it's only taken 7 months to remember how to blog...

Hey y'all
I have been trying to get into my blog since November 2006, and have just managed it... hasn't been helped by the lack of communcations over here in Cape Verde..
Here are the postings I have been trying to send since staring a new life in this wonderful place far far away...
JANUARY 07
Hello lovely family and friends
Well, I have been back a week and it is as gorgeous as ever.
My apartment is a large studio, with a bathroom and large terrace, but as I’m on the ground floor I can’t really use it much as it’s a bit like being on the telly if you sit outside, with all the world walking past…
I finally have my gas, and a new set of saucepans, so I’m glad to be cooking at home; for the first week I had to eat out every night, which obviously requires drinking as well, so eventually you end up a bit squiffy, fat and skint which is not really the intention. Last night I managed to find another fish shop, although they only had giant prawns and something called ‘choco’ which I purchased, when I put it into the frying pan it expanded and was squid! Lovely, and all for £2. They did have meat in the shop, some chops and some very red sausages, and then the pride of the display was a chicken kind of doing a handstand with a bit of parsley in its neck. I also managed to find a potato and 2 carrots, but had no knife for chopping them –I asked the lady in the shop in my best Portuguese if she sold knives, she didn’t but sent her daughter out back and she came back and lent me her very own! Must remember to take it back today, but don’t feel that comfortable with a sharp vegetable knife in my handbag.
It’s been very busy with clients, and they have all been nice. Thursday is the day the flights go back, so I have a little bit of time to myself…. I have started the day early with a run right down to the southern tip of the island. You have to go early, the temperature rises by 9am, this week it has been averaging about 85.
It was truly wonderful, all alone in a desert, you can imagine what the island was like before the development began. Running on sand and black rocks, hardly a soul about, one girl with her headphones on, and one man playing with his dogs. At the very tip of the island I stopped to walk up to the sea edge (no beach), and someone had made some beautiful ‘crop’ circles, about 7 circular designs, made from small black rocks and very light brown coral. Absolutely lovely, and exactly at the spot I had chosen to stop. I then ran on a bit more and found a tiny beach, and some deserted huts. So quiet, the sea crashing in, and the wind blowing very strong. You could hear all sorts of strange noises if you turned your ear to the right angle. Very spiritual, reminded me of Robert’s beautiful song ‘Stone People’. A very emotional moment, but that’s another luxury of this place, the freedom to have emotional moments, no-one around to see you, and the sun dries your tears very quickly. I love it here, and going out into the ‘desert’ like that puts everything into perspective. I am looking forward to being here and watching the whole island grow…
FEBRUARY 2007
Well, whoever would have thought, least of all me, that on Monday 26th February 2007, at the age of 46, I would be riding in the beat-up old minibus from Aspargus to Santa Maria, on the islands of Cape Verde, just 450km west of Senegal…
The bus is full of Cape Verdians, crates of eggs, boxes of fanta laranja, the stereo is playing loud music, and I am at the back squeezed between two young men who are doing their best to give me space, while every time we go over a bump I bang my tall bleached head on the ceiling of the van, and every time we go around a corner I lean just a little bit too close to the boy on my right, causing him to take furtive looks at me in the darkness and wonder what this white woman is doing on the 100 escudo bus from the local village where there are no tourists.

I had a business meeting at the airport, and feeling confident of the ways of the town, thought I would save myself 9 euros each way by taking the bus. Fine, on the way, in broad daylight, and knowing where the bus runs from. When I came out of the airport, it was dusk, and chilly, and I was just wearing a thin summer frock and sunglasses. Still, not prepared to give in and go the tourist way, and get a cab, I confidently started walking towards Aspargus, thinking that I would hail the town bus as it passed me by. What I didn’t bargain for, was that Aspargus was in actuality about 1.5 miles away, not the 300 yards it looked, and that there was no path, and every time a lorry passed it would cover me in hot dust and almost blow me off the road.

Still, I persevered and was shortly joined by a female dog who crossed the highway to join me (this is the only tarmac road on the island), most keenly, almost getting run down, and then leapt up at me gleefully. Not being a dog person, I was unsure how to react, so asked it politely to get down please, which it eventually did, and then followed me, at a respectable distance behind. By now, it was actually dark, spooky, the town looked was a distant glimmer, and two town minibuses had passed me by, before I had time to realise and hail them down. I started talking to myself, loudly, and panicking slightly, after all we were only about 1 mile from where the only crime on the island had ever been commited, 2 weeks ago, which was the murder of two Italian girls by local boys – a ‘crime of passion’…

The road had suddenly become a normal carriageway, not a dual carriageway, which seemed to excite my dog friend, so now I was shouting ‘get out of the road please, bitch’, to the dog, as well as being frightened, and wondering why I hadn’t just got a cab, for the sake of 9 euros, and it was a business meeting after all…. My sense of adventure had got the best of me.

Finally, in the distance, I spotted a garage, and decided a cigarette would be in order, if not vital …. In the queue I spotted a friendly face, one of the cab drivers from Santa Maria, and tried to ask in my most casual voice, which came out as a hysterical whimper – ‘ hi, are you going into Santa Maria?’ He wasn’t , but obviously sensed my distress and offered to take me to the ‘bus stop’, hence my position in the back of the bus between the boys and eggs, music and fanta…
Another exciting adventure in the life of…

May 2007
I left the house at 9.30am, the normal time to set off for work, unless I have an early appointment. I took 2 bags to the bins, there are communal bins around the town, you have to take your rubbish and then it is collected daily by the bin lorry.
On the way, a tiny Cape Verdian girl waved and shouted ‘ola’ from the top of an unfinished apartment block, where her mother was hanging out the daily wash.

I continued into ‘town’, past the Correio, where I poked my head around the door to ask for any post, I received a shake of the head from the post lady, nothing today, she seems to know the names of all the estrangeiros without you having to tell her. Coming out of the post office was one of the girls from the local shop, we had a brief chat, in a mixture of English, Portuguese and Criole, before she went into work and I carried on the walk to my tiny beach office. As I rounded the corner to walk past the primary school, a young African boy, probably about six, was happily chasing round with a tyre, wearing only a T-shirt, nothing else at all. He was smiling happily to himself with his game, and gave me a wonderful grin. A few minutes later, one of the Senegalese, who I don’t think I have spoken to before called out to me.
‘I want to see a photograph of you 20 years ago, you are so beautiful now…!’ This cheers me immensely, even though I am not in need of cheering.
Just as I approach my office, one of the fisherman passes with his wheelbarrow of the morning catch. He is always wearing the tiniest pants (nothing else) and carrying a huge sharp knife. He shouts out, ‘ good morning baby face, you are beautiful today..’ In the UK he would have been arrested, either for indecent pants, or carrying a large dangerous weapon. Here it is just every day life.
This is life in Cape Verde, this is the commute to work. I unlock the office door and walk in, to the scent of freshly brewed coffee and freshly baked Foccacia from the Italian beach café next door. Now to start the day…..