Cabo Verde!

Written July 10, 2011
Whoa! It has basically been forever since I last wrote a blog post... sorry. So I'm gonna use this post to catch you guys up on everything that has happened over the past month and a half.
World Map:
Before leaving for my vacation I wanted to do something for my village that I knew they would really appreciate, and to be quite honest, something that would be so visible to them that they wouldn't forget me while I was gone. So I decided to paint a 2 meter by 4 meter world map at the primary school. Helen and Chelsea, the two closest volunteers to my site, came to help me paint my map. It took us about 3 days to complete the map. It was pretty miserable standing outside for at least 10 hours everyday gridding, then drawing and then finally painting. I'm so happy we finished and I'm very glad we did it, but I honestly never want to do another world map again!
Vacation:
So I've actually been away from site for quite some time. On June 8th Melissa, Meredith and I flew to Cape Verde by way of Dakar. We spent two days in Dakar awaiting our flight to Praia, CV. While in Dakar we ate tons of Nice Cream (Dakar's delicious Ice Cream Parlor), did tons of shopping and even got to jump on the oceanside trampolines! Meredith called jumping on the trampolines the most fun 15 minutes she's had in Africa! On our flight to Praia we decided that we were going to make the most of our super expensive tickets by asking for as much food as we could possibly get. I think I ate 3 sandwiches and who knows how many little cakes. Melissa's family is from Cape Verde and she still has several family members living there, so they are the ones who met us at the airport and opened their house to us. We spent about 7 days on the island of Santiago dividing our time between Melissa's family and Peace Corps Cape Verde volunteers that we had met back in February at WAIST. The CV Volunteers basically showed us all over the island. They first took us to Tarrafal which is this gorgeous cove on the north side of the island. We had to drive up and down the mountains to get there, and I was scared out of my mind the entire time (I have a slight fear of heights...). Tarrafal has some of the clearest water I've ever seen, and it seemed so secluded. It would definitely be an ideal place to live! The CV volunteers next took us to Cidade Veija (I can't spell in Portugese, so I'm pretty sure that is misspelled but it means Old City). It was so quaint there because it is a World Heritage Site, so it looks just like a little colorful town out of the 1800s. This was the original city on Santiago and was a major slave trading post. The final place we were shown was the black sand beach on Santiago. This was probably one of the coolest things I'd ever seen in my life. The sand was so black that it looked like mud, but it felt just like white sand! The waves at this beach were also perfect for body surfing. Meredith, Melissa and I had so much fun catching waves. Although the absolute most fun that I had in Cape Verde was at a Rave on the Beach. A company called I Love House Music (I think...) set up this huge tent on the beach with wood floor boards. The music was so loud and pumping that you could feel it move through your body! The best part about it though was that since the floor boards were made of wood they would bounce with everyone dancing on them and it made this kind of clapping sound (kind of like Riverdance!). I was having so much fun that I couldn't stop laughing and I even yelled out "This is the most fun I've ever had in my life!!!" to Meredith. Cape Verde is one of the best vacations I've ever taken in my life and I am so greatful to Melissa's family and the Peace Corps Cape Verde Volunteers for showing us a good time and letting us stay at their houses.
One Year Anniversary:
I've officially been in Mali for an entire year!! It feels so crazy to be able to say that! It seriously feels like I've only been here for about 3 months or so. Before coming to Mali I was told by Returned volunteers that your first year will feel like forever and then your second year will speed by. If this is the case I guess my second year is going to feel like just one month!
4th of July:
This year we spent 4th of July in Manantali, the same place I spent Christmas and probably my favorite little corner of Mali. Meredith and I got to Manantali about a week before the rush of people coming for the 4th and we were all by ourselves at the Manantali transit house. It was incredibly relaxing. We spent our days down by the river and our nights marathoning TV shows (Freaks and Geeks for me and True Blood for Meredith). Once everyone else arrived for the 4th, some 40 volunteers, we spent all of our time hanging out and spending a ton of time at the river. Some volunteers had fireworks to set off and we even had a "hoodrat" game tournament. We played horseshoes, hill billy golf, beer pong ( I didn't play this one, not a big fan of this game) and we even had a 3 legged race as well as a baloon toss. The 4th was really great, and kind of worked as a detox from my vacation to get me prepared to head back to site after having been away for so long.
Back to Site:
I'm surprisingly content being back at site, I say this because I honestly wasn't looking forward to coming back and being all alone (alone in the sense that I'm the only American in my village and that I basically go days without speaking English). I guess I had forgotten how tranquil it is at site and how much I cherished this. I got back to site in the evening, ate dinner and then basically passed out for 12 hours straight! I think my body was very happy to no longer be on the move. 2 new additions came back with me to site which could potentially be life changers for me: a camping egg crate and a shortwave radio. The egg crate is a life changer because this means that I will have a way to bring eggs back to my site which means a huge addition to the protein in my diet. Tonight I even had the best egg sandwich I've ever tasted (2 eggs scrambled with bell pepper, onion, basil, maggi, and salt on bread with mayo and ketchup... insanely good!) thanks to my egg crate! The radio is a life changer because now I actually will know what is going on in the world, whereas before I only got to know the news of the world when I would go into Sikasso and when I would maybe go to Cnn.com. Now I can listen to the BBC all day everyday! I already feel more informed and worldly after just one day!