Christmas School Party

So yesterday was the last day of school before the Xmas holidays and so of course, there was a party. Beni and I spent the better part of the last three days blowing up balloons, making paper snowflakes (the kids had no idea what they were supposed to be) and paper Xmas trees, popcorn garlands and paper tinsel, and generally preparing to spread a great deal of Xmas cheer. I brought my guitar to school and taught them to sing Jingle Bells (it comes out as “jingo bays”) and Beni sewed some Pae Natal (Santa Claus) hats. I remember last year that the food was pretty frako (weak) so for exactly 16 U.S. dollars, I sponsored the mesa (table) this year and there was foods galore. That got us cakes, tortas, pastels, popcorn, crackers, chips, 3 pizzas (made by yours truly and having a crustal consistency just this side of granite) and about one litre of pure-sugar soda per kid. (There are, no doubt, parents cursing my name as we speak.)

At the party there was singing, poetry recital, a reading of The Christmas Miracle in Portuguese, traditional dancing, and, in an attempt to follow up on the AIDS Day information, a question and answer session regarding methods of transmission and avoidance. In general it was a huge success and we were there for about 4 hours yesterday, just having fun.

All did not go perfectly well however. I spent most of this month’s bandwidth downloading Christmas music. (Aside: Did I tell you that in CV you pay for internet per megabyte...4CVE per Mb...rather than just per month...although you pay that too?? Pray that this never happens in the States or you will be forced to seriously curtail your internet usage as 10 minutes skimming the news amounts to about 40 megabytes, or 160CVE...but I digress.) Anyway, I made the school mistress a CD of all that good music and expected to hear it during the party. You may imagine how uncomfortable I was when at the party I instead heard the latest in shitty American rap music to slither its way into Cape Verde. In a particularly creepy moment I watched as dozens of 7 and 8 year olds writhed and undulated and even sang along to lyrics that went: “How you feel me now baby, cuz I can go deeper, I can go deeper, all night long. You already know I’m gonna f*%# you.” Yikes. (Under other circumstances, this phenomenon of Cape Verdians singing the lyrics to English songs they don’t understand is actually quite entertaining, but not so in this case.)

Another problem errupted towards the end of the festa. My 16 dollars got enough balloons for everyone in the school, and despite Beni’s urging to the contrary, I distributed them at the party. Well ael tinha razon (she was right), as that turned into a disaster when the older kids starting popping or stealing those of the little kids. Kiddy-fights broke out, tears were shed, pandemonium ensued, and in the end, I made a quick and unannounced exit, leaving the teachers to deal with the aftermath.

Other than that, the only new thing is the weather. Although it has lately cooled considerably (it’s in the low 60s during the nights) it doesn’t feel anything like Xmas weather. You wouldn’t know it from looking at Cape Verdians though, as people in town can often be seen shivering and walking about in full-on, fur-lined winter parkas made for Antarctic exploration. It’s a nice change form the heat though, and I’ve been happy to get to use my one sweatshirt I brought with me. I think all of the other volunteers from my group that live on my island have already left and gone home to the States for Xmas so now I’ve got the place more or less to myself, moda m kizer (which is as I like it). Later today I’m making a wooden sign that says “You have arrived at the Western-most part of Africa.” Tomorrow I’ll start the day long-hike to get there, plant it in the rocks, spend the night there, hike back, and wait for the tourists to start queueing up.

Pics of stuff below.