The Dangers of Power Outages.
So among the many challenges of life over here, is learning to live without power. Ac-tually, learning to live without power might be a little easier than learning to live with random and prolonged power outages, which is what is going on here. Two days ago, we had power for three hours...from 1PM to 4PM. The day before we had it for 5 hours, but they were randomly spread out throughout the day in one hour intervals. It’s wreak-ing havoc on my refridgerator, but I suppose I should just be happy to have a refrigera-tor in the first place.
I am mostly bald. (You’ll see how this relates to random power outages shortly.) So yeah...I’m mostly bald, and since forever I’ve cut my hair REAL short. I can’t stand to have it not shaved short...you can feel breeze in it when it gets too long, it looks all fuzzy and ridiculous. Anyway, in the States I used to cut my own hair at least once a week with a home trimmer, and I brought that with me here. (Over here its such a pain in the ass though that I usually go for about two weeks between haircuts...which really pushes the limits on the fuziness factor.) Well in a week the weird electrical current here exploded my haircutter (despite the converter kit I had it plugged into) and I brought a trimmer here at a Chinese loja. Contrary to every other experience I’ve had with a Chinese loja product, this little trimmer has been a champ. No problems whatso-ever, and I’ve been happily short-shorn since I’ve been in Cape Verde.
Then came last week. Normally it takes me I guess about 6 or 7 minutes to shave my head. (I do still have some hair around the sides and the back...its just the top that’s shiny.) Anyway, last week, after 2 weeks without a haircut, in the middle of the day, 3 and a half minutes into my haircut, the power went out. I know it was exactly three and half minutes into my haircut because exactly half of my head was completely shaved. (The driver’s side half...not that it matters.) That is not something you can hide. I have a hat here, a big one even, but even it won’t hide a half shaved head. You can still tell that something’s not quite right when you see only half of a neckline cleaned up...only one sideburn. Normally I would not be too panicked about the whole thing, and could just wait for the power to come back on, or might just elect to try to stay in the house un-til dark and then go out with a hat. Not an option on the day in question though, having had some turtle-related trabalho (work) in Cruzinha later in the afternoon. Basically there was nothing for it. I would have to take a walk of shame. I figured it would funny though, a good laugh for my friends, which it did indeed turn out to be.
One day would have been ok to suffer the humiliation, but that was not to be. The next morning, I got up as usual, had my porridge and brown sugar breakfast, and then promptly left the house to go down to Vuk Taref (just down the hill from Txangreja), hav-ing forgotten my predicament. (There is currently no mirror in my house, so it’s not like I can check myself out before leaving the house, and in any event I’ve completely gotten out of the habit of doing that.) Thankfully I caught Te having a good chuckle as I was headed down the hill and he said “es koisa di kabexa k’bo ten.” Ah yes...now I remem-bered. I immediately turned back to the house and plugged in the trimmer and flicked the switch and...no juice. The power was still not there. I waited. And waited. And waited. I shouted down to the mini precio at 11AM and asked Te if he knew when the power might be coming back on, and he said it had already come and gone...Txangreja having had power during the very useful hours of 4 to 8AM. I asked him if he though it’s be coming back on. He said “Kuas nao.” (Prolly not.) So I stayed close to or inside the house that whole day, grateful to not have any commitments in Cruzinha, and waited anxiously for any sign of power. Music from a radio or TV, a streetlamp, anything. It did not come that day. A second day with a half-shaved head.
The third day came and I was up early to check for power. I set the alarm and every-thing. Still none. I waited. And waited. And waited. Basically, standing in my kitchen (it’s the only available power outlet) with the trimmer plugged in and ready to go. At 10AM the light came on in the kitchen and I flicked the switch on the trimmer...and the damn thing exploded in my hand. There was smoke and everything. I said aloud, in English and to none at all….”You have got to be shitting me!” I wanted to hit some-one...preferably someone who worked at the power company or a chinese loja. Thoughts of another day with the ridiculous half head of hair, the stories that my neighbors would be telling, making the hour-long car ride to Povocon, possibly even making the hours long car ride to Porto Novo, searching through the various Chinese lojas for a new trimmer (they are hard to find and very expensive).
Some of you might quite rightly question why I didn’t just go to someone here in town who also had a trimmer and ask them to fix me up. At first blush a good idea, until you’ve been through Peace Corps medical training where they inform you that MANY Cape Verdians have that weird skin fungus on their heads (I’d say about half the kids in town have it...it looks like...and may in fact be...ringworm, but I’m not sure what it is. Also, conditions here are less sanitary than what we’re used to in the States, and there is REALLY no telling where a hair trimmer might have been. I’d hate to even speculate. Basically we were fairly warned to get hair cuts at barbershops at our own peril.
In the end, I went to Povocon with the big hat and lucked out by finding a trimmer in the third loja that I tried. I paid WAY too much for it, and it’s not nearly as nice as the one I had before. This one takes about 3 passes before it cuts even my meager and gossa-mer mane. I give it one more use before it bites the dust. I’ll be ready though...now I’ll cut my hair every three days, just in case.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Back Soon
So it´s been a while, and I´ve got a good backlog of Blogs that I´ve been writing out on papaer (does anyone do that anymore?). But, my new computer got here on Sunday, so I´ll spend part of this week typing them up and post them when I get back to Pocoçon, as there is still no internet in my town. I´ve got some great pictures of Ribeira de Torre and Mon Patraz as well, and I´ll get those up soon.
Things here are well´, although its hot and muggy and the flies are terrible. (Yes, I know its hotter in Texas, but they have air conditioning there.) Other than that, I´ve spent the last 2 days nursing Benvinda who has something approximating the flu. I can´t imagine surrering flu symptoms in these conditions (hot, muggy, sweaty, flies, no cold water, etc.). She seems to be feeling a little better today though, so that´s good. Amgiving a turtle and "environmental awareness" seminar next week in Cruzinha, and there is a festival on the beach there this weekend, with the big music festival in Sau Viçente the following weekend. Pretty busy month for me, before going to Praia for the month of September to teach the new volunteers Sanpadjudo kriolu. Looking forward to a change of pace with life on the big island.
I hope everyone is well, and thanks for the recent spurt of care packages. Very much appreciated!
Things here are well´, although its hot and muggy and the flies are terrible. (Yes, I know its hotter in Texas, but they have air conditioning there.) Other than that, I´ve spent the last 2 days nursing Benvinda who has something approximating the flu. I can´t imagine surrering flu symptoms in these conditions (hot, muggy, sweaty, flies, no cold water, etc.). She seems to be feeling a little better today though, so that´s good. Amgiving a turtle and "environmental awareness" seminar next week in Cruzinha, and there is a festival on the beach there this weekend, with the big music festival in Sau Viçente the following weekend. Pretty busy month for me, before going to Praia for the month of September to teach the new volunteers Sanpadjudo kriolu. Looking forward to a change of pace with life on the big island.
I hope everyone is well, and thanks for the recent spurt of care packages. Very much appreciated!
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Sr. Antonio RIP
Sr. Antonio RIP
So Sr. Antonio dies yesterday morning. I think there is a good picture of him here on my blog somewhere…he’s sitting barefoot on some steps in front of a house with his hat in his hand, and he’s got a few days growth of grey beard.
Today is Monday and I’ve just come back from a weekend in Povocon, and hadn’t heard the news. But about an hour ago, I was in the polivalent (the concrete soccer field/community center) awaiting the guys from the newly formed Txangreja Basketball Club, when I heard the wailing. (If I haven’t explained the Cape Verdian tradition of funereal “wailing” yet, someone please tell me and I will. It’s awful and sad and very common.) Anyway, there I was like a jackass shooting hoops when I hear the wailing and peek my head out the door of the polivalent to see half the town of Txangreja marching and wailing down the hill to the cemetery between here and Cruzinha. Djon stepped out from the procession to tell me that Sr. Antonio had passed away.
Sr. Antonio must have been about 80 years old, but he was very spert (clever). It’s my impression that folks in Txangreja will remember him as an ace-up-his-sleeve-toting wily coyote who liked to drink and harass women during his younger days. I’ll remember him as one of the first people I met here in Txangreja, an unrivaled card shark, and the person who taught me to play (and cheat at) Bisca and TxinTxon…which are ancient Cape Verdian card games. There’s another reason I’ll remember him as well. When we met, during my first week here in town, which was September of last year, he was completely unfazed and unimpressed.
Being the first Peace Corps volunteer to come to live in Txangreja, possibly the first American ever to set foot in this village, and certainly the first white person in this town that spoke a word of kriolu…I was something of a rock star during my first few months. People were excited to meet me, wanted to ask questions about where I came from, what I was doing here, how long I was staying, where and why I had learned to speak kriolu, etc. Not Sr. Antonio. I remember the day I met him he was sitting at a table in a chair in the plaza with his signature road cap on and a weathered deck of disintegrating cards in his hand...looking for his next victim. I sat down across from him and, expecting to get a rise out of him and launch into my schpeel about myself and Peace Corps and all the rest, said in a fairly decent kriolu “Do you know how to play poker?” Without missing a beat he replied “No, but we can play Bisca instead.” I told him I didn’t know that game, and he told me not to worry, he’d teach me…and he did.
We sat in the plaza and played cards and chatted for what must have been about 4 hours that day, and I didn’t get a word in edgewise as he instructed me in the subtle art of playing Bisca. He told me he had 4 wives, 12 children and over 50 grandchildren, and had once seen the Parthenon in Greece, having worked on cargo ships during his younger years. I remember he didn’t ask me a single question about me or my kriolu, or just what in the hell a white person was doing sitting in his plaza playing cards…I was just another victim to him.
After that first day he and I had a more or less regular card game in the plaza every afternoon at 4pm. That must have gone on for about 2 months, until I had to quit going so I’d have time to prepare my lesson plans. During our games I didn’t talk much (I was too busy concentrating on learning the game), but he did. At that point in my kriolu acquisition I didn’t understand a lot of what he was saying, but I was learning from him. I believe I can say with some certainty that he never did learn my name (He only ever called me Merkon), although I must have told him a dozen times. Ironically, through our games I managed to conxe (meet) quite a lot of people in town, as the site of a white person sitting in the plaza playing cards with Sr. Antonio every day did arouse some curiosity, and people would often come up to introduce themselves to me in the plaza, and then ask me what in the hell I was doing here. Most importantly, knowing, and I dare say being good at, Bisca and TxinTxon is an invaluable asset when it comes to meeting people and making friends in this country, and I’ve him to thank for that.
So, rest in peace Sr, Antonio. So long, and thanks for everything.
So Sr. Antonio dies yesterday morning. I think there is a good picture of him here on my blog somewhere…he’s sitting barefoot on some steps in front of a house with his hat in his hand, and he’s got a few days growth of grey beard.
Today is Monday and I’ve just come back from a weekend in Povocon, and hadn’t heard the news. But about an hour ago, I was in the polivalent (the concrete soccer field/community center) awaiting the guys from the newly formed Txangreja Basketball Club, when I heard the wailing. (If I haven’t explained the Cape Verdian tradition of funereal “wailing” yet, someone please tell me and I will. It’s awful and sad and very common.) Anyway, there I was like a jackass shooting hoops when I hear the wailing and peek my head out the door of the polivalent to see half the town of Txangreja marching and wailing down the hill to the cemetery between here and Cruzinha. Djon stepped out from the procession to tell me that Sr. Antonio had passed away.
Sr. Antonio must have been about 80 years old, but he was very spert (clever). It’s my impression that folks in Txangreja will remember him as an ace-up-his-sleeve-toting wily coyote who liked to drink and harass women during his younger days. I’ll remember him as one of the first people I met here in Txangreja, an unrivaled card shark, and the person who taught me to play (and cheat at) Bisca and TxinTxon…which are ancient Cape Verdian card games. There’s another reason I’ll remember him as well. When we met, during my first week here in town, which was September of last year, he was completely unfazed and unimpressed.
Being the first Peace Corps volunteer to come to live in Txangreja, possibly the first American ever to set foot in this village, and certainly the first white person in this town that spoke a word of kriolu…I was something of a rock star during my first few months. People were excited to meet me, wanted to ask questions about where I came from, what I was doing here, how long I was staying, where and why I had learned to speak kriolu, etc. Not Sr. Antonio. I remember the day I met him he was sitting at a table in a chair in the plaza with his signature road cap on and a weathered deck of disintegrating cards in his hand...looking for his next victim. I sat down across from him and, expecting to get a rise out of him and launch into my schpeel about myself and Peace Corps and all the rest, said in a fairly decent kriolu “Do you know how to play poker?” Without missing a beat he replied “No, but we can play Bisca instead.” I told him I didn’t know that game, and he told me not to worry, he’d teach me…and he did.
We sat in the plaza and played cards and chatted for what must have been about 4 hours that day, and I didn’t get a word in edgewise as he instructed me in the subtle art of playing Bisca. He told me he had 4 wives, 12 children and over 50 grandchildren, and had once seen the Parthenon in Greece, having worked on cargo ships during his younger years. I remember he didn’t ask me a single question about me or my kriolu, or just what in the hell a white person was doing sitting in his plaza playing cards…I was just another victim to him.
After that first day he and I had a more or less regular card game in the plaza every afternoon at 4pm. That must have gone on for about 2 months, until I had to quit going so I’d have time to prepare my lesson plans. During our games I didn’t talk much (I was too busy concentrating on learning the game), but he did. At that point in my kriolu acquisition I didn’t understand a lot of what he was saying, but I was learning from him. I believe I can say with some certainty that he never did learn my name (He only ever called me Merkon), although I must have told him a dozen times. Ironically, through our games I managed to conxe (meet) quite a lot of people in town, as the site of a white person sitting in the plaza playing cards with Sr. Antonio every day did arouse some curiosity, and people would often come up to introduce themselves to me in the plaza, and then ask me what in the hell I was doing here. Most importantly, knowing, and I dare say being good at, Bisca and TxinTxon is an invaluable asset when it comes to meeting people and making friends in this country, and I’ve him to thank for that.
So, rest in peace Sr, Antonio. So long, and thanks for everything.
Injuries
Injuries
So living over here, I have to take good care of myself. Last weekend I went swimming in Sinogaga. It’s a beach about a 45 minute walk East from Povocon. At Sinagoga there is a nice sandy beach, and around the point, a series of rock “pools” and sea caves, where you can swim. I was there with Benvinda and some friends and after an hour of body surfing the huge waves there, we decided to take a dip in one of the rock pools. Unfortunately, I managed to crash my foot into a uris there (the spiny black sea urchins that are everywhere in Cape Verde) and started bleeding (bit only a little bit) immediately. I got out of the water to have a look and was soon surrounded by a dozen Cape Verdians offering to help. I sat down and a young kid held my foot while a little girl began pulling out the shards. When you get “stung” by a uriz, the tiny fragments from the end of their spines break off in you like tiny shards of broken glass. They got all but three or four of them out. I asked them what I should do about the rest and the girl said not to worry. Then she spit on me.
I was a little bit mortified at first…seeing her spit on my foot and then mixing the saliva with the blood coming from my foot and rubbing it in with her fingers. Vague warnings from high school health class flashing into my brain. I asked her doubtfully if that would really help and she said of course. She told me to let the spit and blood dry for now, and when I got home I should heat up some grogue and then dip a rag into it, and use that to make a hot water compress. She assured me that the shards would come out on their own within a couple days. That night my ankle swelled up a little bit and I felt a sort of light burning sensation and the next day I got serious and dug the little pieces out with a knife and tweezers and applied some antibiotic ointment from my PC medical kit.
So this isn’t a big deal at all…Cape Verdians are “stung” by uris all the time. But I use it to illustrate how, over here, I have to take better care of myself than I did when I was in the States. And it’s not just the stings of sea creatures that I worry about. The air here is dry, there’s always sand and dust in the air, and the sun bakes all of us over here exactly the same way it bakes the land. I’ve had two pretty severe sunburns since I’ve been here. The second time I had been wearing sunscreen, but failed to reapply it properly, and suffered the consequences. Now I never leave the house without it. Your feet get really dry and cracked here too. Not just little ones, but deep, sharp, bleeding cracks on your feet like little slices from a knife. I always thought guys who preened and moisturized and used facial creams and foot files and such were a little narcissistic, but I realize they were on to something, and I do it all the time now.
There’s a weird thing that can happen to your eyes over here too, and I’ve gotten it once or twice. Because of all the sand and dust in the air, it’s common for your eyes to become dry, red and irritated. Occasionally, a larger grain will get imbedded in your eye, but your eye doesn’t have sufficient fluid to wash it out on its own, and after a few days, if you can’t get it out, a small cyst-like thing forms in the corner of your eye. (The use of contact lenses would exacerbate the problem and they are therefore not allowed by Peace Corps in Cape Verde.) The treatment is to just flush your eyes out with saline solution (they don’t have it here), visine (they don’t have it here), or water (which we are told we need to treat with bleach). The other thing you can get here is sea-blindness which is the liquid equivalent of going snow-blind. There are almost never any clouds here, absolutely zero cloud cover, and if you’re out on or in the water for long enough, the reflection of the sun off the water can literally burn the surface of your eyes, causing temporary blindness. My sunglasses are one of my most dear possessions.
Another thing I’ve had a few of over here are these huge fridas (boil-like things). Basically what happens is that somehow you get some a cut or scrape or bite or micro-abrasion, and then a bit of dirt or sand or microbes gets into it and it gets infected, and turn into a sort if huge puss-filled pimple. The 3 or 4 that I’ve had (on my shoulder, under my arm, and on the top of my foot) all got to be about the size of a marble, and they were extremely painful. I couldn’t wear shoes or flip-flops for a week with the one on my foot, and I had to walk with my arm stuck out to the side of me when I had the one under my arm. (This is really nothing though, as I know another volunteer who had one on her eyebrow and it was, literally about the size of a golf ball.) The treatment, according to the PC nurse, is to apply hot compresses 4 times a day for as long as it takes for it to break open and drain the puss, and then wash it and let it dry. If that doesn’t work they’ll put you on a crash course of antibiotics. I never had anything like that until I came here and it’s generally to do with cleanliness. Everything surface over here, be it skin or counter or ground or wall or bed sheet, is dirtier here. Basically no matter how hard you try, taking cold water bucket and sponge baths and scraping your clothes and sheets against rocks, just doesn’t get you and your things as clean as a nice hot shower and a washing machine.
There’s lots of other skin things that can happen to you here as well, and the PC nurse says that, other than diarrhea, they’re the most common problems for PC volunteers. Athlete’s foot, psoriasis, ringworm, hookworm, etc. I’d say about a third of the kids in Cape Verde have the small, circular, white, flaky patches of skin on their heads. Another volunteer I saw a few weeks ago had a small nasty looking red patch of crusty skin on her wrist about the size of a half-dollar…ringworm from a cat or a kid or a water tank no doubt.
I think in general, the lifestyle over here necessarily includes more cuts, more scrapes, more sprains and strains, more bites, more stomach ailments…more of all that stuff really. And we’re dealing with them in a dirtier, less sterile, less hygienic environment with no doctors and only our Peace Corps medical kit and the Where There Are No Doctors book as aids.
So living over here, I have to take good care of myself. Last weekend I went swimming in Sinogaga. It’s a beach about a 45 minute walk East from Povocon. At Sinagoga there is a nice sandy beach, and around the point, a series of rock “pools” and sea caves, where you can swim. I was there with Benvinda and some friends and after an hour of body surfing the huge waves there, we decided to take a dip in one of the rock pools. Unfortunately, I managed to crash my foot into a uris there (the spiny black sea urchins that are everywhere in Cape Verde) and started bleeding (bit only a little bit) immediately. I got out of the water to have a look and was soon surrounded by a dozen Cape Verdians offering to help. I sat down and a young kid held my foot while a little girl began pulling out the shards. When you get “stung” by a uriz, the tiny fragments from the end of their spines break off in you like tiny shards of broken glass. They got all but three or four of them out. I asked them what I should do about the rest and the girl said not to worry. Then she spit on me.
I was a little bit mortified at first…seeing her spit on my foot and then mixing the saliva with the blood coming from my foot and rubbing it in with her fingers. Vague warnings from high school health class flashing into my brain. I asked her doubtfully if that would really help and she said of course. She told me to let the spit and blood dry for now, and when I got home I should heat up some grogue and then dip a rag into it, and use that to make a hot water compress. She assured me that the shards would come out on their own within a couple days. That night my ankle swelled up a little bit and I felt a sort of light burning sensation and the next day I got serious and dug the little pieces out with a knife and tweezers and applied some antibiotic ointment from my PC medical kit.
So this isn’t a big deal at all…Cape Verdians are “stung” by uris all the time. But I use it to illustrate how, over here, I have to take better care of myself than I did when I was in the States. And it’s not just the stings of sea creatures that I worry about. The air here is dry, there’s always sand and dust in the air, and the sun bakes all of us over here exactly the same way it bakes the land. I’ve had two pretty severe sunburns since I’ve been here. The second time I had been wearing sunscreen, but failed to reapply it properly, and suffered the consequences. Now I never leave the house without it. Your feet get really dry and cracked here too. Not just little ones, but deep, sharp, bleeding cracks on your feet like little slices from a knife. I always thought guys who preened and moisturized and used facial creams and foot files and such were a little narcissistic, but I realize they were on to something, and I do it all the time now.
There’s a weird thing that can happen to your eyes over here too, and I’ve gotten it once or twice. Because of all the sand and dust in the air, it’s common for your eyes to become dry, red and irritated. Occasionally, a larger grain will get imbedded in your eye, but your eye doesn’t have sufficient fluid to wash it out on its own, and after a few days, if you can’t get it out, a small cyst-like thing forms in the corner of your eye. (The use of contact lenses would exacerbate the problem and they are therefore not allowed by Peace Corps in Cape Verde.) The treatment is to just flush your eyes out with saline solution (they don’t have it here), visine (they don’t have it here), or water (which we are told we need to treat with bleach). The other thing you can get here is sea-blindness which is the liquid equivalent of going snow-blind. There are almost never any clouds here, absolutely zero cloud cover, and if you’re out on or in the water for long enough, the reflection of the sun off the water can literally burn the surface of your eyes, causing temporary blindness. My sunglasses are one of my most dear possessions.
Another thing I’ve had a few of over here are these huge fridas (boil-like things). Basically what happens is that somehow you get some a cut or scrape or bite or micro-abrasion, and then a bit of dirt or sand or microbes gets into it and it gets infected, and turn into a sort if huge puss-filled pimple. The 3 or 4 that I’ve had (on my shoulder, under my arm, and on the top of my foot) all got to be about the size of a marble, and they were extremely painful. I couldn’t wear shoes or flip-flops for a week with the one on my foot, and I had to walk with my arm stuck out to the side of me when I had the one under my arm. (This is really nothing though, as I know another volunteer who had one on her eyebrow and it was, literally about the size of a golf ball.) The treatment, according to the PC nurse, is to apply hot compresses 4 times a day for as long as it takes for it to break open and drain the puss, and then wash it and let it dry. If that doesn’t work they’ll put you on a crash course of antibiotics. I never had anything like that until I came here and it’s generally to do with cleanliness. Everything surface over here, be it skin or counter or ground or wall or bed sheet, is dirtier here. Basically no matter how hard you try, taking cold water bucket and sponge baths and scraping your clothes and sheets against rocks, just doesn’t get you and your things as clean as a nice hot shower and a washing machine.
There’s lots of other skin things that can happen to you here as well, and the PC nurse says that, other than diarrhea, they’re the most common problems for PC volunteers. Athlete’s foot, psoriasis, ringworm, hookworm, etc. I’d say about a third of the kids in Cape Verde have the small, circular, white, flaky patches of skin on their heads. Another volunteer I saw a few weeks ago had a small nasty looking red patch of crusty skin on her wrist about the size of a half-dollar…ringworm from a cat or a kid or a water tank no doubt.
I think in general, the lifestyle over here necessarily includes more cuts, more scrapes, more sprains and strains, more bites, more stomach ailments…more of all that stuff really. And we’re dealing with them in a dirtier, less sterile, less hygienic environment with no doctors and only our Peace Corps medical kit and the Where There Are No Doctors book as aids.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Texas
So the other night it was pretty late and I was really missing home. When a bout of homesickness strikes, I usually turn to my guitar, and the music of Robert Earl Keen Jr., as Robert Earl and his music are pretty much as Texan as it gets. (I offer the following lyrics from his song Amarillo Highway as evidence.)
“I don’t wear no Steston
But I’m willing to bet son
That I’m a bigger Texan
Than you are.
There’s a girl in her bare feet
Asleep on the backseat
And that trunk’s fulla
Pearl Beer and Lone Star.”
I was blessed with an older sister who has (or at least had) good taste in music, and who introduced me to authentic Texas Hill Country music from an early age. Anyway, the other night I picked up the guitar and went to sit on the stairs, and commenced to playing the entire compendium of Robert Earl Keen Jr. music. Jennifer Johnson, Corpus Christi Bay, the Front Porch Song, The Road Goes on Forever, Don’t Turn Out the Light, Love’s a Word, Mariano, When I Start Giving In. The entire Robert Earl Songbook really. I was playing and singing for maybe 2 whole hours. Later, my fingers and voice both tired and cracked, I figured I’d finish off the evening with a cold beer from the MiniPrecio right next door. I put the guitar down and stepped out my front door…to find an audience. There were 4 or 5 people sitting on the steps of the MiniPrecio, 2 more with chairs right next to them, Sra. Herminha and her 2 sons were sitting upstairs on their roof, and there were 7 or 8 people just leaning against my house. They all stared. I was mortified, but they greeted me with warm smiles and a smattering of applause. Te and Nitoh insisted on buying me a beer apiece. I got all warm and fuzzy. (From the people, not the beers.) Of course, nobody understood a word of what I was singing, but they liked it anyway, and I spent the better part of the next hour answering questions about what the songs were about and whether I could play a particular one (Love’s a Word) again. It’s a sad one…reminiscent of the mourna music native to the islands of Cape Verde, and it turns out they understood the word “Love” over and over again, and Cape Verdians are suckers for a good love song.
Through the music of Robert Earl, I had a chance to sit and talk, and share some Texas (rather than American) culture for a change. One interesting thing I’ve found here…if you ask anyone to name a state in the US, Texas is ALWAYS the first one (and often the only one) that they know. (Unfortunately the second most common response to that question is: “Hollywood.”) People here, and people everywhere apparently, have heard of Texas, and everyone assumes that the usual archetypes are all true. Upon learning I hale from the Lone Star State, people extend their thumb and forefingers to form little pistols with their hands and say “Ahhhh…cowboys!” Then they ask if I have or have ever had an arma (gun…no), a caval (horse…yes), a chapeu grande (big hat…yes), botas (boots…yes), or a fivela (shiny buckle…no). In Cape Verde, Texas is known as the home of guns, George Bush, the San Antonio Spurs, horses and cowboys (though not the silver helmeted kind). They don’t know about longhorns, the Longhorns, Luckenbock, the Alamo, Shiner Beer, Austin City Limits, high school football, Bluebonnets, James and Larry McMurtry, Big Bend, Chili, Bar-B-Q and Tex-Mex, or toobing...which are my favorite things about Texas. They are also typically surprised to learn that we have UFOs in Marfa, the largest urban population in the United States, pine forests, swamps, lakes, rivers, mountains, desert, a coastline and islands, and a massive frontera (border) with Mexico. I love to tell them about William J. Travis, and that we are the only State ever to have been our own country. They are very surprised to learn that there are more people in my home city of Austin than there are Cape Verdians in the entire world. (The relative size and population of Texas, and the United States in general, is something that Cape Verdians have a hard time grasping.) Anyway, it ended up being a great night and I was happy to have entertained my neighbors for a while, and especially to have furthered the apparently already mythic status of my home state.
“I don’t wear no Steston
But I’m willing to bet son
That I’m a bigger Texan
Than you are.
There’s a girl in her bare feet
Asleep on the backseat
And that trunk’s fulla
Pearl Beer and Lone Star.”
I was blessed with an older sister who has (or at least had) good taste in music, and who introduced me to authentic Texas Hill Country music from an early age. Anyway, the other night I picked up the guitar and went to sit on the stairs, and commenced to playing the entire compendium of Robert Earl Keen Jr. music. Jennifer Johnson, Corpus Christi Bay, the Front Porch Song, The Road Goes on Forever, Don’t Turn Out the Light, Love’s a Word, Mariano, When I Start Giving In. The entire Robert Earl Songbook really. I was playing and singing for maybe 2 whole hours. Later, my fingers and voice both tired and cracked, I figured I’d finish off the evening with a cold beer from the MiniPrecio right next door. I put the guitar down and stepped out my front door…to find an audience. There were 4 or 5 people sitting on the steps of the MiniPrecio, 2 more with chairs right next to them, Sra. Herminha and her 2 sons were sitting upstairs on their roof, and there were 7 or 8 people just leaning against my house. They all stared. I was mortified, but they greeted me with warm smiles and a smattering of applause. Te and Nitoh insisted on buying me a beer apiece. I got all warm and fuzzy. (From the people, not the beers.) Of course, nobody understood a word of what I was singing, but they liked it anyway, and I spent the better part of the next hour answering questions about what the songs were about and whether I could play a particular one (Love’s a Word) again. It’s a sad one…reminiscent of the mourna music native to the islands of Cape Verde, and it turns out they understood the word “Love” over and over again, and Cape Verdians are suckers for a good love song.
Through the music of Robert Earl, I had a chance to sit and talk, and share some Texas (rather than American) culture for a change. One interesting thing I’ve found here…if you ask anyone to name a state in the US, Texas is ALWAYS the first one (and often the only one) that they know. (Unfortunately the second most common response to that question is: “Hollywood.”) People here, and people everywhere apparently, have heard of Texas, and everyone assumes that the usual archetypes are all true. Upon learning I hale from the Lone Star State, people extend their thumb and forefingers to form little pistols with their hands and say “Ahhhh…cowboys!” Then they ask if I have or have ever had an arma (gun…no), a caval (horse…yes), a chapeu grande (big hat…yes), botas (boots…yes), or a fivela (shiny buckle…no). In Cape Verde, Texas is known as the home of guns, George Bush, the San Antonio Spurs, horses and cowboys (though not the silver helmeted kind). They don’t know about longhorns, the Longhorns, Luckenbock, the Alamo, Shiner Beer, Austin City Limits, high school football, Bluebonnets, James and Larry McMurtry, Big Bend, Chili, Bar-B-Q and Tex-Mex, or toobing...which are my favorite things about Texas. They are also typically surprised to learn that we have UFOs in Marfa, the largest urban population in the United States, pine forests, swamps, lakes, rivers, mountains, desert, a coastline and islands, and a massive frontera (border) with Mexico. I love to tell them about William J. Travis, and that we are the only State ever to have been our own country. They are very surprised to learn that there are more people in my home city of Austin than there are Cape Verdians in the entire world. (The relative size and population of Texas, and the United States in general, is something that Cape Verdians have a hard time grasping.) Anyway, it ended up being a great night and I was happy to have entertained my neighbors for a while, and especially to have furthered the apparently already mythic status of my home state.
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