A great project that needs your support

Hi all! YOu know that my friend Brian is visiting at the end of February. He has decided to create a project to help out students in Cape Verde. I am posting his letter here. PLEASE, PLEASE help out with this project. It would mean the world to me and to the students here. I am so proud of Bri for getting this together and being so thoughtful about his trip to Cape Verde.


Family, Friends & Colleagues!

Many of you know, and some of you may not, but I am traveling to Cape Verde, Africa in less than a month. I am visiting a friend who has served through the Peace Corps over there for a year and a half. Her mission has been teaching local teachers the English language. The schools in Cape Verde are under-funded and often lack even the basic supplies of paper, pencils and pens. This is the reason for the mass email to all my family, friends and colleagues. I am collecting money to buy school/office supplies to donate to the schools and classrooms my friend’s students will be teaching in.

My original plan was to collect office supplies, and/or buy them through cash/gift card donations. I was going to take what I bought and carry them along in an extra piece of luggage. Well because of airline restrictions, and other logistical nightmares, this plan has been scrapped. So I’m moving on to Plan B! Plan B is collecting cash or checks, which I can wire to my friend in Cape Verde before I travel over there. Then once I’m over there, she and I will go shopping for as much supplies as your donations will buy. This actually has the added benefit of putting money into the local economy. So not only would your donations be helping the schools and classrooms of Cape Verde, but the shop owners and their families too!

So I’m asking your help with Plan B. If everyone I know just donated $5, then I could really provide the students there with a wonderful gift. I have no idea how much money I can raise, but I’m shooting for around $500. If you are around town, I’m asking you give me a shout and donate just a little bit. (I’ll come to you if need be!) If you are farther away, maybe you can mail me cash, or a check made out to me that I can cash. You can mail donations to:

Brian Nelson
582 Central Ave.
Dover, NH 03820

I leave February 21, so I actually have very little time to collect donations. I’m actually hoping to have all the donations in by February 15 so I have time to wire the money to my friend (I don’t want to travel with lots of cash).

Please do this and thank you a head of time.

Brian

be jealous of me

You should all be very jealous of me. I spent my weekend at the beach. The sun was shining more than usual. The water was perfect and everyone was out at the beach. I got to get a little tan and do some swimming. It was a great weekend. Don't you all wish you were here??? Well, you can fly out to visit... anytime. Except for the next two weeks, I'll be in the states. Oh, about that, I ended up getting the flight moved back a week, so now I get to enjoy my time at home for 2 weeks! YEAH ME! Well, please call me when I am in the states... 228 - 875-8586. I'd be thrilled to hear from anyone and everyone! I leave in the morning, so wish me happy travels.

thoughts and prayers

Today I received an email about a fellow volunteer whose brother passed away. Holly, a teacher at ISE in Praia, who lives in my old house, just found out that her brother, who was 36 died of unknown causes. I just spoke with her and she said that he was in perfect health and expecting his first child on March 7th! She is in complete shock. My heart goes out to her and her family. I cannot imagine losing a brother. Please keep Holly in your heart as she makes the long trip home to be with her family.

Flights!

I have had my ticket to the U.S. for quite some time now. Yesterday I received an email from a friend in the states who is on the same return flight as me. He said that TACV (the airline) had contacted him to let him know that the flight back to Cape Verde had been moved up a day. WAIT, WHAT? No one called me to let me know! I mean seriously, who moves a once a week flight up one day? And, I have never known a Cape Verdean to do anything ahead of time. This is unbelievable. So, now I have one less day with my family and friends. I was only visiting for 9 days including 2 days of travel, now I'm down to 8! How ridiculous! You know, it's always something.

Distorted

My friend Darrell has this cute little Mac that has a tiny little camera in it. So, you can take picutres of yourself or make videos of yourself while at the computer. One other feature is called picturebooth or something like that and you can take pictures and distort them like a funhouse mirror! Here are some shots of my friend Caryn and me.

Christmas Party pictures

These are pictures of my students, friends, and fellow faculty at my Christmas party!

new phone number

Hello all!

I just got a cell phone, so the new number is: 011 238 986 7996

Our old number still works, so you can call there too.

Milton

My maid has the most adorable son in the world. Milton comes with her some days and he and I always play and draw and hang out. When I have to leave for work he always gets super sad and tells me that he will miss me! He is such a doll. He is nearly impossible to understand because he sounds exactly like a telletubby. I am learning his language, so I am able to communicate with him a bit better! I printed this photo out and framed it for his mom! She just loved it.

Thanksgiving picture

I got this great photo from my mom recently. I thought you all would like to see my family!

Pictures of my city

Here are some photos of Mindelo.

Waiting...

I mentioned in a previous blog that all of the volutneers planned to go to Praia for a meeting, but that we were instead stuck in Mindelo. And when 12 PC volutneers are gathered together in the same house waiting for word from PC about what we are to do, there is only one thing that we CAN do... have a three day party! Here are some photos to show you the series of events.

1.) we showed up at the house to find 3 of our friends waiting on the doorstep eating, playing guitar, and drinking.

2.) we cook dinner and the dancing begins.

3.) later in the night Steve gets the lifejacket out. We were supposed to go on the boat, so we all had our lifejackets ready. Without a boat trip, Steve needed to get at least some use out of his jacket.

4.)Night one ended with a friend getting a little sick in my bed. As you can see, Steve and Tiffany decided to cheer her on. I think that puke and rally is meant for the same person rather than having your friends rally while you puke!

On the stoop

One day I was hanging out with Darrell outside of his apartment complex. He and David have an incredibly great neighborhood community who hang out together on Friday afternoons and play soccer and just talk and play music. I definitely do not have such a community in my area, so it's nice to feel a part of theirs.

AIDS contest

Here are some photos from the World AIDS day project that we did here in Mindelo! You can see the ceremony, the contestants, the winners, and then David, Darrell, and myself with two of our friends from the area, Christina and Katerine. Christina is a former PC volunteer who is now living in Mindelo working on her dissertation. Katerine is from Austria. She just moved back there but she was volunteering here for a while.

Sunday hike to the volcano

Last Sunday we went hiking to an old volcano and then on to a beach. The crater of the volcano was really cool. You could go down into it and there was just sand in the bottom. All of the volcanic rock was really neat and made it look like we were on the moon. The area was barren with no greenery anywhere. You can see in the pictures the volcano from a distance. Then the inside of the volcano, the crater.

After the volcano, we hiked out toward the water where we found some really amazing shells, which you can see in one of the pictures. The waves were crashing on the rocks and it was dawn when we got there. The light was just coming through the clouds and higlighted some rock formations, which you can also see. We encountered this really cool rock formation too! It's the orangish rock that you can see here. The five of us rested in a cave-like area for a while. Then we found some tide pools with different corals. We also came across a lot of beds of sea salt! I gathered some up and am drying it out. Cape Verde's islands produce a ton of salt, so you can buy sea salt in any store. They usually have a bucket of it that you can get some from for your cooking.

After our hiking was over, we went to two different restaurants. The first was Serenata, and we just had a beer and relaxed. We will definitely be going back there for dinner and to listen to some live music. I told my friends that when Brian comes, we will go back. The second place we visited was this cute little place with moray eel! We had some fried eel and another drink and just enjoyed the day. The moray was amazing. I've had it in Cape Verde many times and it is always wonderful.

Some of my friends

These are just a couple of pictures of me and my friends. One is with a work colleague Aldina! She's great; her family invited me to have Christmas dinner with them, which was wonderful. The other is of me and Olivia, the daughter of my Cape Verdean aunt here in Sao Vicente. Olivia does not have use of her lower limbs, so she is a very special child. She is amazing and we always play Barbies together! The other picture is of my friend Carlos (Caio). He is a great person who I have grown very close to since moving here. He is from the island of Brava and promises to take me to visit his island this summer! I can't wait. Brava is the smallest island and has tons of beautiful flowers! I think the photos are in reverse order, but you'll figure it out!

Santa Luzia de terra

I recently received these pictures from my friend Ceasar (the one who saved my life). They are of our hike to Santa Luzia de Terra. I believe I wrote about picking up the Almonds and cracking them open. I ended up making my first batch of jam out of their fruit.

In the images, you will see our group, a picture of me climbing up the side of a rock just for fun, me about 150 feet up in the top of the almond tree trying to knock the ripe ones out, and pictures of us trying to crack open the almonds for a snack!

That was a great day hike, I am really lucky to have such a great group of friends to do things with on Sunday mornings. It's been amazing seeing this island from places that people never go!

Oh, the name of the place we hiked is Santa Luzia de Terra because there is an islet in Cape Verde called Santa Luzia, so this is distinguished by being called the Santa Luzia "of the land"