Killer Cars

Here’s a sampling of what I typically go through on a daily basis. So far, the second month at site hasn’t been any more exciting than the first, and the novelty is starting to wear off. I still live in a somewhat unfunctional house, but in my theory, if it’s going to be dirty all the time anyway, why bother cleaning. I haven’t started anything in work yet, but am still trying to grasp the language before moving along any further. I guess you can say I am very inactive at the moment but I’m not complaining because time seems to be moving a whole lot faster.

Typical day of Month 2

7am – Start hearing the sound of roosters making noises at each other. Wake up to realize how bright the morning is and reach for a shirt to cover my eyes in hopes of another 2 more hours of sleep.
8 o clock - Wake up and have breakfast of either eggs, bread, or cereal. If I don’t have either, well, I go to the market and grab some.
8:30 – Brush teeth and get dressed. Religously apply suntan lotion over exposed areas.
8:45 – Fill up Nalgene bottle with bottled water or (hopefully clean) water from the tap, and proceed to leave the house.
8:45 – 8:50 Have a battle with my front door because it won’t shut correctly. After 5 minutes, the door gives up and I win.
8:51 - Almost get hit by a bush taxi.
8:52 - A “hype-man” of a bush taxi enthusiastically tries to rush me into his vehicle that it is heading to Tarrafal beach. I shake my head no, and after about 2 weeks, they’ve stopped bothering me.
8:53 - After admiring the ocean on my walk, I immediately get focused on the public slaughter of a cow on the main street. All dogs in a half-mile radius have come to watch in case they get tossed some scraps.
8:54 - Some kid on his walk stares at me hard. I greet him with a “Bom dia”, but he continues to stare. I give up and just keep walking.
9:10 - I arrive to work sweating and in a rush to open all the windows to cool down my office at the youth center.
9:11 - I try to make conversation with my coordinator whose office is next door, but in reality I’m just trying to cool down with his air conditioner
9:15 - I lean outside the front door and just look out onto the street and into the ocean. I sometimes stay in this position for a couple of minutes.
9:20 - I start “observing”, watching kids play games, playing with them, and watching foreign TV. If there aren’t any kids, I continue my reading in any books that I borrowed from Peace Corps hoping to spark ideas.
Around 11 – Some kid brings in a DVD that is either a) rap videos, b) a subtitled American action film, c) a Chinese or Japanese martial arts film in a language that nobody understands. I pop it into the DVD player and watch as well along with 30 other observers who are waiting for afternoon school, or left school early.
Around 11:30 – I notice a scene that is way too violent or pornographic for kids their age, but notice that nobody seems to budge.
1 o clock – I head off to lunch at this little shack that feeds alot of high school teachers. I get a meal for 150 escudos (about 2USD) and get stuffed.
1:30 – Regret that I ate too much and start taking a nap in my hot office
2 – I wait around for my tutor to arrive to tutor me in Creole. In the meantime, I play Freecell on the computer or find a partner to play this Cape Verdean bean game.
2:30 – My tutor still hasn’t arrived. Even though we agreed that 2 o clock was a good time to start.
3:30 – My tutor finally arrives and we goof off for another half hour
4 o clock – We try to start class. We go over vocabulary and correct sentence structure over and over. Every once in a while I have to ask him to explain in English, and then that doesn’t help either.
6 o clock – I lean up against the front door of the center again and watch the kids walk home from school. Class is over and my tutor and me take a walk back home. I stop by his house usually and stay over for some snacks and watch the news.
7 o clock – I walk home and a cow almost runs me over
7:15 – I arrive at home, but leave right after to buy things from the mini-market. On my way there, local kids start to bug me and tag along. At the mini-market they watch me buy juice, bread, eggs, and toilet paper.
7:20 The kids follow me home, knowing now that I can’t just ignore them. I let them in for a little bit, but when they get too annoying, I threaten them with a broom handle till they leave.
7:30 The same kids knock on the door, pleading apology and begging to come in. I claim that I’m working and finally they leave.
7:30 – I either start making dinner or looking for it.
8:00 – I kill a cockroach from the bathroom. As I look for something to dispose it in, it disappears and I have to kill it again.
8:10 – After the cockroach leaves, I shower, and then mop the floor from all the water I spilled
8:30 and onward - If there’s clothes to wash, I’ll wash them at night, I shower, eat, and then read and read for hours and enjoy the cooler temperature. Around 10, the town goes dead and I’m still up reading, listening to music or playing games on my laptop. Around midnight, I’m still doing the exact same thing, before heading off to bed.

On some weekends I take off to Praia, the capital city for some relaxation. Use the free internet at the Peace Corps office, or sit at the transit house and watch some movies. If I stay at site, I’m usually sleeping in very late and then going for walks to pass the time. Sometimes I get too caught up on my reading, but I do try to watch a movie at least once in the weekend if I stay at home.

There were some fun days that I’ve had here that were not PC related. There was a party the other weekend where I got to see most of the volunteers on the island, a Cape Verdean party where I was able to practice my Creole, a pool day at the embassy and returning home to Sao Domingos to visit my homestay family. Month 2 was a comfortable time and these events surely made them so.

Several thoughts from Month 2. I am thinking about heading home for vacation in the spring of next year. What’s also conflicting me is that the prices for airline travel to mainland Africa and Europe are alot cheaper than a trip back to the states. We’re looking at RT to Dakar -$300, RT to Lisbon -$500, RT to Boston -$900 as of prices that I’ve checked online. However that doesn’t consider any last-minute deals or specials that might be offered at that time next year, and I was expecting RT flights to Boston being offered at $500 at the new international airport on my island.

So there’s the next big question. Go home and visit in the spring and enjoy being a lazy bum on my mom’s couch for 2 weeks? Or go backpacking in the bush, hopping from village to village and experiencing “real” Africa. Or go on a trek through Western Europe on a really tight budget. For a while, I was considering going home, but afterwards came to realize it was mostly because I just wanted to go back so badly. As if a trip back home in the spring was a nice blanket to think about when being homesick.

But then I realized that I can’t be thinking of home too much and that I only get one
chance to live this close to these 2 different continents. I only live once and I should save my trip for a better time. Now that I have stopped thinking about home, I’m getting more excited about continuing my travels. I’m thinking a more appropriate time to visit home would be next Christmas, which would be alot more festive and I would have alot more vacation days saved up.

And plus really, take my word for it now. No matter what I ever said in the past, I actually enjoy cold weather. It’s still an 80º average that has been going on for the past 3 months and I so miss the freezing temperatures of New England. Going out for coffee, taking long drives in the snow, or piling on sweaters to watch Oscar season movies…. all these things I miss and will miss about Rhode Island winters. So now that’s something to look forward to…. next year.

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