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"

Plastic Christmas Tree

The students at the college to train primary school teachers, made this cool plastic Christmas tree! I couldn't resist posting it!

New Year's Eve!

On New Year's Eve the usual crowd from Santo Antao came over on the boat to spend a few days in our great city. In Mindelo everyone heads out on the streets at midnight and jumps into the ocean just as the fireworks begin marking the new year. I was not foolish enough nor exciting enough to jump into the water, but the crazy people from the other island couldn't resist the Mindelo tradition. The unfortunate part is that everyone enters the water in the most filthy part of the beach. This part of the beach is known as "dog's beach" because that's where the dogs wait for the fisherman to come in with their catch.

After the swimming and celebrating, we headed home to get ready for a night out at a local club. On New Year's eve, all of the clubs charge a lot of money for all you can eat/drink parties. So, we indulged and went to a local club to dance. We had a fun time. You will see us all in the photos and you will notice a Cape Verdean woman dancing with a glass on her head. It was impressive. She is a local prostitute who shows up at the local hang outs to pick up Portuguese tourists. And she's got serious skills with balancing things on her head.

At about dawn, we headed home and slept off our entrance into 2007. It was a great new year.