Some guys were practicing for their soccer team right on the beach, about a five minute walk from where we´re staying until tomorrow.

This is the view from a friend´s bedroom window at sunset. I wish I could have captured its beauty completely--we are so very blessed. I´m having some trouble downloading the rest of my pictures, and my time is almost up, so we´ll see if I can add more later.

Already there´s talk at every meal table about relationships--who will hook up within the next few weeks, who will marry a Cape Verdean, who will go home to their loved ones. Everywhere I turn, there it is. The pressure is incredible! It´s funny that all the things I was thinking about before leaving are the things everyone else is thinking about too--and apparently what all other Peace Corps Volunteers do. Almost everyone in the last rotation (who are now finishing their first year) started dating each other or Cape Verdeans within the first year! Watch out family, apparently I´m not allowed to leave the Peace Corps without a husband! Haha.

It´s funny how for so long you picture your future, how your life is going to turn out, and even though sometimes the image isn´t crystal clear, you imagine it all coming together, pieces fitting perfectly in a way only our dreams can illuminate. Somehow I´ll find the perfect man, start a wonderful family, do what I love, live with passion every moment--as though it is a given. And even for awhile we have no doubt, no question that it will just work out somehow. And then we have those moments in which we´re punched by reality, seeing that maybe it´s not an arbitrary sense of fate that determines our paths, but our choices. Maybe we choose to settle for something we didn´t picture in the first place rather than wait for an elusive sense of perfection that may never come. Or maybe what we choose can become our perfection, becoming what we never knew we wanted in the first place. Perhaps in that sense it becomes how we choose to react to life. How we choose to live with what comes, to be happy no matter the circumstance. I choose to be open to life, to endure whatever comes, but I still allow that little girl in me to dream that fate will somehow make everything perfection so that one day I turn around and have everything I dreamed of. There´s nothing wrong with having a little of both right? Idealistic realism, maybe...

Well, enough over-analysis. I hate to inform you, but we just found out that we won´t have internet access in São Domingos where we´re staying for homestay. So for the next nine weeks I might not be able to post...we´ll see if we can work something out, but in the meantime I will be journaling on my own, so that when I do get internet again, I´ll update all the posts I´ve written. Then you´ll be all caught up. Sorry! I´m disappointed too, but know that in the meantime I´m having the time of my life so far. A lot of anxieties, a bit of self doubt (can I really start a bunch of programs from scratch??), nervousness about not speaking Creole, but overall so very happy to be here. Keep praying for me and hopefully you´ll hear from me sooner rather than later!!