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Where do I begin… let’s start this journey in Picos, and the goodbyes that I had with my family there. The time is 7 p.m. and I am returning from a day in Assomada with other Peace Corps volunteers, and surprise surprise, there is no power. As I walk up the dark, lonely dirt road to my house for the last time I hear nothing… no Funana, no Batuka, and not many voices. Believe me, this is very odd. As I enter the house my mom says to me “we don’t have light”, obvious as it may be, generally worth stating in Cape Verde. As I enter the living room I see candles burning everywhere, and everyone that I had meet over the past 10 weeks was in the living room with massive amounts of food and of course, the pigeons that had been given to me as presents were made into soup! Disclaimer: I had been asking for pigeon soup ever since I received my first pigeon in week 3. The soup was incredible; the people all had a good time, including me. We talked all night about my first day here and how completely incompetent I was, my mother actually has a pretty good impression of me from the first day that I arrived! It was done, I was packed and ready to be picked up the next morning. It was a very surreal realization, that I would not have them as my support anymore, and that we had grown incredibly close. When the Peace Corps car arrived my mother looked at me and said: “I will have a longing for you and you will always stay in my heart”. This made me a little teary-eyed, all the memories of the past 10 weeks came flooding back, all the memories of my family in America the day they left me at the airport, I remember my mother, surprisingly strong, say: “stay safe, I love you”. I now have two mothers in this world, that’s pretty lucky.

Continuing, all 24 trainees swear-in and are now volunteers. We, the 11 Small Enterprise Development volunteers, hurriedly meet with a counterpart that will be essential to our time in Cape Verde. Then off to Boa Vista I go. As I arrive I am met by a guy who has my name written on a piece of paper, correctly, and we talk about Boa Vista and Sal Rei and where the best places to go are, where I should never go because of the “thugis”. I arrive at my apartment and ask myself: “am I really in Africa”. This place is beautiful, the people are wonderful, and this is probably the most environmentally conscious population on Cape Verde, due to the very large population of sea turtles that visit here. So when I tell people that I am starting a new national park, people are genuinely interested. Many people here that I have had interactions with speak kriolu similar to what I learned during my time on Santiago, which is a huge relief. These first few days have been hectic, trying to get moved in and settled. Danny, my new roommate, and I have hired a very nice lady, Filo, to clean our clothes and house, and occasionally make us food, but I am tired of the constant irregularness that has been pre-service training. I just want to make my own food, and today Danny and I made tortillas… they were delicious. As the sun was setting in Boa Vista, Danny and I walked to the “loja” near our house, we sat on the cobblestone street listening to Mourna and singing along to the American songs that the people hanging at the loja could play. Here I am… home.

And so with the inaugural tortilla, beer, and Mourna I am a Peace Corp Volunteer in Boa Vista, Cape Verde.

To: Mourna Lovers Everywhere
From: Boa Vista