Tarrafal & Colonato

My good friend, Nichy and I.

View of the volcanic island, Fogo from Tarrafal. Although this picture doesn´t do justice to what I can actually see of Fogo. On a clear day you can make out the grooves of the mountainside...simply majestic.

Plant nursery in Colonato where I spend most of my mornings watering, planting and mixing soils. Here we are growing tomatoes, onions, lettuce and bell peppers.

Another part of the plant nursery. We are growing papaya trees and passion fruit here. Agriculturists who don´t have plant nurseries on their plots come here to purchase crops once they are ready to be transplanted.

Achada Lem

Valley behind my host family house. Went trekking here one day and found a ton of tadpoles and frogs! It is said there are monkeys in this valley as well (although the only monkeys I have seen here have been in town as peoples pets). There is also an abandoned area where locals used to make grogue, rum made from sugar cane.

Rooftop view!

Houses in Achada Lem.

View from my bedroom window...I got to look at this every morning for 2 months during pre-service training.

View from bedroom window before the rainy season.

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Wow, another month. The days seem to fly by and once in a while they seem to be stagnant. I am now able to walk, run, skip, ride the waves and yes…dance. Being the holiday season this past month, I was naturally feeling a bit sad, missing family, friends, hot apple cider and Gran’s fruitcake. Honestly, that didn’t last for too long (except Gran’s fruitcake). Whenever I get the least bit bored or think nothing exciting is going happen it always does. There is never a dull moment in my life right now and I am absolutely loving it. Lately the sky has been clear enough to see the volcanic island in the distance. It is so clear as to even make out the grooves in the mountainside. Most evenings my friend and I will watch the sunset behind the volcano from the beachside…beautiful.

I was fortunate to be invited to spend Christmas with my host family. We spent Christmas Eve sitting on the rooftop watching the sunset in the distance behind the volcano then watched the stars against the dark blackness of the sky. Christmas day was full of cooking, and visiting numerous relatives that were visiting from around the island and a few from Portugal. New Years Eve was incredible! I went to an organized party my friends were throwing on top of their roof, which overlooks all of Tarrafal, the mountains and the ocean. At midnight our group walked around the town plaza and streets drumming and dancing, then we continued to dance on their rooftop till five in the morning. New Years day consisted of more celebration (after a nap or two) and we grilled out and danced until the morning once again.

Some of you may be wondering if I have actually been doing any work…believe it or not I have. I am working on a few projects right now and am having just as much fun! Here is a brief look into my ongoing projects: ´

-- My primary project in Colonato is with the African Development Foundation of which we received a 3 year grant for supporting agricultural sustainability in Colonato. The project purpose is to increase availability of water to farmers as indicated by an increase in cultivated land in the community. As a volunteer I am helping oversee various tasks, improve management capacity and writing quarterly reports.
Other projects include:

-- Designing a youth group program to discuss HIV/AIDS, of which I can hopefully begin sessions once I am finally moved into my house.

-- I am on the language committee for Peace Corps and am compiling a dictionary of environmental terms in both Cape Verdean Kriolu and Portuguese.

-- Designing a training program to teach other volunteers how to create gardens in their communities. We are having this training at the end of January, using a current volunteer’s site where we will implement the training into actually building a garden for that community.

-- Writing a proposal to build a school garden here in Tarrafal. The idea here is to have the students participate in creating and maintaining the garden while using the profits to buy school supplies. In the process we can also teach food security and the importance of post and pre harvest management.

Until next time, my beloved family and friends!

Zonino!

The weeks seem to fly by rather fast, one day its Monday and the next thing I know its Friday and my weekend of hanging out has already passed as well. December is here and when I look back I can hardly remember the day I arrived at the airport here in Santiago, that day I was jet lagged, sleep deprived and unsure what I had gotten myself into. The ground I walked onto was intimidating, different and unknown. Now, I call Cape Verde my home and couldn’t feel more like a part of the community here.

I fully believe I have the best of both worlds, if that makes any sense at all. I work in a remote little village just outside of Tarrafal that portrays the stereotypical Peace Corps experience one can imagine. When I am not at work however, I am a beach bum living it up with my Cape Verdean friends (pre and post broken foot, however). For example, to get to work I bike through the fields down this little one way stone paved road for approximately 5 kilometers saying good morning to every farmer I pass as well as the group of women in the field cheering for me. I can see the mountains in the backdrop, the fields all around me and the ocean in front of me. Some days I stop off to join the women under the shade and batuka. Batuka is traditional drumming and is accompanied with singing songs of Africa. Other days I am sitting under the shade at the opposite end of the fields enjoying lunch with the farmers of the field. When I am not relaxing under the shade of a good tree I am conversing with the agriculturalists and learning how they implement farming techniques here. When I go home for the day it is the opposite story. My friends and I can be found on the beach laying out, swimming, cliff jumping, snorkeling and boogie boarding! At night we watch the stars from a rooftop, listen to a good band at an outside café or simply enjoy each others company on someone’s front stoop.

Now I am enrolled in a Portuguese class at a high school here. It is a fun experience and my first day I felt like the new goofy looking kid in school that everyone stares at. As the weeks have passed though I have made a lot of friends in my class and everyone is quite helpful. The weather is pleasant, during the day it is still warm enough in the sun to enjoy the water and it is just the right temperature in the shade to enjoy the breeze. Some nights I might need a light jacket to keep warm. Right now, we are getting the winds from the Sahara Desert along with a bit of dust. Sometimes there is so much dust you can’t even see the mountains behind Tarrafal! Well, I still have not moved into my house yet. Maybe I will be moved in before the end of the New Year, ha. I wish everyone happy holidays! Until 2010!

P.S. Mom, Dad if y’all were worried about me bringing a boy home or getting married here, dont…I got voted as one of the top two girls in Peace Corps most likely to date and/or marry a Cape Verdean. :)

Tarrafal sta sabi!

Well, I have finally made it to my site, Tarrafal on the island of Santiago. It is a cute little town perched next to the beach, with a few seaside restaurants I can use as my outlet to unwind for the day or think about life here in Cape Verde. For the next month or so I am living with Cameron and Nico, the other two volunteers here in Tarrafal. My house is not quite ready and time moves rather slow around here. Our house is located behind the enormous church found in the plaza. In a 10 minute walk from the beach to our place you experience the atmosphere of beach/Rastafarian life, a remote little plaza that somewhat resembles South America with tropical plants and mountains in the background, then you reach our neighborhood and you feel like you are in fact, in West Africa. My day consists of going to the agriculture fields, and conversing with the local farmers and my coworkers to improve my language while trying to learn about their farming techniques and various projects. I have started collecting materials to begin a small greenhouse so I can learn to plant tomatoes in the atmosphere here. Tomatoes are of great importance to Santiago and one of my projects will be working with the local producers to find techniques for better marketing and production strategies. When I am not in the fields I am enjoying a swim in the ocean, laying out on the beach, or I “txiga”. To “txiga” in Cape Verde, is to walk around the streets saying hello to whoever you see (normally people are just chilling on their front porches everywhere) and if they say, “txiga, txiga!” then you simply sit down with them and shoot the breeze for a couple hours.
For the time being, that is life here in Cape Verde! I will update once I have moved into my permanent house, or in a month…whichever comes first…probably the first month mark, ha. I have however, seen my house and it is merely a 500ft walk to the beach! Tudo algens fika bazof!

Im beaching it!

so i will officially be living on the island of SanTiago in the city of Taraffal in 2 weeks! I will be working a little south of Taraffal in Colonato for an agicriculture association. They produce mandioc, tomatoes, peppers, covi, ect. They are a huge agriculutre association on SanTiago! They also make Grogue which is the main rum drank here on the island. it is made from sugar cane and is exactly like the cachaca i had in brasil, ha! not sure yet of my exact projects but i know i will be working with irrigation systems and implementing a greenhouse on the site. when you are in the field you can see the beach, awesome! Tarraffal is located on the north west coast and is the primary beach town on santiago. i will be only a 2 minute walk from the beaches! the beaches are white sand with pristine blue water and rock formations that reach out ino the ocean. lots of schooling fish swimming around, sea urchins and starfish! it is a great place to go snorkeling. the beaches also have small fishing boats where the local fisherman sell fresh fish of all different colors and species. my site is only about 15 minutes from the national park too!!

language is going great and i feel prepared to move to my site in 2 weeks. i will have two other volunteers living in Tarrafal too, Cameron and Niko. They will be living just a few minutes walk down the road from me. Both are teaching language at the schools there. my host family stay has been a great experience and expect to visit them throughout my service. as of right now, my best friend in Cape Verde is my 4 year old host family brother! talking to him really helps with my kriolu. here is an example of how kriolu goes: n kre kumpra porku dipos n ta poi porku baxu di bu kama. this sentence says i want to buy a pig and put it under your bed. its a running joke i have with my lil brother. good times.

thanks to everyone who as written me! once my pre service training is over, in a couple weeks, i can start writing everyone back! yall have no idea how much the letters mean to me!

N gosta d-vida!

family, friends...its been about a month now and i am still loving every minute of this experience! right now i have 4 weeks of pre service training left before i head to my respective site for the next 2 years. where that site is, i do not know...but will find out this next wednesday, whoop! pre service training has me living with a host family near the town of Assomada. there are about 30 other trainees here as well. i have language classes about 4 hours a day, mon-fri as well as cultural development, business, etc. i get to do various activities on the weekend like go to the beach, (which is gorgeous!), hiking at the national park, enjoying a festa or just hanging out with my host family. right now i am learning kriolu, which is a mixture of portuguese and inland african dialects. after i have fully learned this language i will be learning how to speak portuguese. once my pre service training is complete, i look forward to being able to communicate on a more personal basis. hope this finds everyone well! ti logu!