Praia do Mar

Today, I walked to the beach. Since my arrival two months ago, I had gently avoided this. Fear of robbery and harrassment, vergonha of my whiter-than-white stomach and general laziness kept me away. As I stood at Cruz de Papa, the brightly colored park looking over the end of the plateau that is Achada Santo Antonio, I almost turned back. The sight of the waves crashing out beyond the dirty coast stirred in me only disappointment. After spending the weekend on the stunning beaches of Maio, the dirt-brown sand and cloudy water of quebra canela seemed a sad joke.

The sound of running water woke me up with a start around six. An irrational fear that it was I wasting the valuable resource tore me out of bed, but just by standing I realized that the sound was coming from elsewhere. Once vertical, the sleep drained through my feet and, though my body was tired and my eyes not yet awake, I knew there was no turning back. My muscles echoed the previous evening’s run and my stomach, normally ready for breakfast before laying down for bed, was calm from the previous night’s feast.

As I stood by my bed, I remembered fondly the feeling of submersion. While traveling around and learning Maio, I took every opportunity to enter the water. Each time seemed better than the last as I let the powerful waves toss me around. The sand on Maio was white and clean and stretched for miles. I have never seen blues that could rival the shades of the ocean and the water was so clear that discarded fin of some fisherman’s morning catch was sighted, dancing gracefully at our feet.

I fought to suppress these images of the idyllic Maio coastline while standing, frozen in indecision. Embarrassment of my fear urged me on and I decided I may as well at least let my feet touch the water, if not for me, for everyone I know who does not live 15 minutes from the ocean. For the entirety of the descent-at least ten flights of stairs separating me from the coast-sleep tempted me from behind my eyes. When I finally reached sand, I could not help but smile. The sound of the water gently rolling in and out deafened the bitter sarcasm that immediately arose as I noticed the trash scattered everywhere. The reason for the dirt-brown sand was that it truly was dirt, a few scattered grains of sand held it together in some semblance of “beach.”

For years, the sand has been stripped from beaches in Cape Verde to mix cement for the rapid development of new houses. This once abundant natural resource has been so overused that it is now being imported for the development of tourism. The result is a few isolated privately (foreign) owned, subsidized beautiful sand beaches, and the dirt left for everyone else.

I realized how absurd I had been to fear this “task” as I watched a handful people walk up and down the confined stretch. A few pudgy foreigners created a humorous contrast to the dark, sculpted figure engaged in his morning calisthenics. My body laughed at my mind’s temptation to join them, so instead, I gingerly removed my sandals and slowly paced the water-land threshold, open ocean lapping at my feet. In a few short minutes, I removed my shirt, clustered my belongings safely behind a rock, and stepped in. The floor was not even and even less visible, so when my foot touched something hard, I immediately began to swim in a mere two feet of water. The name of the beach, quebra canela-quebra meaning break and canela meaning shin-began to make sense as the small but powerful waves tossed me around, my feet grazing the myriad of rocks that lay hidden beneath the dirty swells. My confidence grew though as I headed out and paddled around in deeper waters. Whatever fear that initially kept me from coming was pushed to the side as I swam on. It took me two months to get here, there’s no turning back now.