Happy camper gets shot in the heart

I'm not really updating. Not really. Just letting the world know that Cinza is missing. Going on the fourth day, and I'm pretty sure someone took her. She always stays close and comes when I call, but alas no amount of calling has made her come back yet. And every Cape Verdean I talk to says "Someone probably just took her. You should just get another one". Another one??? Unfortunately for me a cat is not like a pair of socks. I spent so much time raising her, loving her, getting her vaccinated and spayed, taking her on trips to Praia, to other islands, virtually everywhere I went. She was my companion, my friend, something irreplacable. And I'm not ready to say it's a lost cause, even if everyone else could care less and assumes her gone forever. If I knew she had been hit by a car, I could grieve and be done, but I am more angry than sad because someone had the indecency to see something they wanted (and that quite obviously belonged to someone else) and just took it. Goddamn Cape Verdeans. I am going to stop myself now before I enter into a rant on the morality of an entire culture. Wouldn't be fair.

Suffice it to say that I am not a happy camper any longer. Coming home to an empty and quiet room is like a knife in my stomach. So I haven't taken her litter box away under the assumption that she will be back. I'm sad. She is my baby.

Tell me honestly, home audience, do you think she might come back to me? Should I continue knocking on doors until I find her? Should I accept her disappearance and move on? Am I a total freak?

Talk to me, friends and family, because I miss my kitty.

Here is a picture of when she went to Maio with us:

Island by island I go...

Over the last few months I have made my way towards completing a tour of the majority of all the glorious and uniquely spunky Cape Verdean islands. All that's left: Brava and Sao Nicolau. Their day will come.

So I wanted to just post some pictures first, before I go into detail about the past several months that have eerily backed up into the recesses of my clouded cobweb-laced brain. That will come soon enough.

Okay, first up: Fogo.

This is on my way heading up to Cha das Caldeiras, in the crater of the volcano for which the island is named. I was kicking myself for not having working camera batteries, with which I would have been able to depict the drive through what felt like Mars or another completely foreign planet's terrain.

This is Sao Felipe, the main city of Fogo. I stayed here at the beginning and end of my "disappearing act", a.k.a week of no responsibilities.

This is also Sao Felipe, looking out from the balcony of a restaurant that never failed to overcharge me every time I went (verified by knowledgable volunteers).

These were taken in Mosteiros, on the northern coast of the island, the beach town. Not so bad of a place it seems--I mean, it does have the beach.

Now on to Santo Antao, where I went with my mother in mid-September. We explored the whole north-eastern side of the island, starting from Porto Novo, heading up to Ponta do Sol and Povoacao, then west to Cha di Igreja with hikes through Paul inbetween.

This was taken in Ponta do Sol, where we stayed our only night in a hotel. The rest of the time was spent in true Peace Corps style--bumming couches and extra beds from welcoming and gracious volunteers.

All the above pictures were taken on our hike through the Ribeira of Paul. We started in Vila das Pombas and hiked up through the lush green valley until we reached the quintessential pot of gold ending our rainbow: "the German guy's place" where various flavored grog and liquors are made, as well as fabulous goat and cow cheese. It was everything I hoped it would be.

This picture begins the Cha di Igreja chapter of our journey. It depicts the view from the Volunteer's rooftop, the Volunteer of which all other Volunteers are (or should be) jealous. Following is the other side of the view:
Ridiculous. The next set of pictures depicts what turned out to be our grueling hike from Cha di Igreja back to Ponta do Sol, on which our gracious host Caley accompanied us. It took us almost five hours, and at the tail end we ended up hitching a car ride into town so we didn't miss our boat back to Sao Vicente. Now, perhaps normally this might be as pleasant, if not invigorating, of a traipse as the guidebook indicated if we had, in fact, done it as the guidebook said: from Ponta do Sol to Cha di Igreja. Instead we did it in reverse, which meant that about 3 1/2-4 hours into it, right towards the end, we encountered a substantial mountain we had to climb right over. Not what you want to see when you're already weary and out of water. It was probably one of the most beautiful hikes I have ever been on, though.

This last picture is about halfway up the mountain we had to summit, looking down over the conquered terrain we claimed as ours.

Finally, this picture above was what we called "the promised land": Ponta do Sol. Quite the oasis.

The rest of these pictures were taken in Cruzinha, a town just outside of Cha di Igreja, right after which is a small, essentially private, beach Caley has claimed as his own. I would have too if I were him.

Okay, folks, that's it for now as far as pictures go. Next time I will spend time on the Maio pics from the CEJ week I spent there. Uploading takes awhile, so patience please!:)

Sorry again that I'm so delayed on the writing, it's been awhile since I've been able to just sit by myself for a few minutes. It will come soon.

Hot Lava!

I'm in Fogo. Enjoying the volcano and currently the unbearable São Felipe heat. I will write about Fogo at another time, just wanted people to know I was alive. I will also write a detailed description of my Maio experience, as well as perhaps a summary of PST and this past summer. So much for you all to look forward to! Big promises, we'll see if I can pull through.

My mama is flying in soooooo soon!!!! I cannot believe how excited I am to see her, and honestly don't know how I have made it over a year without seeing a single family member. I think I might burst into tears when I see her in the airport. It might be embarrassing.

For now that is all I will say until I can post pictures and in-depth updates. Except there won't be many pictures of Fogo because my batteries decided to stop functioning and that's one thing you really can't get in Cape Verde: quality batteries. So all the deliciously wondrous images I have collected in Fogo will have to remain in my head. Sorry.

Hope everyone is doing fabulous and enjoying the last bits of their summer! I am.

FEIA.

This will be brief. I just came downstairs and was abruptly thrown into an elated state at the news that Peace Corps has put internet in the training house. Free internet. Wowsers.

So I am taking advantage to throw out a brief update. If I have learned nothing else in my year in Peace Corps, I have learned the utility of brevity, so I will bullet out my important points to be eventually followed by Jack Handy-esque "deep thoughts" in the next weeks. Over the last two months or so...:

• The new Trainees arrived and are spread throughout my concelho (county) happy in their homestays. It seems that the new model of Pre-Service Training is running smoothly, at the very least much more smoothly than ours went last year. They are picking up language quickly and have very few complaints--it's practically a miracle, as last year all we did was complain about the ineffectiveness of the program. So kudos to PST staff and the new model.
• The four YD Trainees shadowed me for five days, stayed in my house, went to the girls' Center with me, and hopefully got an idea of what life is like for a YD volunteer. With the presence of four new people, I couldn't do some of the things I would normally do at the Center (attend institutional meetings, write proposals, and go on family visits), so instead I think they felt like camp counselors most of the time. But the girls adored them and all the extra attention--it was like Christmas at the Center. I appreciated the chance for them to see what life is like for a Volunteer in my sector, even if I struggled to juggle four different individuals' needs and interests. Hopefully it worked out alright and they learned a thing or two.
• One of the YD Trainees (I swear some of these bullet points will be related to non-PST topics) decided to leave, as being here serving in Cape Verde wasn't where she decided she should be at this time. I am sad to see her go, she is an excellent individual, very sweet and funny and very experienced, but I am happy that hopefully she will be in a more appropriate place for now--and that she decided beforehand, rather than waiting until she was already at site.
• Just last week, the psychologist (Ercilia) announced that she had accepted the position as the new coordenator of the Center, which so far seems like an excellent decision. She will do a wonderful job, I am confident. Within the first week, Ercilia asked for my help in preparing a large proposal for support from the Cape Verdean institution that combats AIDS in funding a year-long training project we want to do with the maes and girls. We have been talking forever about how much the maes need to be trained and helped to know how better to work with troubled children, to give both them and the girls support in their day-to-day interactions, and have been waiting all year for approval from ICCA for the trainings, with no success, so Ercilia found a new way to get it done. It is a grant for over $20,000, so I'm really keeping my fingers crossed.
• The other day I was walking down the road in the direction of my house, and I saw an old woman walking the opposite direction. I usually like to say good morning/afternoon to people I see in town, including people I don't know, just to be friendly and show respect; so I was about to say "bon dia"to the woman, and before I could finish the "bon", she looked me directly and unfalteringly in the eye, with no particular hatred nor humor, and said loudly and strongly, "Feia"--ugly. It took me by complete shock so that I didn't know what to say. She kept walking, as did I, and I just had to laugh at its irony. Every day, multiple times a day to the extent that I believe that one day I might snap and punch someone in the stomach, I am called "beautiful white girl" by sleezy Cape Verdean men. No matter what I do or what I look like, my skin color and appearance affords me the privilege of beauty, as well as the curse of being seen as little more than a body wrapped in white and detailed with blonde hair and blue eyes. Normally I am "beautiful". This day I was "ugly". Ha.
• I decided once the newbies swear in as Volunteers on September 1st I am going to disappear and take a small trip to Fogo, where hopefully no one will "bother" me and I can relax and recuperate from a long summer. I need it, and I deserve it.
• Nick is gone in South Africa for three weeks of vacation, which means I have the house to myself--hooray! No offense, Nick, but sometimes it's just nice to be able to walk around the house in your underwear and sing as loud as you want.
• I will likely be sent to the island of Maio for a week with the CEJ to help promote and develop the Centro em Movimento program that has been running all summer long. Free trip to Maio is always nice, though it means I will miss the new Trainee's site announcement, which we have been making cool pinatas for. Oh well, can't be everywhere at once.
• I have been translating for the CulturArt program that just started for the first time in Cape Verde, and it has been fabulous! It brings in 20 US high school students and 30 Cape Verdean students for a two week intensive training in the arts (vocal music, instrumental music, theater, dance, and visual arts), which they then present in various communities and finally in a concert in Praia. It was so encouraging to be around such creative juices and artistic passion! I am pretty much done with my part now, and I had such a wonderful time. Unfortunately I won't be there for the final concert since I will be in Maio, but hopefully it will go wonderfully. I may give more details on this program later...

Unfortunately time is out for now. But there will be more updates soon if my life ever "settles". Yeah right. But I promise I will try. But more important is responding to letters I have received--sorry for the wait, guys. I appreciate your correspondence, though!

Visual pleasure.

Sorry for the delay in the blogging, folks. You can blame all the new Trainees who are in town and occupying all my time:) I really do like them though, don't get me wrong...

This is just to update on some photos, so here goes:

These were from when we went camping at Angra, a little cove a few minutes from Ribeira da Barca. The guy rowing is Tcheka's nephew (Tcheka is the internationally famous Cape Verdean musician that apparently I am supposed to marry someday.)
After camping, we went hiking up to get some mango. This is a man who owns the mango tree and is picking the mangos, putting them in a bucket, which he lowers to his friend through a pulley system. Cool.

Cinza came to the beach with me and the girls one day. She fared quite well. Stuck to the shade a lot, but I think she could definitely be a beach kitty.

We had a superhero costume party for Tina and Jonah's goodbye party. Upon Paige's suggestion, I went as FlavaCourt, my own spinoff of FlavaFlav. Superpower: always able to tell the time in any situation. Weakness: water--very difficult to tell time under water.

The maes of the Center got all dressed up for the girls' first communion and had me do a mini photo shoot (as always). This is all four of them.

Patricia. She's adorable. She chose to pose like this, and I thought the pic turned out pretty great:)

This is the first communion party when a bunch of the girls made their first communion in the Catholic church.

More first communion fun.

And a little more.

And yes...a little more.

This is when we gave out the soccer ball donations that a colleague of my mother's sent to Cape Verde. They looooved them.

The girls got baptized in the Catholic church the day before their first communion. This wast that day.

That's all for now. Don't worry, I'll be writing an actual update soon. Rest assured that I am ridiculously busy, a little stressed, and trying to destress myself by watching Grey's Anatomy season 3. It is good.

Boohoo for strep:(

I have strep throat:( Sad. And apparently I'm contagious, so no one should be around me. Looks like I'll be isolated in my room watching movies for the rest of the day. Really, I'm crying...seriously...okay, I'm actually happy for the break.

In other news, last weekend we went camping in Rincon with crazy Mike, and that was fun, except for the mountain climbing in flip flops and a sleeping bag loosely tied to your backpack. Minga (Mel's cat, Cinza's sister) came along for the trip and was quite the camper! She fared marvelously, so I'm thinking of trying Cinza out next weekend when I go camping at Angra again. We'll see. I'll be sure to take pictures if I do.

The girls had their baptism and first communion ceremonies this weekend, and it was so cute to see them all dressed up in their cheesy white tafida dresses like little brides. I was the official photographer (again), so I'll post some pictures later. On Saturday we had a big lunch with all the families who could make it, so it was madness in the Center. Someone brought a huge elaborate wedding cake. Huh. I couldn't really enjoy it as much as I wanted to, with my strep throat and being about to pass out (I didn't know I officially had strep, otherwise I wouldn't have gone around infecting people...sorry).

Other than that I'm pretty sure there's not much to say. I have been indisposed for the last 4 days, so not much has been accomplished. Except I did have a meeting with this woman who is organizing an arts training-slash-future school course program that will take place in August. They bring in 20 US students and select 30 Cape Verdean youth to participate in this intense workshop in various areas of the creative arts--music, theater, dance, and "art" art (like painting and sculptures, etc.). It's new and pretty brilliant, so I hope it works out. She wants me and other PCVs to help out with translation and making sure the program runs smoothly, so hopefully I will be able to be of some assistance.

Okay, that's all for now. Hope everyone at home is lovely:)

Forca, Cinza, forca...

I realized I should update about TOT (Training of Trainers....and also apparently Transportation of Things, for which an acronym was deemed necessary by international development monsters)--the week of training we had to prepare us for the new PST and the new group of Trainees coming July 1st. Surprisingly, it went better than I thought it would. We worked hard, and even though it was all left in a rush with a bit of ambiguity (not enough time to plan an entire 9-week training program), we mapped out potential calendars of what we want to do in our sectors during our technical sessions. We will be split off into our sectors quite a bit, so it gives me a decent chance to work on preparing the youth development group, get them all beefed up for service. Wish me luck and pray that the Trainees are made of tough stuff--eager and willing to work with the kiddies.

I came back, missing my girls and mas ou menos (more or less) ready to get some work done. That of course was when I found out Andreia was leaving for good. A little air in the balloon let out, but oh well. I am playing the waiting game on my tiptoes, wondering if I should keep advancing with my projects, or if they will all crumble...it's getting a little tiring to rely so much on others for things to come through. But that's what development is supposed to be about, right? It's not about me, though I'm starting to feel a bit useless.

Last night I talked to my mom, which made me miss Paige, which made me realize I hadn't talked to her in awhile, which made me realize that my sister is busily building her life, her independence, and her strength. This in turn gave me strength, knowing that if she can step up and take care of herself, accomplish what she wants and knows she is capable of, so can I. Right? Right. So instead of sitting around feeling sorry for myself, I need to jump up and grab it by the horns, find my satisfaction one way or another. Thanks Paige.

P.S. Cinza I think is sick...she won't eat anything I give her and stopped taking the medicine I need to give her. Sad face. Pray for her...

Catching up on photos

Picture time! First things first. This morning we had a march for International day for Child Victims of Aggression. I helped make posters and the kids from Picos, Assomada, and the local SOS marched through the streets "silently" (yeah right).

Item #2: We had a Goonies costume party in Assomada. I had never seen the Goonies, but apparently it involves both the 80s and pirates. So we had to dress as either one. I chose the 80s, of course. Here are some pics:This is Alex. She is great.

Please note that my highly appropriate bright blue 80s pants bought at a nearby Chinese loja (store) say "phisycal"--not only heinous but misspelled. This is the perfect example of what China has had to offer Cape Verde. Awful translations and blindingly ridiculous clothing.

Item#3: Taking the girls to Serra Malagueta. I mentioned this in my last blog, now here are some pictures.

Mel got to show off her knowledge of the park; very cool to watch her in action:)

Item #4: More pictures of Cinza. The necklace you see on her lasted less than 24 hours. She kept getting it caught in her teeth, leaving her mouth gaping open in trapped panic. It was kind of hilarious. I thought she would learn not to try and chew on it, but after the fourth time, I cut it off. A shame. It was a pretty necklace.

Before I go: Andreia is officially leaving for Portugal. She has about 3 weeks left before she is gone. Ercília has taken her vacation early due to stress and is now not here to help me get the volunteer corps started. I am a bit frustrated this morning because now I have no idea how any of the projects I have been working on will turn out. We have no one to run the formações we have been planning for the volunteers because the two women I just mentioned are the ones helping me organize it and give the sessions, and the youth have been waiting to start for a month now. I am at a sort of crossroads. Don't know what to say or how it will go. Check back in soon.