Read this post last because I just posted 3 at once

It has been two weeks since I left my home in Mississippi for Cape Verde. Not knowing what lay ahead, I can honestly say any expectation or assumption I had about this country has been respectively exceeded and changed. I have been living with my homestay family for a little over a week and I love them. They are the most kind and generous group of women I have met. I have 3 very close friends that are volunteers: Jessica, Nick, and David. Nick has taken to stopping by my house on his way to and from school (he just lives up the mountain from me), Jessica comes over to hang out occasionally, and David eats his lunch at my house each day because his family lives too far away for him to make it home for lunch.

I really wanted this entry to be about my experience with training, so I’ll try to stick to that. Our language classes are great! My teacher Djalo is 27 and a student at the college where I will be teaching in the fall. He is in his 5th year at ISE (the college) and will be writing his thesis to graduate. He is a great model for teaching a foreign language. I am lucky enough to be in the “highest” language class. Everyone learns the same material each day, but the level of the classes is different, so for example, in my class we will learn the 4 objectives for the day, but we will spend more time talking to each other in Kriolu and practicing the language with the teacher. In other classes, it may take the entire 4 hours to cover the 4 objectives with little time for any interaction. There are only 4 people in my language class: Jessica, Nick, and Anna. This is great because we get to ask lots of questions and learn a lot more than the other classes. Because of this, my Kriolu is pretty good after only a week and a half. In Kriolu they say “fixi” (pronounced “fishy”). It means, good or cool. So, everyone asks if I am “fishy,” which is always funny!

As far as the other classes go, I spend the rest of my time in technical training class. My technical training class consists of Jessica and me. There are two other technical training classes, TEFL and community development. Because Jessica and I are teacher trainers, we have our own class and 3 teachers. It’s great because while the other classes are dying of boredom, we are talking with our trainers, going to Praia to spend time at the college, etc. We get to arrange our own schedule to meet our objectives for teaching, so we have a lot of freedom. It is excellent.

I am sooooo excited about teaching at ISE. It looks like I will get to teach classes on teaching methodology, pedagogy, and American Culture and Civilization. They even asked if I might be interested in teaching a class for the Philosophy department! Sweet. I wasn’t really sure about how much of an impact I might be able to have teaching at a college in Cape Verde, but I have come to realize that this is the BEST job to have. Peace Corps focuses on “sustainability” as the foundation of its service. Teaching at ISE is the best way to develop a sustainable educational system. Right now only 1 person has graduated from ISE as a certified English teacher, this means that the majority of people teaching in high schools in Cape Verde are only high school graduates themselves. ISE offers an opportunity for students to earn an advanced degree, which in turn creates better teachers for the islands. The teachers at ISE are very excited about Jessica and me because we can advise 5th year students by directing thesis projects and doing in-class observations. As it stands, only 2 other people in the department have master’s degrees, which means they are the only 2 people capable of advising a graduating student! Pretty exciting stuff!!!! I will be able to work in a capacity that is really, really needed here. AND, ISE is about to become the University of Cape Verde, which means this is an exciting time. Also, two of the former volunteers are now professors at ISE, so there are lots of Americans working along side the Cape Verdans at the school doing really good things.

Well, I am going to visit the school for the first time today, so I’ll write more about it and my impressions of it when I can. Again, I will rarely have internet access, so email me if you can and I’ll try to respond. Txau, ti logu. (that means, good bye, see you later in Kriolu)