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 :)