but smile as I congratulated myself for not only keeping my cool, but accomplishing the task at hand.

The same self-assured smile was painted across my lips as I walked to my car. It was a beautiful day, I was capable and… my purse was making a strange noise. I didn’t know what to think. I had only purchased this phone a few minutes ago and it was already ringing. Curious, I answered.

“Hello.”

“Hello. Ms. Flood?” a voice responded.

“Yes. Who is this please?”

“I am calling from the _________ store where you just purchased your cell phone. You seem to have left your wallet here.”

I nearly choked on my smug grin as I turned around and headed back to retrieve my things. My humility returned to me in time to make a smooth recovery, and I arrived at home later unscathed with both my wallet and new cell phone in tow. I have since encountered other challenges and anticipate many more as I reestablish myself, but this particular one has stayed with me. Strength and support sometimes come in the most unexpected places and in such a large and intimidating world, it is nice to know that there are people watching out for you.

It rained last night. I went to bed and woke up to the soft sound of rain drops. I could almost hear the earth breathing out a sigh of relief as the land that had been parched by the sun since September 28th received its first sign of relief of water. The rich smell of life filled my soul today as I made my way outside amongst the low hanging clouds of moisture.

Though this will not directly impact the planting or harvest of the year, the air seemed a little fresher, everyone seemed a little more calm and hope seemed to spring up from the ground like the first signs of green.

Beautiful.

As I flipped my calendar to the month of May, I could almost feel the mixed emotions coursing through my veins. Written quietly in the corner of today’s square is the number 22. Twenty-two, the number of times I have flipped the page, the number of moons that have swollen over my head on this distant land, the number of months I have lived in Cape Verde.

It was also during the month of May that I received my invitation packet from Peace Corps to this small country. I distinctly remember struggling through the daunting prospect of finals, gathering last minute research for papers that should have been completed weeks before - somehow managing to completely avoid responsibility while constantly thinking only of the envelop that would one day arrive and change my life completely. Two years later it is impossible to say in how many ways my life has been changed, but it is certain that the girl that once waited so anxiously is very much different from the woman that so patiently waits today.

Perhaps waiting is not the right word to describe my current state. Though I have achieved new levels of patience through my struggles and experiences here, the patience stems not from this gift to accept circumstances for what they are, but from a certain lack of desire to leave. After two years, I have made something of a life for myself here. I am not just leaving a job and experience, but friends, hopes, dreams, unfinished work and accomplishments. I am leaving a language, a different perspective… a way of life. When the conflicting emotions course through my veins, the excitement of returning crashes up against anxiety and dread of leaving.

I have often felt that I have a foot planted on each side of the Atlantic, and these days I find this foot more firmly planted than ever. In the beginning my foot found the soil rough, the terrain unbearable and suffered a general sense of discomfort. There were so many things that it was not accustomed to that it took while for it to settle in and become comfortable. However, like any decent shoe, time has worn away the rough edges and my foot has not only adapted to the sometimes unexpected rocks in the road, but has learned to embrace them. I think of my other foot with fondness and an awareness of the many comforts and protection from unexpected rocks, but the muscles that keep it grounded have atrophied with time and distance. It tingles with remembrance, but will require time and work to regain its strength. .

A while ago I resolved to not think about leaving in hopes that the time would not pass. I took a deep breath the other day only to realize that three months had passed. Fear of the passing of time inspired this fool’s fairy tale, but reality has returned to slap me in the face. Part of me has known all along that COS (Close of Service) would some day arrive on my calendar, but the pile of pages has grown quite thin.

I look back with nostalgia on the first year when each flipping of the calendar page marked another month that I had “made it.” Each month had some landmark; ½ of a year; 9 months (the baby tipping point); 10 months (double digits!); 1 year… but 22 months? How did that happen? More significant now is the number of months that remain. In finding this sum I again find importance in the number 22. As the wind lifts the pages, I catch a glimpse of August. That same number stares me in the face, but instead of the quiet scribble of months that passed, the box holds three daunting letters… COS.

Already a week deep into May, I find myself preparing to go, yet again, to Praia for training. However, this will be the last. For one week we will all be together once again to share our experiences, fill out a lot of paperwork and prepare to reintegrate in the US and make productive citizens of ourselves. We will then be shipped back to site to make the best of the rest of our time here.

Less than four months remain.

I seem to vaguely remember pulling a few grey hairs out of my head in the time before I came here. Every now and then the light in the bathroom would catch a particularly shiny, awkwardly placed hair sticking out of the top of my head. I would quick draw my tweezers and in a flash of vanity, it would be no more.

Today I returned to my house after a particularly tiring and frustrating day. All I wanted to do was wash the grime of the city off my face. I removed my hat and leaned over the sink in eager anticipation for that refreshing splash of water. As I flipped the faucet, a dry dusty sound was all that greeted me. No water. In exasperation I looked up to see a complex network of grey hairs running across the top of my head. Like the interstate highway system, my head is now riddled with winding, nonsensical streaks of grey. When did this happen?

I am going to be 25 next week. Sounds pretty young, huh? I can’t believe that I arrived here with just 23 years to my name. Two short years later I am still boasting small numbers, but I feel that I have aged in ways that I cannot even begin to name. There are always the physically manifested signs of aging. I will return with my new network of shiny grey hair, the many wrinkles around my eyes and sprinkling my face with signs of “wisdom” and “experience,” back pain, unexplained yet frequent weight changes and the marks of the sun splattered across my arms and shoulders… to name a few. However, age cannot be measured in numbers or in physical changes. It is experience that really marks age. There is something about stepping outside of a comfort zone that exposes life in its most raw a true forms. Birth, life, love, pain, grief, death, grading… all of these have aged me.

We like to think that we are all unique individuals, but there are many universal certainties in the human experience. We are all born of someone, have lived and will die. It can be argued that we have all felt love, pain, grief and hope, but you would have to verify that first. I have existed as a human being for 25 years, and am beginning to see through what we have made of living and to the very core of life. There is something about the smallness and proximity of life here that amplifies what is most basic. Joy comes in waves, pouring over each household and bringing smiles and good will to all faces. Tragedy and suffering also come barreling through, washing over all that gets in its way. Changes in mood can be felt like a sudden change in temperature or turning of the wind.

Each time a child is born, there is a festa. The mother lies in bed for a week accepting visitors that come to congratulate and examine the new addition to the community. The seventh day is marked with the festa, and the giving of the name.

Weddings, though rare, can upset the entire community for weeks. The dispidida de solteira (goodbye single life) is held a week before the wedding and there seem to be parties straight through until the single life really is gone.

And death. What can I possibly say about death.

Death is death, no matter where you live. A person is here, and then they are no longer. How it is felt and how it is managed is what varies from culture to culture. When someone dies in Cape Verde, there is a week of mourning expressed through “chora,” or crying. Unlike the subtle, reflective tears of the US, this crying is like an eruption from the heart. In melodic harmony, women’s voices pour out in a chorus of loss. Possibly originated from lack of means of communication, the chora carries over fields and across ribeiras to reach the ears of those nearby. The cries are mixed with a song of prayer for those who have been lost. There is a plea to god to accept their arrival in peace and a plea for the peace of those left behind. For seven days, the family sits in the house and receives family, friends, neighbors and everyone in between. Each new arrival brings forth a new round of chora. For many, the visit is obligatory and the grief is mixed with their own.

I have been fortunate not to have lost anyone close during my 25 years. Though I have been to wakes and funerals in the states, they rarely hit close to home. Grief was colored with empathy as I mourned for the losses of my friends and their families. Until recently, I would have said the same for my experience here. Within months of arriving at site I went to my first visit. The bedridden grandmother of my best student passed away in the night. I remember the shock of being led around, shaking each hand and offering consolation in the midst of a room filled with hearts being poured out for all to hear. I was moved to tears just from the grief of others. Over the following months I went to one visit after another. Family members of friends, neighbors and people I had never met. One year ago my friend’s grandfather died. He lived a 15 minute walk from my house, but I had never met him. Each day that I went to the visit was a reminder that I had never visited him while he was alive.

After moving to Curral Grande, I found that I had almost started over from the beginning. There were some people that knew me from a festa or other appearance nearby. People knew about Peace Corps and were quick to learn my name, but I found myself in a sea of unfamiliar faces. Within the first month I went to three separate visits without having known who died. Since, each month has brought new news of death. One day I met the father of one of my students by the local bar. He was a notorious drunk, abrasive and annoying, though apparently was once an excellent teacher. Two weeks later, I was visiting his house in his memory.

There was an older woman, Dulce, who befriended my roommate. I met her on occasion, though never made it to her house for a visit. Her husband was sick, though she appeared healthy. The day her husband died, she suffered a severe stroke. Less than a month later, she too passed away. The news of her death arrived in the wake of that of Da Luz, the mother of eleven children - two of whom are my students and many of whom are good friends and active youth in the community - and the first person I ever met in Lomba. It was as if a dark cloud had stormed into the community and upended it overnight.

Weeks later, I find that there is still a heaviness in the air. Change always brings a period of adjustment, and loss even more so. In her book, For the Time Being, Annie Dillard points out that we, the living, are outnumbered by the dead almost 14:1. She quotes Stalin in saying “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic.” How sadly true. Yet, though one cannot know a million people, never mind be personally connected to all, each one of that million is a tragedy to some.

I thought that I could find peace, or pay some tribute in writing this, but like that statistic, for those that do not know these women and have not felt their loss, they are another number. Regardless, I wish them and their families peace. Life is already continuing with other joys and tragedies waiting ahead. Our fleeting existence will soon be erased and forgotten. To feel loss as a tragedy is a gift. It is our responsibility to use that gift, to love to live and to lose.

I woke up early to play soccer on Sunday. I was exhausted and played poorly and without enthusiasm. Attendance was low due to the entirely disappointing festa the night before and none of the players were particularly “fired up.” We kicked the ball around between the six of us, scored a few goals, laughed a bit, complained a bit more, then retired the field to the crowd of anxious boys pouring over the sidelines in hushed expectation.

The first Sunday that I played, I was told that we would begin around 6 am. I have lived in Cape Verde long enough to know that would not be the moment of kickoff, so I left the house around 6:15 set off at a leisurely pace. I arrived at the polivalente within 15 minutes. Almost an hour later the ball showed up. I was too tired to be frustrated, and after an invigorating hour and a half of running around and playing a game that I had dismissed as uninteresting and mildly tedious more than 10 years ago, I was certainly not frustrated and completely in love.

For the past couple of months, soccer has become a big part of my life here. There are two fields within equal walking distance from my house and I have somehow become a member of both teams that grace each field with their athletic prowess. In a culture of such machismo, the sight, sound and feel of a group of women taking over a typically male environment is absolutely intoxicating. Sure, it takes about 20 minutes before we are able to clear the boys off the field and they are always quick with their commentary, but for a few hours a day, we are champions, queens, goddesses.

Cape Verde is known for machismo. Though it is a time of change, it takes time for things to change. I have had more female students than male in almost all of my classes, but almost all of my female friends are not educated past 6th grade. I speak with my students and friends, both male and female, about their thoughts on the treatment of women. The responses range, on both sides, anywhere from that of the most outspoken feminist to that of the most closed minded and oppressive male. I have incredible female students that are determined to become doctors and engineers. I also have friends that have told me it is Cape Verde’s tradition for men to have multiple girlfriends/wives. I have had men tell me that they believe women are entitled to equal rights, then have seen them mistreating their wives and cheating on them. I have heard both men and women say that women are both capable and entitled to professions and lives of their own. I have also heard both men and women say that a woman’s job is to stay in the house and take care of her husband.

I was at a festa a couple of weeks ago when I found myself in the middle of a heated conversation between a group of men and a woman about the rights and roles of women. The men clearly disagreed with the woman and, as she was clearly outnumbered by men, they ganged up on her and made a mockery of her arguments. I knew very little about the people with whom I was speaking, but my voice was clearly given more respect and consideration than that of my compatriot. After she was done speaking and they were done laughing, I took my turn to speak. I basically delivered the same thoughts and ideas as the woman before me, except mine were probably not worded quite as well and were delivered from the lips of a white woman (read: visa). Instantly I was surrounded by a group of “reformed” Cape Verdean men. The specific target of the woman’s argument swore up and down that he was not only a changed man, but also not married and entirely devoted to treating women (read: me) in the way that I felt women should be treated. He lives with the mother of his two children. She was at home cleaning and preparing dinner for whenever he felt he was done partying for the weekend and ready to return home. To this day he swears he is not married, and though he may legally not be married, he is certainly not unattached.

The constant unwanted attention is easy to get used to, but will always be annoying. The pathetic attempts at wooing are often laughable and rarely threatening. The desire to go to America is always shining in the eyes of admirers and makes it entirely too easy to smile and walk away. It is the treatment of my female friends that hurts the most. Watching an intelligent, capable, caring, funny and beautiful woman wilt from the neglect and infidelity of her boyfriend/husband is heartbreaking. Seeing that boyfriend/husband with his arms around another woman and knowing that your friend knows, but doesn’t want to, boils a rage that I have never known. I feel sometimes that I am surrounded by a fleet of remarkable women drowning in a sea of completely unremarkable men.

I am not saying that all women are abused and locked away and the men are lording over them with cracking whips and booming orders. The repression is quiet and often mild, but it is there. I remind myself every day that I am looking through the eyes of a different culture, but there are many women here that speak as if with the same mouth. However, like I said, it is a time of change. I feel it each time the ball hits the back of the net. I hear it in the laughter of my team mates and in the responses of my students. I see it on all of their faces. I work for it every day.

There is something in the mild, early morning breeze that soothes even the most restless souls. Without the reminders of human life scurrying about, we are left with just the most basic elements of life, the earth that rests below us, the breeze that chills us, the sun burning brightly just below the horizon and the water that laps hungrily at each inch of coastline.

For sixteen months I have lived within the limited coastline of the island of Fogo. Each day, I have watched the sun return quietly to its resting place below the horizon over a few small, distant breaks in the seemingly endless plane of ocean. Brava, a chunk of land floating magically just off the coast, is the last lonely island disturbing the vast expanse of ocean. Keeping watch over the water, Brava is aided by the aptly named ilhéus secos (dry islets) where I have yearned to set foot. Their rocky, wild shores promise a taste of absolute isolation and abandon that is unknown in our busy, civilized lives.

In Cape Verde, a country that consists entirely of breaks in the plane of ocean, the elements are not only inescapable, but literally define existence. Sprung from the ocean in volcanic bursts, the islands stand as earth birthed by fire surrounded by water and battered each day with unrelenting winds. Unpopulated until the Portuguese discovery in 1460 and colonization in 1462, there are days when I wonder if they were ever meant to support human life. Today will be one of those days.

It is dark, but I have been awake for almost an hour. The only disruption to the still night air is the shifting of fabric and the flicking of a light switch in our calm preparation. Not a word has been said.

We sit, serene under the light of the moon and copious stars, quietly picking at bites of bread and trail mix, each existing in our own worlds. The distant sound of wheels battering cobblestone alerts us to the fact that we are no longer alone in the small hours of morning. Awaiting the arrival of the sun over the distant volcano’s peak to breathe the life of day into the city streets, we each prepare to embark. It is today that I will set foot on the ilhéus secos.

After a death-defying trip in the back of a truck and waiting at the pier for almost 2 hours, we leave the shore in perfect island time. The good news, lunch is to be included. The bad news, lunch will definitely be needed. The open ocean tosses our tiny boat like a violent child’s plaything in turbulent bath time waters. No amount of Dramamine could release my stomach from the grips of nausea as I cling to the edge of my seat and am rhythmically battered with walls of water. My eyes remain rooted firmly on the distant soil that seems to continuously slip into the horizon as my stomach fights wars against itself. The carnage is tossed to the side.

I have never been so happy to set foot on solid ground. Immediately I fall into a special state of coma reserved for those who have managed to throw up the past three days’ meals. After an unknown amount of time absorbing solar energy, I awake to examine what kind of ground on which I am so thankful to have arrived. After braving the water, I find myself on a lonely, raw piece of earth. I stand only to be hit by sharp sand-filled winds that, despite their regularity here, have not ceased to astonish me. Our tiny ship is anchored in a cove that hosts a small beach, many rocks and an overhang that I would later realize provided the only available shade. In a daze, I wrap myself, find my shoes and wander off to a higher point to assess the foreign surroundings that for one day I would call home.

The sound of the waves rising up and crashing onto the islet’s rocky coast is second only to the blasts of wind. There is not a bush more than two inches high to break the constant battering of gale force winds. Each gust bears a blast of sand that eats away at the barren landscape and any exposed flesh. Raised in the generation of Captain Planet, I cannot help but think that a small fire would complete the combination of elements, and from the dry dusty Earth would rise the pollution-reducing hero. The fire would come later with an abundance of freshly caught fish, but Captain Planet would not be there to partake.

The entirety of the wild terrain is easily covered by foot, and within hours, there is no cove, rise or beach that has been left unexplored. The harsh sun and brutal winds do not allow for much time of solitary reflection and, after sitting in the sands of a virtually untouched beach for a mere 30 minutes, I find the exposure too much for my civilized flesh. I return to our little sanctuary of shade and mark the passing of time in the swallowing of shadows as the sun overtakes the sky. The men with whom we’ve come continue to fish while we continue to inch further and further into the short alcove, our feet left burning, unprotected by the diminishing shade.

With nothing else to do, my body sucked dry of moisture and roasting lightly in the afternoon sun, I am overcome by a second-wave nap. The sounds and movements of those around me strike a harmony with the constant moaning of the wind and the hungry lapping of the waves inching in to high tide. I awake to this symphony to find both the beach and the shade devoured. Only the wind and dry earth remain.

The journey home promises to be an adventure as the angry winds have grown in force and the water within the cove bears warning of the turmoil that waits beyond its protective reach. Whispers of passing the night protected only by the cove reach my ears and in a panic I realize how truly isolated and exposed we are. The evening chill in the air threatens to combine with the blasting winds. Our light packs contain supplies only for a day’s trip. The water has been drunk. Only food and booze remain.

Though there is no threat of mortality, the idea of staying is frightening. Women are outnumbered two to one and the only things to keep us warm are the ever-powerful and ever-repugnant locally distilled grogue and each other. Civilization seems to stand waiting, perched on the shores of distant Fogo. After much debate and stalling, we are unceremoniously loaded into the boat. The men, the booze and the grill in the first trip from the shore, the women in the second. The sun sinks behind us as we set out from the cove and the expanse of treacherous, angry waves stands between us and our destination.

The boat is tossed violently from one crest to the next. One of the men, a fisher by profession since the age of 13, leans in close to me and says this is where his brother died just three months ago. I sit, perched and tense, fearing my fate. The constant battering of cold water against my face and body jars the battles within my stomach, but only for so long. The night sky stretches her fingers across the horizon and as stars begin to appear, it is no longer possible to see the impending waves. I return my portion of fish to its rightful home and allow my body to be alternately rigid and loose while thrown about in a dark and dangerous nightmare.

I do not know how long the journey lasted or how much actual danger we were in as we traversed the tumultuous expanse of water. After an eternity of swaying to the ocean’s dangerous dance, I find myself once again thankful, this time not just for the earth on which I stand, but to João Paulo, the man who so gracefully steered us through the perilous waves and delivered me to this solid ground. Still nauseous and exhausted from the day’s exposure, I am packed into a car and delivered once again to the steps of the house upon which this day began. I am filled with a new sense of appreciation for the protection that the simple concrete walls provide and for once find comfort in the hum of cars whizzing past and the chorus of televisions, radios and children’s voices in the evening air. Though civilization can be remarkably uncivilized, it is all that stands between us and the wild elements.

I had a friend last year that said “the passing of days here is like the raw, gnashing of teeth… but the weeks just fly by.” I am certainly not here to validate this statement. The only thing I come even close to agreeing with is the fact that time does seem to have found an inordinate way to slip away. I can’t even really say if there are certain days that stand out to me individually. If I were to reword this not-quite-so-cheerful message, I would probably have to say that the weeks pass by in a blur of chalk dust and school uniforms, and the months seem to offer only a rushed surfacing breath before being submerged once again for roughly 30 days.

What can I offer in this moment other than a reflection on the thievery of time. Each day I struggle with the selfish desires of sitting down to read or write or to simply spend time with the people I have gotten to know here. “Responsibilities” seem to pile atop of one another; lesson planning, grading, visiting, cleaning, etc. Like a thieving elf, they steal the little remaining time that I have here.

I find myself with one foot here and one foot reaching out toward the other side of the ocean. I am certainly not ready to be home, but as the weeks tick away, I cannot help but begin thinking about what is next. An image of me sitting outside of a building in Boston waiting for the Peace Corps recruitment meeting to begin flashes into my head. It was a chilly fall day and a spur of the moment decision. This same panicky feeling of “what’s next?” was echoing in my head the day before when, instead of researching for whichever paper of the day, I found myself on the Peace Corps Boston recruitment page. Of all coincidences, there was a “gathering” the very next day, the only afternoon that entire month where I did not already have something written in my ever-trusty day planner.

I do not own a day planner right now. Nor do I utilize the ominous dry-erase monthly calendar that once lorded over my room. I have a simple calendar with a few simple pencil scratches that is just one month away from ending its short, but valued, life. The thought of reentering the world of the day planner is a little overwhelming at the moment.

Fifteen months after my Peace Corps service began, I find myself pretty much at home. 12 Winter St; Sheehy Hall; O’Leary Library, 4th floor; Trader Joe’s; Wachusett Mountain; whichever places I have briefly called home for whatever reasons seem as far away and dreamlike as my future home in Cape Verde once did. The familiarity of beaten paths off the cobblestone road is jarred by the brief flash of sidewalks and driveways. Lack of anonymity has grown into a fondness of never being alone or unknown. I find myself, less than 5K away, homesick for Ponta Verde, not the states.

It’s not so much that I don’t miss home, I have just become very accustomed to living here. I like knowing all my neighbors and greeting them each time I leave the house. I like knowing the woman that grows and sells me my vegetables. I like the overenthusiastic shouts of my 7th grade students and breaking through the “too cool” attitude of my 8th graders. I like the simplicity, transparency and hospitality that permeates all aspects of life.

This is not to say there aren’t things that I don’t like. Like a late-stage game of Jenga, the infrastructure of government, health care, transportation and education were built high and hastily on a foundation ridden with faults and gaps. This becomes evident when simple tasks are run through each hole and around each corner, taking six times longer than conceivably possible and somehow coming out on the other side not quite the way intended. There are general, little frustrations that arise from this lack of infrastructure, unexpected delays, expected delays and the general dismissal of tasks.

Though this too can be frustrating, there are some things that become almost routine in their routine lack of efficiency, like transportation. In a misty daydream I vaguely remember being frustrated that the T in Boston stopped running at the ungodly hour of 1am (2am?), and that the red line sometimes took upwards of 20 minutes to arrive. I look back on these absurd frustrations with a fondness that only a non-native island resident can truly comprehend. I have regularly walked upwards of 7K just waiting for a car to pass. I have sat in the oppressive heat of São Filipe waiting for an hour for the driver of the one lonely car to decide that it was time to drive around the city for 40 minutes gathering passengers from the sleepy streets. I have been crammed into a seat, six across plus two children on laps, purchases and travel gear in tow, next to an old woman routinely emptying the contents of her sick stomach into a leaky plastic bag. I have endured showers of partially chewed peanuts and other assorted refreshments with an accompaniment of vulgar comments and narrative that only a half-deaf, toothless, senile old man would be able to muster. I have prayed for my life and the lives of those around me to the gospel of glaring funana as the crazed driver whipped around corners on vertigo inducing drop offs. Mostly though, I have waited… and waited.

Recently, while waiting for a car after my daily battle of molding young minds, I was blessed in a strange way. As I sat on the wall (an extremely common position for all who do not have qualms with a dirty bum) the woman who has been cooking for the primary school students longer than I have been alive graced me with her company. This being the first time we met, we exchanged the typical formalities; name, number of children, if I have arranged a husband here, where in the states I am from, how many family members she has in the states, etc. As the conversation moved in the direction of America, I feared the typical “America é sabi! La ten tudu koizas!” (America is cool! It has everything!) This is generally followed by me explaining that not everything is great in America, that there is poverty equal to the poverty here, that there are also a lot of things that Cape Verde has that America does not, that even though there is everything, everything in America requires a lot of money and a lot of work, etc. I was pleasantly surprised when this wise and beautiful woman made a more convincing argument against the poorly informed blanket comments about the sabi-ness of America than I could ever hope to.

She spoke of a pastor that she was good friends with who had lived in both Cape Verde and America. Though he was initially pleased with the opportunity to live and do his work in the US, this pleasure drained as he spent time there. After passing a few years in the US, he gratefully returned to Cape Verde completely disenchanted with America. During his service there he found himself disappointed in the way people treated and dealt with one another. In the second-hand words of the woman, “Na ‘Merka, tempo é só dinheiro. Alguen ka ten tempo outro alguen.” (In America, time is just money. People don’t have time for one another.) Though she may not know this first hand, the impressions of the pastor had certainly made an impression on her. This is not an entirely uncommon response when speaking with someone who has some knowledge or experience in regards to lifestyle in the states. The wisdom of this woman shone through her reported commentary when she spoke “nos é só passageiros.” (we are all just passengers.) This may not be the most enlightening comment ever spoken, but at the moment, in the context, I was humbled.

Here I am, living on a tiny speck of rock in a, depending on perspective, fairly large body of water. Both of these masses belong to a much larger mass that is the planet on which we are all, more or less, passengers making a brief appearance. This modest sense of existence was further ratified much later (after I finally arrived in the city) when I was sent this link. http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm

The idea of being passengers is a both humbling and a little funny. As the woman and I spoke, we spoke of the fact that there is a certain amount of ambiguity and distance involved in being a passenger. When was the last time you greeted or made conversation with the strangers that shared the bus or train with you? In America it is more common to simply remain comfortably in our personal existences. There is a certain amount of respect and acknowledgement shown as we get up to allow the elderly, sick or pregnant person to sit, but the inquiry “how are you?... how is life treating you?... how is your family?” very rarely make an appearance. In Cape Verde, you can’t get away without at least a simple greeting. There is not the rush to get to the next destination. There is not the desire to wallow in a private existence. Instead, it is the company on the voyage and the combined existence that matters. Though it may take a little longer to get to the desired destination, the overall trip becomes infinitely more warm and enjoyable. Besides, when we are all on such a brief journey in such a tiny existence, shouldn’t it at least be a pleasant trip?

What better way to reflect on the passing of a year than to be where you started but with different eyes...

I agreed to help out with the training of the new volunteers this year. I am still a volunteer and not getting paid, but this was something that I wanted to do. When I thought back to last year, the most information and most help came from the volunteers, so I wanted to offer that. I also thought that it would be interesting to be on the other side of training. My own training feels infinitely far in the past, but resonates through each day as it is the foundation upon which I stand here. I hoped to get to know the trainees and share knowledge and information. Indirectly, I looked forward to the opportunity to see my colleagues and *hopefully* acquire a little more Portuguese. I have certainly been able to spend time with my colleagues and soon to be colleagues. We have all shared knowledge, ideas and information, some of which I hope to implement in the coming year, but my Portuguese is still pretty lame.

I find myself living in Assomada (in the interior of the island of Santiago) in the training house with anywhere from 3 to 5 other volunteers. Fridays are the best because all the staff and trainees come to meet here and my "house" takes on the atmosphere of a cockroach den. Every room is filled to the brim with people squirming around in all directions, running past one another and slinking around corners. It is not a small place, but it certainly wasn't designed for 60.

Despite this minor frustration (and the multiple times my stomach has not quite been ok), I'm really enjoying this experience. The energy and ideas of the new trainees are refreshing and exciting and the fact that I am half way through with my service has really hit home as I watch them acquire language and skills and say my last goodbye to the previous year's volunteers as they begin the next step of their journeys. It is hard to believe that in just one more year, that will be me saying goodbye.

I find myself looking forward to the end of training, not for it to end, but for my parents to arrive. On September 1st I will not be at swearing in, but will instead be at the airport anxiously awaiting the landing of the plane that carries my parents in its swollen belly. These brief glimpses of my life serve no more than to record my thoughts and pass on a little information about my sanity, safety and service here. There is a whole year of thoughts, ideas, memories, experiences and growth that is trapped in my head just waiting for the open ears of my parents to fall upon. This will be my reward for the hard work that I have done.

July 7, 2007 «07/07/07»

It was one year ago today that I first stepped foot on Cape Verdean soil. Bright eyed and idealistic, I stepped off the plane and faced the remarkably small structure that is the international airport in Praia, the capital of Cape Verde. In a frenzy, we loaded the bags from our group and the group that had arrived the previous day onto a fleet of luggage carts and wheeled our way through the threshold that separates international no-man’s-land and terra de Cabo Verde. The overwhelmingly blue tiles were my first greeting as I scanned the crowd, not for a familiar face, but for anyone to come rescue me from the small sea of unfamiliar sights and sounds. Our ears perked up as we heard the words “Peace Corps” and, like a herd of crazed lemmings, we pushed our fleet in the direction of the sound. We stood by the sidewalk awaiting the arrival of a giant truck to carry away everyone’s two precious bags of clothing, hygiene products, personal affects and whatever else we foolishly thought we would need to survive two years in Africa. Smelling of fresh meat, we were surrounded by a flock of friendly looking hustlers offering to help take the luggage off our hands, literally. A small car of Peace Corps representatives arrived to greet us and save us from the luggage hungry vultures. They explained that the plane was delayed (typical of TACV) and no one was informed (typical of Peace Corps) so the truck would be late (typical of Cape Verde). Thanks to sleep deprivation and multiple changeovers, I have no idea how long we stood on that sidewalk, but as soon as the truck arrived, the baggage was loaded in a fury and we were swept off to the hostel Madre Teresa to begin training, arguably the longest 9 weeks of my life.

In this manner I began the last year of my life. This year, I opt to celebrate New Year´s not on January 1st, but on July 8th. The events of the past year have helped me grow and change in ways that I never thought possible, and I intend to use this new knowledge to make this next year an even better experience.

The last time I wrote, I was typing live in Ponta Verde. It was very exciting because when the computer room opened back in February, internet was promised in just a few weeks… just a few months later, it arrived. In typical Cape Verdean fashion, in less than a few weeks, it was gone. I’m not sure what the exact complication is, but it is “temporarily out of order.” They didn’t even bother to say that it would be back in just a couple weeks, so I’m not going to hold my breath. It was nice while it lasted, but too good to be true.

On Monday, I will endure the hours of thrilling grade meetings and finalize the grades for my students. There are a few failures, a few excellent grades, and a lot of students that I will miss next year. Although for all intents and purposes, I am already done with the school year, after Monday it will be official. I have survived and even enjoyed my first year as a teacher and my first year as a volunteer. Looking back, I can’t believe how quickly it has passed. I can still remember standing at the back of the room during the first week of school and having to suppress laughter as I allowed myself to realize that these rows of carefully braided hair and blue and white striped shirts were in fact my students. As time passed, they became names and personalities. They made me laugh, they made me more frustrated than I have even known, they challenged me, they taught me and they helped me grow. I like to think that I did the same for them.

The temporary state of being a volunteer involves a mixture of conflicting emotions. While I feel that I have settled into my life and role here, it is not a true sense of settling. There is always the knowledge in the back of my head that in just another short year, I will be boarding the plane to head back to the states. This first year that has passed was filled with the struggles of settling in, getting to know people and establishing a sense of place. I feel that this coming year will be a struggle of finding closure to all of these things. There is an unshakable feeling of voyeurism in my brief glimpse of life here. While I become close to people, learn and acclimate to the culture and find my role here, I am acutely aware that this is not my life. It is only temporary. I am just a visitor here. No matter how much I learn, see and experience, it is nothing more than that; an experience. It is, however, an experience that will probably change my life forever. I will not be able to return to the person I once was or remain the one that I am now. In one year I will find myself facing the challenge of merging these two and finding a balance that will allow me to continue to grow and thrive.

That´s right folks, I am writing this today "ao vivo" (live) from Ponta Verde. Approximately four months after the opening celebration of our esteemed "sala de informatica" (computer room) with the promise of internet being "quasi pronto" (almost ready, I swear...), it is finally here. I am a little in awe myself, having worked here throughout the first group of classes patiently awaiting the allignment of the magical forces (technology and CV Telecom) that allow me the liberty to sit, as I am right now, and be connected with the rest of the world! With just a 15 minute walk (as opposed to a 45 minute, 100$00 car ride and the excruciating temperature rise that awaits in Sao Filipe) I can sit here in front of this magical glowing screen and hear the soothing click as I pour my thoughts out onto this page to be read by all and any.

I know, to those of you who have constant DSL access, this may seem a bit foolish and extravagant, but I assure you, it is the little things in life that bring us the most joy, and for a little thing, this is pretty big.

In many ways I feel like right after I graduated, almost a year ago, I fell into a deep sleep and have not yet woken up. The past (almost) 11 months in Cape Verde have passed with a kind of surreal glow that both holds the weight of time and is completely timeless. Each day begins and ends with such weightlessness that it does not seem real. Even dreams come and go with a kind of third degree of removal, like a painting of a painting... or a photo of a painting within a photo. Where exactly am I? Is this real? Am I really 24? Am I really going to be 25 by the next time I set foot on American soil? Who am I going to be when that happens? This, I do not know.

A few truths;

Cape Verde will be following me home. Already one of my closest friends here in my community will be moving the Boston on June 29th. A handful of my best students (and some that aren't the best) will also be moving to the Boston/Providence area. Who knows who else from here will be there awaiting my arrival there in 2008... I think I will need to have two parties when I return, a welcome back party for me and a welcome party for my Cape Verdean friends.

I am/will be a different person when I arrive. I already am. I couldn't possibly point to exact changes (other than the few extra pounds...), but, like a snake, I have shed my skin many times as I have grown. I have laid at night and watched the stars. I have watched as the sun put itself to rest, each day upon a different horizon. On this tiny island in this giant ocean on this tiny planet in this giant universe, I am just a fraction of a speck of a particle trapped in a galactic sneeze. Like a chameleon, my colors are constantly changing from idealistic to pessimistic to realistic to fatalistic to altruistic to seflish to apathetic to energetic to understanding to caring to anger to pride to shame and everything in between. Who am I to have the rights that I do and what did I do to deserve to be born into the life that I was born into?.... little questions...

Lonliness and isolation will do a lot of strange things to you. However, if you are not a cat person, you will not become a cat person.

Milestones come in all shapes and sizes. I am approaching the end of my first year teaching. Do I feel any more competent than I did when I began? Maybe a little, but competence is not one of those things that can be neatly sized and packaged. We will see if my students pass or fail, but that is no way to judge anything. Where do I see progress? Last night, I watched the slaughtering of a cow. If you remember, in December, witnessing the slaughtering of a pig was one of the hardest things I had done. It stabbed at me. It hurt me. I cried. I was made fun of. I couldn't bear to watch. Last night I stood on and watched as the cow was tied, cut, bled and opened. I even ate dinner at some point during the process. There is a difference in the manner of a pig and a cow. The pig screamed and faught. The cow just kind of accepted its fate. I watched though. In some ways, I feel like I experienced a new side of the culture here that I had been closing myself off from. It may be hard to imagine going for an evening walk beneath the stars and coming upon your neighbors preparing the cow for slaughter in front of the porch, but that is life here. The meat eaten here is from animals raised here. Every festa that I have been to has served chicken, goat, cow or pig that had once lived a stones throw from where it was cooked. Who knows, by the next time I write, I may have participated in the act of taking the life from a future meal. (disclaimer: I still do not eat the cow or pig. I politely decline at festas and face hundreds of questions, but that is my right to choose. Even if I did get to the point where I would want to eat beef/pork, I don't know how I feel about eating it here. I have yet to get sick from something I've eaten and, frankly, I'd like to keep it that way.)

The simple, beautiful things in life will always be simple and beautiful, it is up to us to take the time to recognize and appreciate them.

It is amazing the things that come into view when the horizon is cleared. Sometimes I think we are blinded by the process of building and development that we forget the simple beauty and many wonders that exist in the landscape around us.

I have found a new horizon and am enjoying the new view and the challenge of reaching out toward these new wonders. There are challenges and triumphs ahead, but that is no different from life in everyplace from every angle. I have a new foundation and this time there is no fury to build. This foundation is here to stand on, look around, observe and maybe someday to be used as a platform on which to gather, teach and learn.

Sorry about the vagueness. More to come later.

Approximately one year ago I was rushing home to open the packet that had been dropped on my doorstep, containing the undisclosed knowledge of where Peace Corps was sending me... I think I skipped class. I knew that the bulky sealed envelope contained the beginning of the next two years of my life, but I didn't know how much was inside. I knew, in some ways, that there were big changes for me, but what they were was a mystery.

There are certainly altruistic reasons behind my decision to join Peace Corps, but I would be lying if I said there were no selfish reasons as well. I knew that this two year commitment would involve great changes in my life, I just did not know what they would be. If that packet had told me all that I would learn and experience, would I still have opened it? It's hard to say. I think that is why life doesn't come with a prologue. If we knew from the outset the struggles, attacks and challenges that we were to face, I think it would make it hard to take that first step. Of course we would know that there was beauty out there waiting for us as well, but it would be lined up across from the ugly, locked in an eternal staring contest.

My selfish reasons for joining Peace Corps are as much of a contrast as the ugly and beautiful staring each other in the face. In so many words, you could say I was running from myself and trying to find myself at the same time. Like a dog chasing its tail, I let this illogical aim carry me across the ocean and drop me on this rock. I'm not exactly sure how I thought this paradoxical problem would solve itself, but I think it is working.

If that packet had told me where I would be right now, I don't know if I would have accepted, but life is like that. Things happen the way they are meant to happen, it is our decision how we face them.

With that said, I have spent too much time facing this computer screen. The ugly and the beautiful are waiting for me outside. It's time for me to go stare them both down.

The process of rebuilding involves many steps. One cannot simply ignore the rubble left behind when something has collapsed. Within these broken pieces are many wholes. These wholes need to be salvaged in order to successfully rebuild. To leave them behind is to waste an entire process and discredit the strength that they possess in their resistance to the collapse. As painstaking as it may be, part of rebuilding is sorting through the rubble and picking up the pieces.

While sorting through the rubble, one must be aware of the collapse. It is important to examine the infrastructure looking for clues that will describe what initially led to the collapse and determine where the faults lie (lay? I never know the difference...) If everything had been structured perfectly initially, there would have been no collapse. Logic says that there is one or many faults in the foundation that led to the collapse. While sorting, it is imperative to determine the faults, or the same mistakes will be repeated.

While determining the faults, there are many aspects to be examined. Examples: Location, was the collapse independent of the location, or was there a fault in the location that led to the collapse? Materials, was the original material used in building faulty, was it used improperly, was it not fit for the environment? Labor, is there any fault to be placed in the hands of those involved in the initial building, is there fault in the handling of those involved? Design, was the design fit for the location, materials and labor?

Once these factors are resolved and the faults have been determined, it is necessary to make some decisions to begin the process of rebuilding. If the fault is in location, a new location must be determined. If the fault is in the materials, new materials need to be evaluated and required. If the fault is in the labor, each laborer needs to be examined and either allowed to remain, relocated within the project, or let go. If the fault is in the design, a need design needs to be implimented.

Problems arise where there is fault in all factors to indeterminate degrees. Deadlines also make for a difficult process, for a thorough examination of all factors cannot be rushed.

I find myself in the midst of rubble, searching for clues, remaining wholes and a direction with which to begin the process of rebuilding.

I just wish I had more time.

Living here has been like chasing a shadow. Everytime I think I have that shadow within my grasp, the light shifts just a little and I realize that what I thought I had a grasp on is something entirely different. It is impossible to entirely learn a culture in less than a year. In fact, it could be argued that one could live their entire adult life in a different culture and, despite what is learned throughout time, never really grasp everything because of the essential lacking pieces that are learned at the developmental age. Concepts, emotions, beliefs and even language (all nurtured at a young age) define how one sees and adapts to the world. Without that developmental stage, one is left in a sort of limbo, constantly reconciling differences from two blurred perspectives.

Every time the shadow shifts, I am forced to reevaluate the foundations upon which I had placed my cultural reality up until that point. In the beginning, this was shocking, but not so difficult. The time had been short and the foundation was still in a developmental stage. I am now almost 10 months into my reality of Cape Verde and 8 months into my service. I had felt that, though I did not have a firm grasp, I was able to keep the shadow within my reach. I had a foundation, but I was blind to its faults.

There is a house in Ponta Verde that was built originally as just a garage. The owner ignored the difference of strength that is required between one story of a cement building and three stories. Blinded with a fury to proceed, he did not stop the process of development based on the limitations of the foundation. The house collapsed in "a 9/11" style split second of destruction. Fortunately, just a car was cradled within the bowels of this house, but the remains of its collapse are strewn everywhere in the process of deconstruction and rebuilding.

My reality, like this house, has collapsed as well. I too built on with a fury, ignoring, blinded from or just missing the transience of my foundation. It has been a while since the shadow completely escaped my grasp, but at the moment, it is lost in the dark.

to be continued....

One thing that has particularly struck me during my stay here so far has been the weather, or lack there of. Now, I grew up in a small town in Massachusetts. In the carefree days of youth, the success of my days was dependent on the weather. As fall closed in, school began and with it, the leaves began to turn and fall. I could always look forward to jumping in the neat, raked piles of leaves and messing them all up, sending the leaves flying back in all directions. There was apple picking to be done and as Halloween rolled around, what seemed like acres of pumpkins awaited my arrival in a search for the perfect pumpkin. The temperature slowly dropped as the color and livliness left the surrounding woods, then suddenly it plummeted into all of its wintery glory. Ever year I hoped for a white Christmas, but any snow that fell was always welcome as my snowboard awaited to paint the mountainside. The crisp sound of the snow covering the bare, reaching fingers of branches and tufts of evergreen would accompany me on evening walks with my dog, and every morning that awoke with a blanket of snow was welcomed with hot chocolate, shovelling and hoping against all hope that school would be cancelled. I never wanted winter to end, but it always did. As the temperature once again began its ascent, the snow melted and the rains arrived. For weeks the bare earth and naked trees would be dull shades of brown, but one morning I would awake to find miraculous spots of green poking their heads up from the cold, damp ground. The earth would slowly turn from a barren brown to a vibrant green and little buds of leaves would emerge on the previously lifeless branches. A sense of livliness would slowly be instilled in the earth and those that inhabited it. As the birds returned and their music filled the air, the spell of summer would intoxicate students everywhere. Academic motivation reached an all-time low as thoughts of trips to the beach, pool parties and the long hot months of summer awaited just around the corner. Spring would slowly melt into summer as the flowers faded and the temperatures rose. Evenings would be best spent looking out for lightning bugs or lightning when the sweltering heat met its match with an approaching cold front. Rains would come and go throughout the season and were often looked upon as more of an inconvenience than anything else.

I remember arriving in the sweltering heat of summer here, unaware of what the coming months would bring. I knew that the earth was a parched brown, waiting desperately for the life giving arrival of the coming rain. I remember sitting in language class learning the names of the seasons. Rosa, our fabulous language instructor, asked us about our favorite seasons, (mine, winter) and we asked her what the seasons were like in Cape Verde. She said something about there only being two seasons; the rainy season and the dry season. I couldn´t believe that was all there was to it, so we pressed her for more information. She said that there was cold and wind during the dry season, and that just when you thought it couldn´t get any more dry, it did. So far this has proved true. The heat outlasted the rain, and when the ground began to lose its last touches of green, the brutal winds came, sucking up any remaining moisture and rendering the heat from the sun almost useless in combat against the forceful gusts. When Rosa spoke of the wind, she spoke of a kind of dryness that felt like sand blasting skin and lips. In fact, with the earth being so dry and the winds so strong, there is dirt and sand constantly scraping across skin, lips, eyes and everything else that gets in its way. It is almost possible to feel the stubborn molecules of moisture clinging to exposed appendages, and being violently ripped away. The winds certainly do not have the same burning, stinging bite as the subzero gusts that I have come to accept as part of winter, but they have their own brutal powers making them quite a bit more than inconvenience.

The rainy season is all a memory now. It is so dry that sometimes a particularly moist and delicious cloud will hang low, caught on the crater or any number of its jagged precipices, and the moisture trapped inside the welcoming cushion of weather can be felt in the air. Somehow, there are flowers appearing along the side of the road. They are few, but they are there. I often wonder how it is that they came to be, seeing that it has rained but once since October. Perhaps it is because of these life-giving, thirst-quenching revitalizing clouds... or perhaps someone spit in the right spot. It is still a mystery to me, but one that I will cherish. For what is spring without a flower here and there?

I’m not sure why I find it necessary to reflect as each landmark date approaches and passes, but I do. Yesterday was April 7th, the date that marks nine months since I first set foot on the dry, rocky terrain of Cabo Verde. Hypothetically, I could have had a baby in the time that I have been here. Think how much changes in one’s life when a child is born. Has that much changed in my life? I do think so, though certainly not the same things in the same ways. My neighbour had a baby while I was in Praia. That means she got pregnant just as I was finishing up packing and saying goodbye to my friends and family. Nine months. For the first time, I feel like I have been here for a long time. Tuesday will mark seven months teaching in my tiny zone. My service here in this small town is two years; I have already completed more than one quarter. I have almost completed a full year of teaching. Wow.

I have not written anything in a while because I don’t feel like I can properly process things right now. I am in awe of the passing of time. Just recently the wind has begun to settle down and the temperature is creeping back up, soon to reach the sweltering heights that took so much adjusting when I first arrived. At home, the flowers are beginning to poke their heads up from the previously barren earth and the barely visible buds on the trees are beginning to bloom into the new year’s leaves. Here, there will be no green until much later. The rain will not return until after I realize one year in Cape Verde. Yet, I can feel change in the air. Maybe it is my own changes that fill me with this awe. Maybe it is the lengthening of the day. Maybe it is the slowly visible changes and renovations of the landscape in the city. Maybe it is a combination of all these things and others yet smaller and less noticeable. Regardless, Spring, I think, is universal. Despite the mildly insignificant seasonal changes, there is an unmistakeable feeling of change in the air.

Recently I was in Praia with the other volunteers. It was quite strange. In some ways their presence reminded me of the states. We all came together for the first time in Washington DC, and we remained together in Cape Verde for the first two and a half months as we began our first transitions and felt the weight of our changing lives. It was good to see everyone with new, adjusted eyes. In many ways it seemed we had all settled into our different roles in our different environments. Though at the core we were all the same, there were places where the fingerprints of Cape Verde had been left on the mould… myself included. This is a good thing.

Despite the conveniences and glories of Praia and all its city-like modernity, I was very happy to come home. Yes, I did say home. I think that is the right word for it now. It is not home in the sense of my childhood house and town that is filled to the brim with memories, hopes, dreams and friendships both old and new. That is home in a different way. The little, painfully blue cement house that covers my head is my home. The community that welcomes me with open arms filled with “saudade” (missing-ness…?) are a part of my home. The dirty little children that live next door but make it a point to come visit five times a day are part of my home. The never-ending challenge of balancing grammar, life skills and nurturing any spark of a desire to learn is part of my home. The morning walks to get bread, the afternoons carrying water and the evenings spent on the porch watching the sun go down and the lights on Brava come on; that is all part of my home. I think that it took leaving to realize how much a part of me it had all become, but upon returning it is hard to deny. It is good to be home.

Patience and flexibility... that is what Peace Corps told me I would need as I moved to site and attempted to integrate into my community. Well, everything has been going wonderfully here. Of course there have been moments where this new found well of patience was tapped near dry, whether it was because of language barrier, hearing the same misconceptions of America over and over or just simple misunderstandings/miscommunications. This doesn´t happen so much anymore. "Spera um bocadinho" (wait a moment... more appropriately translated as "wait a week or so, you know, until I´m ready") has become a part of every day life.

Brittany and I finally got a light put in our kitchen. Yes, that’s right, a little over 6 months living in this lovely concrete block that we call home, and we can finally cook after the sun goes down without running into the hall to look at everything. There is basically no one on the island that is a trained electrician. This one little guy told us in the beginning that he would install a light for us, we just needed to get the fixture and whatnot. We promptly did so (I’m pretty sure we had it all ready and waiting by our third week here) and have been waiting ever since. He supposedly stopped by a bunch of times when we weren’t here, and also conveniently managed to never show up when we scheduled times. After 2 months, we got used to it and kind of forgot about it, but then we began running into him in the strangest places. Whenever we went into the city to hang out, or, recently, we went to a zone further up the crater, he would somehow magically appear. He would smile and say hello and let us know that he hadn’t forgotten and that he has our number saved in his phone as “americanas” (I saw it for myself one time), but then he would just as quickly disappear.

Anyway, he has been working for this guy up the street and the other day Brittany and I were bringing in water when he zipped by on his little scooter. When he saw us he turned around and greeted us and asked if we still had the fixture. Of course the obvious answer is yes, after all, we had been waiting for him for six months. Sarcasm aside, he came in, did some crazy little leprechaun hop up onto our bedong (barrel in our kitchen that we fill with water), played with some wires, made much more of a mess than I would have thought possible, then hopped down 5 minutes later and we had light in our kitchen. A handshake and grateful smile later, 6 months of waiting, cooking, cleaning and washing dishes in the dark was over in just moments. He let out a little toot as he took off on his scooter and one more piece of the puzzle fell into place.

We are now working on doors... (don´t hold your breath)

I Stand In Awe

Loret Miller Ruppe

In 1983, I was invited to the White House for the state visit of Prime Minister Ratu Mara of Fiji. Everyone took their seats around an enormous table—President Reagan, Vice-President Bush, Caspar Weinberger, the rest of the Cabinet, including the Prime Minister and his delegation, and me. They talked about world conditions, sugar quotas, nuclear-free zones. The President asked the Prime Minister to make his presentation. A very distinguished gentleman, he drew himself up and said: “President Reagan, I bring you today the sincere thanks of my government and my people.” Everybody held their breath and there was total silence. “For the men and women of Peace Corps who go out into our villages, who live with our people.” He went on and on. I beamed. Vice-President Bush leaned over afterwards and whispered, “What did you pay that man to say that?”

A week later, the Office of Management and Budget presented the budget to President Reagan with a cut for the Peace Corps. President Reagan said, “Don’t cut the Peace Corps. It’s the only thing I got thanked for last week at the state dinner.” Peace Corps’ budget was increased. Vice-President Bush asked again: “What did you pay?”

Well, we know one thing: it isn’t for pay that Volunteers give their blood, their sacred honor. I can never forget the sweat, the tears, the frustrations, the best efforts and successes of thousands of Peace Corps Volunteers. I stand in awe and with the deepest respect. I always thought I could be a Volunteer until I went out and met them.

I ended many speeches when I was Peace Corps Director with this: Peace, that beautiful five-letter word we all say we crave and pray for, is up for grabs in the ‘90s. A question must be answered above and beyond this special forum: Is peace simply the absence of war? Or is the absence of the conditions that bring on war—hunger, disease, poverty, illiteracy, and despair?

When fifty percent of the children die in a village before they are five; when women walk miles for water and then search for wood to cook by; when farmers leave their villages where there are no jobs to flock to cities where there are no jobs; when neighbors ethnically cleanse their neighbors, then let’s face it America, the world is not at peace.

And here at home, when fifty percent of our children live below the poverty level in many of our cities, when the homeless abound on our streets, when our nation’s capital is bankrupt and our schools require metal detectors, racial tensions abound and immigrant bashing and downsizing terrorizes loyal workers, then, let’s face it America, we are not at peace.

The Peace Corps family must respond again to “Ask not what your country can do for you, rather ask what you can do for your country.” And today, in our world, it is, as President Kennedy said, the “towering task.” We can do it!

This is a letter I wrote to a group of students in the states in response to their questions about my experience. I realized that I always send really detailed letters that describe aspects of my experience that I leave out in emails and blog entries. My roommate had the brilliant idea of typing it up to share, so here it is. I took out some direct comments to students, but for the most part I kept the letter form, so try not to be distracted by the direct address.

I received many questions about language. The spoken language here is Kriolu (pronounced “Creole”), but the official language is Portuguese. School is taught in Portuguese, meetings are run in Portuguese (depending on how official they are…), textbooks are written in Portuguese, etc. However, everyone just speaks Kriolu. Kriolu is a mixture of Portuguese and the African dialects that passed through the island during the times of the slave trade. (Because of the location of Cape Verde, it was a valuable midway point between Africa and the Americas for the trafficking of slaves.) If you are interested in language, maybe you will be interested to know that the Kriolu varies from island to island depending on influences (i.e. European, African, American, etc.) and their isolation. Fogo, as I have mentioned, has strong ties with America and there are certain English words that have found their way into daily dialog, such as big, hello, ok, fine, etc. as well as many technological terms.

Speaking of technology, there were a lot of questions about technology here in Cape Verde. I cannot tell you about all of Cape Verde because I only know Fogo well, but I will try to tell you as much as possible. First of all, as of Christmas, Ponta Verde has electricity from 8am-midnight. Before it was only in the afternoon/evening. They also just wired a few zones up at a higher elevation to have electricity for the first time. However, this does not mean that everyone has electricity in their houses. People that do not have electricity use candles and oil lamps to light their houses early in the morning and in the evening. One of my best students does not have electricity. I visited her house one evening to find six of the eight children huddled around a low burning lamp reading about Bill Gates.

Most people that do have electricity have televisions. Like many of you, they love to watch TV. Most of the programs are from Brazil or Portugal and there is one Cape Verdean channel. They mainly watch “telenovelas” which are the equivalent of soap operas, but silly in different ways. I’m sure my students could tell you a lot more about them than I can. We do also have radios here, although Cape Verde itself has only a few stations. One is broadcasted from Fogo, but reaches only Fogo and Praia. There are a couple other major national stations. I like listening because it helps me practice Portuguese and Kriolu, though I wish I could understand more Portuguese when they announce the news. The music that they play on the radio is very different from American music, but a lot of Cape Verdeans like to listen to 50 cent, Celine Dion, Michael Jackson, Michael Bolton and reggaeton. Oh, and they love Bob Marley. As far as computers are concerned, very few people in Ponta Verde have computers in their houses. The main high school in São Filipe (the “capital” of Fogo) has a computer lab and there are 4-5 Internet cafes scattered throughout the city. Ponta Verde is in the process of opening a computer lab where I will be working for a bit to help out. They have all the computers and equipment but are waiting for the Internet. They are also using the only currently available space but are in the process of collecting money to build an actual location for the specific purpose of being a computer lab, but money is not easy here. Most of my students probably do not know how to use a computer well, if at all. I only use the Internet once a week (mais ou menos) when I go into the city.

In order to go into the city it is necessary to catch a car. Sometimes you can get a “boleia” (free ride), but if not, you have to pay for a Hiace (pronounced yaas) or truck. Hiace’s are 15 seat vans that normally carry about 20. The trucks have benches and covers over the back and you would be surprised how many people and how much stuff you can fit into them. They are not too expensive, but the majority of people have little money and cannot often go to the city. Ponta Verde has a bunch of “lojas” (stores) that have basic necessities for food, stuff like eggs, onions, potatoes, oil, rice, flour, sugar, powdered milk, etc. Also they have candles, matches, laundry and dish soap and other household necessities. Most people keep varied livestock for meat. There are always millions of chickens running around and people keep pigs to eat leftovers and then become leftovers. Cows and goats are kept for milk and meat and fish vendors come through everyday with a fresh catch. A few people can afford irrigation systems so they grow vegetables year round, mainly cabbage, “kove” (collard greens), tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, beans, onions, carrots, potatoes, squash and manioc. (It sounds like a lot, but they are not really all ever available at the same time… and my god do I miss broccoli and spinach and eggplant. L) There are also many banana, papaya and mango trees. Closer to the volcano they grow oranges, grapes and apples, but they, similar to mango, are not available year round. Vegetables and fruit are more expensive, rare and of lesser quality during the dry season so I go into the city to try to get the more fresh vegetables. Most of the fruit I eat is canned or imported.

I do not do any farming here so I cannot tell you what it is like, but I will try to explain what I do know. During the rainy season the main crop is corn. Before the rains come, many people spend a lot of time preparing the soil and planting. Once the rain comes and the crops begin to grow, the days are spent weeding. For many people (especially here in Ponta Verde where there is little work besides agricultural) most of the day is passed tending to crops. When the corn is ready, and other crops, it is harvested. They do not have machines to help them. The work is done by hand with basic farming tools, hoes, scythes, etc. When it is harvested, it is carried back home either on top of the head, over the shoulder, or, by the beast of burden, the donkey. Donkeys are also used to transport water for houses that do not have wells. Women also carry water on their heads up the ridiculously steep hills. (I will try to get a picture. My roommate and I joke that it is the morning rush hour as the donkeys come barreling down the hill carrying rambunctious youth while the women begin yet another climb.) Once the dry season comes, the corn is allowed to dry on the stalks in the sun and is then picked to be stored and eaten throughout the winter. It is ground or mashed to make many different types of food that my students could explain much better than I. (Off hand I can think of 7 different corn based dishes. Perhaps I should devote an entire entry to the different dishes of corn.) The dried stalks are also eventually cut to be fed to livestock. This is a very brief description, but I hope it gives a better look into the lives of my students and neighbors.

Many people asked about parties, holidays and religion. The majority of people here are catholic, so they celebrate catholic holidays. They also have “festas” parties for a multitude of reasons, one among them just being for something to do. Saint’s days are celebrated nationally as well as by zone and even by house (see last mass email). Today (2/20) is actually a day of celebration, carnival. It is similar to carnival in Brazil and Mardi Gras. I will be going into the city later and will try to get some photos. I do not yet know all the national holidays well (I have not yet been here a year), but I can tell you that Cape Verde’s Independence Day is the 5th of July, one day after that of America, though Cape Verde’s independence from Portugal came much later and was much less bloody.

As far as sports are concerned, my students, as well as many other people nationwide, love sports. The major national sport is soccer, though there is also basketball and volleyball that I know of. I am sure there are others that are played in other areas, but my students do not even have a place to play soccer right now, never mind other sports.

I would also like to respond to the questions that many of you asked about me and my life here. If I miss a few, I apologize, but feel free to always ask. I joined Peace Corps because I did not know what to do after college. I know that I wanted to learn more about the world and different people and how they lived in different parts of the world. I also wanted to try to help and make a difference in people’s lives through teaching or just working side by side. One student asked if this was my first time volunteering. When I was in the states I would volunteer my time to help out at events or with some organizations. I helped at the DYS center in Lowell for a while and other various activities, but this is my first major volunteering role. If anything, it makes me wish I had spent more time volunteering in the past. I have learned so much and gained so much perspective. Do you spend time volunteering? If not, maybe you would like to try it.

Many of you asked if I chose to come to Cape Verde. The answer is no, but I am happy to be here. When you apply for Peace Corps, you can choose what region you would like to go to (i.e. Africa, South America, Eastern Europe, etc.), but Peace Corps ultimately decides based on what skills and experience you have and where they think you will most successfully adapt and help the most (and when you can leave). If you are interested, you can check out their website. I think it is www.peacecorps.gov, but I’m sure you can Google it. (Since when did Google become a verb and a noun? Am I really teaching English?) Peace Corps has been placing volunteers for a long time and I think they are pretty good at it.

A lot of you also asked if I missed home. The answer is a bit complicated I guess. It is yes and no. I do miss my family and my friends a lot, but I hear from them through email and phone calls and letters (though never enough!), so I know they are safe and happy and healthy. I also have many wonderful friends here who have essentially adopted me into their families. Sometimes when I get frustrated with things, I miss being at home, but I remember being frustrated at home too. In the end, life here is just life, just like it is in the states, it’s just the scenery and activities that change.

A few of you asked if I missed American food and gave examples like McDonalds, Wendy’s or Burger King. The answer again is yes and no. I almost never ate fast food in the states because it does not taste good and is even worse for you. Also, since I was 16 or 17, I rarely ate meat. In the US there are many meat alternatives, like tofu, tempeh, beans and nuts that make a vegetarian lifestyle easy, healthy and more than possible. The variety of food here is so limited and sporadic that I cannot guarantee that I will remain healthy as a vegetarian, so, for that reason, I eat chicken and fish here. There is also no “meat industry” here. I have witnessed the killing of a pig, my roommate witnessed the killing of a cow and I have heard many things being killed to be dinner. It’s a little different. I have learned how much of a luxury and lifestyle choice being a vegetarian/vegan is. The US has lots of everything always available. Cape Verde does not. Just last week there was no bread for a while because Fogo never received flour. I miss the variety of food in the states as well as the availability. I also miss the Mambo Grill, the Southeast Asian Restaurant and Bombay Mahal in Lowell. Next time you go to Mambo Grill, get some extra guacamole for me… it’s going to be a while…

My roommate and I do not have running water, so we wash our dishes, our clothes and ourselves differently than in the states. We wash our dishes by hand with water that we bring in from our well. We also wash our clothes by hard with a washboard and well water. It is hung up to dry on the roof. We shower with a bucket and a cup into a shower stall with a faucet and knob that act as decoration. We do have some plumbing (for the water that leaves the house) so we have a toilet that we flush with our used laundry water. It is not really difficult to live like this, just different. It takes a little while longer to wash clothes and hurts your back a bit more, but we use much less water. We also use less water bathing. I do not really miss the machines that we have in the US, but I think I will appreciate them more when I return. Every now and then I miss taking a hot shower, but it is always possible to heat up water to bathe with.

Anyways, this is all a lot to read and I can’t remember any other questions, so if you think of some I miss or new questions, please ask!

Take care and stay warm.

callie