My weekend

It was quite an eventful weekend. If you are one of my parents, grandparents, or just people who don’t want to know what a dangerous world I live in, please do not read any further…

So, again, it was quite an eventful weekend. On Saturday I went to visit some friends in Sao Domingos. My friend Adi made a bet with a couple of other volunteers that she could drink 1 gallon of milk within 1 hour without throwing it back up. According to lore, this is an impossible feat. Apparently no one has been able to do this, it is physically impossible for the body to do such a thing. Well, Adi, being the adventurous spirit that she is and unwilling to turn down a good bet, took on the challenge. As she was consuming her first liter of milk, people began running down the streets and screaming. Some friends were already outside and witnessed a crazy accident. In Sao Domingos, there is a pretty sharp turn near one end of town. Many cars drive very quickly on this part of the road because it is newly paved. Unfortunately, on Saturday, a pick up truck didn’t slow down enough and bounced from one side of the retaining wall to the next, then flipped over. As this happened, the young child in the back of the truck flew out. The father who was driving jumped from the car shortly after it flipped, then the other child in the passenger seat was pulled from the vehicle. Amazingly, no one was hurt. The truck was flipped over and was drivable even with a completely crushed roof. Even more dramatic than there being no injuries were the people of Sao Domingos. You see, in Cape Verde when something bad happens, everyone runs to see it. Women immediately being “wailing.” This is a very traditional, loud, crying that people do when someone dies. The women of Cape Verde will wail in this sort of instance too, even before they know what has happened. They just see an accident and the wailing begins. We knew no one was dead in this particular accident because the wailing stopped after about 5 minutes. Along with the wailing were all the people present for this accident. Children were running up to the over-turned truck trying to get a look. People didn’t seem to mind that the truck could have exploded or could have turned over further. No one worried about neck or spine injuries. They just dragged the people out of the car. Things are certainly different here. But I am happy to report that the police heard the wailing and made it to the scene of the accident in record time (for Cape Verde).

Speaking of police officers….. On Sunday I was on the bus in a busy part of town and all of the traffic stopped. Then I heard a girl on the street yell “sta guera” (it’s a war). Just as she said that and began running toward a crowd of people who had gathered in the street, a gun shot rang out. I looked up and saw a guy running away from the crowd followed by a police officer running with a gun in hand pointed at the other guy. Just as I saw the cop, he shot again at the man. Also, he was shooting at this man on the street with lots of people around. It was crazy, and done with complete disregard of those other pedestrians. The two men turned a corner, so I have no idea what happened next, but I was completely shocked. This is the very first time in my life that I’ve seen another human being fire a gun at someone else. I certainly don’t ever want to be that close again. Being that I was on a bus, I should have felt safe, except that a few weeks ago, some men in a car threw rocks at a moving bus and stopped the bus, a man got off the bus and the men shot him. Praia is getting more and more dangerous all the time. I’m not sure what’s going on in this town, but I am staying inside for a while……