A sabe
repos.
Bom tarde
indeed! I am just returning from my first vacation and a week later find
that part of my brain is rather doubtful that I ever left Badou. When I was in
Cape Verde I imagined that resettling in to Togo would be mighty cumbersome but
here I am, phased more by how natural my Togolese routine seems (and how
dreamlike my last two weeks feel) rather than how foreign this all still
remains. But first let me relate how sabe my petit repos was.
I visited Richard on the island of Fogo and was enchanted by the place and its people. Witnessing how great he’s doing made my
soul smile :) I felt really comfortable in Cova Figuera. Island life just calls to me and so most of the time I was nostalgic for the summers I'd spent in the Dominican Republic. Everyone still loves Tia Rosa who sends American apparel and iphones from America to her sobrinos on the island. Sporting my
African pagne, I felt more ‘from-the-motherland’ than most of the young girls
there who more often than not swanked around with skinny jeans and hoodies. The faces of the girls, boys, aunts, and grandmas reminded me of someone I'd known. The light green eyes, caramel complexion, nappy hair are all so
happily familiar to me. By the end of the two weeks, I was gleefully mumbling bits of Criolou to Richard's neighbors.
Cabo Verde is beautiful. My
friend Laura used the term ‘other-wordly’ to describe an image -appropriate to the scenes of the volcano and the sea of black rock at its base. The town of Cha sits here, a moment of a quaint developing world. When I was atop the volcano, I
chatted with another friend-of a-volunteer that was visiting. I was telling her about how I never could have imagined where I was at that instant, on a volcanic rock in the middle of the Atlantic. Sweetness is in the unexpected. I found myself thinking of my parents, too, often throughout the
trip. When I was little, I feared being out of
sight of my parents. I always clung on to them; as we say in Spanish “de bajo
de la falda de mami” – literally “underneath momma’s skirt.” And so my parents
never expected me to leave Danbury. The course of my life hasn't taken me to that many places just yet. It started in Boston then to Niger, Florida, now Togo, and my plans are to go, go wherever it is life wants to go next. For me,
seeing things as awesome as the scene from the volcano made me think
about home, about my parents and what they’ve seen and I felt so grateful for
who I am and for what life has brought so far. La vie, it’s a beautiful thing.
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| A view from the top onto the valley of Cha |
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| Katchupa after a VERY LONG NIGHT |
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| Cova Figuera |
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| Enjoying creamy popsticks in Villa |
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| The beach in Mosteiros |
So, yes, I was treated very kindly in Cabo Verde. Buried my
legs in a black sand beach, hiked a pine forested trail up to Cha, climbed a volcano, slept outside on a stoop, floated
in blue-green tide pools…pure honey. The in-betweens are just as noteworthy,
involving several scrumptious fried corn breakfasts, goat cheese, fresh bread, a block-wedding-party, listening in on band practice, and all the other
nooks and crannies of la pura vida.
