Day 1:

This was one of the most tiring days of my life. We arrived in Praia around 8am. I forgot what it was like to go to the baggage claim in a Third World country. It took forever for everybody to get their bags. I’m sure that there are about two guys who manually get into the luggage portion of the plane and remove the bags by hand and then put them on the conveyor belt where people receive them. We finally got out the airport. Got that VIP Peace Corps pass so we didn’t have to go through customs. As soon as we stepped out of the airport, or off the plane for that matter I realized how amazing the weather would be. Its PERFECT. Not too hot with an amazing coastal breeze. Anyway we finally leave the airport and arrive at this dormitory where we will be staying for the next couple days. When I saw dormitory I really do mean just like West freshman year without running hot water. I had to drag my bags up four flights of stairs because there was no elevator obviously. Not too bad though. Afterwards we grabbed some quick food and then went straight into meetings. MEETINGS ALLLL DAY…HOLY SHIT. I could not take it anymore. I understand that its all important and that Peace Corps must do these things but its just annoying. I was definitely falling asleep multiple times while the country director was speaking.
Rather than go through an entire summary of my day which just consists of meetings from the second we got off the plane until now (9pm) I would rather give an explanation of how I’m feeling. I’m far more excited than nervous. Though I know no Portuguese or Crioulu, I’m not too worried. Its expected that I won’t know anything on the first days. The kids are cool. Its your typical liberal, optimistic, grassroots crowd. Obviously I’m the only black male in the group but the good thing is that I’M IN AFRICA. I AINT THE MINORITY NO MORE. It gives me a little chuckle to see some of the kids MAD SCARED while walking on the street. Not to say that I’m totally comfortable but I certainly will be able to blend in much better than others once I learn the language. Plus I’m usually pretty good at getting accents down. I may not have the words correct but the accent is usually really good. I HATE when Americans speak other languages and do not try to emulate the accent. You might as well not even try to learn the language. The “mainstream” American accent is pretty annoying to listen to when you think about it. Like I said though, in general most of the kids are cool. Just excited to experience Cape Verde as I am.
Right now I’m sitting in the hallway of the dorm writing out this blog entry on a word document and everybody keeps asking me if I’m getting wireless. I just want to slap people and be like “YO, YOU’RE IN AFRICA!!!!” Wireless internet??? Not happening. Anyway, this may have to be the end of this entry but today has been very tiring. We have not stopped going since we got off the plane. It does not seem like I arrived this morning. It feels like I have been here for weeks. That just goes to further emphasize how long the day was. Anyway yall at home, I’m missing everybody. Wish I could call or something but there is no phone anywhere that I’ve seen. Also the food is GOOD so far. We ate in the cafeteria for the building and it tastes like food I would order from a restaurant back home. Peace out from Cabo Verde.

Thursday, July 24, 2008-Written at 4PM (CVT)

Is seems that whenever I sit down to do this journal/diary I never know where to begin. Well I can I can nearly safely say that I am over my illness. My stomach still gets nauseas but in general everything seems to be working out well. I must say that I have NEVER had more diarrhea in my life. I must have had ten diarrhea sessions per day and that may be being modest. It was actually a relatively scary moment. The night before I came to my host family’s house we all had a “festa” at the Peace Corps Recreation Center. Basically, it was the last time we would meet together as “bourgeois” people in a fancy place. At that point I was certainly questioning the difficulty of my Peace Corps experience. You can see from the pictures what the place looked like. Later on during the guitar players performance I my stomach definitely didn’t feel good and them all of sudden I started to have this crazy uncontrollable turrets syndrome shake. At the same time I started to get goose bumps while it was probably 80 degrees outside. Craziness!! Diarrhea proceeded the next day. Good times but I’m all good now and back to my carefree, gluttonous eating habits. My host mother makes the most amazing food and she was real cool about my sickness.
On that note, she treats me like a king. Although I’m pretty sure that I have one of the poorer families, she gives me everything that she can. When she makes dinner I eat with her before the rest of the family. Even worse, I think the family basically eats our leftovers. She may be making another batch of food for them but I’m know that one of the nights I definitely say the family eating from our leftovers. I want to tell her that I wish the whole family could eat with us/me but I don’t know how to approach the situation. It’s a pretty large family too. My host mother Aldonca has a husband and 6 children. I do not know where they all sleep nor where they use the bathroom because there is one bathroom in this place and I’ve not seen anybody else use it besides me. Maybe there is another bathroom somewhere else or something but if there isn’t that means they are all using the bathroom outside somewhere. A good thing is that now their 21 year old son just got home from studying theology in Portugal. Seems like a cool kid. He ate dinner with me last night before that rest of the family so I did not feel as bad. His says that his Portuguese is not that good although he has been taking classes there for three years now but obviously it was still far better than mine. Though he spoke to me mostly in Kriolu he helped me with a lot of Portuguese words. It definitely is going to be good to have a male that is my age in the house. I’m sure we will have much to talk about and if all else fails I’m sure soccer will always be a popular conversation.
All in all, being catered to is all of the complaint that I have. Sure its hot but really not that bad at all. It probably gets into the low eighties regularly. Sure I’m using hand signals to explain a lot of my words. Sure I’m thousands of miles away from anything that I have ever known but this is what I signed up for. I’m just waiting for that moment when I my body and psyche has to deal with the fact that this is HOME. On some level it still feels as though I am on some wild vacation or as if I was doing a term abroad. I’m sure I will settle down and the rush that I’m getting from being here will fade and I think that is when the real challenge will start. If I’m lucky the rush will never go away. There are some things that I know I will never take for granted here. One is the AMAZING view that I have while I’m walking from the l’escola primaria where I take my language classes to my house. Its only a 3 minute walk but to the right of the road is about a 500 foot decline of dispersed grass and dirt and off into the distance the mountains start which extend to the clouds. This is what I see every day and just to be around something like that makes me very thankful. It is cliché to say that it makes you appreciate all the small things that you in the United States but it is very very true and far more profound now that I am in this position. You can see just from the picture that it feels like I’m sitting in a national geographic site.
Ohyea…like I said this really won’t be a vacation. At least these three months of training anyway. All I do now is sleep, wake, eat, take classes, go to country training and that’s about it. I usually go to sleep around 9:30. Also the country is poor. I don’t know how the other places are but where I am is very very poor. It is also very rural but they have do not have much here. Like I said, there is no running water in the house and electricity is sporadic. If after training I get a spot close to a nice beach, as opposed to one where people think it’s a good idea to use the bathroom in then it will feel closer to a vacation but as of now. Definitely not. I do know some people who are living with families that have sick houses and others that live on the beach but not I. Kind of sucks for me but at the same time I wouldn’t have it any other way. You can go to Miami and see a nice beach. No where in the states can you see what I’m seeing right now. On that note, I’m out. I’ll get at all later. At the end is the phone number of my host family including the country code. Remember that Cape Verde is three hours in front of the east coast in the US. Miss everybody back home. Think about visiting. I should know Kriolu and Portuguese well enough by then to get around. We can go to this place called San Francisco where all the British tourists go and own time shares. It’ll probably be the first time I’m there also and I want to see it anyway. Heard its pretty sick. Aight I’m out for real. Peace. Pics will come soon I promise.