Quick Update

So I’ve managed to borrow a laptop. One of the volunteers in Coculi is in Praia for a few days and she was kind enough to let me use her laptop while she’s away. So I’ll try to catch you up.

Let’s see. Since we last spoke we had festa de Sao Pedro here in Cha di Igreja. (If you go way back in the Blog you’ll see where we had festa Nossa Senhora de Graca when I was in Chan di Tanki during my homestay. During that festa, which lasted for a whole week, I didn’t sleep.) The festa in Cha de Igreja was much more subdued, though not on purpose. Remember that during festa season, each village on the island gets a Saint Day, and people come from all over the island to whichever village is having their festa, where they drink and dance and sing and celebrate. This year, for the first time in memory, nobody came to Cha di Igreja.

Although the festa has traditionally been held here, and the actual Sao Pedro church mass was held here on the Sunday of festa weekend…almost all of the partying took place on the other side of the mountain in an evil place called Boca di Ribeira. The sorry bastards in Boca di Ribeira realized that Cha di Igreja is REALLY far from the rest of the island…REALLY isolated…with a REALLY bad road and a REALLY expensive drive to get here and so they basically just usurped our festa by holding one there on the same days as ours. We here in Cha di Igreja knew about the plans in Boca di Ribeira of course, we just didn’t think anyone would go to it. So much for faith in tradition.

In the end, all but the most traditionalist, die hard Sao Pedro revelers just pulled over their vans and cars in Boca di Ribeira and had a festa there instead. Good for the industrious folks of Boca di Ribeira, but bad for Cha di Igreja and all of my neighbors who went about cleaning and decorating their homes and our village, who went about killing their pigs and goats to chop them up and cook and sell, who painted the church and the school and trimmed all the flowers, who bought cases and cases of beer to sell, who organized a Miss Cha di Igreja pageant and soccer tourney, who planned and choreographed dance numbers, who hired DJs from Sao Vicente, who brought in an acting troupe from Mindleo…etc, etc. Basically the once-a-year opportunity for some of the folks in my tiny town to have a great big party to show off Cha di Igreja and, in the process make some money, turned into a total money-losing, heart-breaking disaster. We all just kept waiting and waiting for the cars and vans to show up, but they never did. At about 1AM, when there were still only a dozen people in the make-shift disco and only one car had arrived from the other side of the island, there was a call to gather a group and drive to Boca di Ribeira to set fire to their disco and murder those responsible. They actually got quite a few people in the car to go rampaging, but apparently, on arrival, the party in Boca di Ribeira was so hoppin’ that they just stayed and had a good time.

Sunday nearly, but not nearly enough, made up for the losses, as a procession of about 50 cars and vans did show up for Mass on the steps of our church here. After Mass, most of the people stayed and drank and danced and ate and bought trinkets. The acting toupe went on, the little girls group did their dance routine, and Chan di Igrejans were more or less able to salvage their dignity. In the aftermath though, it is clear that, barring abrand new road and a dramatic drop in the price of gasoline, festa di Sao Pedro will no longer be held in Cha di Igreja, which is a real shame. I count myself as fortunate for being here for what was presumably the last one ever.

What else? Well, to continue in the depressing vein, I can tell you that over on the other side of the mountain in Coculi and Povocon two weeks ago, there was a massive, 4 hour rain storm the likes of which Cape Verde has rarely seen in its history, that dumped inches and inches of precious rain all over the parched and baking slopes of Ribeira Grande. We here in Ribeira di Mocha however (where Cha di Igreja and Cruzinha are located) didn’t receive a single real drop. It misted for an hour in the morning, and there was some moisture in the air that was trying desperately to become a sprinkling, but nothing ever materialized and the day that they were soaking in Coculi, we were enjoying our typical 90 degree day without a cloud in the sky. I’ve been at site here in Cha di Igreja for 10 and a half months now, and we’ve had exactly zero days of rainfall. Folks here are still hopeful, still optimistic about our chances for rain this year, but I’m sad and scared for them, and fear that waiting for the rains will be like waiting for the cars that never came to festa Sao Pedro. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for us though…and you should too.

What else? A while back I went to Ponto do Sol to talk to the President of the kamera about getting some help forming a basketball team here in Cha di Igreja. (I’ve got a regular grou pf guys that I play with every day at 5pm here, and the towns of Povocon, Ponto do Sol and Porto Novo all have teams so I thought I’d see what I could do to get one started here.) I asked for 30,000$00CVE (about $400USD) to buy a new rim, two nets, two balls, and enough wood to make a backboard. He told me to come back next month. I will, and he’ll probably tell me to come back the month after that. Anyway, after my meeting with him I went swimming in the baia (bay) there and managed to catch 6 crabs and 2 small octopi…with MY BARE HANDS! Afterwards, standing over my twitching pile of sea-life, I definitely had that Tarzan feeling again…the seldom-realized, big-balled swaggering satisfaction that you get when you catch and kill your own dinner. Unfortunately I don’t really know how to cook that stuff though, so I gave them all away to some kids in town.

Lastly, I went to place called Tarrafal de Montrigo last week. I may have mentioned something about how gawd-awful the road was. Whatever I said, however I described it…it was way worse than that. So bad that I took a free ride on a fishing boat to another island and then another boat back to Santo Antao…choosing six hours in 2 boats over one more minute in a car on that road. The place was worth the trip though. Absolutely the most tranquil place on earth. It’s impossible to imagine a more laid back setting…and I’m from Austin, so that’s saying something.

So that’s about it for an update. I’ll try to make the most of the time I’ve got with the borrowed laptop, but pictures are going to be difficult if not impossible for a while I think, unless I can figure out something else. Assuming my insurance company comes through and gets me a new laptop, I think I should be back in business by the end of the month.

I hope everyone is well. Talk to you soon!