I had the hiccups today

How funny that a thing like that even exists.

A Short Interim Summary of Where I Am

More than two months have now passed since I arrived in São Nicolau, and I'm still not living in my permanent house in Fajã. Fortunately, I know where it is — I've visited it many times — and I expect to move in next week.

Of course, if you knew that I've been saying that for the last eight weeks, you might take it with a grain of salt. You might not believe me. Heck, I don't always believe me. But it's true: I'm moving in next week.

The reason, simply, is that I've rested quite enough by this point, and I'm excited enough by the ideas in my head that spending two years on their realization is exactly what I want to do.

Key word: want. When I want something, I make it happen. I wanted to visit my friend in Beijing, so I did. I wanted to ride my bicycle to San Diego, so I did. I wanted to live abroad, and now I do. But for a while I didn't know why; I didn't know what I wanted here. Problem of my life, if you ask me. Don't want enough. Unambitious? Maybe. I remember the words of quiz kid Donnie Smith:

"I have so much love to give … I just don't know where to put it!"

I have enough brains and gusto to achieve nearly anything, but that's the kicker, that nebulous anything. It's too big. Hard to find a part of it that I like. That I want.

So for these last two months — months of trails hiked, books read, meals cooked, and meetings gingerly scheduled but not attended — I've been stuck in my house in Tarrafal largely because I didn't want Fajã badly enough. Agriculture work sounded like fun, but only in the way that it would have been fun to take agriculture courses in college: as a diversion, a sweet first sip from an entirely unfamiliar font of knowledge. As for what I could actually do in the realm of agriculture (besides something hopelessly vague like "improve peoples' lives"), I didn't know. My various quasi-bosses gave me some direction: we had a week of training on post-harvest management, and I just completed another week of training on drip irrigation. Give this knowledge to farmers, they said. Okay, I said, taking responsibility but not ownership. Not wanting.

But slowly, and by now completely, something has changed. I am invested. It's like some extra layer of vision has been switched on: now I can see the problems, and from what I've been taught in the last two months, I can quickly come up with some possible solutions. And most of these solutions are easy. Most of them don't require any appreciable amount of extra money or effort; farmers just have to do things a little differently. Quite often, they don't need technology or new equipment or handouts … they just need knowledge.

Which is exactly why I'm so excited.

I came to Cape Verde (and later, to Tarrafal) to teach basic computer skills. It wasn't what I picked. I asked for environmental work, imagining that I could teach myself about cheap ways to harness renewable energy and then re-teach it to local people. (You know — help save the earth by ensuring that developing nations make progress without walking in the developed world's oily century-old footsteps.) Peace Corps, being the rationalists that they are, decided to put me in a field where I actually already knew something (IT). That made me hesitate. After all, I had applied to Peace Corps largely to get out from behind a computer screen. But I took the job anyway because it involved teaching, which was something I wanted to try, and which might eventually qualify me for totally non-computer work.

I wanted to try teaching, by the way, because I like to play god with ideas. I don't get to do it very often, but I like understanding something so well that I can pull it apart and reconstruct it and even mash it together with something completely different. I love [finding] metaphors. Simplicity arising out of complexity, that's good too.

So when I still thought I would be doing computer classes, I got really excited about teaching the idea of the Internet. I came up with the metaphor of a network of couriers and planned an activity where students would be tied together in a web of strings; they would pass messages to each other and see, simple as shoelaces, how the whole thing works.

I never taught that class. I never solved that knowledge problem; I never finishing playing with that idea. Instead, I got a new job in agriculture. But what I figured out in the last few weeks is that my "new" job is actually my old job in a new field. I'm still teaching. I'm still here to play with ideas. But there are three important differences:

1) The novelty. IT was something I knew well but cared about very little. Agriculture is totally new to me and I care tremendously about learning it because we can't understand humans' relationship to Earth without understanding food supply.

2) The [immediate] impact. Computers could transform the way Cape Verde operates, but since most households here don't have a computer (let alone an Internet connection), that future is probably way more than two years off. I will probably still work on some IT projects in my spare time, but I doubt I'll still be here when the fruits of my labour ripen (assuming I even have success convincing Cape Verdians that the benefits of IT are worth the costs). Agriculture is infinitely more concrete. Change the way you water, and in 3 months you have bigger tomatoes. Change the way you transport those tomatoes, and 50% more of them are intact and salable by the time you get to the market. Instead of throwing them something totally new that they might reject, I get to play around in the realm of what they already know. Feels more like incremental improvement and less like imperialism.

3) Flexibility. I would have taught computers in a classroom. Agriculture, however, entitles me to teach in any way I see fit.

Let me expound on that last difference by giving you a little more background about what I've learned and what I'll be teaching. The first training, in Praia, was on post-harvest management — basically, everything you can do to ensure that agricultural products get from the farm to the consumer in the best condition. This stuff is routine for farmers in the U.S. and other developed nations: rapid cooling after harvest, cold storage, cold transport, humidity control, careful packaging and handling, sorting, grading, etc. Cape Verdians tend to have some understanding of all this stuff, but it is only sporadically reflected in the way they actually do agriculture. They complain about diseased plants, but fail to cull them from their fields to prevent further infections/infestations. They constantly pour tomatoes like liquid from one oversize bin to another, seeing that the tomatoes look fine immediately afterward but not realizing that bruises will appear a day or two later. Addressing oversights like these would allow them to sell much more of their produce at the market (instead of throwing it away because it's bad) without ANY extra water, land, or labor … if only they knew.

Of course, there are some variables nobody knows for sure: how much water and what kind of soil, for example, are best for a 3-month-old papaya tree? Hard to say. Fortunately, a government-sponsored organization called INIDA has research-based Cape Verde-specific guidelines for questions like these on nearly every plant that's grown here. The information is published in the local print language (Portuguese). I've seen the book. Unfortunately, not many farmers know it exists, even fewer have it, and even if they had it I'm not sure they'd get the information out of it very easily.

So my job, as I see it, is to make this existent information accessible. That means teaching, which is cool, but it also means advocacy. This is where the flexibility part comes in: to make sure that all these best practices get into the minds and fields of farmers who would otherwise keep committing the same oversights again and again automatically, I have to get their attention. Maybe that means creating and handing out easy-to-read info brochures. Maybe that means putting ideal fruit storage temperatures on posters. Maybe that means inviting everyone in Fajã to a demonstration farm and serving them free food. I don't know yet, but I get to play around with it. I get to pull apart, reconstruct, and recombine these ideas with my own ideas until I find something that actually does achieve that mercilessly vague goal of "improving peoples' lives."

And that's exciting. I want that.

Soft Cranberries

Just about an hour ago, I was waiting for a van next to the Shell station. A red one came towards me, but stopped about 10 meters short. That's not unusual — van drivers often wait around for people or things. What was unusual was that this driver didn't look at anybody, or call out to anybody, or honk, or leave his van. He just sat there. I looked away, and when I looked back again he was yawning in a huge, goofy sort of way. His eyes were moving in directions I didn't think possible. Not wanting to stare, I turned away for another 10 seconds or so. When I looked back, he had started shaking violently. It ramped up and he went rigid, toes to the floor and head to the ceiling, positively quaking across the front seat. I started edging toward him at that point, not knowing what to do. Thankfully, another man and a woman noticed. As the epilectic was going limp and sliding sideways onto the passenger's seat, the male onlooker opened the driver's door and started to move the driver's body. The van slid forward a bit, which was when I opened the passenger's door to jump in and set the parking brake. The other onlooker got to it before I did, then asked me to help pull the driver around to face upward. There was a puddle of frothy spit and a bit of blood on the seat next to his mouth. The onlooker started pulling his legs and I started lifting his shoulders; I navigated my way over the shifter and then feared for a moment that I would drop this man headfirst onto the street. Thankfully, someone from the Shell station came over and gave us a hand. We carried the body — which had ceased its tremors — across the street and almost set it down in the dirt, but then somebody gave us the better idea (which, in retrospect, should have occurred to all of us) of laying him across the back seat. So we did, and as we did, another van stopped behind us. Its driver got out, helped us close the sliding door with the unconscious man's legs inside, and took the wheel. The onlooker rode along in the back.

They went away to the hospital, and I stood there, waiting for a van next to the Shell station.

The Summit of São Nicolau

Mid-morning yesterday, two Bretts and I — stomachs full-to-bursting with hash browns — set out from Brett's sea-level home toward Monte Gordo (Mount Fat, as I translate it). Five short hours and many cows/splinters later, our surprisingly-manly selves reached its breathtaking 1,312 m (4,304 ft) peak.

I know that may not sound very high if you're from Colorado or Nepal, but you have to remember that we're on an island. So from 1,312 m we actually saw Fogo (Cape Verde's active volcano, part of the distant southern archipelago), and the visible ocean stretched more than a hundred miles in every direction around us.

(Ok, so it was cloudy in the north, but that was cool too.)

On my side

Drunk people will come up and ramble to you just about anywhere, and Cape Verde is no exception. I've had my fair share of encounters here, and most were fairly uneventful experiences. Today was different.

I was at the beach, sitting under a little grass shelter not unlike the one at Wind 'N Sea in San Diego. I was reading Everything is Illuminated, a beautiful book. The shelter, which covers some pull-up bars and cement blocks that serve as exercise equipment, was being used by one of the local youth when a lanky man in his middle years walked up to me and greeted me ebulliently.

Over the course of the next hour, he identified himself alternately as Ranealson or Richard, explained that he has abnormally sharp front teeth either because he is a lion or a vampire, and mentioned several times that he wishes he had a time machine so he could travel back to the year of his birth (1973) and change some things. When he realized that I look like Harry Potter (air-ee potta!), he pointed out that I could use magic to power his time machine. I told him that he should seek help from the church, but he was pretty sure that they don't want his kind. We debated at length the differences between Zeus, God, and love, eventually settling at the conclusion that they are all the same thing. Several times, while pointing either at his heart or the spotted bend in his left arm and repeating the name "Ra," he knelt down on the sand to draw the Eye of Providence. Most of his sentences were built from some combination of Creole, Spanish, and English, as if he'd learned some of each but not enough of any particular one.

I could tell that the exercising youth was watching us (and trying to hold in his laughter), but he left before it was entirely clear that Mr. 1973 wasn't asking me for money, so it's possible that he was laughing at me for being naïve.

Thankfully, another witness — this time a young boy — joined us before the conversation was over; he came to sit with us under the grass roof, watching us and smiling.

I finally decided to cut things off by walking away; Mr. 1973 walked a few feet with me, shook my hand one last time, and asked one last time for English classes (he promised to bring his own pen). I cheerfully said "no" and then bid him farewell. We started walking in opposite directions. After a few seconds, I turned back to face the young kid and shrugged with my palms toward the sky — as if to say, "I have no idea what just happened." He smiled and shook his head in agreement.

This kid didn't think I was a hapless branco. We enjoyed Mr. 1973 together. Today, at least for a minute or two, I fit in here.

When to stop trading up

Just a handful of weeks before I left for the Peace Corps, my mom helped me move everything out of my Philadelphia apartment. We made it a two-day trip, the middle of which was a hotel in a random Virginia freeway-town. The girl at the front desk was about my age, with dirty blond hair and bright eyes. Or maybe a little younger, and to be clear, only the eyes themselves were bright. The skin around them looked tired.

When mom asked her where we should park the truck, she walked outside with us to point out the best place. On the way, mom explained that I was moving home because I was about to leave the country to serve in the Peace Corps.

I don't think the girl said anything at first, but I'll never forget what she said a minute later, out of the blue, while my mom was moving the truck:

"You're doing what most people can only dream about doing."

And then she left — back into the hotel, maybe for the rest of her life.

Oh, how I wanted to take her with me just then.

And now I'm here, and ironically, practically everyone I meet would trade practically everything for a life like hers. Don't get me wrong — I appreciate modern civilization. There's fun in all this possibility. But it leaves too much room for aspiration. With all these choices, you assume there must be a better way to live your life. Which can make it impossible to appreciate the good in what you already have … to consider that it might actually be good enough. That a more ignorant version of you would be satisfied.

Sure, some people really do have it bad. Hundreds of millions of them do. And it's okay for them to look upward. But the top few billion of us could stand to have a slightly less infinite set of opportunities. (By the way, I am in no way an exception. In fact, I'm worst-of-breed, because I voluntarily left a good American lifestyle to come over here and work for pennies … I'm so overwhelmed by choice that I can't even tell which ones are improvements! If I had any sense, of course, I would have simply married the girl at the hotel, moved to California, and called it quits.)

The art of not paying $200 for tea

Today I once again negotiated the price down to zero.

Well, sort of.

Sometime after waking up, I found myself in the main prasa of Ribeira Brava, where all the vans congregate to pick up pasengers for destinations across the São Nicolau-ian landscape. Not knowing which van was which, I asked the first dirver I saw where I could find something headed for the aiport. He promptly offered to take me there himself for 500 escudos — in other words, he gave me the opportunity to fork over an entire day's food allowance so that me and my backpack could have a 16-passenger space to ourselves. I kindly explained to him that there would be other passengers on the plane with me, and that since Ribeira Brava is the town closest to the aiport, there would surely be a van of them with a spare seat for me. I'm not sure what words he said in response, but his body language seemed to suggest that everyone else would actually be teleporting to the airport and I'd be wise to accept his charity van while I still could.

The next dudes I talked to were also drivers, but they were honest enough to a) acknowledge the existence of airport shuttles, and b) point me to the road where I could find them. On my way there I ran into a teacher I knew who confirmed both the road and the righteousness of my indignation at the 500-escudo price. Unfortunately, I'm still a little timid abotu flagging down vehicles taht may or may not be the right one, so I think I missed a few that I could have used... and the teacher, although still nearby, was not helping.

When the 500-escudo driver passed by in his still-empty van and offered to take me to the airport for the same silly price, I told him I'd keep waiting. He didn't say more, but as he drove off his body language seemed to suggest that he was pretty sure he could milk me for even more money later when I got desperate.

I started to worry that he might actually be right, but just then a father of the church (who was the spitting image of a Californian padre... nearly bald, brown robes, the whole nine yards) stopped by to talk to me and pointed to the right van when he saw it.

So I hopped on and went to the airport. On the way tehre, I asked teh merrily-dressed man next to me how much it would cost. He didn't know. So I waited to see what everyone else paid when they got off... but then nobody did. "Was this pre-arranged?" I asked myself. Was the driver doing them a favor? Was this his family? Before the answers to any of those questions became clear, he drove away. And there I was, at the airport, on time, for free.

If the price-gouging bozo driver had been there just then, my body language might have been something along the lines of, "Awwwwwwwwwww, snap!"

As American as…

Brett and I live next door to an old lady named Olivia. Whenever we leave the house, she sees us, because for most of the day she sits on a stoop across the street. She beckons us to come over. Sometimes it's just to say hello, but usually she also wants to know:

1. Have we eaten breakfast/lunch/dinner (depending on the time of day)?
2. Are we about to go dancing to find pequenas (girlfriends)? If not, why not?
3. Are we interested in buying this lovely eggplant/lettuce/whatever?

Yesterday it was #3 — her friend had a bunch of fresh apples from the orchard. Except I'm not exactly sure they came from the orchard, since they look just like the apples I used to buy on Santiago (the main island). Probably they're from Spain or something like that. But I bought a bag of them anyway, because I wanted to make a pie.

Not too bad, eh? Especially for my first time making crust. That said, the taste was only about 80% as good as the gold standard (my mother's pie crust). It was flaky, but not flaky enough. Pie experts, do I need more butter or flour or something else?

Shamless solicitation for care packages

Some of you have asked about sending me care packages. Specifically, you've asked what I want. Well, there are two things I clearly lack here:

• real, grade A dark amber maple syrup
• spices

I will always be happy to receive either of those things, except if you buy spices in a supermarket. Supermarket spices are way too expensive. Don't buy me supermarket spices. Unfortunately, I can't easily tell you a good place to buy good spices at a good price, but I know they exist. For example, I think there's a store called "World Cost Plus Markets" or something like that exists in certain cities and sells many exotic foods cheaply… you can, for example, buy half a pound of curry powder for 88 cents or something ridiculous like that. And Costco might have some good offerings. And Emmanuelle (or anyone else living in a city), I know you can go to an outdoor farmer's market and get spices cheaply there.

I don't think [dark] chocolate will survive the trip, but somebody should probably try just to make sure ;-). And things like gummy candy travel just fine. Or if you have a book you think I should read or a movie you think I'd like, sure, send it on over! I also have way too few photos, especially of family. Beyond that… I dunno. Make something up. Write "hello" on the back of a receipt. I'll still smile. :-D

Transition to Service

A lot has changed in the past week: my status, my job, and in more ways than one, my location.

For one thing, I got sworn in last Saturday. I am no longer a trainee — I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer. Huzzah! There was a nice ceremony with speeches by the U.S. Ambassador and local political notables. All of us spruced up real nicely — dresses, long-sleeved shirts, ties, a few suits — and then proceeded to drench ourselves in sweat. I was one of four people chosen by my peers to talk to the press (in Creole), and despite my gross state, I had every intention of fulfilling my obligation… but evidently I left the auditorium too quickly and missed the microphones. Oops! It's just as well, though, because I was able to save half a [moist, delicious, perfect] chocolate-chip cookie for one of the other [more responsible] interviewees.

After that we went to Praia, and I spent the next two nights in a hotel waiting for a Monday flight to São Nicolau. And what a glorious two nights they were! Air conditioning! CNN! My first hot shower since I left Boston! Best of all, we had nothing to do. Nothing to learn, no forms to fill out, no people to meet. I woke up late, went to a cafe, and ate a huge piece of chocolate cake as I watched chairs flying across the patio outside (a very windy rainstorm was just rolling in). During the day, we swam in the pool at the U.S. Embassy. At night, we had schwarma, which is something like a cross between gyros and California burritos. All in all, a delightfully lazy Sunday with me and my swear-in buddies.

The next morning, Brett S, Nelson, Brett B, and I (the São Nicolau crew) woke up at 5:30 to catch an 8am flight on TACV, Cape Verde's national airline. TACV is interesting. Here are some reasons why:

• they cancel/delay flights if there aren't enough passengers. This happens in the U.S. too, but evidently it's pretty routine here (several of our peers got pushed back a day).
• this isn't exactly a TACV issue, but airports on various islands can be closed for weeks at a time. The one on Fogo was closed for a while and reopened just a day before swear-in, depriving several new volunteers of what would have otherwise been a very memorable 7-hour boat ride (and possibly a much longer wait for the boat to actually leave).
• the checked baggage weight limit is 20 kilograms, or about 45 pounds. Not that different from the U.S., except that it is only a weight limit (not a bag-count limit), and you pay for each extra kilo. In other words, if you had five bags and they were all 3kg, you'd be fine (which is kind of nice). But most of us were closer to 55kg — in other words, 35kg over limit, which costs 7,000 escudos (about a hundred bucks). We gave them a bit of sob story about being poor volunteers, and we got our overage knocked down to 20kg per capita (4,600 escudos). Still double our PC allowance for excess baggage charges, but not bad! Unfortunately…
• We couldn't pay the charges (or, in turn, get our boarding passes) before our 8:00 departure time, because you can only make payments in the ticketing office, and that doesn't open until 8:00. Thankfully, our flight ran late, so we had time. In fact, I think TACV is the kind of airline that just keeps waiting until all the passengers show up on the runway. So, possibly, it ran late because we had to pay for our baggage. Now distill that down to a principle: a passenger can guarantee that an 8:00 flight will be delayed merely by showing up with overweight baggage. Crazy, huh? Unless, of course, TACV just decides not to charge you, which is also possible. We think that one of our friends on a 6:30 flight got away free for that very reason, and we subsequently talked about scheduling future flights in a way designed specifically to avoid baggage fees…

Anyway, that's TACV. The lovable rascal.

At least they got us to São Nicolau, and I couldn't be happier. This island is gorgeous. We saw absolutely no sign of human habitation before the plane crossed over the airport fence. There wasn't much to be fenced in, either: a landing strip on a high, grassy plain nestled between two mountain ranges, with a terminal building smaller than most train stations. A long, lonely road led over rolling green hills into the quaint alpine-esque villa of Ribeira Brava. We continued along the island's one main road, hugging the coast as we made our way around the cloud-steeped peak of Monte Gordo. On the far side, we climbed it, cruising through the fertile valley of Fajã and then wending back and forth on ivy-lined switchback roads to get to the top.

On the other side, it was a different world again: drier, browner, rockier. By the time I got to Tarrafal — the beach-town that is currently my home — I could hardly believe that we were on the same island. But that's how it is: the moisture rises up from the ocean on the north side, and it is trapped there by the peak of Monte Gordo. Here in the southwest, it's like a desert. The houses in town are painted in bright colors, and the cobblestone streets are scantily shaded by palms or the occasional acacia tree. It gets hot, and in the heat of the day, the only thing moving is the breeze (or me, if I'm rushing around trying to get our water turned on). Which, to be fair, has a certain charm. I like this lazy, slow feeling. I like that people are relaxed here. Everyone is happy to talk to us (me and my roommate, Brett Beach), even if only to ask whether we have girlfriends yet. And the youth center where I'm supposed to work is nice and new; the people on the staff seem full of energy and understanding. From what they told me, it sounds like I'd be free to pursue my own projects and do what I feel is important, when I feel like doing it.

But I'm not working there, and I won't be living here.

Much as it breaks my heart to leave Brett (who has so far been an amazingly good roommate), there is an even better opportunity for me elsewhere on São Nicolau. Just a few days before swear-in, Aguido (the man who's kind of, sort of, a little bit like my boss… he runs the PC/Cape Verde small business program, of which I am a part) told me that a community group in Fajã had been asking for a PC volunteer for a while and had only just recently found suitable housing. Obviously, he said, it was too late to move straight there, but he asked me to check it out and see whether I liked it. Fajã, as I mentioned, is a lush green fertile valley… through the use of drip irrigation and other improved agricultural techniques, they're trying to turn it into the breadbasket of São Nicolau. To do that, however, they need to convince farmers that drip irrigation is worth the startup costs, and then they need to help those farmers secure financing. Jobless youth in the community also need guidance: they need AIDS/HIV education, English lessons… they need a place to congregate, and something fruitful to do there. And who better to lead the way to all that good stuff than a savvy Westerner like me? (so they think, anyway)

I met the Association (the community group that requested me) and walked around Fajã on Wednesday. And as it so happens, I love it. Beyond being beautiful, it's also a smaller community than Tarrafal, so it should be easier to meet everyone and feel like I've been integrated… to make close friends. That, in turn, should make it easier to accomplish stuff, and what I'm accomplishing will be more interesting anyway (In Tarrafal, I would have been primarily teaching computer classes, which gives my students access to skilled jobs, which eventually increases wealth and therefore increases the ability of local people to buy the [imported] things they need. In Fajã, I'll be helping to increase agricultural output, which increases wealth now — within a matter of months, anyway —— and decreases dependency on imported food.)

The best part, however, might be the house. Here in Tarrafal, our house is on a street corner. It's connected to another house, across from another house, etc. We have access to a huge, very nice rooftop space, but from where we actually spend most of our time (i.e., inside the house) there are no good views: it's either the street or the cement "kintal" that is our back yard.

The house in Fajã… well, it needs some work. It's what travel brochures might call "classic" or "rustic" Cape Verdian living. No insulation (you look up and see roof tiles), no sinks, no shower. Surprisingly, it does have electric lights, a fridge, and a gas stove… but the house is otherwise little more than shelter. That's what makes it so great: it's simple. And the setting is unbelievable: it's by itself on acres and acres of farmland, all of which is currently occupied by corn but which will be mine to use as I see fit. In the middle of a sloping valley with the peak of Monte Gordo rising up behind me and a gleaming swath of ocean visible below, I will be able to grow my own food and [possibly] raise my own chickens. Henry David Thoreau would be proud. Oh, and the air there! It feels so good just to breathe it!

So in two weeks-ish, I'm going there. I have to wait because the Association is going to spruce it up (new/added doors, windows, screens, sinks, showerhead, toilet, flooring). After that — after all this interminable waiting — the next two years of my life finally really truly begin.

ET and other unexplained Peace Corps phenomena

Hey, friend.

You haven't been asking questions, but all the same, I feel like I haven't explained this whole Peace Corps thing too well. You know that it's an agency of the U.S. government. You know that they've sent me abroad to Cape Verde, which is in AFRICA (for some reason it really amuses me a lot that you write that in all-caps when you address letters to me). You know that I'm a Volunteer… that I'm here to help people.

But what, you wonder, am I actually doing?

Some background: for most of my life I knew nothing about the Peace Corps. Subconsciously, I think I assumed that it was part of the military. When I found out —oh so long ago — that my friend Gwen was considering the Peace Corps, I actually looked it up on the Internet and found out that it's an independent government agency dedicated to community service. Much better! So I attended an info session at my college, where — coincidence of coincidences, in retrospect — I met a returned Volunteer who had served in Cape Verde. After procrastinating for about a year, I submitted my application online. A few months later, they interviewed me in New York City. I said I wanted to work with youth. They said I was good with computers. I said I wanted to help the environment. They said I was good with computers.

A month later, they nominated me to teach computers to youth "somewhere in Africa." Fair enough. I can still do environment stuff on the side. So I jumped through medical clearance hoops for the next three months (thank goodness I had health insurance). Despite some dire concerns about my very mild cat allergies, they passed me and invited me to Cape Verde. My initial reaction was "sweeeet! paradise!" After that, "but will I really feel like I'm doing Peace Corps if I live right next to the ocean?"

After that, "sweeeet! paradise!" one more time.

I quit my wonderful job with RecycleBank in Philadelphia, moved home to North Carolina for six weeks, and then — on July 14, 2008 — began the Peace Corps.

It's a two -year commitment. Except that it's not exactly two years, and it's not exactly a commitment. The initial 2-3 month training period (called Pre-Service Training, or PST) is in addition to two years of service, so you actually stay abroad for closer to 27 months. And since this isn't the military, you aren't legally bound to stay if you change your mind. They'll even pay for your plane ticket home. But of course, they do everything they can to convince you to stay, because it's their money and their reputation on the line.

It may or may not be intentional, but part of the pressure to stay lies in the fact that they talk about Early Termination (ET) as if it were some sort of disease or social malady. Consider the following:

Let me tell you a little story: there once was a girl named Suzie who always treated her mother nicely, always did her homework, and always took a bath at the end of the day after her soccer games. But when Suzie moved to a new school, she decided to quit soccer. Without healthy friends to guide her way, she began to hang out with the wrong sort of people — girls that liked to park in cars with boys, and girls that smoked. They said school was a waste of time. Pretty soon, Suzie listened to them and dropped out. Now Suzie lives in her parents' basement.

Sounds like a public service announcement from 1956, right? Well, just change a few key words and phrases, and you'll hear the way our trainers talk about ET:

Let me tell you a little story: there once was a Volunteer named Chase who always cooperated with his counterpart, always did what he was asked, and always took a bath at the end of the day after his soccer games. But midway through his service, a new Volunteer named Mau moved in with Chase. Mau was the wrong sort of person — the kind that joins Peace Corps just to party, and complains that grassroots development is a waste of time. Pretty soon, Chase became so disillusioned that he ETed. Now Chase lives in his mom's lakefront basement.

Okay, so it's not exactly like that (my mom's still working on the lakefront basement). But ET is definitely one of the biggest elephants in the room. It doesn't help that for the past few years, the ET rate among Volunteers in Cape Verde has been a little higher than the global average. People get scared. People make guesses. Heck, I made guesses. But we were all wrong! We've lost just two people (an amazing, wonderful married couple with — sadly — a medical issue). Everybody else not only stayed but — as of today — graduated from training. All of us will swear in as Volunteers on Saturday. From what I hear, 100% is kind of rare, so I'm proud of us. Hopefully everyone will take this as a sign that they have the strength to persevere and we'll buck the trend of our predecessors. For all I care, that ET elephant can just go back to the savannah where he belongs. We're here to stay. For [to do] good.

But I'm getting ahead of myself! Back to the beginning…

It all starts with something called "Staging," which lasts for two days and happens in a U.S. city (usually Washington, D.C., but it can vary for logistical reasons; Boston has direct flights to Cape Verde, so my Staging was in Boston). Peace Corps flies you to Staging and puts you in a hotel room there. It is at Staging that you meet your training group — the people who will be your peers, your allies, and your best friends during Pre-Service Training (PST). My training group had 29 (now 27) people, and Peace Corps/Cape Verde does a PST every summer, which creates a staggered rotation (about half the Volunteers leave/get replaced every year). Other countries do it differently depending on their needs; because Cape Verde is so small, we have the fewest Volunteers of any country in Africa. Training groups at other posts usually have closer to 50 Trainees and "intakes" (as they're called) can happen more than once a year.

Anyway, after Staging (which touches on safety, cultural sensitivity, and logistics), you fly to your country. That's when PST officially begins.

Again, this varies by country ("post," in PC lingo), but we spent our first three days doing orientation in a dormitory in the capital city of Praia. It was mostly medical/culture/safety training, but it also gave us the first fragments of the local language. Which was important, because after that we moved straight to home-stay families in an array of communities surrounding a smaller city called Assomada. This is what Peace Corps calls Community-Based Training (CBT); you come to a central point (in our case, Assomada) once a week for technical sessions on health/teaching/whatever, and you spend the rest of the time learning the language by living with a local family in a smaller town. They place 2-6 trainees and one Language-Culture Facilitator (LCF) in each town. The LCF gives formal language lessons all day long, four days a week. You are always learning. And it is exhausting.

But like I said, it's over. I'm going to my site on Monday — to my new home on São Nicolau.

The first three months there will be, in some ways, the opposite of PST. Not only will I not go to any classes, but I probably won't really go to work regularly or start any projects. According to the Peace Corps, the only thing I'm supposed to do with that time is go outside and meet people.

For three months.

That probably seems like a long time to you. It seems like a very long time to most Volunteers, too. After all, most of us joined the Peace Corps because we're starry-eyed and idealistic and want to make the world a better place; it hurts us to just sit around not do anything. Even if we weren't so antsy, we're still Americans — we're used to meeting people on day one and starting work on day two. And yet Peace Corps expects us to continue twiddling our thumbs months after any other program would have let us do our work and go home.

But this is deep, deep PC philosophy, and it's what makes Peace Corps so different from just about every other international volunteer organization. We are here to help people help themselves. In fact, it's probably kind of misleading to say that I won't be doing much work for just the first three months. If I'm successful, I won't be doing much real work for the entire two years! My role is to convince Cape Verdians that the work is important, and that they can do it. If they need help, I can answer their questions — that's why I came here with technical skills. But I can't do it for them.

Well, okay, I could. But that's what other organizations do. Other organizations come to Africa to drop off food and water. Other organizations donate money to build a school, or send a consultant out for a week to set up a computer lab. But then the food gets eaten, the school's roof starts to rot, and the computers die prematurely because the locals don't know how to take care of them. And then what? Another helicopter of food? Another crate of computers?

In some minds, the answer is yes. They're poor, we're rich. They can't provide for themselves, so we provide for them. As long as there's a gap, we keep passing stuff over it.

But there are a few problems with that. First of all, it creates dependency. The poor come to expect that the rich will always give, and they stop trying to fend for themselves. Subsistence farmers, for example, stop farming. In time, the poor may cease to believe that they can fend for themselves; they become disempowered. That is especially unfortunate because most of these "needy" communities actually have immense untapped resources, either in terms of physical assets (arable land, tourist-attracting natural beauty, etc.) or human capital (i.e., people with skills — or free time to learn a skill — that aren't currently contributing). Other organizations tend to ignore these resources.

Peace Corps Volunteers find those resources. That's what the first three months are about. After that, we spend the other 21 months mobilizing those resources … in other words, getting the community to take advantage of itself. Occasionally, yes, this involves aid from outside sources. For example, maybe my community can only pay for half of that new computer lab and the UN has to pitch in for the rest. Okay. But if locals write the grant proposal, then they'll be able to do it again after I leave. And if locals set up the lab (perhaps after I've told them how to do it), they'll take ownership. They'll maintain it properly, it will last longer, and the Western dollars that other organizations toss around so freely will stretch that much further.

More importantly, by making the local people work to improve their own quality of life, we empower them. They come to understand that the dichotomy between haves and have-nots is pliable; even in areas where we haven't given them direct training or guidance, they begin to take action. At that point, the change is sustainable. It will continue, even after we leave and even if we never come back.

And boy, doesn't it make you feel so warm and fuzzy inside? :-)

By the way, I don't mean to sound self-righteous or evangelical. The Peace Corps is just one (unfortunately small) fish in a vast sea of humanitarian crusaders, all of whom have good intentions and most of whom actually do significant good. I acknowledge that. But Peace Corps is what I'm doing, so I have to understand it … and because its philosophy is so unusual, it has taken me a while to pull it apart. Any tinge of evangelism in what I've written here is merely a side effect of the fact that I like what I am finding.

And that's good!

Flashlight Assassin

If you’ve seen Wall•E, you probably remember that Wall•E’s only friend on Earth was a cockroach —the implication being that everything else died out after mountains of trash turned the planet into a toxic wasteland.

Wall•E’s second-to-last friend: quite likely, a mosquito.

Despite the fact that I’m on an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean that receives mere inches of rain every year, the anopheles mosquito manages to breed and thrive here. During the rainy season (July to September), the mosquitoes go to town on anyone not wearing long pants and a sweater. If that’s you and you’re white, you end up looking like you have chicken pox. And you don’t have to wonder whether other people notice: you know they do, because everyone and their sister stops in their tracks to recommend remedies or repellents.

The problem is compounded by the fact that the rainy season is also the hot season, so you can’t just close your window to keep the mosquitoes out (because then you can’t sleep). So you open your window, and they stream in, and you wake up all poxy in the morning.

When I was in Canada, I at least had the satisfaction of killing the mosquitoes that bit me. I’d start to feel the prick about halfway through their feast, and my hand would lurch forward to snuff them out — to my delight, just a little bit faster than they could skedaddle. But here in Cape Verde, the mosquitoes are either too small or too subtle to be detected by touch. If you feel something, it’s the red bump that shows up 10 long minutes after the culprit is gone.

During the night, I at least manage to protect myself pretty well with my big green Peace Corps mosquito net. But as I learned early on, it does me no good if any of the bloodsuckers have already managed to sneak their way in. So when I go to bed at night (or go to the bathroom to take a shower), I perform an inspection. I am always interested in the same two things:

1. Mosquitoes?
2. Where??!!

The best way to answer #1 is by listening. Even a single relatively small mosquito makes a distinct buzzing sound when it flies. Assuming I hear something, I whip out my trusty Mag-Lite and lie in wait for the kill.

The flashlight, however, is a problem.

Don’t get me wrong: I love my flashlight. It’s a lot brighter than the ceiling light, I can turn it on easily in bed, I can direct the beam … and it’s the only option in the bathroom in the mornings, since the electricity doesn’t come on until about 10am. But since I have no way of strapping it to my head, it uses up a hand. And how in the world am I supposed to kill a mosquito with just one free hand?

As it turns out: like a ninja!

It begins like a prison breakout. My flashlight beam scans side to side and up and down, scouring every inch of my surroundings to the find the culprit behind the buzz. It may take 5 seconds or 5 minutes, but sooner or later, the mosquito careens into view. Immediately, I lock on, following it with light wherever it goes. Silently, expectantly, my left hand reaches out. As I wait for the mosquito to wander haplessly into range, I flex my fingers into a claw. The tension makes my palm sweat; smelling that warmth — that meal — the greedy mosquito falls for my trap. And all of a sudden, it’s quiet: I’ve pounced, I’ve clenched my fist, I’ve opened it again, and I’ve smirked in satisfaction at the bloody, mangled little pile of twig-legs inside.

Take that, P. falciparum!

How do I turn this thing on?

So, I haven't been posting stuff here. Mostly it's because I don't have time or Internet access. That will change in two weeks, when I go to my site on the island of São Nicolau.

But it's also because I didn't know what this blog was for. That first [very long] post was a roundabout decompression of everything I was thinking and feeling during the first few weeks. Writing that kind of stuff is important for me personally, but for a blog, it's kind of long and tedious and hard to digest. Also, I have a better idea.

The very reason I joined the Peace Corps, I'm realizing, is that I wanted to explore who I am. That mostly means trying out a lot of new things: working with kids, teaching, cooking by instinct (instead of by measuring cup), swimming frequently, playing an instrument, etc. There's a lot of cool stuff I want to do. And I think you should know about it.

So, coming up shortly: my meeting with the President of the Camara (the Camara is the basic unit of local government here, sort of like a county), my hiking trip to a waterfall, and my thoughts on teaching computers without using computers (it's actually easier!).

As for all my thoughts and opinions and feelings... well, I'll still be happy to share some of that, but there'll be less of it on the blog. The best place for that is in letters, which I've already started exchanging with some of you. I love letters! You should see me (or any other Peace Corps Volunteer) when I get a letter. I basically jump up and down giggling like a little girl. And don't even me started on care packages... those things are worth their weight in dark chocolate.

(hint, hint ;-)

That said, I don't have an address right now while I'm waiting to go to island, but I'll announce when I do have one and will make it available to anyone who wants it. And keep sending me yours! I can always be reached (eventually, anyway) at carchase at gmail dot com.

Some pictures for all those words

I found a USB cable in a chinese loja for about $5. Therefore, pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/carchase/CapeVerdePreServiceTraining

Enjoy! (I'll add more there as I take them and have time to post them)

The Wedding

whooooooooooooooossh...

I've never studied abroad, but my friends tell me that you know you're really getting the hang of the language when you start dreaming in it. Considering that I've only been immersed for a week, I feel pretty good about Cape Verdian Creole (Kriolu), but I'm still dreaming about home. Last night my friends Sam, Adrian, and I went to the Concord Mills mall and were reprimanded by loudspeaker for shoplifting costumes (thus spoke the Ma Bell voice: "Please note that while you are encouraged to try on costumes, you may only do so to check the fit. Playing in costumes, especially outside the store, is strictly prohibited."). Alas, we were having too much fun to care what Ma thought of us. I remember being dressed as Captain Kirk and Sam made a rather sporting NASCAR driver. Random, I know. But isn't it marvelous to see the creativity of an idle mind? Two nights ago, in another dream, my mother handed me a giant, translucent Fedex envelope that contained a Fedex box that contained a returned return from Amazon.com. Evidently, they refused the return because I failed to send back one of the advertisements that they had included in the original shipment -- those jerks! Later that night, I was watched by the secret service as I left the wedding of some bigshot political celebrity. I managed to escape their hawk-like (eagle-like?) surveillance long enough to rendezvous (underground-revolutionary-style) with some other wedding guests who, like me, were trying to get to the after-party somewhere near exit 5 in Charlotte but didn't quite know the way.

BANG!

It had not occurred to me that I should cover my ears. I know the distinctive whoosh of a rocket racing skyward, but I'm not used to hearing it more than a week outside of July 4th, and with a few [quite memorable] exceptions they have always been launched far away from where I stood. This one was different. The whoosh was a detailed, swirly sound; you could almost hear the rocket curving before it exploded against the hillside a few hundred feet away and echoed back and forth across the narrow valley. It left no visible trace.

"What was that?" we asked.

Samira, our language-culture facilitator (or LCF -- the Peace Corps loves acronyms), explained to Jackie, Tiffani, and I that in small towns like Ribeira da Barca they use fireworks to signal that there will be a wedding. As we had just attended the civil ceremony in the town's telecentro, we already knew about it. In fact, because people here love to talk, it's probable that everyone in town already knew about it... but I still think it's nice to set off fireworks (which they do throughout the day for 3 days), both as a celebration and as a reminder that the party is for everyone.

And let me tell you: Cape Verdians know how to party.

The wedding was on Saturday, but food preparation (and the first few rounds of eating) began in earnest on Friday. Jackie, Tiffani, and I went to the bride Dilma's house that night to witness the bustle. We came too late and kind of missed it -- they were really cleaning plates more than cooking dishes when we got there -- but Samira gave us some background info that helped us fill in the gaps to understand what we saw. There were huge 20-gallon kettles propped up on the ashes of wood and coal and lined up along the edge of the narrow cobblestone street, across from the bride's house. Each kettle had been filled with a different stew: perhaps masa ku carne (balls of cornmeal with beef or lamb), katxupa (KA-CHU-PAH, a very traditional soup that features garbanzo beans), or feijão (a bean/vegetable medley). As soon as we were noticed (which, between us being white and Samira being popular, was pretty much immediately), they insisted that we eat. None of us wanted to (we’d had dinner), but evidently it’s extremely rude to visit without eating… even if everyone involved knows in advance that the visitors aren’t hungry (more on that later).

So we ate, we drank, and in our limited Kriolu, we spoke. Of we three, I think I’ve been producing the most complete sentences, but Jackie is definitely the best at getting the gist of what people say. While we were eating, one of the ladies who had offered me food started asking me about my age, girlfriends, and children. When it was established that I am almost 23 and have neither children nor “pequenas” neither here nor in the United States, she evidently asked if I wanted to have children with her. Her subtlety escaped me at the time – Jackie had to explain it to me afterward – but I nevertheless managed to blurt out some excuse about needing more than a week to get that sort of thing squared away.

Like many third-world countries, it is common here to have children (and hopefully get married) at a young age. There is also widespread idolization of the United States (“Merka e fixi,” they say – “America is good”), due in part to glamorous depictions of American life in the media and due in part to stories from relatives (the [slight] majority of Cape Verdians actually live near Boston). For both of these reasons, it’s hard for a young white male like myself not to get a lot of offers… I’m both a) different, and b) potentially a ticket to a “better life.” So if I ever get back into a dating mentality while I’m here, well… I just need to be especially diligent about finding a girl who wants me because c) we have something in common. Not to mention the fact that while AIDS is somewhat less common in Cape Verde than in the rest of Africa, the incidence of STDs in general for Peace Corps volunteers is higher here than in any other country in the world. I’m convinced that it’s a Law of Numbers thing (people here party a lot; there are at least 20 important national holidays). Ask me again in a year.

Speaking of a “better life,” though, reminds me of how swanky it is here. I’ve spoken with a lot of current volunteers since arriving here, and phrases like “Posh Core” and “Club Verde” get tossed around. Don’t get me wrong – this is still Africa. There’s still Malaria (though only on Santiago, the largest island), I still have pigs and chickens and goats and cows running around the yard, the population is growing unsustainably while resources dwindle (which is especially troubling for an island-nation), the unemployment rate is about 24%, pretty theft is on the rise, and though I haven’t experienced it firsthand, the government probably doesn’t work.

But transportation does – you can get all the way across the island for about 350 escudos (about $5.50) in zippy little Toyota Hiace vans (called “Yace” around here) that have distinct seats for 14 people (but actually tend to hold closer to 20). In principle they’re probably really unsafe, but in practice most of the drivers have been on these roads for years and can make their way around everything from curbs to goats with scientific precision.

The water’s not potable as-is for foreigners, but it’s also not that bad. Because of the whole arid-desert-island thing, Cape Verde pays more attention to water than the average developing nation. And because there isn’t must heavy industry, there are fewer pollutants to worry about anyway. I brushed and rinsed my teeth with tap water for the first three days (I had forgotten the whole water-safety thing) without event. And the food, though somewhat monotonous after a while (lunch and dinner always involve rice), at least tastes good. Another big win is the western-style toilets; though toilet paper goes in a trash can that eventually stinks and “flushing” usually means pouring a bucket of water down the bowl, you can at least sit down while you do your business.

And it’s laid back here. I noticed that the moment I got on the plane in Boston. It was operated by TACV (the government-owned airline), and everyone on board acted like they were old friends. In fact, I think many of them were. The flight attendants chatted and laughed freely – on their cell phones, with each other, and with the passengers. They obviously waited for the last passenger (he ran in 20 minutes late) before closing the cabin door. Hearty food (by airline standards) came fast. Unfortunately, despite the fact that I was in the exit row and had unlimited leg room, I failed to sleep (I was too cold).

But excitement and wonder kept me going through my fatigue. Just outside Boston, the full moon illuminated the scattered clouds and the ocean below in such a way that they appeared to be touching – that the clouds were merely a silky sheath sliding over the tops of the waves to make them glimmer a little more. The next morning, like a sailor, I cried “land ho!” as the soaring peaks of Santiago first emerged through my window.

Twenty minutes later we were on the ground and in baggage claim, grabbing any bag with the light blue yarn that identified its owner as a Peace Corps trainee. When most of us had our bags, we began to filter out of the airport one by one… and one by one we were greeted with thunderous cheering. At first you could only hear it happening past closed doors, and I wondered if it might be a local airport tradition like the awarding of leis in Hawaii or the live music in the customs area in Bermuda. But as it turns out, the cheer squad was actually a contingent of current Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs) in Cape Verde. Many of them hung out with us over the next several days, which was precious because it allayed some of our worries about what we were experiencing (mainly, they confirmed that it’s entirely normal to start out as a clueless, jittery puddle of mush).

Except I wasn’t worried. I still felt great when I crawled into a Hiace van for the first time. I still felt great when -- like an army of pale hamsters -- we unloaded the truck that was carrying our bags and lugged them up three flights of stairs to the dormitory where we would be sleeping during orientation. Even throughout the rest of the day, through session after session of boring policy mumbo-jumbo (and a tiny bit of batuku dancing for good measure), my sleep-deprived head was all ears.

But then it stopped.

The sleeping and eating and meeting and learning and moving that has consumed us entirely since our arrival in Boston was now resolved. We were free for the evening. So we went back to our rooms and…

…well, some people probably just talked more. Unfortunately, I didn’t know my roommate that well (and I think he was gone at the time anyway), so I ended up just looking out the window and watching the quiet street below.

And I was reminded of a few things. To explain them, let me rewind a bit.

If you talked to me just before I left for Boston, I might have told you that I was really excited about meeting the other volunteers. In retrospect, I wasn’t excited enough (Sam, in you’re listening, I should have been stoked instead of jazzed). This is an awesome bunch of people. The first full night in Boston, I took a shuttle to Target with Jackie (who I already mentioned) and another new friend called Judy. We joked our way through our last glorious bout of American consumerism, playing with/debating all the suitcases and suggesting silly presents for each other’s host families. Judy convinced me to buy scissors with a plastic-moulded woodpecker for a handle; she bought the matching vegetable peeler and a nice collection of frivolous stickers. Jackie got a new suitcase with wheels (but tried to offer it to Judy, as it was the last one – how kind). Silly stuff, I know, but to me it seemed oddly beautiful that I was doing something so routine with people I’d only known for eight hours.

Later that night, we met up with Rochelle (unless I say otherwise, assume that all names are fellow PC trainees) to go to Chicago Uno for dinner. We had chosen that particular restaurant in part because Judy had a hankering for clam chowder and we knew that they served it. I piggybacked on her hankering (it sounded like a good idea once I’d heard it), but alas, after Judy and I placed our orders the waitress returned to tell us that they only had enough left for one bowl. In retrospect, I should have been a gentleman and let her have it (sorry, Judy), but instead I instinctively threw up my fist for a game of rock, paper, scissors (or as she calls it, “stone, paper, scissors”). She took the hint and tugged up her fist in response. Rock, paper, scissors, SHOOT!

Rock and stone. While the waitress waits, rock, paper, scissors, shoot again. I’m still rock. She’s paper. I switched to French onion soup. The four of us shared our recent romantic histories. Good times were had by all.

From what some of you have told me about your experiences with Girl Scouts and other similar organizations, this kind of intense bonding is fairly common when you’re relentlessly surrounded by a particular set of recent strangers. Perhaps I could have had just as much fun with entirely different people. But that doesn’t change the fact that bonding happened, and specifically, it happened with these people.

So on that first night in Cape Verde, suddenly alone, I was reminded that I had not come here to hang out with my newfound American bosom buddies. In fact, I knew perfectly well that after our three-day orientation in Praia, we would split up. Except for Jackie and Tiffani (who live in my town and join me for lessons with Samira), I only see other trainees once or twice a week. And after we complete pre-service training (PST – they use that one a lot), there’s a good chance that some of them I will never see again.

So as it turns out, I really am in Africa and I really am going to have to make friends with Africans if I want to avoid feeling totally alone. Obvious, yes, I know. But especially for someone like me who sees so much of his own identity in the way he writes English, it’s daunting to think about building any sort of deep relationship across a language barrier.

But that night I slept, and as always, I felt a little better in the morning. I’ve been working each day since then to come to terms with the fact that Cape Verde is now home. Of course, “home” is a loaded word – I’ll probably write a full post about that later – but for now, my success with the language is helping. Language instruction really began in earnest on the Sunday after our arrival, when we drove to the mountain city of Assomada to meet our host families from surrounding villages. I was more or less mute at first, but they are nice to me and they give me much more privacy than the Peace Corps had led me to expect. They are also extremely helpful and patient with the language; in particular, my host father Apolinu (Pui) is very diligent about repeating himself and gesturing until I understand what he means. It’s exhausting, but in concert with the formal instruction I get during the day, also powerful: by the fourth night I was actually relaxed while speaking. I no longer worried that missing grammar would stop me dead in my speaking tracks; instead I was confident that through gesturing or speech or otherwise, I could get my point across. Which, of course, makes me feel much better about the prospect of someday making real friends out of the people here.

It also doesn’t hurt that Cape Verdians are so darn friendly. Especially in rural towns like Ribeira da Barca (where I am living during PST), many people greet you and try to learn your name when they first see you. Often they’ll repeat, “txiga, txiga!”, urging you to come into their house and sit down. If you do, then – like I said before – you’re expected to eat. We trainees find this a little strange, since in America we think of it as more or less a biological fact that an unexpected guest may or may not happen to be hungry. But perhaps there’s a cultural explanation: although nobody really starves in Cape Verde these days, it definitely used to be a problem (during colonial times, Portugal was a little stingy about sending food reserves when crops failed here), so perhaps it used to be the case that you could depend on your visitors being hungry.

Not so anymore. Saturday began with the church wedding, which finishes what the civil ceremony started and which was held in Assomada. Samira, Jackie, Tiffani and I were supposed to leave around 8am on a Yace, but I didn’t get there until 8:20 and Samira was a no-show until well past 9. No matter – from what we heard, the bride was still getting ready, which gave everyone else free license to take their time. Everything starts late here. (Which is fine, actually, because it’s a byproduct of everything happening slowly, which is a huge part of my motivation for being here anyway.)

When we arrived at the church in Assomada, we were excited to see others trainees sitting on the steps (at least while we’re still adjusting to the language and culture, it is always a relief to find someone else who speaks English). Sadly, they didn’t join us inside for the ceremony.

Or ceremonies, I should say. Seated in the front row were five brides in white dresses and five grooms in suits who – after five vows in a mix of Portuguese and Kriolu – became five married couples. I’ve actually wanted to go to a wedding for quite a while, but I can’t say that this is how I imagined it. In America, weddings are such enormous events; some couples could buy a small house for what they spend on their nuptial. And it’s rare that you’re just going to a wedding. You go to the wedding of Jordan and Kathryn, the celebration not of love itself but of the couple’s success with finding love in each other. Jordan and Kathryn get to be superstars. Idols. And boy, do they work for it.

Here in Cape Verde, a wedding is a routine. Couples don’t hire planners or sift through books looking for cool ways to entertain their guests – nobody tries to be unique or special. Couples are expected only to hang out and visit, which means that all the real work of cooking, cleaning, and organizing is handled by neighbors. It’s ultimately not that different from any other Cape Verdian party. And I’m not sure how I feel about that. On one [frugal] hand, it’s really nice to save money by sharing costs. It’s not that different from the way friends take turns buying dinner in America; you cook for other peoples’ weddings knowing that they would cook (or already have cooked) for yours. On the other hand, I can’t deny the egotistical core in my soul that says my wedding should be something transcendent.

(An aside: cost-sharing weddings also remind me of money clubs, which are fairly common in Africa. If you haven’t heard of them, the basic idea is that all members contribute an equal amount to a pot that is then given to one member on a rotating basis. So if the monthly contribution is $100 and there are 11 members, the first member gets $1000 (i.e., (11-1) × $100) in August, the second member gets $1000 in September, etc. I know it sounds strange, but it allows members to make large purchases that might otherwise never be possible. You may suggest that each member should just stash $100 on their own each month (that’s my instinct too), but that’s easier said than done, especially when you have a macho husband who likes to spend (money clubs are frequently all-female). I bet we’d have money clubs in the US, too, if we didn’t have credit cards instead).

Anyway, mom, do you remember reading what the Peace Corps packing list said about dress clothes? That I might need them for weddings? I think your words were, “I hope you won’t be going to too many weddings!” Well, technically, I went to 5 of them before the end of the second week. Incidentally, my dress shirt was back home in my suitcase (where it belongs).

Thank goodness, too, because I don’t think I would have survived the rest of that day in a dress shirt. We hopped on a Yace to Txada Len, a small town that was hosting a festa to commemorate the anniversary of their local church’s founding (most towns in Cape Verde do this, and for most of them, it’s the biggest festa of the year; everybody saves up to go no-holds-barred with everything from food to clothes to decorations). Samira was still with us, so we basically party-hopped between the houses of people she knows and the houses of people we know (Txada Len, like Ribeira da Barca, is home to several PC trainees). But again, the catch is that you have to eat whenever you walk indoors. On account of the heat, we weren’t hungry to begin with. After 3 or 4 consecutive dinners and a few more stops where I got away with just eating cake… well, let’s just say that “n sta fartu” (I’m full) took on a whole new dimension.

Are you really still reading this? If so, I could probably sucker you into reading another 10 pages, even if I double the amount of rambling. But then I’d lose precious time for sleep and homework (the PC makes trainees put together a portfolio…ugh), so instead I’m going to summarize everything else in a series of brief vignettes:

FOGO: last night I dreamt that I was in the kitchen of my mom’s house back in North Carolina, and in the middle of the countertop between the sink and the stove (in the corner, for those of you who know it well), there were four sizzling pieces of toast. And by sizzling, I mean they looked like they were in the broiler. As it turns out, there was a fire in the crawl space under the house. But boy, did that toast look yummy.

TAKSI: I was able to send out a decent mass-email update last week because Samira showed up to the Internet café very late (thus giving me extra time). Unfortunately, all this lateness also made us miss the last Yace, so we had to take a taxi home (and 25km in a taxi ain’t cheap). Aside from Samira feeling terrible about putting us in that position, it was pitch dark and terribly foggy, and none of the cars here have seat belts. About halfway through the trip, the driver got off his cell phone long enough to stop at a mini-mart to pick up something. That something turned out to be a beer, which he swigged a little before taking off again. Once we had safely arrived in Ribeira da Barca, the driver surreptitiously underestimated Samira’s age (she’s 30) by a margin of 12 years.

MATADU: basically everyone in town seems to be my host father’s cousin. One of those cousins is named Alex. Alex invited me into his living room last week. Over the din of the telenovela, he complimented me on my Kriolu and showed me pictures of friends from China and continental Africa who had come to Cape Verde in the past and learned Kriolu quite successfully. My gaze wandering, I noticed some Russian VHS tapes next to the TV. Do you know Russian?, I asked. He doesn’t, but he explained that he has a friend in town that had to flee Russia because he killed too many people and the Russian police were after him. Evidently, he has spent the last 10 years in Cape Verde without event. Good to know.

N KRE KELI: during the past week, we began technical training, which introduced us to societal problems that exist in Cape Verde and gave us some basic tools for community development. I went home excited. In fact, I went home wanting to join the Peace Corps. Which was the first solid sign that I’m going to last here. Huzzah!

DIXIE WORLD: about 30 minutes ago, I heard the General Lee’s distinctive horn blaring from a truck on the other side of the valley. God bless America.

SICKO: most people have been more or less healthy so far, myself included. A lot of them have experienced fleeting diarrhea or nausea, which I have thankfully managed to avoid. But my head has been kind of messed up since I got here. My lips swelled up and felt raw after the first week. I kind of thought that I was getting impetigo, but the doctor told me to just use chapstick. A week later, it was worse (I’d also had a terrible sunburn on my face in that interim, which didn’t help). I wanted to talk to the doctor again when we had an all-hands in Assomada that Wednesday, but they skipped out early. I called the next day and never got a call back. I called the next day, talked to the other doctor, and didn’t get a call back. That Saturday, when I was supposed to go with all the other volunteers on a field trip to the beach town of Tarrafal, I got four calls from two different PC medical people. They asked me how I was, told me they were sending medicine (to Assomada, which is 40 minutes away), and advised me not to go on the field trip. My reaction: thanks, guys, for waiting until my chin and lymph nodes are swollen and until it’s time to hit the sand before you decide to help me. I planned to go anyway and pick up my medicine later, but with that fourth call, the doctor nixed my designs: he said that he would accompany the medicine to Assomada and I could meet him there to be examined. I half-believe that he was doing that just to keep me away from Tarrafal, but I appreciated his effort (it’s an hour ride from Praia), so I met him there. On the way, I passed a few crowds of fellow PC trainees who were waiting along the roadside to be picked up in the other direction (toward Tarrafal). We chatted. “Oh you’re going to the beach? That’s nice. Yeah, I wanted to, but I’m getting this skin infection checked out. Yep, catch you later!” Fortunately, when I met the doctor, the swelling turned out to be much less severe than he had expected, and he toned down his recommendation to stay home (he also gave me a gigantic tube of the goop, which is great, because I can save it… I get impetigo once or twice a year and it’s much better if you cut it off early). So, naturally, I took the next Yace to Tarrafal. It was impeccably beautiful, I found my friends, I had a wonderful day, and my head is almost back to normal.

ANGRA: this was on Sunday. Angra is a beach just up the coast that is only accessible by foot or by boat, and for no particular reason, they have a huge party there once a year. You pay about 65 cents to ride over along the coast in a glorified wooden dinghy (I kind of want to buy one – they build them right here on the other side of the valley). The largest dinghies only hold about 10 or 15 people, but by 3pm they’d managed to get nearly 1,000 people on this beach with live music, a stage, a barbecue, and a captain’s stockpile of the local favorite: a beer called Super Bock. People danced on the black sand, jumped from the rocks, and frolicked all day long. Oh, it was nice.