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…