I Climbed The Volcano, And All I’m Going To Get Is This Scar?
I ended up going to the crater of the volcano the week before last with Darney O’Malley and Karate Catholic. It took us about seven hours to get to the crater, which is the home of a small community called Cha das Caldeiras (which means Plain of Craters). The soreness in my legs has receded, though overall, the ascent wasn’t too bad, and I wasn’t in much pain the next morning when we got up to leave. I think all the walking I did with Idealist back in Sao Dao helped train me a bit. I mean, don’t get me wrong, nothing I did in Sao Dao compared with this ascent. The first fourth of the hike was the toughest, the most vertical part of it all. You take a small path up the hill to a community called Pai Antonio, which is a picturesque community, nestled in the hills. It’s a more stereotypical place where I could see a PCV being placed. After panting your way up this cobblestone hill (it must be at a 35 or 40 degree angle, no wonder the people here are fit) there’s a dirt path that you sweat your way up. I got some great photos. Maybe I’ll be able to post them sometime next month, hah hah. You actually pass through clouds on your way up. Needless to say, we took a lot of breaks, but overall, I didn’t do too bad. I was only bringing up the rear for a bit of the time, and was actually leading for a bit of the way. There is this random kid who always gives Darney O’Malley oranges whenever he passes by, and this time was no exception. This kid goes to school everyday at the high school that Karate Catholic teaches at. It probably took us two hours to get to this kid’s house. So allow me to state again for emphasis, this kid goes to school every day during the week. It’s insane. I was ready for a nap when I got to his house, but this kid walks back home everyday as a matter of course.
Once you get to a certain point, the hills take on more of a rainforest motif and there’s some decent cover from the sun. There was this cobblestone walking path that had been built long ago, but the rains have washed it away. It’s still passable, but requires a bit more concentration. You then hit the village of Monte Velha, which is 1,299 meters above sea level. Now, remember, I live at sea level, so we actually hiked up all of those 1,299 meters. I started to realize that the 2.5 liters of water that I had brought were not enough, and that the Krit crackers that had been so good to me when I had bought them in the past, actually makes you more thirsty, which defeats the purpose of bringing them with you when you are trying to climb a very large volcano.
So, Monte Velha is kind of on the outside edge of the crater. After a bit more walking, you actually enter into the crater, which is a national park, or protected zone or something. At that point, you are no longer ascending, and there is this wonderful walk, on relatively flat ground, for about an hour or so before actually reaching Cha das Caldeiras. It was here where I actually had my first serious pang of homesickness since I’ve arrived in Cape Verde. .
There were lots of times in Sao Dao that I thought about what and who I missed, but none of it was quite like this. I think Darney O’Malley and Karate Catholic were talking about bars and drinks or something, and the very vivid thought of drinking a Long Island Iced Tea from Fox and Hounds entered into my mind. And then I thought about getting a Vodka Tonic from said establishment. And I mean, I know a lot of it was because I had gotten up at six in the morning and had been walking for the past six hours or so, and really just wanted to dunk my head in a big basin of clean, refreshing water. So all the walking just amplified my desire for a nice cold drink, and then when the topic turns to the bottle, there’s only one place I think of. So, as I was walking – knowing that I was basically out of water, and it was still a short hike to the Cooperativa – I started daydreaming of what it would be like to be in D.C. for a visit, and be able to chill at Fox and Hounds for a night (or three) of drinking. I’m still undecided about going back for a visit, but that moment added a big checkmark in the “head back for a visit” column. Although, I ran into a European tourist who told me about extremely cheap intra-Europe flights, so I am still thinking about London.
But, we finally reach Cha das Caldeiras, get to the Cooperativa, and I have probably one of the most refreshing Fanta’s of my life. It was wonderful. And then the ice cold bottled water that followed was also wonderful. We then headed to one of the hotels in the crater and got lunch. There were a few European tourists hanging out. From what I understand, most tourists actually take a hiace from Sao Filipe up to the crater. Whimps. (I’m just kidding. Maybe.) Any hiking they do is from the crater to Pico de Fogo, the peak of the volcano and the highest point in Cape Verde, and all of West Africa I think. It is 2,829 meters up. We didn’t go up to the peak this trip, but I probably still ascended something like 2,500 meters in one day. Crazy.
Walking into the crater, I had one of those moments (and I can assure you, they have been few and far between) of clarity as to why it was I joined the Peace Corps. Last October, I hadn’t even given any sort of thought to becoming a PCV. And now, I was hiking though the crater of the volcano of the island that I live on in the Atlantic ocean, a stone’s throw away from Africa. I (kind of) speak a language that I knew nothing about four months ago. A Cape Verdean family opened up their home for me to live for two months as I bumbled my way through their lives. This peculiar feeling of appreciation and awe flooded through me.
So, we ate at the hotel. I actually had a small steak, which was great. The chairs were incredibly uncomfortable, but the hotel had a very European feel, except for the fleet of flies that were buzzing around. We then went to the family in the crater that Darney O’Malley has adopted (or is it the other way around?). Either way, when it was just him and Ironman (who was the PCV who taught at the high school before Karate Catholic), they somehow connected with this family and now, whenever Darney O’Malley goes up the crater, he always has a place to stay, and people who are willing to feed him. So, we met the family who seemed cool. They actually own a hotel which is adjacent to their house. They were constructing an addition when we were there, and we were able to sleep in the guest rooms.
So like I said, we didn’t go up to Pico, but we did head to the peak of the 1995 eruption, which had us walking through this amazing lava field that looked like the surface of another planet. There were chunks of sulfur lying around and heat vents. Picture a hole, that when you place your hand over the opening, feels like you’re putting your hand over an open flame.
And a note to any PCV’s who may be coming to visit (especially Team Chaco); do not wear Chacos or any other type of sandal when walking around in these lava fields. In fact, it may not be a good idea to wear your Chacos for any part of the hike. Not even counting the three million little lava rocks that got caught between my feet and the sandals, the toe loop on my left sandal ended up causing me some serious pain on the descent. It was rubbing my big toe in a bad way, but I still decided to try wearing them to work the next day, which was a mistake, since I ended up limping around.
Of course, you ask, why didn’t I just wear my Sketchers? I mean, I dragged them half way around the world with me, shouldn’t I be getting a bang for my buck? Well, my response is that, I would wear them except for that on the descent down the next morning, because I was hobbling along (and I’ve realized that I’m not sure footed at all when going downhill) I fell on my right shin and got a wound that dominates over half of my leg. So, there was bleeding, nothing to excessive, and we had to go downhill a bit more before I could clean it out, since there wasn’t a good place to sit. But at least when Cape Verdeans would pass by, instead of staring at me, immediately saying “Chines!” and quickly whispering among themselves, they’d look at me, see my leg, and start whispering about my wound. Darney O’Malley said I should say “ka fazi nada,” which kinda means, “It’s no problem.”
So the wound is healing up. There had to been some internal bleeding, and the discoloration and swelling that had been at my ankle for the past few days moved down below my ankle, on the top part of my foot. It didn’t look pretty, but that is also starting to fade. But I got a good photo of it when it was in it’s prime. But I talked with the PCMO, who is actually coming to Fogo this week for other matters, and so it’s all good.
Actually, to quickly switch gears, I understand that I have a lot of mail in my mailbox in the Praia office. So if you sent me a letter that went to Praia, and you haven’t heard back, this is why. I should get it all by next week, and I’ll be sure to write people back. She’s also bringing a rice cooker, for which me and Karate Catholic are both extremely grateful for. It’s funny, before talking with the PCMO, I had heard that she had some good news for our site, but the person who I was talking to wouldn’t say what it was. I then had a dream that night that the good news was that they were going to open a Thai restaurant in Mosteiros!
So I admit, at first, I wasn’t super enthusiastic about going up there, but now that I did, I am glad to have done so. For some reason, I was worried about the physical difficulty of getting up there and thought it would make for a miserable time, but it all seemed to work out. I’m also glad I saw some different communities on the island, because I know I need to remind myself that there is a lot more to this area than Igreja, and that there are lots of communities that I can do good stuff in.
So, the past weekend was also first time I really felt like I was integrating into the community, which made me feel pretty good. It started out on Saturday with me going to my quasi-counterpart’s house for a meal. I was surprised that he made the offer, and was a bit nervous, since we don’t always have that much to talk about while at work, but it worked out well. He picked me up and we drove out to his house, which is in the ‘burbs. You can walk to it, but it’s a bit of a hike. I had met his wife and kids before, and it was nice to see where he lived. We finished a bottle of wine between us, which was good. We drove around a bit, and then he dropped me back at my place. He’s actually one of the few people here who doesn’t speak English, and his Kriolu can be a bit hard to understand sometimes, because of what I perceive to be a slight Fogo accent. So I was nervous about just being able to talk, but it all worked out.
So after that, I figured I might as well hang out some more, I found Darney O’Malley and we headed over to a nearby bar. My counterpart was there, so was Darney O’Malley’s, and a few other folks, and they were all playing cards. After a few drinks, Darney O’Malley had to bounce, and I went over and watched them play their game, which is named (and no, I am not kidding) “Ching Chong.” But despite the name, I couldn’t find anything too Asian about the game. There were no Kung Fu chops to the necks of the losers, no one got drunk after one beer, people didn’t bust out a piano after winning a hand and there wasn’t a chopstick in sight. The game was a bit reminiscent of Rummy, with the goal of throwing out three of-a-kinds. So, I hung with them for the rest of the afternoon and into the night. I watched them play, listened to them talk and even talked a bit myself. Darney O’Malley’s counterpart does speak English, so he explained the rules to me and I get the gist of it. I think I’ll try to get into some games in the future.
But for the first time in a long time (dang, I’ve been on Fogo for almost a month), I felt good about being here, like there was actually a chance that I might be able to fit in, in one way or another. It was just nice to be able to interact with Cape Verdeans outside of work or going to a loja to buy things. So, I’m sure it will still be gutters and strikes as the days go by, but I’m happy to have at least one memory that shows that there is a sliver of hope of me being able to carve out some kind of life here.
So the hike up to the crater, and my first weekend of miniscule integration were two things worth mentioning. Now, onto more random stuff I want to take note of.
I finally noticed after two weeks or so, what a lot of the food packaging here was missing. Nutritional content labels. There are brands, of course, but unless (as far as I can tell) something came specifically from the States, there isn’t any information about the sugars, starches and whatever they have listed on the back of most things that you would find in a Rainbow or Giant. A lot of the brands here are Portuguese, or otherwise European, so I am surprised that they wouldn’t have information on them.
I’ve been so removed from the news (I don’t even listen to the BBC World anymore) that the severity of the recent hurricane is just starting to hit me. Between the photos from my Newsweek International, what some friends have said in letters, and talking a bit with My Friend (Who’s Father is a Priest) about it, I am finally getting a feel for how crazy it was. It’s amazing to me how removed from things I can get.
I saw the roof to my Landlord’s gym get poured a few weekends back. Seeing it made me strain to think about the exhibit that I saw at the National Building Museum about concrete and cement. Of course, I’ve never seen cement get poured in the States, so it’s not like I had anything to compare it to, but it was still interesting to watch. The gym looks to be completed on schedule!
We have been having this annoying problem with the phone, which we talked to CVTelecom about earlier in the week, and I hope they get a fixin’ soon. Basically, we’ve gotten our phone line crossed with someone else. Not only can we hear what they are saying (and they us), if I pick up the phone, I disconnect them. If they hang up their phone, they can disconnect me. So, it really sucks. Of course, it didn’t help that during our early encounters, the guy ended up screaming at Karate Catholic and I, both in English and Kriolu. So, the guy at CVTelecom seemed pretty concerned about the problem, and I hope this means he checks it out quickly.
That’s kinda the problem here. You know that you’re in a developing country, so you know to expect this and that to be haywire. But on the other hand, since I do have a phone sitting in my kitchen, since I should have running water all day and all night, you kind of get expectations that this is how it’s going to be. So when the phone gets all whack, or it rains and the water cuts out, I get more frustrated than usual because all of my expectations have been dashed. I assume that because there is a shiny new phone sitting on the table, that it will work like the phones work in America. All the time, with little problems. Same with the water. We have tanks upstairs, and a connection to the city’s water supply. It’s like you’re being teased when you see something that you assume will always be working, but then doesn’t. Just makes the heartbreak a bit worse. I would prefer the water, electricity and phone to work either all of time, or not at all. Knowing that something could work, but isn’t, has to be more annoying than just accepting that it isn’t there for you use in the first place.
My respect for the power of water grows more and more by the day, especially on those days when there is no water. Whenever it rains, the first thing I do when I go home is check if the faucets work. If or if not water comes out will determine a lot about what I’ll be thinking about for the rest of the day. Will we be able to filter more water for drinking or do I have to use the water from the five-liter plastic jug in my room? If I use the toilet, do I have enough water to flush it? Will I have to go up to the roof, or down to the ocean to get more water? How am I going to wash the dishes? When am I going to take a shower? This increases that academic interest I’ve had water, especially the ramifications of water politics and whatnot.
Oh yeah, I found out it costs 500 Escudos for a phone card that will work for a eight minute phone conversation to the States, if I call after 8pm local time. So, that ain’t worth it, and with my phone acting funny right now, I am sure as soon as I make a connection, the other guy will pick up and start screaming. So, I’ll try to figure something else out once we get phone problems solved. Maybe smoke signals.
I had the most random thought a few weeks back. I’ve been doing my best to keep up with the new management at my old office. Hearing about the changes, along with my frustrations here, I actually had the totally unbidden and unexpected thought of “I gave up a potentially rewarding career at the AHA so I could come to Cape Verde?!?”
I’ve been thinking about the organizational infrastructure of Peace Corps. There are only two times during your Peace Corps experience that you really get to make a choice. The first time is the day you call your Placement Office and accept your Invitation here or there. The second time is if you choose to ET. In between those two events (and for a lot of people, the second event isn’t one that happens) nothing is really up to you. There are a lot more parallels to the military than most people would be willing to admit. I remember when we were in Training, we learned that some PCV was ET’ing and joining the Navy. One of the Trainees who heard was shocked, saying that the Peace Corps was the exact opposite of the military and that he couldn’t understand how you could go from one to the other. But really, in psychological terms (on an organizational level) it isn’t that different. Even in political and policy terms, the differences could be no more than the differences between soft power and hard power that the U.S. exerts. That would be an interesting paper.
Can someone help me out? There was a song, that if it was at all popular in the States, would have been sometime at the start of summer, maybe right around when I left. The refrain is “I’m lonely, so lonely,” and it sounds like Alvin and the Chipmunks are singing along. Who sings it and what is it called?
Book reviews. For the greater glory of my colleagues in the Community Development Program, I finished “PACA: Participatory Analysis for Community Action” which is a book Peace Corps puts out to assist people in my role. If you remember several posts ago when I was talking about being for or against Fun, I was talking about PACA. So PACA is basically several different methodological tools that PCV’s can use in order to asses a community, alongside community members. It seems to be a reaction to a time in the past when development people would just fly in from afar, do some analysis, and say “Well, this is what your community needs” without really consulting with the people who actually lived there. Yes, it is a thick book, but a quick read when you have the time, and because it actually isn’t that text heavy, and a lot of the information is repeated. So, All Glory to the PACA and Community Mapping!
I also finished “Terror and Liberalism” by Paul Berman. I could spend a lot of time talking about this book. And I’m sure most of you probably won’t care, or will roll your eyes. But the long and short of it is that it reaffirmed my belief that a historically correct (and commonsensical) position for progressives and the Left to take, is for liberal society, and against totalitarianism in all its forms. The Left has been lulled into a false sense of security and allowed its hatred for Prez. Bush and its burning desire for multilateralism to blind it to the suffering, victimization and oppression that occurs against so many of the people in the world. I used to think my support for the liberation of Iraq moved me toward the center, or made my views more ‘conservative.’ But Berman’s book has helped me realize that this isn’t so. It’s progressives who have moved away from their historic, international solidarity with the oppressed.
I also finished “The Moral Animal” by Robert Wright. It was interesting in the sense that I haven’t read anything about sociobiology before, but the book itself was slow moving. I also generally agreed with his application of evolutionary principles in issues of human behavior, so there wasn’t really there anything new there. I have his other book, “Nonzero” which I hope will be more interesting.
Thanks very much to Electrka for letting me put up the photo of the Peace Corps logo that she painted.
Once you get to a certain point, the hills take on more of a rainforest motif and there’s some decent cover from the sun. There was this cobblestone walking path that had been built long ago, but the rains have washed it away. It’s still passable, but requires a bit more concentration. You then hit the village of Monte Velha, which is 1,299 meters above sea level. Now, remember, I live at sea level, so we actually hiked up all of those 1,299 meters. I started to realize that the 2.5 liters of water that I had brought were not enough, and that the Krit crackers that had been so good to me when I had bought them in the past, actually makes you more thirsty, which defeats the purpose of bringing them with you when you are trying to climb a very large volcano.
So, Monte Velha is kind of on the outside edge of the crater. After a bit more walking, you actually enter into the crater, which is a national park, or protected zone or something. At that point, you are no longer ascending, and there is this wonderful walk, on relatively flat ground, for about an hour or so before actually reaching Cha das Caldeiras. It was here where I actually had my first serious pang of homesickness since I’ve arrived in Cape Verde. .
There were lots of times in Sao Dao that I thought about what and who I missed, but none of it was quite like this. I think Darney O’Malley and Karate Catholic were talking about bars and drinks or something, and the very vivid thought of drinking a Long Island Iced Tea from Fox and Hounds entered into my mind. And then I thought about getting a Vodka Tonic from said establishment. And I mean, I know a lot of it was because I had gotten up at six in the morning and had been walking for the past six hours or so, and really just wanted to dunk my head in a big basin of clean, refreshing water. So all the walking just amplified my desire for a nice cold drink, and then when the topic turns to the bottle, there’s only one place I think of. So, as I was walking – knowing that I was basically out of water, and it was still a short hike to the Cooperativa – I started daydreaming of what it would be like to be in D.C. for a visit, and be able to chill at Fox and Hounds for a night (or three) of drinking. I’m still undecided about going back for a visit, but that moment added a big checkmark in the “head back for a visit” column. Although, I ran into a European tourist who told me about extremely cheap intra-Europe flights, so I am still thinking about London.
But, we finally reach Cha das Caldeiras, get to the Cooperativa, and I have probably one of the most refreshing Fanta’s of my life. It was wonderful. And then the ice cold bottled water that followed was also wonderful. We then headed to one of the hotels in the crater and got lunch. There were a few European tourists hanging out. From what I understand, most tourists actually take a hiace from Sao Filipe up to the crater. Whimps. (I’m just kidding. Maybe.) Any hiking they do is from the crater to Pico de Fogo, the peak of the volcano and the highest point in Cape Verde, and all of West Africa I think. It is 2,829 meters up. We didn’t go up to the peak this trip, but I probably still ascended something like 2,500 meters in one day. Crazy.
Walking into the crater, I had one of those moments (and I can assure you, they have been few and far between) of clarity as to why it was I joined the Peace Corps. Last October, I hadn’t even given any sort of thought to becoming a PCV. And now, I was hiking though the crater of the volcano of the island that I live on in the Atlantic ocean, a stone’s throw away from Africa. I (kind of) speak a language that I knew nothing about four months ago. A Cape Verdean family opened up their home for me to live for two months as I bumbled my way through their lives. This peculiar feeling of appreciation and awe flooded through me.
So, we ate at the hotel. I actually had a small steak, which was great. The chairs were incredibly uncomfortable, but the hotel had a very European feel, except for the fleet of flies that were buzzing around. We then went to the family in the crater that Darney O’Malley has adopted (or is it the other way around?). Either way, when it was just him and Ironman (who was the PCV who taught at the high school before Karate Catholic), they somehow connected with this family and now, whenever Darney O’Malley goes up the crater, he always has a place to stay, and people who are willing to feed him. So, we met the family who seemed cool. They actually own a hotel which is adjacent to their house. They were constructing an addition when we were there, and we were able to sleep in the guest rooms.
So like I said, we didn’t go up to Pico, but we did head to the peak of the 1995 eruption, which had us walking through this amazing lava field that looked like the surface of another planet. There were chunks of sulfur lying around and heat vents. Picture a hole, that when you place your hand over the opening, feels like you’re putting your hand over an open flame.
And a note to any PCV’s who may be coming to visit (especially Team Chaco); do not wear Chacos or any other type of sandal when walking around in these lava fields. In fact, it may not be a good idea to wear your Chacos for any part of the hike. Not even counting the three million little lava rocks that got caught between my feet and the sandals, the toe loop on my left sandal ended up causing me some serious pain on the descent. It was rubbing my big toe in a bad way, but I still decided to try wearing them to work the next day, which was a mistake, since I ended up limping around.
Of course, you ask, why didn’t I just wear my Sketchers? I mean, I dragged them half way around the world with me, shouldn’t I be getting a bang for my buck? Well, my response is that, I would wear them except for that on the descent down the next morning, because I was hobbling along (and I’ve realized that I’m not sure footed at all when going downhill) I fell on my right shin and got a wound that dominates over half of my leg. So, there was bleeding, nothing to excessive, and we had to go downhill a bit more before I could clean it out, since there wasn’t a good place to sit. But at least when Cape Verdeans would pass by, instead of staring at me, immediately saying “Chines!” and quickly whispering among themselves, they’d look at me, see my leg, and start whispering about my wound. Darney O’Malley said I should say “ka fazi nada,” which kinda means, “It’s no problem.”
So the wound is healing up. There had to been some internal bleeding, and the discoloration and swelling that had been at my ankle for the past few days moved down below my ankle, on the top part of my foot. It didn’t look pretty, but that is also starting to fade. But I got a good photo of it when it was in it’s prime. But I talked with the PCMO, who is actually coming to Fogo this week for other matters, and so it’s all good.
Actually, to quickly switch gears, I understand that I have a lot of mail in my mailbox in the Praia office. So if you sent me a letter that went to Praia, and you haven’t heard back, this is why. I should get it all by next week, and I’ll be sure to write people back. She’s also bringing a rice cooker, for which me and Karate Catholic are both extremely grateful for. It’s funny, before talking with the PCMO, I had heard that she had some good news for our site, but the person who I was talking to wouldn’t say what it was. I then had a dream that night that the good news was that they were going to open a Thai restaurant in Mosteiros!
So I admit, at first, I wasn’t super enthusiastic about going up there, but now that I did, I am glad to have done so. For some reason, I was worried about the physical difficulty of getting up there and thought it would make for a miserable time, but it all seemed to work out. I’m also glad I saw some different communities on the island, because I know I need to remind myself that there is a lot more to this area than Igreja, and that there are lots of communities that I can do good stuff in.
So, the past weekend was also first time I really felt like I was integrating into the community, which made me feel pretty good. It started out on Saturday with me going to my quasi-counterpart’s house for a meal. I was surprised that he made the offer, and was a bit nervous, since we don’t always have that much to talk about while at work, but it worked out well. He picked me up and we drove out to his house, which is in the ‘burbs. You can walk to it, but it’s a bit of a hike. I had met his wife and kids before, and it was nice to see where he lived. We finished a bottle of wine between us, which was good. We drove around a bit, and then he dropped me back at my place. He’s actually one of the few people here who doesn’t speak English, and his Kriolu can be a bit hard to understand sometimes, because of what I perceive to be a slight Fogo accent. So I was nervous about just being able to talk, but it all worked out.
So after that, I figured I might as well hang out some more, I found Darney O’Malley and we headed over to a nearby bar. My counterpart was there, so was Darney O’Malley’s, and a few other folks, and they were all playing cards. After a few drinks, Darney O’Malley had to bounce, and I went over and watched them play their game, which is named (and no, I am not kidding) “Ching Chong.” But despite the name, I couldn’t find anything too Asian about the game. There were no Kung Fu chops to the necks of the losers, no one got drunk after one beer, people didn’t bust out a piano after winning a hand and there wasn’t a chopstick in sight. The game was a bit reminiscent of Rummy, with the goal of throwing out three of-a-kinds. So, I hung with them for the rest of the afternoon and into the night. I watched them play, listened to them talk and even talked a bit myself. Darney O’Malley’s counterpart does speak English, so he explained the rules to me and I get the gist of it. I think I’ll try to get into some games in the future.
But for the first time in a long time (dang, I’ve been on Fogo for almost a month), I felt good about being here, like there was actually a chance that I might be able to fit in, in one way or another. It was just nice to be able to interact with Cape Verdeans outside of work or going to a loja to buy things. So, I’m sure it will still be gutters and strikes as the days go by, but I’m happy to have at least one memory that shows that there is a sliver of hope of me being able to carve out some kind of life here.
So the hike up to the crater, and my first weekend of miniscule integration were two things worth mentioning. Now, onto more random stuff I want to take note of.
I finally noticed after two weeks or so, what a lot of the food packaging here was missing. Nutritional content labels. There are brands, of course, but unless (as far as I can tell) something came specifically from the States, there isn’t any information about the sugars, starches and whatever they have listed on the back of most things that you would find in a Rainbow or Giant. A lot of the brands here are Portuguese, or otherwise European, so I am surprised that they wouldn’t have information on them.
I’ve been so removed from the news (I don’t even listen to the BBC World anymore) that the severity of the recent hurricane is just starting to hit me. Between the photos from my Newsweek International, what some friends have said in letters, and talking a bit with My Friend (Who’s Father is a Priest) about it, I am finally getting a feel for how crazy it was. It’s amazing to me how removed from things I can get.
I saw the roof to my Landlord’s gym get poured a few weekends back. Seeing it made me strain to think about the exhibit that I saw at the National Building Museum about concrete and cement. Of course, I’ve never seen cement get poured in the States, so it’s not like I had anything to compare it to, but it was still interesting to watch. The gym looks to be completed on schedule!
We have been having this annoying problem with the phone, which we talked to CVTelecom about earlier in the week, and I hope they get a fixin’ soon. Basically, we’ve gotten our phone line crossed with someone else. Not only can we hear what they are saying (and they us), if I pick up the phone, I disconnect them. If they hang up their phone, they can disconnect me. So, it really sucks. Of course, it didn’t help that during our early encounters, the guy ended up screaming at Karate Catholic and I, both in English and Kriolu. So, the guy at CVTelecom seemed pretty concerned about the problem, and I hope this means he checks it out quickly.
That’s kinda the problem here. You know that you’re in a developing country, so you know to expect this and that to be haywire. But on the other hand, since I do have a phone sitting in my kitchen, since I should have running water all day and all night, you kind of get expectations that this is how it’s going to be. So when the phone gets all whack, or it rains and the water cuts out, I get more frustrated than usual because all of my expectations have been dashed. I assume that because there is a shiny new phone sitting on the table, that it will work like the phones work in America. All the time, with little problems. Same with the water. We have tanks upstairs, and a connection to the city’s water supply. It’s like you’re being teased when you see something that you assume will always be working, but then doesn’t. Just makes the heartbreak a bit worse. I would prefer the water, electricity and phone to work either all of time, or not at all. Knowing that something could work, but isn’t, has to be more annoying than just accepting that it isn’t there for you use in the first place.
My respect for the power of water grows more and more by the day, especially on those days when there is no water. Whenever it rains, the first thing I do when I go home is check if the faucets work. If or if not water comes out will determine a lot about what I’ll be thinking about for the rest of the day. Will we be able to filter more water for drinking or do I have to use the water from the five-liter plastic jug in my room? If I use the toilet, do I have enough water to flush it? Will I have to go up to the roof, or down to the ocean to get more water? How am I going to wash the dishes? When am I going to take a shower? This increases that academic interest I’ve had water, especially the ramifications of water politics and whatnot.
Oh yeah, I found out it costs 500 Escudos for a phone card that will work for a eight minute phone conversation to the States, if I call after 8pm local time. So, that ain’t worth it, and with my phone acting funny right now, I am sure as soon as I make a connection, the other guy will pick up and start screaming. So, I’ll try to figure something else out once we get phone problems solved. Maybe smoke signals.
I had the most random thought a few weeks back. I’ve been doing my best to keep up with the new management at my old office. Hearing about the changes, along with my frustrations here, I actually had the totally unbidden and unexpected thought of “I gave up a potentially rewarding career at the AHA so I could come to Cape Verde?!?”
I’ve been thinking about the organizational infrastructure of Peace Corps. There are only two times during your Peace Corps experience that you really get to make a choice. The first time is the day you call your Placement Office and accept your Invitation here or there. The second time is if you choose to ET. In between those two events (and for a lot of people, the second event isn’t one that happens) nothing is really up to you. There are a lot more parallels to the military than most people would be willing to admit. I remember when we were in Training, we learned that some PCV was ET’ing and joining the Navy. One of the Trainees who heard was shocked, saying that the Peace Corps was the exact opposite of the military and that he couldn’t understand how you could go from one to the other. But really, in psychological terms (on an organizational level) it isn’t that different. Even in political and policy terms, the differences could be no more than the differences between soft power and hard power that the U.S. exerts. That would be an interesting paper.
Can someone help me out? There was a song, that if it was at all popular in the States, would have been sometime at the start of summer, maybe right around when I left. The refrain is “I’m lonely, so lonely,” and it sounds like Alvin and the Chipmunks are singing along. Who sings it and what is it called?
Book reviews. For the greater glory of my colleagues in the Community Development Program, I finished “PACA: Participatory Analysis for Community Action” which is a book Peace Corps puts out to assist people in my role. If you remember several posts ago when I was talking about being for or against Fun, I was talking about PACA. So PACA is basically several different methodological tools that PCV’s can use in order to asses a community, alongside community members. It seems to be a reaction to a time in the past when development people would just fly in from afar, do some analysis, and say “Well, this is what your community needs” without really consulting with the people who actually lived there. Yes, it is a thick book, but a quick read when you have the time, and because it actually isn’t that text heavy, and a lot of the information is repeated. So, All Glory to the PACA and Community Mapping!
I also finished “Terror and Liberalism” by Paul Berman. I could spend a lot of time talking about this book. And I’m sure most of you probably won’t care, or will roll your eyes. But the long and short of it is that it reaffirmed my belief that a historically correct (and commonsensical) position for progressives and the Left to take, is for liberal society, and against totalitarianism in all its forms. The Left has been lulled into a false sense of security and allowed its hatred for Prez. Bush and its burning desire for multilateralism to blind it to the suffering, victimization and oppression that occurs against so many of the people in the world. I used to think my support for the liberation of Iraq moved me toward the center, or made my views more ‘conservative.’ But Berman’s book has helped me realize that this isn’t so. It’s progressives who have moved away from their historic, international solidarity with the oppressed.
I also finished “The Moral Animal” by Robert Wright. It was interesting in the sense that I haven’t read anything about sociobiology before, but the book itself was slow moving. I also generally agreed with his application of evolutionary principles in issues of human behavior, so there wasn’t really there anything new there. I have his other book, “Nonzero” which I hope will be more interesting.
Thanks very much to Electrka for letting me put up the photo of the Peace Corps logo that she painted.
posted by jende turtle at 6:26 AM
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