Last few months left in CV..

“I’ll miss the boredom, and the freedom, and the time spent alone,” I responded to Lisa when she asked what I would miss the most about Cape Verde, a lyric from one of my favorite MGMT songs. A song that I would listen to on those early morning runs (when you went to work) around the lake that I grew up down the street from the lake that has been the setting for various snapshots of memories throughout both my youth and later years. Sledding down the hill, smoking cigarettes without inhaling, late night kisses after the bar. I could not yet imagine how much more that verse would apply to my Peace Corps life, I could not imagine how I would think back to those early mornings when even in the middle of the summer the leaves were still green and the trees so many and so tall.

It’s a weekday morning, 10 A.M. and what are you doing? Most likely at work. What am I doing? Practicing my French and daydreaming of my pan-African trip. In an hour or so I will go meet my counterpart to speak the president of the municipal government about a bathroom project I have received funding for. Maybe he will be there, maybe he won’t. We will wait for him in the street, we will talk to neighbors. They will ask about my health, I will ask about their families. I will be given mangoes to take home. I will give my counterpart another project I have written. Maybe she will read it, maybe she won’t. Maybe I will present it to a financing organization, maybe I won’t. Later today I will give an English test to my class. Half will beg to take the test a different day. The passive attitude dominates and as the days get hotter and heavier with the approaching rains, there is a sort of torpor. I try my best to fight inertia aware that my time here in Cape Verde is approaching fast, but this battle has always been a difficult one for me. Pessimism has always been a problem for the Thomas family, flash to any conversation between my brother and I, with our various laments and complaints.

In an attempt to gain control and routine I recently adopted the habit of making my bed every morning. I stare at it longingly; how comfortable and inviting it looks. The roosters outside announce the mid-morning heat and I hesitate leaving my house, will my presence will really be missed in town today? I must remind myself that I only have two more months or so to step outside and see the mountains beyond mountains with tiny pink and orange houses randomly thrown in-between peaks and valleys. Why is it that it is so much easier to reminisce about a place, a person, an event? I have always preferred romanticizing to reality.