eternal sunshine of the dropless land

One thing that has particularly struck me during my stay here so far has been the weather, or lack there of. Now, I grew up in a small town in Massachusetts. In the carefree days of youth, the success of my days was dependent on the weather. As fall closed in, school began and with it, the leaves began to turn and fall. I could always look forward to jumping in the neat, raked piles of leaves and messing them all up, sending the leaves flying back in all directions. There was apple picking to be done and as Halloween rolled around, what seemed like acres of pumpkins awaited my arrival in a search for the perfect pumpkin. The temperature slowly dropped as the color and livliness left the surrounding woods, then suddenly it plummeted into all of its wintery glory. Ever year I hoped for a white Christmas, but any snow that fell was always welcome as my snowboard awaited to paint the mountainside. The crisp sound of the snow covering the bare, reaching fingers of branches and tufts of evergreen would accompany me on evening walks with my dog, and every morning that awoke with a blanket of snow was welcomed with hot chocolate, shovelling and hoping against all hope that school would be cancelled. I never wanted winter to end, but it always did. As the temperature once again began its ascent, the snow melted and the rains arrived. For weeks the bare earth and naked trees would be dull shades of brown, but one morning I would awake to find miraculous spots of green poking their heads up from the cold, damp ground. The earth would slowly turn from a barren brown to a vibrant green and little buds of leaves would emerge on the previously lifeless branches. A sense of livliness would slowly be instilled in the earth and those that inhabited it. As the birds returned and their music filled the air, the spell of summer would intoxicate students everywhere. Academic motivation reached an all-time low as thoughts of trips to the beach, pool parties and the long hot months of summer awaited just around the corner. Spring would slowly melt into summer as the flowers faded and the temperatures rose. Evenings would be best spent looking out for lightning bugs or lightning when the sweltering heat met its match with an approaching cold front. Rains would come and go throughout the season and were often looked upon as more of an inconvenience than anything else.

I remember arriving in the sweltering heat of summer here, unaware of what the coming months would bring. I knew that the earth was a parched brown, waiting desperately for the life giving arrival of the coming rain. I remember sitting in language class learning the names of the seasons. Rosa, our fabulous language instructor, asked us about our favorite seasons, (mine, winter) and we asked her what the seasons were like in Cape Verde. She said something about there only being two seasons; the rainy season and the dry season. I couldn´t believe that was all there was to it, so we pressed her for more information. She said that there was cold and wind during the dry season, and that just when you thought it couldn´t get any more dry, it did. So far this has proved true. The heat outlasted the rain, and when the ground began to lose its last touches of green, the brutal winds came, sucking up any remaining moisture and rendering the heat from the sun almost useless in combat against the forceful gusts. When Rosa spoke of the wind, she spoke of a kind of dryness that felt like sand blasting skin and lips. In fact, with the earth being so dry and the winds so strong, there is dirt and sand constantly scraping across skin, lips, eyes and everything else that gets in its way. It is almost possible to feel the stubborn molecules of moisture clinging to exposed appendages, and being violently ripped away. The winds certainly do not have the same burning, stinging bite as the subzero gusts that I have come to accept as part of winter, but they have their own brutal powers making them quite a bit more than inconvenience.

The rainy season is all a memory now. It is so dry that sometimes a particularly moist and delicious cloud will hang low, caught on the crater or any number of its jagged precipices, and the moisture trapped inside the welcoming cushion of weather can be felt in the air. Somehow, there are flowers appearing along the side of the road. They are few, but they are there. I often wonder how it is that they came to be, seeing that it has rained but once since October. Perhaps it is because of these life-giving, thirst-quenching revitalizing clouds... or perhaps someone spit in the right spot. It is still a mystery to me, but one that I will cherish. For what is spring without a flower here and there?

there´s no place like home

I’m not sure why I find it necessary to reflect as each landmark date approaches and passes, but I do. Yesterday was April 7th, the date that marks nine months since I first set foot on the dry, rocky terrain of Cabo Verde. Hypothetically, I could have had a baby in the time that I have been here. Think how much changes in one’s life when a child is born. Has that much changed in my life? I do think so, though certainly not the same things in the same ways. My neighbour had a baby while I was in Praia. That means she got pregnant just as I was finishing up packing and saying goodbye to my friends and family. Nine months. For the first time, I feel like I have been here for a long time. Tuesday will mark seven months teaching in my tiny zone. My service here in this small town is two years; I have already completed more than one quarter. I have almost completed a full year of teaching. Wow.

I have not written anything in a while because I don’t feel like I can properly process things right now. I am in awe of the passing of time. Just recently the wind has begun to settle down and the temperature is creeping back up, soon to reach the sweltering heights that took so much adjusting when I first arrived. At home, the flowers are beginning to poke their heads up from the previously barren earth and the barely visible buds on the trees are beginning to bloom into the new year’s leaves. Here, there will be no green until much later. The rain will not return until after I realize one year in Cape Verde. Yet, I can feel change in the air. Maybe it is my own changes that fill me with this awe. Maybe it is the lengthening of the day. Maybe it is the slowly visible changes and renovations of the landscape in the city. Maybe it is a combination of all these things and others yet smaller and less noticeable. Regardless, Spring, I think, is universal. Despite the mildly insignificant seasonal changes, there is an unmistakeable feeling of change in the air.

Recently I was in Praia with the other volunteers. It was quite strange. In some ways their presence reminded me of the states. We all came together for the first time in Washington DC, and we remained together in Cape Verde for the first two and a half months as we began our first transitions and felt the weight of our changing lives. It was good to see everyone with new, adjusted eyes. In many ways it seemed we had all settled into our different roles in our different environments. Though at the core we were all the same, there were places where the fingerprints of Cape Verde had been left on the mould… myself included. This is a good thing.

Despite the conveniences and glories of Praia and all its city-like modernity, I was very happy to come home. Yes, I did say home. I think that is the right word for it now. It is not home in the sense of my childhood house and town that is filled to the brim with memories, hopes, dreams and friendships both old and new. That is home in a different way. The little, painfully blue cement house that covers my head is my home. The community that welcomes me with open arms filled with “saudade” (missing-ness…?) are a part of my home. The dirty little children that live next door but make it a point to come visit five times a day are part of my home. The never-ending challenge of balancing grammar, life skills and nurturing any spark of a desire to learn is part of my home. The morning walks to get bread, the afternoons carrying water and the evenings spent on the porch watching the sun go down and the lights on Brava come on; that is all part of my home. I think that it took leaving to realize how much a part of me it had all become, but upon returning it is hard to deny. It is good to be home.