Anyone have a spare webcam?

So we have discovered the wonders of using Skype with webcam, talking with my mom today. We'd love to be able to chat with her and anyone else using video, but before we purchase a new webcam, does anyone have one that they're not using anymore? If so, we'd love to borrow it for a while!!!

Hiatus Recap

In case it's been so long you forgot what we look like!

Over a month has gone by and again we have slacked at our blogging efforts. Part of this is because we've been busy, part of it is because we've been lazy, but most of this has been because the longer you are a part of a culture, the less..."interesting" it seems to you, the less you feel you need to tell people about. Life starts to become like life anywhere, you have a flow to your day and things just don't seem that exciting. But I know some of you have been asking what's up, so I'll try and fairly quickly sum up the last weeks here :)

Return to Santiago - In Service Training - March 13 to 20

Wow, that was a while ago! Going back to Mancholy to visit our family was really great. We love them so much, and we had a blast. They cooked up a storm for us and on Saturday we had a little festa where we made a ton of American food - bean salad, quiche, squash pie, mashed potatoes, spanish rice...super good, super fun. The biggest challenge for me was remembering how to speak Badiu, the southern Kriolu.

Training itself was good. It was nice to see everyone and to hang out in the big city of Praia. While I felt it could have been spaced out better (ie more focus on project design management and less on behavior change; longer session on life skills and less "fluffy" stuff the first two days), we learned a lot. The most interesting aspect was our counterparts came with us for two days. You've all heard brief musings about my counterpart - the frequent blow-offs, the goofball attitude - and unbelievably, his behavior at training was no different. I was happy though that he acted this way so that Peace Corps could see what I was dealing with. Example: at dinner the last night, one of the second year volunteer was standing too close to a candle and caught her hair on fire. My counterpart was in the middle of his part of the talent show (a magic act) and as soon as the fire was out he kept trying to redirect all attention to him. He's sort of like a 6 year old with ADHD. Ah well. At least he's fun, right?

Sal - March 21 to 24

After IST we headed off with Jacky and Leah to visit the island of Sal. It was BEAUTIFUL! We fell in love, but mostly because we've been on an island that isn't very touristy, and to go to an island that is was fun. They had all the things we'd been missing: Amazing italian food, a wine and martini bar, 2 for 1 happy hour, an Irish pub or two, pina coladas, margaritas, tiramisu, and a gorgeous beach. For our anniversary (March 23rd) we started the day early and hit the salt pans, old salt mines about 20 minutes from Espargos where we stayed. We swam in the salt pools and after went to the ocean to snorkel, then had lunch. After we went to town and had an amazing dinner of beef caprecio, serra ravioli and gnocci with a tomato cream sauce. OMG. And tiramisu for dessert. We also hit this really cool spot where there is a natural pool, sort of like a giant tide pool, that you can swim in at certain times of the day. There's an awesome cave there as well you can climb into and swim, but the tide wasn't' right and it wasn't safe so we passed. All in all, Sal was great. Totally reminded me of the Caribbean and we can't wait to go back.

Boa Visa - March 25 to 29

Boa Vista is one big island of beach. Much less developed than Sal, it has a budding tourist industry which provided just enough variety of bars and restaurants to keep us busy. More homemade gnocci, awesome grilled octopus and squid, a fantastic pizza or two...mmmm. BV has amazing beaches, some of which are totally secluded and no one goes to. Most days we just hung out near the wind surfers and sunned ourselves, but one day at breakfast we met this really awesome German couple (Hi M and J!) and rented a car with them (PCV's can't drive, so we really wanted to see the island and were glad to find folks that were happy to split the cost and take us along!). We saw everything - the wreck of the Santa Maria, Baia das Gatas, the desert dunes and the 18 km long beach of Santa Monica. We were the only people there on the entire beach...it was paradise. No development just us.

On our third day there, we went to visit Guest House Orquedea, a spectacular place to stay if you are ever in BV. The PCV who used to live on BV had friends there, and we asked him to take us snorkeling in the bay. There is a small islet right off of the main town in BV, so close you can swim there (it's very shallow to get there as well) so he took us out, we snorkeled around and then swam to the island itself. A few hours later he picked us up, after exploring the old military fort and the beach. It was pretty awesome - we were literally stranded on a desert island for about 3 hours lol. Okay not stranded, but we had our camera so we didn't really want to swim back.

All in all our vacation was spectacular. We've decided we don't really want to go to any other islands anymore, we just want to revisit Sal and Boa Vista. They are just so totally different than either Santiago or Santo Antao. That's the beauty of Cape Verde. Don't forget all the pics are on our flickr page!

Introducing...GUS! Arrival March 31



Josh and I have been contemplating getting a dog for a while now. Back in January we found out that a street dog that has a great personality was pregnant up in Ribera das Patas, so we talked to the owner and asked if we could have one of the puppies. I met our new friend about a week after he was born and totally fell in love and named him Gus Gus, like the little mouse from Cinderella. They don't really have breeds of dogs here, so we call him a Cape Verdean Street Mutt or an "Island Mix" but he's wonderful and sweet and we love him to death! You can see pics here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/doveandjoshua/sets/72157616988115864/ He's getting to be a big boy now, almost 8lbs!!! He shouldn't get too much above 15...we hope!

Easter - April 11th and 12th

Cape Verde is a Catholic country, so holidays like Easter are a pretty big deal...or at least a pretty good excuse for a pretty big party. For this Easter we skipped the baskets and headed to the big party Saturday night in Ribera das Patas. It was really fun, tons of music, we're finally getting this Zuke dancing thing down, we saw tons of people we know and it made us realize just how integrated we're becoming. I'm sure there were some religious activities going on as well...but we didn't see them!

Site Visit from our new APCD - April 23 to 24

Our new APCD (the person in charge of the Small Enterprise Development Program) came to visit us at the end of April. This was a great opportunity for me to 1) show her the three project proposals I'd been working on, 2) explain the difficulty I'd been having with my counterpart and getting him to work with me, and 3) get a free meal (woohoo!). I'm very proud of my project ideas and it seems that my counterpart is interested, but he is also very busy and doesn't seem to be able to help me move forward with them. Ana Lisa tried to help me out but from what I understood of the conversation, he wasn't entirely truthful about the work he was doing with me. That's neither here nor there I suppose, but it still was nice to be able to talk about the issues.

Festa da Santa Cruz - May 1 to 3



This past weekend we went up to visit the girls in Cocouli for their town's saint day festival. I mentioned how Easter seemed to be a pretty good excuse for a party...so are saint days. The whole tiny town converted into bars, shops and discos and the parties went all night. We had a wonderful time with the volunteers from the North - got to see some folks we haven't seen in a bit, ate some great meat on a stick, had a few drinks and danced til the wee hours of the morning. Saturday we grilled out and watched the horse races from the roof of their house, which was awesome. Sunday was the church service - and the church is right outside their back door so we got to watch all the goings on from our pj's on the balcony. The best part was the auction after church for things like giant bushels of bananas and 10lb squash lol. The other great part was that Gus Gus came with us and everyone fell in love with him. He was super well behaved and it was good to see all our training efforts have paid off!



The General Stuff

In other news...I had two meetings with my counterpart post APCD visit - he bailed on both. We were supposed to go visit Morabi clients ever since I got back from vacation; that still hasn't happened. Tired of sitting around for...um...7 months!?!? I went to my "official" counterpart and asked if I could work with someone else in addition to my partner. I ended up in the division of Youth, Culture and Sports and had a meeting about setting up some youth programs in conjunction with the Youth Center in town. Today we were supposed to have a meeting...but the director was in S. Vicent so who knows when THAT will actually take place. At least things are moving along with the girls summer camp we are planning, and I at least have more of a variety of potential partners to work with. I'm also hoping to go and talk with OMCV, the womens group, about implementing some of the projects I designed. They also work with micro credit, so I think we could adapt the ideas to fit their needs as well possibly.

I'd mentioned back in the winter that I had been gaining weight and was big and fat. Well, I was...but since January I've lost 19lbs and am back to my "pre road trip" weight (you guys remember that's when this whole Giant Dove thing started). I'm feeling awesome and hoping to maybe lose a little more...we'll see! I'll have to post a new pic on here so you can see my sexy little butt. Now the only problem is the clothes that were getting tight are now getting too loose...never ends.


(Much smaller bariga)

I think that's all for now. Sorry for the long intermission, hopefully I'll be better in the future. Maybe now. We'll see :o)

Ti logu,
Dove