Insert funny title here

So, i wrote this about a month ago, yet it still holds true, maybe even truer now that it was than, but thats neither there nor here. anyways, this post is simply ramblings that maybe i shouldnt even post. but, its been while since i posted anything and all the projects i´m working on are still just huming along, so there isnt much new info, and i´m not too good on detiling soem of the typical life experinces which would be nice to share but require a higher level of compositional skills that I currenlty have. Entao, this post.

I had wanted to spend the whole day cataloging magic, but I ended up spending only half a day. But, here is my list of the magic I experienced during a half day here in São Nicolau: The dawning sun hidden in the clouds, watching them sit, watching them brush along the mountain peaks as the morning sun grew and intensified Greeting the women on thier way to the fields, yelling Bom Dias left and right and the undeicepherable replies of Nha Mai’s, Meu Deus and others The candlelight glow reflecting off the pictures taped to the wall in my bedroom The banana eaten on the wall watching Monte Gordo awaken and shake off the morning fog Going to Hortelá along a narrow, cliff edge road Giving three small children reason to stare and gawk The two patonkas eaten with the family in Hortelá, and their laughter at my verbal enjoyment of the breakfast treats Getting small glimpses of the lives of other people, seeing in my eyes something special and new and knowing in thier eyes something normal and everyday Tearing the bark off the sugar cane with my teeth, chewing on the sweet flesh and spitting it out on the ground Playing with the calico cat laying in the shade Watching from a distance children having a potato sack race (and questioning on if potata really does have an e at the end) at the soccer field Seeing the ocean in the distance as I write The sounds and smells of the men working on repairing the wall The little child who sat next to me to show me his three marbles, and then came back with a book of bible songs A book I recenlty got sent and read, ‘Off the Map’, spoke alot about magic, about dreams and possibility, and how many things in life work to hold us back from dreaming, that tell us to dream is to be irrational, that we should accept what they say is normal and be happy, that to follow your heart and to fail or succeed is crazy.... Within my own life and those I see around me, I note that our eyes have been jaded against that which we use to behold as special, as unigue and magical when we were children. Why? What causes this lose of sight, and can we get it back? There are people I know that have regained, or at least partially, this ability, or are working towards regaining their sight. But it is rowing agaist the current, an uphill battle when everyone is saying go down, go down, go down .... I don’t want to go down any longer. I want to climb, and fall, and get back up and climb again. Even a dream the size of an ant has strength. We have created systems of imprisonment for ourselves, and live happily behind bars, laughing and sneering at those who escape while we waste away with a life sentence. I learned the reason why man must work and how to dream big dreams To conquer time and space and fight the rivers and the seas I stand here filled with my emptiness now and look at city and land And I know why farms and cities are built by hot, warm, nervous hands Woody Guthrie

Sorry for the lack of new pictures

Why are peanuts so funny?

This post also could have been titled, Why is Pizza so funny? But its not. Anyways, why are peanuts and pizza oh so funny you might be asking yourself? And, Ill tell you. Suppose you find yourself on a volcanic island in the middle of the Atlantic ocean 500 miles off the western coast of Afrika…for example. Now lets also imagine you happen to be teaching English to 20 community members in the local kindergarden. You happen to be teaching about the present progressive, I am going, or He is eating… You also like to throw in new vocabulary, and sometimes words you think the students would like. Soooo, you say, Henry is eating peanuts. Normally, everyone repeats what you say. But when you say peanuts, everyone laughs. Hmmm, you say it again, everyone laughs. You ask why is everyone laughing, and no one says why. You repeat peanuts again, and again, laughter ensues. You then think to yourself, saying peanuts slowly and imaging you are Cape Verdean and it dawns on you. Peanuts, like pizza, sounds like penis. Ahhh, it is funny.

I hope you enjoyed the little comic relief. I unfortunately don’t have much updatage to speak of, but I can speak of some things. For instance, the paper recycling is going good, better than I had excepted. We have started collecting boxes of paper from Tarrafal and soon will get paper from Vila. A house has been setup for the Artists to start making paper products, and wham bam, we are in business. At least sustainable community development type business.

I recently hiked to this amazing spot along the coast, please excuse my spelling, but I think its spelled Cabeirnos. Either way, its this area where it consist of volcanic rock that has been eroded by the ocean to reveal amazing shapes and curves, smooth rock and places where its florescent green. Soooo, together with another PCV, I am going to work to get this place designated as a protected area, have a trash can and sign installed, a clean up done of the little trash that is there and some stones left over from when the Camara made steps, and hopefully the place will be a proud area of environmental beauty and stewardship for all to enjoy.

Oh, the Park is also in the steps of creating a tree sponsorship program. I think for about 10€, that’s 10 euros, you can sponsor the reforestation efforts of the park and the island by adopting an endemic plant, like Tortolho, or a Dragiero tree, etc etc. So if you already know you simply can not live without forking over some money to help a poor little old island, get your check books, or credit cards, handy. If you know of environmentally minded people out there, or any organizations or clubs that are looking for the perfect Earth Day gift for a loved one, well, what can be better than sponsoring a tree in a third world Afrikan island country.

There are other little projects going on at the park, and maybe one or two outside the realm of the park, but nothing is set in stone. Hence, I shant burden you with them until they possibly reach fruition. The weather has turned warm again, we had a chilly spell for about a week, and now it’s a warm spell probably for another week. The weather seems to come in waves.

There is a chance I will head to Mindelo, on Sao Vicente, later in the month. There is a theater thingy going on there, not really sure about the details, but I want to check out Mindelo, so why not. Otherwise, looking to do more hiking, and hopefully will head out to the eastern shores one of these days, maybe for Easter. Till next time, ta ta.

Mali: Episode VI - Return of the PCV´s

When we last left, we had spent a chilly night on the top of a roof in Timbuktoo. Well, lets us be on our way now to Essakane, about 60 miles norht of Timbuktoo, it is on the very last outskirts of scrub land before the vastness of the Sahara desert takes over. Regardless, most of the driving is through desert sands, which are extremely silky soft sand that makes drving fast and reckless, based on how our driver drove.

Anyway, we spent two nights three days sleeping in a traditional animal skin open tent on the sand. There were a few thousand people there, alot of international people, but moslty Malians and venders selling alot of art stuff. Amazingly, no matter who you went up to, they all had a good price, and sometimes there name was Mr Good Price. I met alot of Mr Good Prices in my travels. Anywho, there was music only at night, abd during the day with the sun blazing, people either slept or wandered around the festival sands, either looking at wares to buy, seeing the random music and dancing, or talking to a guy who is mkaing efficent stoves for refugess using recycling packaginig material.

We left the festival early on the third day so we could be on our way back to Mopti. We covered all the same bumpy, dusty, silky smooth terrain we had on the way there, and again it took us about 12 hours this time to return. In Timbuktoo we got a flat and waited 30 minutes to fix it, at one of the checkpoints where the army checks papers, we waited 30 minutes. All in all, we got back to Mopti, crashed on the dingy floor we had slept on last time in town, and planned to be on our way to Dogon Country, or Pays Dogon in french, in the morning.

And so it happened. We left Mopti and made our way to Bandgira, which is the captical of the area. From there, we took a different car into the Dogon area and then started hiking. I dont have my notes in front of me, but we hiked to four different towns. The first was on the top of the escarpment. Oh, the Dogon country is bascially a huge escarpment with the majority of villages at the bottom of the escarpment. If you dont know what an escarpment is, i suggest a google search. Anywho, form the first village we hiked down, at first through a nice green tree area, and then on the bottom it opens out as the area had once been forested with wild animals and water, but when the Dogon came to the area, they forced the natives, the Tellem, into the upper areas, cut down the trees, killed the animals, and lo, now there are no animals, limited trees, and no major running water. There is some irrigation going on and therefore there are awesome islands of waving green onion tops, as the Dogon love there onion. Anywho...

We went to the next village, simlar in some aspects as the houses are all mud with wooden supports. There are graneries for men and women for each household. Some Dogon are still Animist while others are Muslim. The women make millet beer, sell it to the men, and make some money. Not many people drink. The millter beer wasnt bad, but wasnt a Brooklyn Dark if you know what i mean.

From this town we took an ox driven cart to the next. An ox driven cart sounds all nice and safe, but at times we almost fell off, and the driver kept whipping the ox as he liked to walk at this pace, which the driver did not seem to like. Regardless, we got to our last village, ate some rice wiht tomato sauce, i really like the tomatao sauce, and slept inside for once in a nice mud room. For a little while, i stayed on the roof as it was warm and the stars are bright and nice.

The enxt day, it was back to Mopti and then on to Seqou, where we spent two kinda lazy days, in this kinda lazy quiet town. Much different than Mopti, no major water ports, people arent trying to sell you lots of things, just a ncie quiet little place. We saw amazing music at night in a bar, it was all traditional with three types of Malian drums and a large wooden xylophone, with calabashes underneath to make the sound. The guy playing was phenominal, he played so fast you couldnt see his hands, then he picked up the djemebe and played super fast too. It was great, people were up and dancing all over the place, and i had a few of the queens of beers in the prcoess.

We finally made our way back to Bamako, and back to the Mission Catholque where i slept outside on the couch, once without mosiquite net which was a mistake and the second night with. Bamako is a bustling capital, mcuh different from Praia, and from what i am told much different from other afrikan captials. It was safe, croweded all over the palce with cars and people and vendors and people cooking and people selling dried monkey heads and peanuts and all types of stuff. never ending movement, it was greta and a bit overwhelming at the same time. We spent alot of time at our faviroit hangout across form the Mission, Mohameds vegetarian resturant. good food, good guy, and good kitten.

And so, we headed back to Cape Verde, spent five days in Praia thanks to the wonderfulness of TACV, and eventually i settled back in Sao Nicolau and got my creole back.

I ruchsed this a bit as i wanted to finish up this Mali adventure. Watch out for the next installment on this blog entitled `Why are peanuts so funny?

An R comes to Afrika

Gonna take a quick break from Mali and give a quick update about whats going on here in chilly Cachaço. For effect, i have choosen to use an ancient system of summarizing important compenets of a docuement or conversation first perfected by the Tellem, an ancient race of pygmy red skinned people reported to have been one of the lost tribes of Israel, but i digress. And so:

• Recycling comes to Sao Nicolau!!!! kinda of. For the past few weeks, a formacao has been going on teaching about 10 studetns the art of making new paper form old paper (aka: recycling). They have mastered this skill are are pumping out some awesome hamdmade crafts. In the upcoming month, we will be senidng out samples to various locals around cape verde to see what the interest is in carrying these goods, and also look to setup a house in Cachaço for them to come and create. Not only does this create sustainable development in communties (in line wiht Peace Corp and the Park goals), but means that they need a whole lot fo scrap paper. Sooooooooooo..... paper collection will begin in the main towns and hopefulyl spread island wide. Eco Clubs in these towns will help montior and collect and somehow bring the paper up to Cachaço, but those are only details. Once we have products up I expect, nay, demand that everyone buy some.
• English classes come to the masses!!!!! On Tuesday we began giving englihs classes (or our best effort at them) to peoples of Cachaço, Lompelado, and Cabacilino, our neighboring communties. Classes are two hours with a little break in the middle, people are liking them so far. Its fun to have lots of people repeat everything you say, its fun to learn the names of people you should ahve already known thier names of, its fun to get covered in chalk, its fun to get the keys to the school from the teacher and forget to give them back untill the next day...all in all, they are so far fun, a bit of work as i already work all day in the park, but is more than worth it.

I planned on more bullet points but im a bit tired of writing about whats going on, sorry to those who follow this blog religously. i´ll update again soon, maybe about Mali too.

Mali Part 3: The search for part two

So, the Japenese. They helped us get inot Djenne, and we eventually made our way to a freezing cold roof. Seems alot of toher people had the idea of coming to Djenne the night before a really big market day. Huh. Anywho, instead of sleeping on the roof, we went and slept on the floor of the kitchen area where it was much warmer.

We had sorta arranged a guide, Guru, supposedly the son of the cheif, and he took us on a two hour walking tour of Djenne. All the strucutres are made of mud with wooden planks as support. There a three different styles, depending on the time and momey you have. Also, on the top of house, they put these little bumps to indicate the number of children they have. not sure why. But the reason we came to Djenne was for the market, which was colorful, flavorfuly, noiseful, and wonderful, and for the largest mud strcutre in the world, the grand mosque. And the mosque is huge. it crakcs from the sun and drynes each year, and everyone from the village helps each year to put more mud on it for repairs. children take Quran classes where they leanr verses in arabic one at a time, on these wooden little planks, and when they learn it, they wash off the writting and move on to the enxt one. these schools are free i think for all kids. Anywho, we walked around the entire day, ate spagetti out of plastic bags, had mushy red bread which rocked, mushy fried rice cakes which rocked, balled up peanut butter, etc etc. It was a really nice place, and while everything was brown, it still seemed colorful and alive.

The enxt day we were off with some frech canadians and our new guiide, Phillip, to Mopti. It was aonly about a three hour ride in a station wagon, and when we got to Mopti, they even had an atm that didnt work. Twas sweet. Mopti was our staging area for our drive to Timbuktoo the enxt day. In Mopti, we walked around the very busy, colroful, smelly port, where traders in boats bring, sell, buy, transport, etc all types of goods, food, calabashes, and other thigns. They also make the boats here. Across the river form the buys city are the sleepy fishing bozo vollages who dont want to take part in the city at all, and hence are traditinal villages. They might come once a week to trade some goods, but they live thier life.

Had dinner on the street in Mopti, potatoes, spagettie, and unfortunalty rice with what seemed to be only fish bones. I threw some very wierd green, thick, woody sauce on it all, and well, not the ebst dinner i had in Mali. Anywho, we were up and out early the next day as the drive to Timbuktoo was estimated to be about 10 hours.

And it took that long. First, you drive to the town on the amin road, Douenza, and we swtiched to a hardcore 4x4 car. And ate the ebst spegettie wiht tomatato suace in the world there. Anywho, then it wa sa bumby, dusty, bumby long drive on dirt, broken roads, sometimes just sand, to get to the river crossing. This normally takes 8 hours to get too, but our driver drove on the fast side, and we hit it, and our heads many times, in four hours. of course, since we were heading here to make our way to the Festival in the Desert and so was everyone else, when we got ot the ferry, there were over a 100 4x4´s waiting. and one of the ferries had broken down. so there was one ferry taking about 10 cars, and each trip took two hours. so we waited, and waited, and waited another 4-5 hours. finally made our way into Timbuktoo about 12 hours after leaving Mopti. And we slpet on the cold roof in Timbuktoo. and the bathroom was the goat house. which was kinda cool, till all the cockroached came crawling out.

Mali: Part 1 of I'm not sure how many parts

I'm back.. sort of. I am stuck in Praia now for almost a week because there is no boat and the flight we tried to take this morning to Sao Nicolao had one spot and neither of us (when i say 'us' i refer to myself and the girl from Sao Nicolao i went to Mali with) was willing to back down from wanting that lone seat, and so, we sit here for a few more days till we can finally head back home.

But, you didn't come here to hear about the transportation woes of Cape Verde, you want to hear about Mali. What can i say, the culture of Mali is a mixed culture form the 12 different tribes that currently inhabit the land, with the Bambara, Bozo, and Taureg being the main peoples. With that culture, comes music, comes art, comes a sense of unity with their past, etc, etc.

The trip starting by befriending some French people in Cape Verde. We were flying to Dakar and had to stay the night, and we had the name of a place that was outside of Dakar. We asked a few people how to say this or that in French, and then I went over to those two younger people and talked to them about how to ask for vegetarian food and stuff. Well, we started talking and then their friends they meet in CV came over and ended up offering us a place to say in their flat in Dakar... and they spoke french. Soooooooooo, we stayed with these people in Dakar, they helped us get a taxi back to the airport the next day and we were off to Bamako. At least after the two hour delay.

Arriving in Bamako, we realized we still couldn't speak french. And we didn't have visas to get in. As PCV's, we were kinda hoping to slip on through, play the Peace Corp card, but it didn't work, so we had to buy visas' Then after some 'negotiating', we got a taxi to the Mission Catholique. All catholic missions generally accept travellers to stay so long as they have room and do not have visiting clergy there. some are more run for travelers while others are not. Where we went was more for travelers. Anywho, we got there around 11pm, the Sister let us in only after a Malian guy who spoke English alerted us to the fact that he has a restaurant across the street and he serves vegetarian food. interesting. We ended up just getting a grande Castel, and then spelt. during our beer drinking, we spoke with some guy who insisted that we head to Djenne on Sunday so we could be there for the market on Monday. So that's what we did. Got up, and went to one of if not the most insane bus station i have ever been to. People were everywhere, stalls, food, noises, colors, when the taxi pulled into the area guys ran alongside the car yelling things, twas crazy. The taxi dropped us off at the bus, we got our tickets....and then waited for over two hours. and we had to pay extra for our bags, or perhaps because we are white. not sure. Anywho, we finally left and about 10 minutes later we were stopped again for about 20 minutes as the bus had already broken down. This would end up being one of MANY stops. There are checkpoints of sorts all over, where soldiers pretty much make drivers pay them to let them continue along, there are speed bumps in lots of places, where little villages have been set up and the bus will stop and people will start hawking their goods, mostly food. Sometimes they came on the bus, yelling whatever they were yelling, sometimes they'd run along the bus knocking on the widows. If you even looked at the item, it was assumed you wanted one and most likely many as anyone selling the item then came to you to buy it. They sold papaya in bags, peanuts, muffin things, water in bags, water in bottles, juices in bags, yams, eggs, fish, dried and on bread, bananas, and other such items. While sometimes you didn't want to stop and wait, when you did want something it was oh so nice to simply have someone come to you on the bus and sell it to you.

We eventually made it to djenne, at midnight after a 10 or more hour bus ride. Thing about the bus dropping you off at Djenne is that it doesn't, it drops you off on the main road about 10km or more away from Djenne. This was not part of our general knowledge at the time. So when we stepped off the bus, in the pitch black, we weren't quite sure what to do. Thankfully there were some Japanese around.

.....To Be Continued....

Kid, you´ll move mountains...

And so, we find ourselves at the end of the year. It’s been a good year 2007 has, despite all the bad press it got when it started, and sure, there was that rough patch during April, but we stuck with 2007 through thick and thin, and it paid off. In fact, I feel like Im ready to do it all again with 2008. It’s been 5 months now at site, and while there is still a lack of concreteness about what I am doing in terms of doing…um… things are moving along nonetheless. I have brains in my head and I have feet in my shoes, and I can steer myself any direction I choose. So while my Portuguese has reverted to that of nothingness, my Creole has been slowly slowly stumbling forward, learning a few new words each day. And with that, I have started having conversations that go beyond the apparent lack of rain to discovering more of the thoughts, wishes, and desires of the people here. And while I am not having deep philosophical conversations yet, I am learning the deeper side of the culture which is helping lead to create in my mind more ideas of projects to work on. For instance, a friend of mine sent me the book, The Unheard, about a PCV in Zambia who had a few unlucky experiences, as well as being deaf. Which lead me to researching the status of deaf people in Cape Verde. Well, there turns out to be one school that teaches LGP, the Portuguese sign language, and is based in Praia. This means that if you live anywhere, even in Praia, and cannot afford to go to school, which basically means almost everyone, you aren’t learning LGP. I also recently met a deaf person in town and his communication is SEVERLY limited as all he was capable of doing and all people were capable of responding back was with points and grunts. Imagine if this person had a more advanced way of talking about his world and being able to communicate with people. Hence, I am looking for ways to get people trained to be teachers in LGP, which if anyone knows ASL, is difficult in itself. Other little things that occupy my mind are ways to improve the efficiency of outdoor stoves, so far I have either thought about using mud/clay or recycling tin cans to surround the fire to make them more efficient. I also want to create a weekend story time or puppet (think marionettes) theater for kids here, as there is not much extra activity that stirs their minds. I really like this idea as it will incorporate young members of the community to help read stories or act out plays, will develop skills as we will have to write proposals for materials or money, and it gives the little kids something rocking to do. Plus, as our house has sorta turned into a little after school nursery, it gives the kids a chance to go somewhere else besides our house. About our daycare center… I had been sent a bunch of toys, some plastic animals or the farm sort, some dinosaurs, some stretchy lizard things, silly putty, a race car, and a yo yo. Well, no one knows how to use the yo yo, but the little animals are played with a lot, sometimes they pretend to eat the pigs because they know I don’t eat pigs, sometimes they stare in confusion at the dinosaurs because we tell them it’s a cow, sometimes they throw the lizards at other kids to scare them, sometimes we play basketball with the silly putty or play dodge ball, but all in all, we have a bunch of little kids that right when we get home, come running in asking ‘Pode brinka ma brinkadieras?’ To which you of course cannot say no. I taught my neighbor how to make vegan sugar cookies which he and his family ate 30 of in one night, impressive. It was his birthday yesterday, he turned 20, and they made cake and some food and we sang Feliz Aniversario. He is an amazing futebol player, he and his friends made a little team and played against the official Cachaço team and beat them. This is was great and unfortunate as it highlighted the fact that the official team is pretty weak. Anywho, ill be going to Mali the beginning of January and will hopefully be attending the Festival in the Desert, a music festival 60km outside of Timbuktu that has the best of the Mali and Western Afrikan musicians performing, with the Sahara desert as the stage. Should be pretty cool, plus seeing a different Afrikan country will be a great experience, to see where some of the culture in Cape Verde comes from. And so, a friend of mine said something a long time ago which she may or may not remember, but has always stuck with me, and has been repeated by other friends in similar, but varying ways. And is summed up nicely by that master of words, that DJ of poetry, Dr. Seuss… You can get so confused, that you’ll start in to race Down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace And grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, Headed, I fear, toward a most useless place. The Waiting Place… … for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go Or a bus to come or a plane to go or the mail to come or the rain to go Or the phone to ring or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or a NO Or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting. Waiting for the fish to bite Or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night Or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil Or a Better Break, or a string of pearls or a pair of pants Or a wig with curls or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting… Somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying You’ll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing … … On and on you will hike and I know you’ll hike far and face up to your problems whatever they are You’ll get mixed up of course, as you already know You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact, And remember that Life’s a Great Balancing act… - From Oh, the places you’ll go I learn everyday that if you sit around and wait, or if you always need a sign, things will quickly pass you by. All around us are reminders of the transitory nature of life. Why bog ourselves down with rules, with always needing streets for where we want to go, with the thoughts of others dangling like a carrot? Even Superman didn’t give a hoot about the rules when he tricked Zod… So what I am saying is that like matter, like those pesky electrons and photons, our life is not predictable, there are an infinite possibilities, so why take the straight line to get from A to B?