I'm sitting in Fogo Lounge waiting for a chicken salad sandwich and french fries. This is the place you go to when you want to feel like you're in America, in a place that's trying to reproduce a little resaurant in Africa but doesn't quite get it right. It actually takes me some convincing on my own part every time I'm here if I want to remember where I am. The sweltering heat always does its part in reminding me. Not exactly a representational picture to paint you of my life. But I needed french fries and I knew where this place was, which was working in its favor.
So my blog has been slacking. I decided against getting internet in my house so that I can try to have as close to "the African experience" as a little white girl can have. Not that Cape Verde supplies one with the stereotypical African experience, whatever that is. There's a lot that I want to write about; all little things that don't really tie together in any discernable way. It makes it exciting to write, to have so many things that I want to say, but also frustrating that there's no obvious structure to anything.
I spent the last few days in Mosteiros--a more urbanized area settled in the north of the island. The town is built on the ocean, and my friend's house is a moment's walk to the beach. Everywhere you are, you can hear and smell the sea. I spent most of the first day, while my friend was at work, rocking back and forth in a hammock and reading one of my old favorite books. I wrote lesson plans on the rooftop, and we made some awesome food that put my normal dinner of improvised rice to shame. I ended up falling asleep on the roof the first night, which was the first time I've slept outside without a tent. I met his friend, "Tony the artist," who is the most creative and self-driven Cape Verdean I've met here. We're already talking about a potential recycled art installation project to put up in Mosteiros and art camps during the summer for kids in my town who are interested.
The hour-long ride back home was, oddly, what stood out to me. It's just interesting to drive most of the length of the island in the beginnings of the morning when the world is starting to move. It feels a little bit voyeuristic, or at least slightly imposing, but it's always such an experience. I may have told some of you but my decision to apply for Peace Corps came when I was in Grand Cayman, and Jared and I spent the day riding around in a Hiace with Reggae blasting, and we saw the people and places that most people who visit the Caribbean don't care to experience. So maybe I just have a thing for public transportation.
But the day started early because the only guaranteed rides leave Mosteiros at 6am. So I walked down the street to the Shell station (weird) to wait. So many people were already up! Students were walking around well before school started and some people were jogging. I caught a Hiace which was completely empty, so we drove around to find more passengers. I sat in the front, because one thing I've noticed about the cars here is that they always include the one boisterous woman who likes to hug you and keep her arm around you for the whole ride, and the one guy who hasn't showered in a few days. And I've been crammed between the two of them often enough to know that if the front is empty, you take it.
The first thing that stood out to me was this old couple that was sitting on the side of the road waiting to be picked up. The culture here, from what I've seen so far, typically fosters an unromantic, sometimes apparently disconnected approach to relationships and I figured they were both just traveling to the capital for the day. The old man helped the woman into the car, got her settled, said goodbye and shut the door, and said to the driver "Deus bai ku bo," or "God go with you," in such a way that implied it was more a warning to keep his wife safe than the obligatory farewell to someone about to travel. He then slowly made his way back across the street to his house. I was surprised by how surprised I was. On the way back I saw people standing on the tops of tall, isolated hills watching the ocean; a monkey house; a donkey running down the street biting another donkey, which is hilarious; kids getting ready to go to school (even if they aren't my students they all yell "teacher!!" when I pass) and this little girl with milk chocolate skin and ringlets of Swedish blonde hair in pigtails above her ears. She had piercing blue eyes and something about her was very touching, though I can't put my finger on what unless it was just her exotic features. I think what makes these car rides so exciting to me is never knowing what I'll see or experience. It's always one brief moment of reflection followed by something I haven't seen before or, if it's something I have seen before, it's always something beautiful in a new way. Or, again, just a fondness for bumpy car rides.
