The most wonderful time of the year

Christmas is just around the corner and I can't believe how quickly the time has flown! Things have been busy busy busy here in São Nicolau, from festas to concerts to Christmas gatherings AND prepping for our in-service training on top of that. It doesn’t quite feel like Christmas, but I’m trying to just appreciate all the joy and love that’s being spread around here and not focus on the fact that I really want to curl up next to a beautifully-decorated Christmas tree with a cup of overpriced holiday-inspired Starbucks coffee…

Thanksgiving here was WONDERFUL! All the Vs on our island got together and put on a grand feast. We had all the traditional fixin’s, including cranberries in a can all the way from America! There was apple pie, a banana star cake, mashed and sweet potatoes, homemade stuffing, spiced wine and cider, and I even tried my hand at homemade green bean casserole and scalloped corn. We spent the evening curled up inside playing games and talking. It was definitely a different way to spend Thanksgiving (broken up by a walk around town and a glass of grogue in the middle of the afternoon), but a wonderful one nonetheless. I’m so lucky to be with a great group of people!

Since Thanksgiving, we’ve participated in lots of other fun activities and spent some more time exploring our city and island. On December 1, we put on a huge World AIDS Day event and I gave two impromptu classes on AIDS. It’s amazing how little embarrassment there is talking about sex with teenagers when you know how badly they need to hear what you have to say. I tried to make our conversation reach beyond the AIDS message, too. The rate of AIDS really isn’t very high here, but I’ve had 3 students drop out now due to pregnancy. We’re talking 9^th and 10^th graders here (ages 13-16). I’ve had numerous conversations with girls about being pressured to have sex, so it’s clear that some discussions on healthy relationships need to be had – and soon. Alexandra and I are hoping to organize a girls’ camp some weekend. Really we just want to have like a lock-in or sleepover type event where we do lots of girly things and then intersperse it with some more serious conversations about future goals, healthy relationships, and family planning. Hopefully we can get a lot of the local, well-respected women involved and provide the girls with some good role models.

Two weekends ago, we planned to take our best English students to a beach nearby, but the wind was so strong that we couldn’t go. Instead we invited them all over to our apartment to make Christmas sugar cookies and decorate our “tree” (which we cut out of paper). The kids had a blast! They ate us out of house and home, but the tree looks wonderful and they were so happy. We hope to do it again, although this time the goal will be to speak more English. That night we went to a festa for the municipality of Vila de Ribeira Brava. It lasted 3 days, like most festas here. We stayed for almost all of it, though I had to come back and teach 5 classes on Monday. Needless to say, we started the week pretty exhausted and I think I’m still catching up.

On Saturday, our school hosted a “gala solidaria” to raise money for the fundação social that helps students who can’t afford to pay school fees, uniforms, transportation, etc. The other professoras asked us to participate, so of course we agreed! I was given the part of pechera, which is a woman who sells fish. The idea was to do sort of a “fashion show” type desfile to demonstrate the different periods in the history of the island. I had so much fun taking part! A bunch of my students were involved and I could tell it meant a lot to them to have their professora nova involved. They also asked me to be part of the “Desfile Moderna,” so I got to practice my model walk a lot last week. Since then, everyone I talk to says “A professora, bom show!” I even had a little girl I don’t know come up and give me a hug on the street. It was a great integration moment and really made me feel like part of the community. After the event, we went to a party on the beach and for a moonlight midnight swim. Ah…island life is rough!

I spent Sunday just wandering around enjoying the city and talking to people I knew. I’m starting to get the hang of socializing here and really enjoy getting out and seeing people.

Now it’s just time to prep for IST and going to Praia. I’m actually really bummed that I won’t be spending Christmas and New Year’s here. I’m going to miss our little island and community. Not to mention, everyone I talk to tells me how bummed they are that we won’t be here! However, I’ve decided that’s a good sign that I’m liking it here and I think I’ll just be that much more excited to come back!

Missing home a lot these days and hoping everyone is well. Enjoy the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season and the chilly winter weather. It’s just not the same without it!

Wishing everyone a very merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year full of peace and love.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, the leaves aren’t changing color and a hint of snow isn’t in the air, but the holiday season is upon us anyway and I can feel a difference in the air. For one thing, it actually is a lot cooler. I’ve worn my fleece the last few nights and felt very comfortable. I’ve also taken several bucket baths recently – by choice because then I can warm up the water! The last round of crops is just getting ready for harvest, and we’ve seen a significant increase in options for fresh fruits and veggies . I’m sure it won’t last long, but we’re enjoying it while we can. People are also starting to talk about Christmas and New Years’ Eve. It makes me sad that we won’t get to be around, but we’re getting excited to spend the holidays in Santiago and Fogo with some of the other volunteers.

Since the last time I wrote, we’ve been to a couple more festas, integrated a little further with the teachers, and probably doubled our list of recipes that we can whip up at the drop of a hat (we’re currently on a mission to use 24 large cans of decomposing chicken before we leave for Christmas break). We also attended our first fashion show and local soccer game and got through our first few rounds of teachers’ meetings (and teachers’ parties). Not to mention going on several hikes and a terrifying night-time car ride. On the whole, life is good and I’ve established a pretty good routine that keeps me busy, but with enough time to relax and appreciate the little things.

I spent half of last week in bed with a pretty miserable bout of the flu, so it feels really good to be back in the saddle. Yesterday, I spent the day walking around the city and visiting students and didn’t even mind all the unwanted attention I got – it felt so good to be outside! Today I thoroughly enjoyed my 5 hours of classes in a row. Normally I dread Mondays, but I really missed my students! They may be a headache, but at the end of the day they are the reason I’m here. They seemed genuinely happy to have me back, too. Some of them had come to visit me last week when I didn’t come to class. One group was all the “good”students of course, but another was a couple of the students I normally have problems with. It’s good to see that they’re enjoying me even if they don’t always show it. And it was nice to see that they cared about my well-being, although it didn't quite translate into them being quiet in class today...

Other than that, we’re just busy prepping for the holidays as well. We’re hosting a big Thanksgiving dinner for all the volunteers here on Saturday. Each volunteer is making a couple of things so that everyone can bring a touch of their home to the table. I'm making mom's family's famous scalloped corn and some green bean casserole. After that, it’s Christmas music and time to put up decorations (i.e. taping up a paper tree and making ornaments)! We may even make some sugar cookies to frost...

This Thanksgiving, I want to take a moment to say thank you to my family and friends who have always been so loving and caring and supportive, especially through all the big things that have happened this past year. I wouldn’t be here and happy without you. And as much as I’d love to be home, I’m also really thankful for this incredible opportunity I have and for my new Peace Corps family, with whom I’m lucky enough to get to spend the holidays this year.

Hope everyone is staying warm and enjoying the holiday cheer.

Peace, love, and happy Thanksgiving!

A Vida Boa

I have gained a new appreciation for mornings on São Nicolau. And really there is very little that I can’t appreciate at this point, so a NEW appreciation is like…well, magical. The sun comes up in the east and reflects onto our gorgeous beach and you can just see the landscape come to life. It’s definitely the most colorful part of the day on this dry dry mountainside. Lately we’ve actually been getting some rain, which just makes the city that much more vibrant.

A lot has happened since my last blog, but it’s mostly pretty mundane stuff. So, in light of my cheerful spirits this morning, I’ve decided to make a list of all the things I love about my life and my site right now:

1. I love that I don’t need a P.O. box. Our community is so small that someone will tell me I have a package. And if all else fails, one of our best friends works at the post office so she’ll just give us a call. (I also love love love all the letters, cards, and care packages I’ve gotten – Thank you!!!)
   
   
2. I love that my students constantly ask me if I have a boyfriend and look at me with incredulous looks when I say “No, and I don’t need one.” It’s a great opportunity to explain that a career is important and plant a little seed in the minds of my young female students that maybe they don’t need a man (or a child at age 16) to be happy in life!
   
   
3. I love that the first words out of my mouth each day are in Kriolu, but that I can come back to my apartment and speak English to my wonderful roommate when my head wants to explode.
   
   
4. I love that I’m more up on world news now than I’ve ever been before, thanks to the internet and 6am workout classes that force me out of bed early enough to have some morning free time.
   
   
5. I love that going to those 6am workout classes has been a breakthrough in my integration with teachers at the school. It’s a good chance to talk to them and we can commiserate together about how sore we are when we meet up later in the teacher’s lounge...
   
   
6. I love that going to the beach or a festa can turn into a chance to get to know my students better. And I love that they’re so excited to introduce me to their parents – although they might regret it when I find out they didn’t study for their test!
   
   
7. I love that I can be at the beach or the market in about 5 minutes, but that it takes me more like 25 when I see people I know.
   
   
8. I love piling into the back of a hilux (pickup truck) with 12 people (and sometimes a goat or a washing machine) and feeling the wind whip through my hair as we round the mountains into the fresco part of our island.
   
   
9. I love that the breeze comes into our house so nicely that we don’t need air conditioning, even in 90 degree weather. And I love that it’s 90 degrees when I take a shower because the lack of hot water actually feels like a good thing!
   
   
10. I love that my nightstand is an upside-down cardboard box with a sarong draped over it. I also love that we now have a couch made out of wooden pallets from the tuna factory (and that we’re friends with someone skilled enough to help us make it).
    
    
11. I love that I can go to the market in the morning and buy only what I need for that day or the next 2 or 3. And I love that the selection of items is always a surprise! It’s forcing us to improve our cooking skills and creativity.
    
    
12. I love that my students from one class try to sit in on all my other English classes when their teachers don’t show up. Whether it’s to see me or to get some extra English classes or just to mess around, I’m glad they’re excited about English!

There are things I don’t love as well, and lots of challenges to face each day. Today just feels too happy to talk about them, so I thought I’d leave you all with a bit of sunshine from São Nic. Enjoy those chilly fall days a little extra just for me. I’ll be here, burning my pumpkin scented candles and pretending it’s cold enough to wear socks and a sweater…

Sodade des nha terra Saninclau

It’s been an amazing last couple of weeks. I don’t even know where to start! I am now officially a Peace Corps Volunteer (not just a trainee) and have taken the oath to protect the constitution J It was an exciting moment for me, and one that I’d been dreaming of for a long time. They had a wonderful little ceremony which was covered on national news. I even gave a short interview in Kriolu! You can check out the link below or on my facebook page. A couple of us performed “Sodade,” a traditional song performed most notably by Cesaria Evora that speaks about an intense longing for your homeland. It was appropriate as we all tearfully said goodbye to our host families – happy to be on our way to site, but sad to leave the people we had come to know and love.

Now, we are finally settled into our new home in São Nicolau! We spent a fun day and nights in Praia and left at the crack of dawn for the airport last Monday. After finally dealing with all of our excess luggage and waiting until 6am to pay for it (our flight left at 6:30), we were on our way to Sal. We had a long layover there, but not quite enough time to see the island, which from the plane looked SO FLAT! It’s amazing to see the diversity in the landscape (and people) of the different islands. Our next plane ride was a quick 20 minutes and we were in São Nicolau (accompanied by none other than the recent presidential candidate, Manuel Inocencio).

This island is spectacular. As we flew in, I could see the beach out my window and as I looked across the aisle, I could see the side of a mountain just feet from the other window! Our “city” is right on the water. It is very dry and HOT! It’s been about 90 degrees Fahrenheit inside our house these past few days. Of course it’s significantly hotter outside, so that feels like quite a relief. We have a huge apartment, with separate bedrooms and bathrooms and an extra storage room. On top of that, our kitchen is probably twice the size of my St. Louis kitchen, so no complaints there. I can see the school and the beach from my balcony! While it’s large, it’s almost entirely unfurnished, so it feels pretty empty. We’ve managed to buy a couple of things with our settling-in allowance, but furniture here is very pricey. Alexandra and I made quite the spectacle of ourselves carrying bookshelves and mirrors and plastic armoires down the streets to our house from various Chinese lojas. Our jog around town the other night was quite a spectacle as well, but it’s a small community and everyone wants to get to know the new English teachers.

So far everyone is incredibly friendly. We’re really lucky because the volunteer who is here now and COSing soon has built a great reputation in the community so people are excited to have us come in as well. We’re walking into a very welcoming environment. As far as we can tell, it’s also a very safe area. I’ve gone to the beach alone and not been bothered at all. I can leave my bag at one end and go for a run down to the other end and no one will touch it. We’ve also walked around the town at night and not felt the least bit unsafe. Granted, we’ve been with Nelson who knows literally everyone here!

I’ve started teaching and it’s definitely going to be a challenge. I’m teaching 5 turmas (classes), which is actually only 15 hours per week. Since those turmas are made up of 3 different levels, it means a lot of lesson planning and adaptation. On top of that, 2 of the turmas have 38 students! They get out-of-hand pretty quickly, and it’s difficult to manage a classroom, particularly when they don’t understand the language you’re managing it in! Oh – that’s another challenge: northern Kriolu (sanpajudo), is different than the southern Kriolu (badiu) that we learned. They are somewhat mutually intelligible, but by the end of the day my head is spinning trying to understand it all. I also have class on Saturdays, which is kind of a bummer. But… since I can just walk on down to the beach with a fresquinho afterward, there’s really not much to complain about!

Last weekend was just such a cornucopia of awesomeness that I am really floating on a cloud right now. After a challenging day of classes (I had to slam a door and yell a lot), we attended a despedida for Nelson, the current volunteer, where we met lots of his old friends and danced Michael Jackson with some little kids and ate the most delicious catchupa and grilled chicken ever! The night finished with me singing Sodade to the accompaniment of some fairly intoxicated but surprisingly rhythmic guitar and drum playing by the remaining party-goers. We spent Sunday scouring our apartment and washing laundry and then went down to the beach, which was full of people - including some of my students and a couple of women we’d met earlier in the week. We swam until sunset and then walked home to enjoy a delicious dinner of grão di bico and tuna and rice. Alexandra and I are becoming quite the culinary artists! We’ve made some delicious tuna dishes, with the fresh tuna we can buy at the docks each afternoon, and even invested in a blender/food processor combo to make our favorite dishes like hummus!

Yesterday, we spent the morning buying fresh produce (including mint and cilantro!) and trying to figure out our internet situation. It should be hooked up in the next week or so. Then, I had all 5 turmas in a row without a break! They went well, but I was pretty wiped afterward. Fortunately, we were invited over for dinner by a bunch of Senegalese vendors that live in the area. They made us a delicious Senegalese fish and rice and veggie dish. We spent several hours just sitting on mattresses on their roof, drinking mint tea and talking about life in a mix of Kriolu, English, French, and even some Wolof! It was such a relaxing time and the stars were shining brilliantly over our little island.

It’s one of those moments in my life when I just couldn’t ask for more.

Special shout-out to Nikki who is turning 23 today :)

Alei li ta bai

The last few weeks have been such a whirlwind, and in just over a week we will be sworn in as volunteers! I can’t believe how quickly time has flown. Seems like just yesterday I got here, and yet I feel as though I’ve been here for much longer than 7 weeks. I’m really going to miss my mai and how helpful she has been. And I will so miss my neighbors and my beautiful green mountainside! At the same time, I am very ready to live on my own (well, with a roommate) and get integrated into my new community in São Nicolau.

I’ve had some really fun and moving adventures lately, so I thought I’d share a couple of highlights…

On Saturday, I actually experienced “monda” for the first time. I figured out that “monda” means hoeing, and is a very labor-intensive process that can last for days depending on the size of the land. While I didn’t actually help, I did help my prima to bring food for the monda-ers. It was fun to bring them some joy and rest in the middle of the day, but the path to get there was quite a challenge. I’ve learned that Cape Verdean definitions of “not far” and “not too long” are very different than my own definitions so I’ll have to keep that in mind next time I offer to help carry food to an indefinite location and for an indefinite amount of time (and next time I’ll bring sunscreen). The intensity of “monda” is a bit hard to describe, but I guess just imagine hoeing an entire cornfield by hand, and then imagine that cornfield being tilted at a 45 degree slant with only an 8-inch wide dirt/rock path down a mountain leading to it. Boy I wish I’d brought my camera.

Sunday, we went to visit my great-grandmother. She is 103! Even more amazingly, she lives essentially by herself. Her neighbors and grandkids help her make food and clean, but other than that, she’s pretty much on her own. On the one hand, it was hard to see such a sickly elderly person by themself, and on the other hand I was just blown away by her strength. And to think she’s still kicking while probably receiving NO health care whatsoever!

Recently, we’ve had a lot of current Volunteer’s around, which has been really fun for us. It makes me feel more like part of a community and excited about my post and what I’m about to do! On Monday after Model School, we went with a couple of them to a waterfall that had swelled up due to all the rains we’ve been getting. It was absolutely magical! So beautiful and refreshing and relaxing. While the hike down was pretty tricky, it’s the cleanest I’ve felt since I’ve been here. We literally just climbed beneath the spray and hung out for about an hour. Very fun and very Peace Corps/Cape Verde.

Other than that, not much to report. Funny cultural moments included peeing on the side of the road with my mai just standing behind me, waiting for an hour for my mai and cousin to go get mangis and then having them expect me to carry them back (and having my cousin’s carrying strategy fail twice while I baked in the sunshine with my pasty white skin), and fitting 16 people in the back of a pickup (hiace).

Language is still going well, and I’m very comfortable in both Kriolu and Portuguese. Of course the dialect of Kriolu up north is different, so I’ll have to make some adjustments once I get to site. I’ve started running in the mornings, which has felt wonderful. Between the time the sun comes up and the time I have to get ready for school I only have about 30 minutes, so I don’t normally get very far. Fortunately it is SO hilly that I still feel like I’m getting a pretty good workout. While I’ve gotten some unwanted attention, it’s less of a problem in the morning and nothing I can’t handle. Plus, the view of the valleys from the mountains first thing in the morning is totally worth it.

That’s it for now. Shout-out to Whispers who’ve been in the middle of auditions and callbacks. I miss you and wish sooo much that I could be there right now! Take good newbies :)

Halfway there!! (well, through PST…)

We are currently entering week 5 of 9 for training, which means we’re halfway there! It was an emotional week for me between being sick and getting my site placement and going through our first assessments. But…so far so good! Still hanging in there and really enjoying all the little wonders of life here in Cape Verde: fresh mangoes all the time, almost weekly trips to the beach, understanding my mai a little bit better each day, singing an acoustic version of Beyoncé’s “Halo,” and all the drama of our Brazilian telenovela J There have been some negatives too. I will never get used to the masses of flies all over everything or eating fried meat in the morning, but those are pretty minor and I’m working on being more flexible, which is the Peace Corps’ #1 requirement for volunteers.

The most exciting news is that I know where I’ll be spending my 2 years after training! I’ll be living in a fishing village on the island of Saõ Nicolau. Due to Peace Corps regulations, I can’t give specifics about the town in my blog (for safety reasons), but I’d be happy to tell you about it by e-mail if you would like. I’ll be living with another PCV roommate, which should be really fun. Of course, we have to get on learning the Northern Kriolu along with Portuguese (which, btw, is much harder than it sounds).

We’ve started working on developing lesson plans, so it’s starting to really hit home that I’m going to be a teacher and enter the classroom soon. I’m getting excited, although I know it’s going to be a big challenge.

Internet use continues to be scarce. I tried to use it on 4 different occasions last week, but every time the electricity is out. I’m starting to just assume that’s the case so I don’t get bummed out when it inevitably happens.

Best parts of my week:

· getting bunches of letters from Mom and Dad and Grandpa and Grandma A and Becca. Thank you!!

· eating American food at culture day

· discovering the sell guaraná here

I'm trying to upload some photos but the connection is really slow, so maybe next time...

Mata Barata

I’ve never seen so many cockroaches in my entire life. They honestly didn’t bother me that much the first few times I saw them, but now they’re just so annoying. They’re huge and they crunch when you step on them and then you have to clean them up. Not to mention they make a lot of noise crawling across my floor at night so I have no choice but to get up and smash them. I actually couldn’t even take a bath tonight because there were so many in the bathroom that I had to spray this really strong bug spray in there. Not only did I not want to breathe it in for 10 minutes straight, but the roaches were literally falling off the walls dead and I did not want that landing in my bucket bath.

Ah yes – I no longer take showers. My daily cleaning takes place with about ¾ of a bucket of water, which I pour on to myself over the drain located in the 3 feet of bathroom floor between the toilet and sink. Honestly, it’s not nearly as bad as I expected. It’s amazing how clean you can get with such small amounts of water. And my bags of toiletries have pretty much been sitting untouched because I don’t even have a mirror. Needless to say, I’m sort of glad I haven’t been able to take many pictures so far...

That being said, I will upload some pictures one of these days, but my internet connectivity is so sparse that it may have to wait til I’m at site. And I haven’t been able to take many pictures anyway because cameras are just a huge attraction for pickpockets or muggings here, so they rarely recommend that we bring them.

I think I might just go through my day-to-day schedule to give you an idea of what life is like right now.

6:45 – wake up, take a bucket bath, get dressed (amazing how much more quickly this goes when there is no mirror or primping to be done.

7:10 – eat breakfast (at first this consisted of a fried egg and spam or fichos which are balls of fried dough, but I finally convinced nha mai that what my stomach really needed was a bowl of cereal with milk)

7:30 – begin walk to language class

8am-12:30pm – language class

12:30 – 2pm – lunch with nha mai and maybe some time to rest or play games with my primas

2-5pm – more language class or technical training re. Cape Verdean education system

5-7pm – Txiga at the homes of neighbors or family, play with primos (so far, we play a LOT of cards and have also had some fun making friendship bracelets and putting on temporary tattoos or reading in kriolu)

7-8pm – do homework or study language or help nha mai with dinner; I’ve also had a ridiculous amount of time to read, which is good because I’m worn out

8pm – eat dinner while watching the daily news (recently mostly about the upcoming presidential election)

9pm – watch “River a vida,” a deliciously dramatic and saucy Brazilian telenovela with nha mai . We get really into it.

10pm – take second bucket bath, get ready for bed

10:30pm – escape to my room to do alone-time things like watch American TV or read another excellent book (I’ve read 2 in the two weeks that I’ve been here).

That’s pretty much it day after day. Twice a week we have “Center Day” which means that all the trainees have lectures together at the school where our PST headquarters are located. These lectures range from Safety and Security Protocol to talks on Malaria and Dental Care or how to best go about forming personal and professional relationships with Cape Verdeans. It’s always fun to get together with the other PCTs and chat and hang out. Also, the training staff is just awesome.

OK in terms of updates…

1. I now have a CV cellphone. It can make and receive international calls and texts, so if you’d like to be in contact with me, let me know and I’ll e-mail you my number. I know Skype is cheap for calling and texting and I think on Gmail or Gchat you can even text a phone for free, but I’m not sure.

2. Language class is awesome and I’m learning quickly which is fun. Next week I’ll be starting Portuguese.

3. My pai is here for a few days from France, so that’s been a new and interesting dynamic to watch. It’s VERY common for Cape Verdeans to have a husband (or father) living in another country and working to provide for his family from there because employment options are so limited here. Probably 85% of our volunteers are living in homes that don’t have a constant father figure present. Some have been living apart from their families since they got married (although formal marriage here is also sort of an up-in-the-air idea; lots of people are “married” but not legally).

4. They killed one of our pigs yesterday. Outside my window. It squealed for like an hour. Then I spent all day watching them cut up the various parts of the meat, including the intestines, which I’m sure I’ll be likely to see in some upcoming dinner.

Well, that is all for now. I love hearing from you all even when my internet time is scarce, so don’t hesitate to write!

Ti logu…

Txiga!

Hello to all!

Oh my goodness it has been a long week. Seriously, it feels like I´ve been here for months, which means I´m very much missing all of you. I´m going to make this short and to the point because time is limited.

We had a lovely staging in Boston and I got to spend lots of time with Jenny, including a trip to the newest Harry Potter movie (which I didn´t love, btw). Friday night we were off (2 hours late) and we landed Saturday morning to be met by dozens of Peace Corps Cape Verde (PC/CV) staff and volunteers. It was such a warm welcome! We spent all day Saturday and Sunday in intense training sessions and meetings re. health, homestay, and even language (already!). Monday was more of the same until we moved in with our host families on Monday night.

So far, so good! I didn´t react very well to the malaria pills and have been having really bad chest pains, but other than that there isn´t much to complain about. I live with just one woman, Fatinha, in a 2 bedroom house with a small dining room, tinier kitchen, and a bathroom with no light. There is running water every Sunday morning, so the rest of the week we use what we´ve put into the cistern. Fatinha is very very sweet, but talks a million miles a minute! It took me awhile to catch on, but slowly but surely I´m starting to get it. So far we´ve only been learning Kriolu, which is both easy and difficult. Spanish DEFINITELY helps, since much of it is based off of Portuguese (and even has a little Spanish influence). But...definitely a challenge.

I thought it might be lonely in my little house, but I was wrong! If I´ve been home for 5 minutes, you can bet that one of my many cousins or second cousins has come by to see if I want to play cards or build friendship bracelets or eat something. And I can´t walk down the street without 3-4 people shouting ´Txiga!´ which means, ´Come over!´ Gil Bispo (where I´m located with 4 other volunteers) is a quaint little village up in the mountains. Fortunately, it´s much cooler than Praia, because there is no air conditioning. Electricity fails a lot and there is no internet, so we´re in the nearby town of Assomada trying to use internet for as long as possible.

Twice a week we have ´center days´ where we meet with all the PC/CV staff and volunteers to go over rules and medical and safety issues. The rest of the week is spent in language classes. We´ve been split into groups of 3-4 volunteers so that we can attend class close to home, but they will soon be changed based on levels of progression.

There have already been some emotional and physical ups and downs, but so far so good! I´m going to stop this here, but I will add more information on al of this later. I´ve been journaling every night so that I don´t forget anything.

Love and hugs from CV!!!

P.S. On Saturday we took a trip to the coast and OMG the beach was amazing!!

"Life is calling......how far will you go?"

These words have adorned the wall of my dorm or apartment since the beginning of sophomore year. On my way back to Wash U after the summer, I tore an ad for the Peace Corps out of an in-flight magazine and have had it up ever since. The ad features a little hut surrounded by a rain forest and mountains - complete isolation, but boy what a view! As my departure date draws near, I'm remembering this inspirational poster and how I've wanted to do this for so long.

So much has changed, even just in the past 2 months. It's been tough to keep my balance. And now, here I am about to embark on a crazy adventure with absolutely NO CLUE what's in store for me! Each day slips by faster than the last, and I'm down to one more week here with family and friends.

So...in light of this terrifying realization, I'm trying to get back to the original purpose of all of this: to serve people in need (no matter how small my contribution my seem), to challenge myself to grow and learn to survive on my own in a foreign environment, to share myself with a new group of people, and to open myself up to receive their culture and what they have to share.

It sounds pretty idealistic, but what's a girl to do in this crazy world? Gotta start somewhere...life is calling!

One month to go

As my dad just pointed out, I will be leaving for Cape Verde, West Africa in exactly a month. To the minute. My flight leaves from Boston's Logan Airport at 10:30 PM on July 15th.

I can't believe how quickly time is flying! It hardly seems like I will have time to get everything ready AND do a little relaxing before I leave. Fortunately, I'm pretty on top of my packing list, so hopefully I won't have too many last things to get in the next few weeks...

I'm using this blog entry as an introduction. My goal will be to update at least once a month, so sign up for the e-mail option and you'll get a notification. I'd imagine that I'll be writing more than that in the first few weeks and maybe less than that as I get settled in. But I'm going to try to be faithful - that way all of you can experience a little bit of Cape Verde through me AND I can have a record of my time once I'm done. Hopefully I'll be able to reflect upon it and realize that I've learned something.

On the left-hand side of the screen, you'll see that I've put up a wish list. IF any of you are ever in a generous mood, please feel free to send me something fun! I'm guessing it will end up being mostly silly things like tea or stickers (for my students) or Dove dark chocolate :) But I'm sure after a few months on the islands even the small things will be welcome.

We spend our first 3 days in the capital city of Praia, where we will have an orientation for our pre-service training (PST). The training, which takes place in another city outside of Praia, will last 9 weeks, the first two of which I will be learning creole and the rest of which I will be learning Portuguese. Safety, professional, and cultural training will also take place throughout. During those 9 weeks I will be living with a host family. At the end of PST, if I pass all my assessments, I'll be placed on one of the islands in a secondary school to begin my 2 years of English teaching! The training sounds pretty intense, lasting from 8am - 6pm every weekday and from 10am-4pm every other Saturday. I'm excited though! It will be nice to get to know the other volunteers.

If you'd like to contact me during PST, you can write to:

Marin Tollefson, PCT
A/C Corpo da Paz
C.P. 373 - Praia
Republic of Cape Verde
Via Portugal

They recommend sending things in smaller envelopes when possible to avoid theft. Also, you should write "Par Avion" and "Airmail" on the envelope. If you would like to send me a bigger package, they say to send things inside of tampon or pad boxes. Apparently if it looks like you're just sending me feminine hygiene products, no one will mess with it :)

Ok that's all for now. Getting excited!!