Tuglife
Here’s the daily routine:
Wake up around 7. Maybe run up Mount Cumbem, the mountain at the end of the Achada Galego video and think about how life is like SimCity, or sleep till 7:30. That’s when the water turns on. I’ll take a shower, eat some eggs or a banana, then three days a week I have class in the morning. On the way to school, I’ll run into Arlindo, a mason laying blocks for the new market going up across the street from our apartment. I’ll chega (hang out) for a few minutes and talk about how Cabo Verde is sabe (‘s-ah-bee’, awesome) then go to class. In class, I’ll call roll and mispronounce half of the kids names. I’ll teach class using about seven verbs to illustrate a concept I learned the Sunday before class. Some days I eat lunch at the Cantina at school. Rice, beans and some meat like a chicken drumstick in a tasty sauce are usually over the flames. After lunch, I’ll run to the market buy some sweet potatoes or tomatoes or something. The market woman will likely offer herself to me. “Ami fika ku bo.” I stay with you. I say thanks with a smile and say “ka gosta di pequenas. Só fazi stressi nha kabesa.” Thanks, but I don’t like girlfriends because they only make stress in my head. I walk off before she can respond. Then maybe I’ll pay Ishmial a visit at Tecnicom, the Internet café. I go too often, but it’s really the only place to do research for stuff, print stuff off or send emails to friends about things 24 yo boys still fresh out of college would talk about. This experience is turning out for me to be more of an introduction to development work than the isolation experience most people associate with Peace Corps. Okay, enough justification. Alex comes home around 7. We talk about our day then slip into a deep philosophical conversation about our feelings, what she should do with her life or how I work too much. We’ll maybe drink wine, Dom Vinho, it costs about $1.80 a bottle, and cook anything between a blackened fish to peanut butter toast but usually noodles and some vege. I’ll lose track of time doing something on my computer and crash about 11 when the dogs start fighting in the street.
Alex works for the Serra Malagueta National Park service. No ranger business, it’s an office with people from Italy, Spain, Canada, and of course ‘merka. It’s very much a business culture. There’s a boss, a big man who drives his car around town, and then there are the workers. With all due respect of the office life, what is the etiquette of a boss supposed to be? I ask Alex and she said, “someone who gives me financial and moral support, gives me the tools I need to do my job and gives me deadlines to make sure I stay on my game.” Okay, so a person who motivates you, gives you tools and ideas you need when you ask for them is a good boss. Note taken.
You know how sometimes when you’re sitting in a car it’s kind of relaxing because you feel like you’re going somewhere and you don’t have to do anything? You can just sit and look out the window and in the back of your mind you’re thinking, okay, I don’t have to be doing anything right now because we’re just driving and that’s doing something already. Then if you think about anything or talk to someone about something, it’s like your doing two things at once.
That’s kind of what it feels like having a blog, it’s like I’m doing two things at once. I may be teaching or drinking cheap wine right now, but thanks to the tech nerds who invented the Internet, it’s like I’m right here too.
Some phrases in Portuguese sound very similar, it keeps you on your toes. For example, brincadera means to play, like what kids do. Abrinca cadeira is slang for “to have sex in the butt.” I’m glad I made this mistake when I was talking about kids, not to them.
What’s this with Google starting some kind of social network tools source called OpenSocial? Sounds like they’re dipping their fingers in the social networking circle. Oh man, Facebook shouldn’t be the only one worried. Is anyone else seeing what is going on here? The Internet, more specifically Google, is facilitating ideas and gathering more personal information than any government ever has or could. A smart government would realize the things the Internet is capable of and try to align itself accordingly. I really hope in my lifetime we don’t have to groan when we talk about big brother. As long as Google sticks to its mantra ‘do no evil’, I think we’re in good shape.
Alex is a crazy linguist. On top of English, she speaks Spanish, French, Malinke (the local dialect of Guinea) and now Portuguese and Kriolu. She also has an English vocabulary that makes me feel like I don’t speak English as a first language. Anyway, she pointed out the other night that Portuguese has more verbs and English has more adjectives. Point for Portuguese, why have two words to say something when one is quicker to saying and getting to the heart of the point of which you are trying to say. Of course, most of language has to do with who is using it and can use it better to get across a point that they might be thinking at a certain moment any given time… ohh, I’m uneducated or is it unlearned or just boring.
One day my grandmother who lives just outside Washington, DC in a retirement community was telling one of her neighbors about me, when I first joined the Peace Corps.
Her friend replied, “…Peace Corps huh? Where is he stationed?”
“In Cape Verde,” she responded.
“Really, what is he doing?”
“He’s teaching vocational education.”
“Really. What’s his name?”
“Brian, why do you ask?”
“My grandson’s name is Nick, I’m pretty sure he’s training your grandson.”
What’re the freakin chances?
Cape Verde, like I mentioned in “Two Sticks”, receives just 3” of rainfall per year. Nick, my grandmother’s neighbor’s grandson, friend and colleague in Assomada, has been planning on building a solar still for sometime now. A solar still is a concrete basin covered by an inclined piece of glass that distills seawater into drinking water using solar energy (heat) from the sun.
We pitched a proposal for funding to build a prototype to our school director a few weeks ago. It has been approved. We started construction, in late October, during our 11th grade student’s practical construction labs, thus executing the main philosophy of Peace Corps in focusing on the sustainability of a project. We’re taking this in four steps: first we explained what solar stills are, why they are important and how we went about writing the proposal to get funding from the school. The second step is to build a wooden form. Then, we pour the concrete basin. Finally, we lay the glass and run tests to tweak the design for higher efficiency. So far, we’ve got the form built. Next week we pour.
Nick’s a pretty awesome designer at AutoCad, a computer program to make plan. Here’s a schematic design of the still:
Hey, what’s the story with Bushie crying in office? Some Newsweek article hinted at that he recently admitted to crying several times behind the scenes throughout his reign. If he did in fact cry, and yet still never (or rarely) admitted fault, well… what kind of a man is that? He sure is lowering the bar on personal character. It will be tough for whoever follows him to not look good.
My camera got stolen at a Halloween party. So. no more pics. Boo. Stuff happens. I went as miju verde, 5-foot tall stalks of green corn at square inch of dirt on this island right now. I dressed as an orthodox Jewish man wearing green. When people ask me, I said, ‘me jew verde.’ My apologies for the offence and being lame.
Shoe shiners, self-serve gas stations, car washes, women selling drops (hard candy) and single cigarettes at every corner, other women hawking cold water for 5 escudos (6 US cents) out of 5L jugs and silver cups, kids selling bread door-to-door, 16yo slaughter-to-wagon butchers, even the cleaning ladies have cleaning ladies... Capeverdeans understand how an economy works; they’re not the only ones who have figured out their country is ready to stand on its own. The United Nations recently advanced Cape Verde’s economic standing from under- to mid-developed country. What this means is that the UN and other foreign aide, like the Portuguese and Luxembourg Corporations, will begin pulling aide money over the next year. Their job is done. The schools are built, the AIDS awareness programs are in full swing and microfinance institutions are gaining popularity. Some people are concerned though because they don’t have any natural resources to export to the world and will never create a sustainable economy. We call those people old school.
To live is to avoid death. The closer you get to dying, the more you feel like you’re living. It’s like a curve that increases exponentially the closer you get to the edge. It’s fun to go to the edge and then pull back. When we pull back we share what it was like to be at the edge. Then, after awhile we get comfortable and anxious and bored. That’s when we want to go back to the edge again, we forget what it felt like. You go back to the edge, go a little further this time because you’re hardcore, then get scared and go back again. Once you go back and forth a few times, you wonder why you avoided the edge in the first place. You know what they say, if you’re not livin on the edge, you’re takin up too much space.
One of my students put on a hat one day in class. It had pictures of the dollar sign and the woven inscription of 50 Cent’s clothing line, ‘G-Unit’.
“Padron, bu sta duro?” Brotha, you hard?
“Teacher, I am tuglife.”
Another student from across the room piped up, “teacher, tell us about tuglife in America.”
I responded off the top of my head in broken Kriole, “it’s when people like 50 Cent and 2Pac grow up in places where there are many problems with drugs and violence. Life is very difficult for them. They call themselves thugs because they lived a tough life, a thug life. 2Pac and 50 Cent got out of it by making a career rapping about what life was like in the hood.” With bright eyes, they nodded their heads in approval. Yes, they thought, we’ve lived the thuglife too.
What makes someone a thug? Is it a tough childhood? If so, what makes a tough childhood? Sure, drugs and violence are serious issues, but everyone has problems they have to face everyday. And it’s only natural to justify how you have it harder than the next guy. I firmly believe you can justify anything. When I look at my problems, I think about the last article I read detailing the latest atrocity happening in the world, think about the smirk on our President’s face or think about how I really don’t want to go back to school or make copies in a company for five years before I can do what I want. Then I commit myself to finding a way out of this mess. Yeah, I’m a thug. I haven’t yet cut a hiphop album, but I’m as angry as that gangsta from New York.
Wake up around 7. Maybe run up Mount Cumbem, the mountain at the end of the Achada Galego video and think about how life is like SimCity, or sleep till 7:30. That’s when the water turns on. I’ll take a shower, eat some eggs or a banana, then three days a week I have class in the morning. On the way to school, I’ll run into Arlindo, a mason laying blocks for the new market going up across the street from our apartment. I’ll chega (hang out) for a few minutes and talk about how Cabo Verde is sabe (‘s-ah-bee’, awesome) then go to class. In class, I’ll call roll and mispronounce half of the kids names. I’ll teach class using about seven verbs to illustrate a concept I learned the Sunday before class. Some days I eat lunch at the Cantina at school. Rice, beans and some meat like a chicken drumstick in a tasty sauce are usually over the flames. After lunch, I’ll run to the market buy some sweet potatoes or tomatoes or something. The market woman will likely offer herself to me. “Ami fika ku bo.” I stay with you. I say thanks with a smile and say “ka gosta di pequenas. Só fazi stressi nha kabesa.” Thanks, but I don’t like girlfriends because they only make stress in my head. I walk off before she can respond. Then maybe I’ll pay Ishmial a visit at Tecnicom, the Internet café. I go too often, but it’s really the only place to do research for stuff, print stuff off or send emails to friends about things 24 yo boys still fresh out of college would talk about. This experience is turning out for me to be more of an introduction to development work than the isolation experience most people associate with Peace Corps. Okay, enough justification. Alex comes home around 7. We talk about our day then slip into a deep philosophical conversation about our feelings, what she should do with her life or how I work too much. We’ll maybe drink wine, Dom Vinho, it costs about $1.80 a bottle, and cook anything between a blackened fish to peanut butter toast but usually noodles and some vege. I’ll lose track of time doing something on my computer and crash about 11 when the dogs start fighting in the street.
Alex works for the Serra Malagueta National Park service. No ranger business, it’s an office with people from Italy, Spain, Canada, and of course ‘merka. It’s very much a business culture. There’s a boss, a big man who drives his car around town, and then there are the workers. With all due respect of the office life, what is the etiquette of a boss supposed to be? I ask Alex and she said, “someone who gives me financial and moral support, gives me the tools I need to do my job and gives me deadlines to make sure I stay on my game.” Okay, so a person who motivates you, gives you tools and ideas you need when you ask for them is a good boss. Note taken.
You know how sometimes when you’re sitting in a car it’s kind of relaxing because you feel like you’re going somewhere and you don’t have to do anything? You can just sit and look out the window and in the back of your mind you’re thinking, okay, I don’t have to be doing anything right now because we’re just driving and that’s doing something already. Then if you think about anything or talk to someone about something, it’s like your doing two things at once.
That’s kind of what it feels like having a blog, it’s like I’m doing two things at once. I may be teaching or drinking cheap wine right now, but thanks to the tech nerds who invented the Internet, it’s like I’m right here too.
Some phrases in Portuguese sound very similar, it keeps you on your toes. For example, brincadera means to play, like what kids do. Abrinca cadeira is slang for “to have sex in the butt.” I’m glad I made this mistake when I was talking about kids, not to them.
What’s this with Google starting some kind of social network tools source called OpenSocial? Sounds like they’re dipping their fingers in the social networking circle. Oh man, Facebook shouldn’t be the only one worried. Is anyone else seeing what is going on here? The Internet, more specifically Google, is facilitating ideas and gathering more personal information than any government ever has or could. A smart government would realize the things the Internet is capable of and try to align itself accordingly. I really hope in my lifetime we don’t have to groan when we talk about big brother. As long as Google sticks to its mantra ‘do no evil’, I think we’re in good shape.
Alex is a crazy linguist. On top of English, she speaks Spanish, French, Malinke (the local dialect of Guinea) and now Portuguese and Kriolu. She also has an English vocabulary that makes me feel like I don’t speak English as a first language. Anyway, she pointed out the other night that Portuguese has more verbs and English has more adjectives. Point for Portuguese, why have two words to say something when one is quicker to saying and getting to the heart of the point of which you are trying to say. Of course, most of language has to do with who is using it and can use it better to get across a point that they might be thinking at a certain moment any given time… ohh, I’m uneducated or is it unlearned or just boring.
One day my grandmother who lives just outside Washington, DC in a retirement community was telling one of her neighbors about me, when I first joined the Peace Corps.
Her friend replied, “…Peace Corps huh? Where is he stationed?”
“In Cape Verde,” she responded.
“Really, what is he doing?”
“He’s teaching vocational education.”
“Really. What’s his name?”
“Brian, why do you ask?”
“My grandson’s name is Nick, I’m pretty sure he’s training your grandson.”
What’re the freakin chances?
Cape Verde, like I mentioned in “Two Sticks”, receives just 3” of rainfall per year. Nick, my grandmother’s neighbor’s grandson, friend and colleague in Assomada, has been planning on building a solar still for sometime now. A solar still is a concrete basin covered by an inclined piece of glass that distills seawater into drinking water using solar energy (heat) from the sun.
We pitched a proposal for funding to build a prototype to our school director a few weeks ago. It has been approved. We started construction, in late October, during our 11th grade student’s practical construction labs, thus executing the main philosophy of Peace Corps in focusing on the sustainability of a project. We’re taking this in four steps: first we explained what solar stills are, why they are important and how we went about writing the proposal to get funding from the school. The second step is to build a wooden form. Then, we pour the concrete basin. Finally, we lay the glass and run tests to tweak the design for higher efficiency. So far, we’ve got the form built. Next week we pour.
Nick’s a pretty awesome designer at AutoCad, a computer program to make plan. Here’s a schematic design of the still:
Hey, what’s the story with Bushie crying in office? Some Newsweek article hinted at that he recently admitted to crying several times behind the scenes throughout his reign. If he did in fact cry, and yet still never (or rarely) admitted fault, well… what kind of a man is that? He sure is lowering the bar on personal character. It will be tough for whoever follows him to not look good.
My camera got stolen at a Halloween party. So. no more pics. Boo. Stuff happens. I went as miju verde, 5-foot tall stalks of green corn at square inch of dirt on this island right now. I dressed as an orthodox Jewish man wearing green. When people ask me, I said, ‘me jew verde.’ My apologies for the offence and being lame.
Shoe shiners, self-serve gas stations, car washes, women selling drops (hard candy) and single cigarettes at every corner, other women hawking cold water for 5 escudos (6 US cents) out of 5L jugs and silver cups, kids selling bread door-to-door, 16yo slaughter-to-wagon butchers, even the cleaning ladies have cleaning ladies... Capeverdeans understand how an economy works; they’re not the only ones who have figured out their country is ready to stand on its own. The United Nations recently advanced Cape Verde’s economic standing from under- to mid-developed country. What this means is that the UN and other foreign aide, like the Portuguese and Luxembourg Corporations, will begin pulling aide money over the next year. Their job is done. The schools are built, the AIDS awareness programs are in full swing and microfinance institutions are gaining popularity. Some people are concerned though because they don’t have any natural resources to export to the world and will never create a sustainable economy. We call those people old school.
To live is to avoid death. The closer you get to dying, the more you feel like you’re living. It’s like a curve that increases exponentially the closer you get to the edge. It’s fun to go to the edge and then pull back. When we pull back we share what it was like to be at the edge. Then, after awhile we get comfortable and anxious and bored. That’s when we want to go back to the edge again, we forget what it felt like. You go back to the edge, go a little further this time because you’re hardcore, then get scared and go back again. Once you go back and forth a few times, you wonder why you avoided the edge in the first place. You know what they say, if you’re not livin on the edge, you’re takin up too much space.
One of my students put on a hat one day in class. It had pictures of the dollar sign and the woven inscription of 50 Cent’s clothing line, ‘G-Unit’.
“Padron, bu sta duro?” Brotha, you hard?
“Teacher, I am tuglife.”
Another student from across the room piped up, “teacher, tell us about tuglife in America.”
I responded off the top of my head in broken Kriole, “it’s when people like 50 Cent and 2Pac grow up in places where there are many problems with drugs and violence. Life is very difficult for them. They call themselves thugs because they lived a tough life, a thug life. 2Pac and 50 Cent got out of it by making a career rapping about what life was like in the hood.” With bright eyes, they nodded their heads in approval. Yes, they thought, we’ve lived the thuglife too.
What makes someone a thug? Is it a tough childhood? If so, what makes a tough childhood? Sure, drugs and violence are serious issues, but everyone has problems they have to face everyday. And it’s only natural to justify how you have it harder than the next guy. I firmly believe you can justify anything. When I look at my problems, I think about the last article I read detailing the latest atrocity happening in the world, think about the smirk on our President’s face or think about how I really don’t want to go back to school or make copies in a company for five years before I can do what I want. Then I commit myself to finding a way out of this mess. Yeah, I’m a thug. I haven’t yet cut a hiphop album, but I’m as angry as that gangsta from New York.
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