update on my life, part one

Iºm at a internet cafe in the capital city, Praia for a bit. Itºs the first time Iºve had to check my email in a while. Be sure to email me, dang it, I want to hear how life is in the US! Overall, things are going well for me. I do like it here. There is a reason they call Cape Verde ´beach corps´ or ´posh corps´ because life here is physically much easier. The only hardships that I really have are the fact that there is no hot water here to take showers with, and that you canºt toss toliet paper into the toliet because of the plumbing system, and that you have to bucket flush the toliets at school. But seriously, those are the only things that kind of suck. And in reality, they arenºt even that challenging, I feel like Iºve adopted to all of that. Before I actually got here, whenever I would think about Peace Corps, it was always defined by the physical hardship that you have. Going to Africa was always the most hardcore because of the lack of infastructure or whatnot. But what PCVºs and RPCVºs do talk about (but that I kinda ignored) was the mental hardships that you also face. The physical stuff is much easier to overcome than the mental isolation, being totally in a new culture, and all of that. So Iºve had a tougher time with that than anything else.

But I do want to be here. Cape Verde is an amazing place, and I hope to get to know it better over the next two years, no matter where I am placed. I am living with a host family right now. I usually get up at 7am, and my mai (mom) prepares me breakfast, which is usually instant coffee and some toasted bread sandwitches (bread and some sort of spam ham) and then by 8am, Iºm out front, waiting for R to come by. He lives "across the street" from me, up a hill. He comes down, and we head over to A´s house to pick here up, and its like a 10 minute walk to school. We usually run into other Trainees on the way. Class starts at 8:30 and goes until 12:30. For this past week, I´ve had Kriolu in the morning. Itºs like a simplified version of Spanish and Portugues, so in some ways, itºs easier to learn, but otherwise, itºs still tough, espeically sinice I am not that good at picking up new langugages. When class ends in the morning, I go back home for lunch, and then need to be back at school by 2:30 for afternoon class. We´ve been doing model school this past week, so was actually teaching a class of Cape Verdian 10th graders English! I have always respected teachers and the tough job they have, and now being forced to do lesson plans for the week, and then standing up in front of the class...even more props go out to my teacher friends!

So, even though I am a Community Development Mobilizer, I had to do this week of school, along with the TEFL people. This is because even when I get to site, I still may have to teach english in some situations. So, class ends at 5pm, and I usually head out with friends to a bar for a beer or will just go home. I get a small snack when I get home, and then dinner is usually around 8pm or so. It was funny, when I first got to my host family, I told them that I usually eat dinner around 6pm. So what happended was that theyºd cook me dinner at 6pm, and then another dinner at 8pm! Lucky for me, I was able put a stop to that, and turn it into a snack. My mai is always really concerned about me eating enough food. Though for the first few days, I would sit around after dinner with my irma (sister) and prima (cousin) and watch Brazilian soap operas, now I spending more time in my room, either studying Kriolu or just reading. My computer is about to time out, I will post more in a few minutes.