Song for today: “Better than” John Butler Trio. Listen to it. I love this band all their music is so optimistic. This song in particular is about appreciating your current situation rather than wanting something else. PCV’s, listen up.

Something amazing happened today, that happens pretty often to me here in Cape Verde. You might think this makes it less amazing, but that is not true. My amazement and appreciation never diminishes. What I am referring to is how everything just works out in Cape Verde. It’s like one of my favorite Rumi quotes “This was never not going to happen. You were never not coming here.” I woke up this morning with a poetic sadness for autumn in America, I call it poetic because it’s bittersweet and almost better to miss it rather than have it. After a cup of coffee and a banana de terra (a plump, red banana) I set out to visit the agricultural zone of Poliao. As I said to my neighbors in Creole “N’ ka ta passa la txcheu” or, “I don’t go there a lot.” I accidentally went to a birthday party there and met a Philosophy professor (maybe, my language wasn’t what it is now) and helped pull kernels off of dried earns of corn to make cachupa, the national dish. That birthday party could be entire another story if only I had sat down and wrote about it because now it’s only a confused, disoriented memory…like the majority of my memories in Cape Verde…the newness and dehydration do not aid in memory preservation.

Today I got out of the car near Poliao. The morning heat is stifling at 10 A.M. but I had a mission and had not gone running yet so I was prepared and excited for a strenuous walk. I had an idea of where the crops begin, where I planned to walk and meet some of the agriculturalists. Immediately events happened to ensure me I arrived not a moment too soon and not one too late. Fish Face was at the small store by the road. Fish Face, is a former student’s of my friend Andrew. Andrew was a good friend while he was a PCV here, he lived in the town next to mine. Fish Face might have threatened to kill Andrew once or it might have been another student, regardless he always been pleasant to me. I told Fish Face I came to walk around the crops to get to know the place and the farmers. He said if I had come earlier he would have walked with me. Oh well. I started towards the crops, I stopped in front of a crumbling cement block house. A lady out front was sweeping, though it seemed there was an impossible amount of debris and dirt. We spoke about vida de pobreza (the poor life), problems with crops, problems with unemployment. Then, a friendly face from Achada Costa (the zone behind my house, the primary zone I work with) showed up. I cannot remember his name I think I was told its
Estavo. Estavo told me he was going to his crops and would be glad to show me. Perfect.

We walked towards where he planted manioc. His manioc was doing well because it was planted further from where the water that overflows from the dam collects and forms a river. We walked where he planted onions and tomatoes which had not sprouted yet. We took off our flip-flops and walked through mud, on top of a tube used for drip irrigation to reach where his bananas and papayas were planted. All his crops were sufficiently irrigated, he told me he installed the drip irrigation system himself. I told him I very much want to learn how to install the systems and he told me he would show me when he needed to fix some of tubing. I sincerely hope he does not forget, I will be sure to remind him and his family. The importance of drip irrigation in a semi-arid, desert country like Cape Verde is immeasurable. Like everyone in this country he was determined to feed me papaya. None of his were ripe yet so we went to a nearby plot tended to by a group of young men. They shyly watched and listened to zouk music on the radio. Estavo cut the papayas with a machete and handed pieces to me. Inside the papaya trees there was shade and a breeze. I did not attempt to listen to their conversation, I was lost in my own
thoughts, like I tend to do when a group of Cape Verdeans are speaking to one another. It’s funny how you become used to not understanding and not paying attention. It is like being surrounded by constant white noise, like the safe hum of static on your television…you zone out and your mind wanders…

Estavo decided to continue to walk with me another 30 minutes to the dam. Along the way we chatted about the differences between American and Cape Verdean life, what I want to do in Cape Verde, the crops along the way, the filtering systems, etc. There was the biggest calabercia tree I’ve ever seen, I swore it was baobab but Estavo insisted (perhaps the two types are related?)At the dam we spoke with the construction workers building the control center where I think I am supposed to work at. We sluggishly climbed the 2 or 3 stories up the staircase of the dam. We rested in some shade under some trees at the top. Estavo found a car to take into Praia and I began to walk to my house with three papayas in hand.

On the way I stopped by Felisberto’s. He is a lawyer who also has an impressive drip irrigated plot by his restaurant neat the dam. He wants to build rooms for tourists to stay. Shoka, who worked at the primary school, was there as well. She asked when I would come eat corn with her…another question I cannot escape these days. I promised soon and continued home. Walking in the afternoon heat, drenched in my own sweat, carrying papayas is one of the best feelings I have in Cape Verde. I don’t even like papaya it has something to do with carrying a product grown in the ground here, walking and not using a car, greeting my neighbors in the local language. At home, I showered and discovered the sharp thorn of a tree engorged in my foot. I went up to Dominga, the woman I live with, to ask for help. She found a needle and fished it out. Then she gave me a big bowl of cachupa. At home, in one of my house dresses listening to music I felt calm and content with my day. I daydreamed about fruit transformation projects: jam, music, dried fruits. Now the difficult part, to hold on to the optimism and good feeling will attempting to create a project…

Of course, my foot that had the thorns in it was to become painfully infected a few days later but I did not know that yet…