Sal Island: Biblioteca Jorge Barbosa. 1.

My first time here was like 2 weeks ago. I was just a few days into my time on the island.

I probably just randomly headed out of Casa Varela – the inn where I was lodged, for an unpremeditated walk about, to get some sort of orientation with my new environment.

The water situation at Casa Varela could get annoying. My first few days were pretty fine – everything seemed to operate smoothly. The owner (I think she was the owner of the place) decided to bump me up to an interesting room on the topmost floor. I thought the room was cool – it had its own bathroom, and a balcony. I liked that.

On like the fourth day or so, I was shocked to realise that there was no water flowing in the bathroom.

What? Why is there no water? Is there something wrong with the pipes? Some control knob somewhere is stuck?

It felt like a very strange situation. The past year I had spent across San Francisco and Berlin, had made me accustomed to multi-hour showers and discretionary-lengthed bathtub soaks and central heating, without really having to think about how the underlying plumbing or water supply mechanism worked.

Okay so in San Francisco we used to discuss California’s droughts in class, but that felt like a distant, intellectual concern. I never had water abruptly stop flowing mid-shower because of concerns about a California drought. Things usually just worked without a hitch.

So it was surprising for me, suddenly coming to face this entire layer of operational abstraction that I had been completely oblivious of, for like the past year.

I communicated the issue to Nilton, the building manager.

Initially he just acknowledged the problem and promised to get it resolved ASAP.

When the same issue came up again not long after, he opened up and described the workings of the building’s water supply to me: There was a man who drove by every few days in a water-truck. He had a tank of water attached to his truck, and as he drove by he delivered water to his customers along the route.

Apparently there had been a complication with the arrangement. I’m not quite sure now- maybe he suddenly increased his prices, or he missed a delivery date – something. So essentially there was an issue with the water-truck guy, and consequently we had no water to use at Casa Varela.

Oh.

Okay. On the one hand I’m annoyed that there’s no water, but on the other hand I’m amused at the sort of logistical setup these guys have for their water supply.

Sal island is mostly desert. They get very little rainfall, and so there are practically no freshwater bodies to draw from. I don’t know where the water-truck guy gets his water, but apparently it’s generally in short supply.

I can’t help but wonder if there’s a desalination plant somewhere on the island. It seems paradoxical to be completely surrounded by a literal ocean of water, and yet experience a scarcity of water for domestic use. Strange.

---

I’m no longer at Casa Varela.

I checked out after about two weeks or so. I was running out of money.

Haha.

I do not have a source of income here, and so I generally do what I can to really stretch out every Euro I have. My two week stay at Casa Varela was generally to provide me with essential living amenities while I got a feel for the environment.

Now I live in a cave.

Haah. Haha.

I was walking around Murdeira one day when I came across this small cave by the ocean. I had spent the previous night camping close-by, and then when the sun came up I decide to move about and look around.

I thought the cave looked cool. Eventually I decided to spend some time there, while I pondered on my next steps after leaving Casa Varela.

So far it’s been chill.

Quiet (well except for the waves crashing against the rocky shore about ten feet away).

Serene. Lots of space to think and dream and imagine. And contemplate my life outside the constructs of the societal expectations I felt somewhat boxed-in by.

Living in a literal cave however, you don’t have access to fundamental living amenities. So every now and then I visit a nearby town to charge my electronic devices, use an actual bathroom, and generally reacquaint myself with the foundational infrastructure of human civilisation.

This place seemed like a cool location to do that. Biblioteca Municipal Jorge Barbosa.

My first time here was like 2 weeks ago. I was just a few days into my time on the island. I probably just randomly headed out of Casa Varela for an unpremeditated walk about, to get some sort of orientation with the new environment.

I found the ambience of the library calming and entrancing somewhat. Or maybe I just generally found the whole of Sal island entrancing, because so much felt peculiar and surreal.

Cape Verde is my first time being in an African country that’s not Nigeria. And apparently there’s a unique psychological experience that comes with that.

Being in the US and in Germany – those where mind-unfolding experiences in themselves, but generally I expected those places to be different from what I was familiar with. Consequently I didn’t have any deeply-ingrained expectations for what those societies would be like, or for how people would behave there.

Here in Cape Verde it’s different. This is a society of mostly black people. And apparently 19+ years of living in Nigeria gave me this internalised intuition for how a society of mostly black people generally behaves.

So it’s surreal for me interacting with that society, and then having them mildly conflict with my expectations. For example I come across some random black Cape Verdean guy: In my head my brain has already prepared a template of what I should immediately expect from him, based on how my life experience around black people makes me interpret his visual impression.

And then he opens his mouth and begins to speak Portuguese. Portuguese is soooo different from anything I’ve ever personally heard black people speaking. It shakes up my brain a bit, having to superimpose a black face over the disorienting stream of alien sounds I’m hearing. It feels surreal having people here jar my expectations like that.

It’s like I’m hallucinating. Or I’m being pranked, and the Cape Verdean guy is just speaking Portuguese to weird me out.

It’s just startling in this stimulating, other-worldly way – like someone is passing a mild electric current through my body. Haha.

Hitching a ride to Santa Maria on the back of a lorry.

---

The library is chill. Quiet.

I still get surprised by just how few people are on this island. At any given point you’re like a 15-minute walk away from being smack in the middle of the desert with no human being in sight. It’s crazy.

Right now I’m the only one in the library. Me and the librarian at her desk by the door. I think there’s someone seated in a corner by my right, but I don’t know for sure. The view is obstructed by a bunch of bookshelves.

I recently got in touch with a Biodiversity NGO at Santa Maria – the touristy town at the southernmost end of the island. Somehow I persuaded the Spanish Directors to give me a bunch of their Sea Turtle Nesting data, so I could carry out some AI/Machine Learning analysis on it. The aim is to uncover patterns/inferences which’ll be useful to them, so they paid me some money for it. That was great. I need money.

So now I’m here, chilling in this library surrounded by Portuguese books that are mostly unintelligible to me, sitting on a chair and with my things on a table, in an actual building with walls and a roof, connected to electricity and doing some stuff on my computer.

I like this vibe. Haha.

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End of Part 1.

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Image:

Chilling in the library.

December Nights in Berlin. 2.

I am at the Berlin Tegel airport.

I am very apprehensive. I jumped out of my cab the moment we got here.

I’m late for my flight.

Until about thirty minutes ago, I didn’t even know the flight was for today.

Fuck.

I left the apartment at Adalbertstrasse in a rush. There was no time at all to prepare myself mentally for this. I haven’t had the luxury of soaking in any sort of pre-flight nostalgia: I’ve spent the past like four months in Berlin. Leaving now, I’m not sure when I’ll be coming back.

There hasn’t been the time to get myself into an appropriate state of mind for leaving. An hour ago I was in the bathtub, lying down in warm water and soaking in some serious vibes as the bathroom resonated with poignant music from my bluetooth speakers. I was just chilling- singing along and staring up at the ceiling, watching drops of water condense from the steam that filled the room, and then drip back down to the white square tiles on the bathroom floor.

Fifteen minutes ago I was in the passenger’s seat of this Turkish guy’s cab, swearing and cursing and interrogating myself about how I could possibly have been oblivious to my flight being today.

---

I’m at a counter in the airport. I’m talking with this North African looking woman. I give her my flight details. I think she looks at her computer screen to check some stuff.

She looks back up at me.

“Oh the plane has already gone”.

Wow. Great. Just great. Wonderful. Nice one Mayowa, nice one.

“Is there anything that can possibly be done? Rescheduling? Some sort of partial refund?“

“No sorry, there’s nothing we can do about that.”

Wow. There goes the money someone paid on my behalf for the flight ticket. Dammit.

Aaaarrgghhhh!!

---

---

I’m at Barbara’s office.

Something’s up with her MacBook keyboard. I think a key is stuck or something.

She mentions it to me. I take a look at the computer. I’m not quite sure what’s going on. It doesn’t seem like something I can help with. She’ll probably have to get it looked at- I don’t think we plan to experiment on her computer while she’s at work and using it.

She’s in-between a number of things. She’s trying to figure out how she could possibly help me buy a flight ticket out of Berlin, she’s co-ordinating some other issue with another student, and she’s ironing out some other details of people moving out of their apartments for winter holidays.

It’s interesting for me, just watching and seeing how she’s thinking about all of these things at the same time- she recieves a call from the other student, then she sends an email to someone in San Francisco on my behalf, all the while planning where to put some incoming furniture and stuff. It’s like she’s in the middle of all of these things, and she’s kind of navigating through each of them a couple steps at a time, one by one. It’s interesting to watch.

Someone is at the door.

I go open.

It’s Jiamin. She’s the student Barbara was co-ordinating something with, on the phone. She’s heaving along this big framed picture of some sort of black-and-white Chinese calligraphy painting. It’s a bunch of characters written in black ink, in a vertical line. I have no idea what it means, but I think the calligraphy looks cool. It was probably hung up on her wall, and now that she’s leaving Berlin there’s nowhere to put it. We put it somewhere in the corridor of the apartment.

---

Barbara and I are outside. On the apartment balcony.

She’s having a cigarette.

There’s this class we had during the semester- Knowledge-based Decision Making or something like that. We had this interesting study about lung cancer and its possible causative factors. There was this interesting question of whether people who smoked cigarettes were more likely to develop lung cancer due to something in the cigarettes, or if people who tend to enjoy smoking cigarettes have some sort of genetic predisposition that makes them more likely to develop lung cancer anyway. Some sort of confounding variable. I thought that was a really interesting perspective on the lung cancer question.

I bring that up with Barbara on the balcony as she’s taking puffs from her cigarette. We talk about it for a bit.

Thinking about it now, I don’t know though. Smokers’ lungs are usually disturbingly black and stuff. And the blackness has something to do with the cancer doesn’t it? Non-smokers don’t usually have such black lungs.

---

Barbara has this really cool jacket hanging around. I’m wearing it while I move furniture out of the dorm apartments. It has a hood, and there’s this nice fuzzy fur on the inside of it. The lush fur feels very comforting- it’s warm, and it also provides me with some much needed emotional succour in the face of all of the uncertainty ahead of me. It makes me feel safe and insulated from the outside world.

In her office she gave me a book. It’s some sort of black-and-white photography compilation printed out on sheets of paper that have been bound together. She said it was a gift from a friend. I flipped through the book – it seems to be some sort of photography memoir. It’s got different snapshots from the person’s life- dinner with friends, outdoor scenes, etc.

In about a month I’ll be living on an island in Cape Verde, on a gap-year from college. I’ll be living in a studio apartment on the ground floor of a defunct beachfront hotel.

I’ll hate the curtain in the room. I’ll find it too musky and stifling. It’ll feel like it’s made of thick stiff jeans, blocking out all of the light and air in the room whenever it’s drawn.

I’ll take down the curtain and in its stead I’ll take out pieces of paper from Barbara’s photobook gift. I’ll paste these pages along the windows to form some sort of translucent screen. I won’t need a curtain after that- the paper screen will provide privacy, while still letting sunlight into the room.

My windows will be pasted with random moments of this person’s life.

But I don’t know all of that now. Right now it’s just a book filled with interesting-looking pictures of people I don’t know.

---

Barbara’s husband is around. We’re moving furniture together.

He’s a geologist. I make some sort of a joke about how his job rocks.

Haha.

At some point I’m standing on a sofa, taking down some curtains. I sneeze.

Someone says “Bless you”.

Barbara’s husband says something about how the phrase “Bless you” came about.

Something about the Black Death or the Plague, some epidemic that occurred in Europe sometime in history. He says the clergy used to bless people who had the disease, because it was pretty much certain they were going to die, something like that. So they were blessing them as a way to send them to heaven after they died.

And so today’s “Bless you” was some sort of continued emulation of the clergy’s blessings during that time.

Hm.

I thought it was an interesting story.

---

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I’m heading out of the airport.

Now it’s clear I’m not leaving Berlin today.

I’m berating myself as I walk out with my hurriedly packed luggage.

I need to book another flight. Argh.

I need to find a U-Bahn station.

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Image: Me in Barbara’s lush fur coat.

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This post is one in a Series. You can access the other posts here: https://mayowaosibodu.wordpress.com/2000/01/19/december-2016-january-2017-series-index/

Impressions in January. 1.

I’m unpacking my backpack, bringing out its contents and placing them on the bed.

Clothes, electronics, footwear.

There are a bunch of folded-up pieces of paper. I unfold them to see what they’re about.

One of them has “CAPE VERDE” written in bold emphatic letters, across it with a pen.

This piece of paper was taped to the wall of my room in Berlin.

–

December was weird.

I was just submerged in this cloud of anxiety and uncertainty and discomfort and annoyance and frustration.

I would lie on my bed, wallowing in this mire of emotional turmoil, and every now and then an idea would occur to me. I would get out a sheet of paper and write the idea across it, in bold insistent strokes.

I would then tape the piece of paper to the wall opposite my bed, looking up to it as a strident message clamouring out at me.

These ideas screaming at me from the wall were the Saviours which were going to jolt me out of my indecisive circles of self-beration, and impel me towards a decision about my next steps.

Before the “CAPE VERDE” paper, I had one that said “MADAGASCAR”.

Or was it really one before the other? I think at some point I had both sheets of paper taped to the wall.

In the end, “CAPE VERDE” remained on the wall while I took “MADAGASCAR” down.

---

I got to Sal island this morning. Sal island, Cape Verde.

A taxi from the airport brought me here into Espargos.

The taxi cruised out of the airport and onto the highway, its windows ushering in the relieving rays of warm afternoon sun that did not exist in Berlin. There was a song playing on the radio. I liked the song, but I didn’t know enough to identify it. I just knew it was interesting music that had to be indigenous to Cape Verde.

Right now I’m in a white two-storey building called Casa Varela– I paid for a room here.

I’m on the first floor. The room looks okay, it has some space. And there’s this interesting-looking white lounge chair close to the door. I spread some of my clothes across it.

There’s another room close by, on the same floor. A little further, there’s a shared bathroom with a bathtub in it.

I recently saw a lady walk out of the bathroom and into her room. Her skin looked very dark and shiny. I’m still getting used to being surrounded by so many people with such dark skin. I was surrounded by very few dark-skinned people in Berlin.

Looking through the window, the buildings around look strange. They all have flat tops. They are all generally like cuboids of different heights, lined along the road.

Coming straight from Berlin, this is a marked difference in architecture. In Germany I got used to walking along their large, grey marble buildings styled in Greek Revival architecture, and looking up ahead to see interesting attic windows peeking out of Dutch gable roofs.

Oh and yes, the streaks of ever-present patina.

Here things are different. It feels like you could run across the roofs of a line of buildings- climbing over hand-railings and dodging clothes-lines and flower pots, while you jump between rooftops. The building tops are generally that flat.

I’m taking time to sort out my things, generally soaking in the ambience of this new environment.

---

The flight from Berlin had a layover at Lisbon – Aeroporto de Lisboa. As I walked through the hallways, trying to find the check-in counter for the flight to Cape Verde, I saw a counter that had “MADAGASCAR” written above it. There was a man at the counter, presenting his travel documents. He was a tall black man, and he had a heavy head of long dreadlocks. They looked like some of them reached down to his waist.

I kept walking.

That could have been my queue.

Hm.

Decisions and stuff.

Lisbon was interesting. I was there for like twelve hours, waiting for the Cape Verde flight. I spent the time walking around and making acquaintances. I met this guy from Mozambique, Ahby. He had just rounded up what I think was a seminary posting in Cape Verde. He spent a year or so (maybe longer), on the island of Boa Vista I think.

I spent time generally asking him questions about Cape Verde- trying to inform myself to an extent at least, because I knew next to nothing about the country I was headed.

---

I just got back to Casa Varela. I went on a quick trip to get some food, and use the internet. There’s a town square about two minutes away that has free WiFi. I think that is super cool. I don’t have a SIM card or anything here yet, and so it’s really helpful to have access to free municipal WiFi.

I’m talking with the building supervisor – his name is Nilton. He pronounces it “Nil-tonne”. I think that’s a bit strange. He tells me that the woman who owns the building just stopped by. She took a look at my room and decided that I should be moved to the topmost floor. I say okay.

He escorts me to my room, and we move my stuff up the stairs- my clothes, shoes, electronics, skateboard.

I stop to look around as we get to the second floor.

Oh okay, this is definitely an upgrade.

The new room has an adjoining rooftop balcony which has an interesting view of the streets and buildings around.

Iiinteresting.

We move my stuff into the new room. It has its own bathroom with a shower and a small water heating unit. I’m excited about the new space. I thank Nilton, and he heads back downstairs.

I got some sliced bread from the grocery store. Along with some margarine, some juice, and this interesting brown sweet Cape Verdean candy thing that I’m eating for the first time. It’s lumpy, chunky and brittle. You break chunks of it into your mouth, and then chew. I like it.

From the balcony I have an even clearer view of the cuboidal buildings around and their flat rooftops.

And the sun – Oh the sun.

Berlin was very interesting, but the later it got in the year, the duller and greyer and more sun-starved the city became. I would walk city block after city block, just chasing after the elusive sun as it mockingly drifted away from me, sneaking behind the tall buildings that populated the city skyline.

The sunlight here is definitely a welcome introduction.

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Image: My luggage, on my way out of the apartment in Berlin.

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Some interesting Cape Verdean music. This could very well have been the song that was playing in the taxi. I just don’t know now.

Gin-Breath Reverie.

It’s dark.

I’m on the backseat of a motorbike. There are two people ahead of me – there’s the driver, and then there’s someone in-between us.

We’re bobbing in our seats as the motorbike navigates the sandy, bumpy darkness ahead of us. In the gleam of the yellow headlight, I can see a glimpse of the formless ground ahead.

---

The guy in front of me, his breath smells like alcohol. Like gin.

I think it’s gin. There’s this brand of Chelsea gin that’s extremely popular in Lagos’ roadside stalls. It’s gin in a small satchet – like the size of satchet travel toothpaste. I think it’s extremely popular because people can get a quick shot of alcohol for like fifty Naira. Which is practically the smallest denomination of the Nigerian currency you can actually buy anything with these days.

Generally whenever I come across people in the street whose breaths smell like gin, I just assume its the Chelsea satchet gin – it’s that ubiquitous. Extremely portable: Commercial bus drivers can squeeze in gin shots while they drive along the expressway, and commercial motorbike riders can sip on some quick alcohol in-between rides – In Lagos that thing shows up everywhere and in every possible situation.

So we’re here in the dark, bobbing on this motorbike as it careens about in the sand. And every now and then I get hit by this guy’s gin breath.

His breath reminds me of Grogue. Traditional Cape Verdean rum.

That’s what comes to mind whenever the whiffs hit me.

In fact, right now his gin breath is making me think of one night in particular:

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It is dark.

I am drifting along a cobblestoned square somewhere in Espargos.

Espargos, Sal Island, Cape Verde.

I feel tired. Tired and listless.

I’m dragging my feet across the contours of the cobblestones – the square is quiet.

I think there’s some sort of a pop-up market thing happening here. There are rows of wooden stalls on both sides of me.

They are all empty.

I keep walking in-between the rows of quiet stalls – at some point I walk into one and sit down.

I feel directionless.

My living space was burgled earlier in the day. My things were stolen. My computer was stolen.

My phone was stolen a little over a week earlier. That incident made me relocate elsewhere. And now the new place has just been burgled.

I’ve generally been strapped for cash, and so accommodation security – that hasn’t really been something I can afford.

Gap year struggles.

Usually I just get a place with shelter and privacy. Things like security aren’t guaranteed.

And now I’ve been dealt a double-dose of worst case scenarios.

Right now I’m not angry. I’m not sad, not really.

I’m just tired. Like, spent.

I don’t even feel worried. The MacBook was my last way of conveniently connecting to the internet and communicating with people I knew before landing in this country. Losing it – that was what I was worried about.

Now that it’s been stolen, there’s no worry left in me. Like, what more can happen?

I’m looking around in the dark empty wooden stall, and I’m vaguely reminded of the Christmas markets in Europe. They have a similar vibe. Wooden stalls arranged in rows, all out in a wide open space.

Right here in the dark, the general ambience of these stalls make me feel like I might as well be somewhere in Europe right now. These markets aren’t all that different in the dark.

I leave the stall and keep drifting through the square, still dragging my feet across the contours of the cobblestones.

---

I am in a bar.

A local Cape Verdean bar.

Cape Verdean Creole is being spoken all around me.

The interior walls of the bar are a shade of blue – what shade exactly is difficult to tell in the dim light. Or maybe I’m just too unenthusiastic about life to care right now.

It’s a small bar. Its really just a few benches along the walls, and a chest-high platform in front where the bartenders pour drinks.

I’m seated in corner. I’m not sure what my physical posture looks like on the outside, but on the inside I’m cowering. Life has been dealing me some really hard knocks.

Opposite me there’s a group of Cape Verdean men. I’ll say they’re like late forties upwards. They’re chatting excitedly, in-between sips of grogue.

Local Cape Verdean bars will have the smell of grogue permanently emblazoned in your brain.

Permanently.

I envy their excitement. They seem so carefree. So playful. Excitement is an emotion that is so far away from me right now.

There are two people on the other side of the bar. Initially it was just one boy – teenage-looking, serving drinks.

He has just been joined by someone who I think is his elder sister. Light skinned, mid-to-late twenties likely.

From her dressing, the impression I get is that she works in hospitality somewhere – hotel, restaurant – somewhere. She’s here for a bit to help run the bar her family owns, right before heading for her night shift at work.

That, or she just completed her shift at work and is now here for a bit to help run the family bar.

That’s just the general impression I get from looking at her.

The sounds from the laughing Cape Verdean men are a bit different now. Now there’s some playful flirting with the teenage bartender’s older sister.

Ahaha okay 😄

I don’t completely understand what they’re saying in Creole, but they’re definitely teasing her.

She’s one female in a room of chattery tipsy men. She’s definitely the centre of attention.

I take glimpses at her from my end of the room. Through the shadowy lens of my present despair, her skin is gleaming in the dim light of the electric bulb.

She’s completely ignoring everybody. It’s like she has everyone on mute in her mind, and she can’t hear any of the loud playful teasing from the laughing group of Cape Verdean men.

She has to be just about heading for her shift. Her indifference feels fresh. I doubt anyone’d have this much resolve right after hours of work.

At some point one of the laughing Cape Verdean men orders me a drink.

I’m grateful.

I have no money. I don’t know if I was craving alcohol, but I was definitely being amused by the happenings in the bar. My posture/body language was probably conveying my emotional state, and he felt for me.

I express my appreciation to him, and obtain a glass of grogue from the unconcerned bartender who is just about to go start her shift and has absolutely no time for us.

I recede to my place on the wooden bench and begin to sip on the small glass.

I haven’t felt this in a while.

This feeling. This feeling of being taken care of.

The feeling of having someone provide for me.

I haven’t felt it in a while.

Wow.

This gap year has been me thinking about practically every aspect of my life, on my own.

The kind gesture of the laughing Cape Verdean man makes me realize this, very starkly. In a way I don’t think about on a day-to-day.

For a brief moment in time, I feel safe.

The sort of safety you feel around your parents as a small child – like that. Like the world is this huge cushy blanket you’re wrapped in, and you don’t have to think too hard about anything because someone else has all of that taken care of.

Strange that this feeling would ever be something I would need to be reminded of. When it used to permeate most of my life until not that long ago.

Strange.

I wonder how much more the laughing Cape Verdean man can figure out on my behalf. I wonder how much more of my problems he can automatically discern and solve. Maybe he can help me find the people who stole my computer and retrieve it from them with his mysterious laughing-Cape-Verdean-man superpowers.

I don’t know.

I keep sipping on the small glass of grogue, completely submerged in my inner listlessness, hearing the bubbling laughter and Creole conversation on the fringes of my perception.

---

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Vroom Vroom Vroom!

We’re still bobbing in our seats as the motorbike navigates the sandy, bumpy darkness ahead of us.

I’m still getting hit by the gin-breath of the guy in front of me.

The gin breath that smells like Cape Verdean rum.

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Image: People playing a roadside gambling game in the streets of Santa Maria, Sal Island, Cape Verde.

Sal Island, Cape Verde: An Unrealized Tattoo. 1.

We’re at the bar. The defunct bar. The one in front of Hotel Aeroflot.

I’m at the central table, munching on some chicken and engaging in conversation. Tony is talking about something- every so often he walks over to the grill, to tend to the pieces of chicken he’s barbecuing.

The afternoon is bright and sunny, and the weather is great.

As it usually is on Sal island.

Tony is saying something about squid season. He says it’s currently squid season, and that soon some guys’ll be going out to fish for squid in the ocean.

Hm. Sounds interesting.

I imagine squid has a special place in the hearts of Cape Verdean locals. Because amongst other things you generally don’t really need money to access squid meat. You just need to go out and fish, or something.

For me right now- sitting on this wooden bar stool, staring at the crystal blue Atlantic Ocean barely ten metres away from my position here in the shade, squid meat feels especially accessible to me right now.

Like I could walk right into the ocean right now, and straight-up grab some squid.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just hungry.

I probably just need to accompany people on a squid fishing expedition or something, to get some of that calamari in my system.

But stuff like eg sausages? Imported stuff you can only get at the mini-mercados? All that stuff costs money.

And honestly, thinking about anything that requires me to have units of bank-issued currency right now- That- that just gives me a headache.

I’ve got no money.

The sorts of currency I possess, exist in other forms: I’ve got time. I’ve got my hands and legs to walk about and do stuff.

Accessing my needs via these channels – that feels way less stressful than having to think of bank issued currency as a factor intermediating between me my essential life needs.

Hm- You know, I might just go along on that squid-hunting expedition with the people Tony is talking about.

---

We’re still chatting.

There’s me, Tony, Danny and his wife who are on vacation (from the US, I think), Roberto, and sometimes Romano.

Tony has been friends with Danny and his wife- for like a number of years I think. They visit Cape Verde every now and then, and when that happens they meet up with Tony and co. They’re very nice people. They’re generally the ones bankrolling our supply of barbecued chicken right now.

I can’t complain: I live for free in a studio apartment here at the defunct Hotel Aeroflot. I spend my time generally trying to figure out my next steps in life – me being on a gap year from college in the US and all.

Again, I have no money. These wonderful people periodically set some chicken here up on a grill – about thirty seconds from where I wake up in the morning. They provide food, drinks and much needed company.

I’m not complaining. I’m not complaining at all.

Danny’s wife made fun of me one time. We were through with the chicken- and then not long after, I mentioned that I wanted to head somewhere to do something.

She looked at me and went, “Yeah go ahead. Eat and Run”.

Funny. Very funny. Great wordplay.

But I didn’t find it funny. Not at the time at least. I was actually pretty hurt. It spoke too directly to the reality of my financial situation. I didn’t even notice the wordplay until much later.

Haha. Hahaha. “Eat and Run”. Hah.

---

I’ve been thinking of getting a tattoo.

The thought has been very pronounced in my mind.

Like an impulse. Not a rushed spur-of-the-moment impulse, no.

It feels like something I absolutely need to do. Like something necessary. Like something vital – something that fulfils some deep-seated psychological need.

I don’t really get it.

It’s like there’s this groove in my personal space of thoughts, that I find myself periodically being sucked into once I’m in its vicinity.

Like:

Hm, I need to figure out what to do today. Mohammed says I can get some bread and coffee at the Baye Fall meeting later this evening. I need to go charge my laptop at some point – some documents I need to work on. Tony is saying something interesting about the tourist agencies on — TATTOOOOOOOO

Like this screaming voice that hijacks my thoughts every now and then.

I don’t really understand the feeling.

But I’m not fighting it.

---

I’ve been thinking about what sort of a tattoo to get.

Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons has really been on my mind over like the past year or so.

I got introduced to it in freshman year of college – in Multimodal Communications class.

It’s supposed to be some sort of abstract art, but with words.

So- similar to how abstract visual art generally doesn’t seem to have obvious denotative suggestions, but rather depends on some sort of mental state/contextual understanding that you project onto it to give it meaning, Tender Buttons does not make sense when you read the literal words in its pages.

It has sentences like “The change in that is that red weakens an hour”.

Sorry, the change in what?

It generally requires you to think about words and the intention behind a sequence of words in a different mosaic-esque sort of way, to make some meaning of it.

Stein’s intention behind the work was to enable the reader “understand without remembering”– something like that. Like you’re reading English words you come across every day, but these words elicit images in your mind that remind you of nothing you’ve ever encountered before.

I think.

Honestly with art sometimes I can’t tell if something is profound and surreal and shockingly non-intuitive, or if the whole thing is a scam and everyone’s just having an “Emperor’s new clothes” effect.

Regardless, there’s a specific line from the book that has been resonating in my thoughts since Berlin.

“All this and not ordinary, not unordered in not resembling. The difference is spreading.”

It has honestly felt like some sort of a spiritual mantra to me in recent times. Like a bible verse I clutch tightly to and build my life around, because it makes me feel safe.

That’s what that has been like.

I’ve been thinking of getting that as a tattoo. Around my arm somehow.

I’m still trying to figure out how to do it exactly.

Hm.

---

Image: Sal Island. Hitching a ride to Santa Maria with two UK tourist guys on the hood of their quad bike.

Calheta Funda.

It’s morning.

The air is slightly cold. I can hear the muffled sound of ocean waves periodically crashing against the shingle beach not far away.

The ground is brown and dry. The desert sand shimmers in the bright Sal-island morning sun.

It’s a new day. I spent the night out in some strange concrete-block enclosement out here in the desert, off the island’s highway. It feels like a balcony, but on the ground floor. I’m not quite sure what to make of it.

It provided considerable shelter from the wind, so that was good. Rain practically never falls on Sal island, so I didn’t have to worry about a roof over my head.

I’m wearing my fancy rain jacket. The dark-green and brown one I bought at a thrift store in San Francisco. It has like ten different zippers. There are honestly zippers on this jacket I haven’t yet figured out how to use.

I’m actually not sure why I bought it – maybe I thought it would prove useful for winter in San Francisco. Maybe I thought it would snow or something. It didn’t, and I don’t think I used the jacket at all that winter.

It ended up becoming my camping jacket. During random night walks in SF, I would end up nestled up in the hills at Corona Heights- entranced by the interesting view of the city from above – the sparkly streetlights and the prominent visual outline of Market street.

Or snuggling up on a bench amidst interesting flowers at Golden Gate Park. The hooded rain jacket with endless zippers and pockets, proved immensely useful then.

---

I’m walking along the shimmering brown desert sand, wondering how the day will unravel. I see a tent up in the distance.

What, a tent?

I thought I was the only one here.

I walk towards it, wondering what’s going on.

Hello!

It’s a cheerful-looking Caucasian man who looks like he’s in his forties. He’s rolling up some stuff around the tent.

We exchange a few pleasantries.

From what I can make of his significantly-accented English, he’s Polish- He and his friend sailed to Sal island (sailed, Wow). I’m not sure where he says they sailed from, but apparently they had a pretty thrilling journey via the ocean, and it wasn’t entirely smooth. Interesting stuff.

He had to have pitched his tent after I fell asleep last night – there was no one around when I got here.

We keep talking. There’s this book he’s very excited about – some guide book for travellers. “Reise Know-How” or something. He has the edition for Cabo Verde – Reise Know-How Cabo Verde something. Apparently it gives a comprehensive outline of interesting activities in Cabo Verde, for travellers. I flip through the book – I find the pictures and the graphics very interesting. It’s all in German though, so I can’t make much of it.

We talk some more as he packs up his stuff and prepares to leave. I’d say he’s a bit shorter than average, but his camping shoes look a little large – I find the look somewhat comical. Chatting excitedly while he prances about in his big shoes. His elation is contagious, and I’m smiling throughout.

---

It’s a different day.

Night. It’s night. Night of a different day.

I’m headed back to Calheta Funda from Murdeira, where I went to get some supplies. The past couple of days have had their ups and downs. I found this really interesting small cave right by the ocean – just big enough for me to snuggle into. It felt really cool- curling up in a cave, surrounded by the numbing crashing of ocean waves, and staring out at the reflection of the moonlight in the water.

A few days ago I headed to Espargos to get some food supplies. All of my stuff was by the cave at the beach. Clothes, shoes, other stuff. It was to my utter dismay that I returned and realized that the tide had risen immensely in the hours I was gone.

My stuff was everywhere. My Vans sneakers were completely missing. I could only find one leg of my formal leather shoes. I had to walk dejectedly along the shoreline, rethinking my life decisions as I trudged along the black pebbles that populated the beach, picking up whatever of my belongings the ocean had heartlessly strewn about.

The tide rose and the ocean threw your stuff all over the place- some never to be seen again. Who do you get angry at? You can’t exactly begin to pump your fist at the indifferent ocean, can you?

As I head towards where I have my things, I come across a pickup truck. There are two people in it. They look like European men. From the company logo on the truck, I know the guys in it are a bunch of surfshop entrepreneurs from Santa Maria. Sal has got a number of great beaches, and so there’s the trend of surfing enthusiasts from Europe with access to capital, setting up surfing and kitesurfing schools for tourists.

As I walk by, I say hello to the surfer guys. We exchange pleasantries. The man in the driver’s seat is eating something from a bowl. He says his wife prepared it ahead of his road trip.

“Good wife right?” He looks up from his food and smiles at me.

I laugh.

We exchange a few more pleasantries as I head on my way.

---

It’s a different day.

I just woke up. I’m looking around, wondering how this new day will unravel.

There’s someone staring at me. It’s a dark-skinned man. He looks suspicious. Like he’s wondering what to make of me.

I wave and say hello.

At some point I walk over to exchange a few sentences.

He’s Senegalese. Or Guinean. Or Gambian. Honestly I’m not sure.

But generally there’s a specific kind of problem I have with these kinds of people: They never understand what I’m doing. They never understand my life.

The idea of “camping by the beach” makes absolutely no sense to them.

They generally do not understand why anyone would spend the night outdoors, by choice. That’s just how the (non-Cape Verdean) African people here tend to think. I don’t know why.

I think another factor that makes things more confusing for them, is that I’m black. If they see a European person spending the night outdoors, they’ll probably think “Okay there’s just a white person doing white person stuff, nothing to see here”.

They see me doing that and they’re thinking “Hm, what is this person trying to do? Is he trying to break into a nearby building? Is he trying to bury a body? Is he trying to ambush passers-by? What could he possibly be doing there? I think I should call the Police, I do not understand what is happening.“

That is exactly the sort of misunderstanding that leads to me getting picked up by the police here. Officers at the Santa Maria station know me by name now. I alight at the station from their Police van, and the people inside are like “Oho, he’s here again”. Hah.

I’m conversing with the Senegalese/Guinean/Gambian looking guy. He works as a security guard in the area. As we talk, I see the suspicion on his face gradually melt away. He progressively warms up to me.

We keep talking. A lady walks up to us – she’s asking him some questions and asking about me. There are a bunch of kids behind her. And a dog.

He says she’s his brother’s wife. He probably doesn’t mean literal brother. Maybe “fellow Senegalese/Guinean/Gambian person”. Probably.

He offers me some food. He’s eating bread and something.

We keep talking. I take a bunch of selfies with the lady and the kids and the dog.

Thankfully there’s no misunderstanding today.

---

Image: Somewhere in the desert of Sal island.

Desert Meanderings. 1.

It’s a random night in January.

I’m walking along Sal’s major highway – the one that extends along the island’s longitudinal axis like a vein.

I’m headed towards Santa Maria, at the southernmost end of the island.

The road is smooth and empty. Population here is low relative to land area, so the road is usually empty at any given instance in time – as far as the eye can see.

I enjoy playing dreamy surreal songs from Wildlight while walking along this road at night. Autograf too. I like their music too for stuff like this.

I walk along the edge of the road as it wraps over a hill. On a good hill you can see the edges of the island. During the day.

I think it’s an interesting feeling: Standing on a highway and being able to see the water lapping against different shores delineating the island. It makes you much more keenly aware that you’re really just standing on a piece of land surrounded by water.

Any piece of ground anywhere on the planet is a part of an expanse of land surrounded by water, but it’s just never really something you’re very conscious of- until you’re staring at the different edges of the stretch of land you’re standing on.

---

I’ve just come across someone. A guy. He’s about the same age as I am. Thereabouts.

There’s a tall structure off the highway. A little into the desert. I’m not sure what it is. It looks like something in-between a lighthouse and a telecommunications mast.

I think I was walking towards it out of curiosity when I came across him. He works security there. He’s on a night shift.

We talk for a bit. He’s from the Gambia I think.

There’s something of a language barrier, so we can’t communicate extensively. We spend some time hanging out in his living quarters. It’s a small room at the base of the tall structure. We’re talking about Santa Maria, and watching some Youtube videos on his phone.

It’s strange seeing technology from the perspective of an insider-somewhat. To a lot of people an app is really just a name that they generally associate with the emotions they experience from using it.

And the company behind the app, the people who build are maintain it, are really just this nebulous, extra-terrestrial and omniscient “They”. “The YouTube people”, “The Google people”, etc.

I recently spent about a year living in Silicon Valley, and so that gave me something of an insider perspective into apps and software technology in general. There’s the insider perspective you get from learning about how the tech works, and there’s the social dimension you get from living in a place that’s renowned for software development.

The people behind the apps are neither nebulous, nor extra-terrestrial, nor omniscient. They’re people. Like everyone else. Things that generally happen to people also happen to them.

---

At some point I feel like I should head back on the road. I mention that to him. We talk a bit more as we head out of his quarters.

He looks like he could use some company on his solitary nights shifts. He also seems to miss his family back in The Gambia.

We exchange our goodbyes and I head out into the night.

---

Image: Hanging off some weathered rocks somewhere on the western edge of Sal island.

Sal: An Uneventful Weekend.

I woke up a few minutes ago.

I’m still on the bed. The faded pink – you know I don’t know if the mattress is actually pink. Or if it was pink before the colour faded so much. It looks pinkish now though. It’s a dull dispirited pink that has definitely had better days.

I’m on the mattress, hearing the rusty springs inside it softly creak as my weight shifts.

Fucking Simon.

He said he was going to get me a better mattress.

Come to think of it, he said he was going to get me a lot of things. That was why he charged me a bit extra for the room.

For example, he also said he was going to install locks on the door.

At some point I realized all of that was never going to happen. And so I stopped bothering him. I have more prominent life quandaries to contemplate anyway.

---

I feel listless and unenthusiastic.

I’m wearing my camping jacket. The dark green one I bought at a thrift shop in San Francisco. I’m wearing it indoors now, I’m not quite sure why. I guess it helps me feel warm. Warm and protected somehow.

I head out the door of the studio apartment.

It’s a dull day. The sky is somber and grey. It’s almost like it’s echoing my mood.

Today’s sky is actually atypical. Sal island is usually sunny like all the time.

When I first got here, one of things I found extremely thrilling was how clear the sky was. Sometimes there would be practically no clouds. Just this sparkling hue of entrancing blue.

Today there’s no stimulating blue to lift my spirits.

---

I’m on the walkway, trudging by the row of neighbouring apartments.

I’m by the staircase. The wide staircase that leads to the apartments on the storey above.

There are a bunch of Cape Verdeans neighbours sitting down and having a chat.

To hell with it – I think I’ll join them.

---

I’m sitting amidst the group. Gleaning whatever I can of their conversation in Creole.

Nino is in the group.

Nino looks very different from the rest of them.

He is a Sambajud.

Sambajuds are generally first-generation mixed-race Cape Verdeans. They’re usually very light skinned, and usually you can tell just from looking at them. This is in contrast to the Badiu who are generally darker-skinned – way more Cape Verdean than they are Caucasian, although they might have some European streaks in their ancestry somewhere.

I feel like Cape Verdeans generally – even the most Badiu of them, are not entirely genetically African – whatever that means. In relative terms, the most Badiu Cape Verdeans will generally have some features different from what you’ll find in more mainland Africa.

For example their hair has larger curls. In like more inland West Africa people generally have hair with type 4C curls – tightly coiled strands of hair that generally give the impression of being one coherent mass.

Badiu Cape Verdeans will have more 3C sort of curls – wavy springy hair – what your hair strands would look like if you wrapped them around a pencil or a crayon. I think it’s because the Cape Verdean archipelago has historically been some sort of cultural confluence – a port for European cargo etc ships on their way back to Europe (I learnt this from Tony while I was having drinks with him and Peverto the other day) – with people of African descent generally accompanying them as underlings – as is usually the historical case.

Something I’ve never quite understood – why aren’t there any historical stories (or at least none that I know of) of colonial empires which grew out of the African continent? At that time there wasn’t such a widespread moral objection to colonization – it was just what people did. People rampaged whatever territories they could, and abducted its inhabitants as slaves- expanding their own empire and furthering their own fictive narrative of ethnic superiority.

My question then is, why was the colonizer-colonized dynamic so biased against the people from the African continent?

For a group of people to successfully, continually, and persistently overpower another group they need to have access to resources the other group does not. Somehow. They have to be at some sort of advantage – have some sort of an edge.

Technology? But these different groups of people had existed for about the same time. None had a significant temporal head start – if any, the people on the African continent did have the head start, because I believe there’s evidence suggesting that human life began in Africa – something like that.

Co-operation? Large-scale inter-tribal co-operation? E.g on say a national scale? Maybe. I think that’s an actual possibility. Maybe the absence of co-operation and a collective identity on a much larger scale than tribes or regional kingdoms – maybe that makes it more likely to be overpowered by a coherent group unified at say a national level. But then there are questions of relative size. Some Western European countries are relatively tiny. Size-wise, how would they compare to say a kingdom elsewhere with a larger geographical area/more people? I don’t know.

Differences in the collective priority attached to innovation? That’s another one.

The discovery of technology that dramatically catalysed technological progress? Eg writing?

For example if one society discovers writing before the other, you’d expect a positively nonlinear acceleration of progress in that society – because all of a sudden people can reliably share large amounts of information more quickly, more effectively, more efficiently. That’s one possibility that occurred to me a while ago. I should look through research papers in Sociology to see if it’s something people have already talked about.

---

One of the Cape Verdeans hands me a stick of marijuana. They’ve been passing it around as they engaged in their Creole conversation.

As the joint floats in my direction, I ask myself:

Hm, am I really in the mood for weed today?

Do I feel like today is that sort of day?

The joint gets closer.

Ah to hell with it. I’m in a weird-ass mood today anyway.

I accept the joint and take in some puffs.

I feel my headspace gradually begin to transition, as the THC perfuses my bloodstream.

oooooKAYYyy. Now I’m in a different place.

I’ll just chill here for a while longer. Hazy with drowsy and distant excitement while immersed in the gargle of excited Creole chattering around me.

---

Image:

Random night on Sal. I was trying to get into a casino- “Casino Royale” along Avenida dos Hoteis in Santa Maria. But I wasn’t granted entry because I wasn’t wearing actual shoes. My actual formal shoes were swept away by the ocean waves on a night I spent at the beach a few weeks prior. They were both frustrating nights.

Mango Trip.

It’s a random day. A random morning.

I’m hungry.

I’m walking along the cobblestone road which cuts across the entrance of Hotel Aeroflot – the place where I stay.

There are a couple pawpaw trees nearby.

Every now and then I come along and steal a couple. I think the trees are mostly for decoration, but Hey, fruits!

There don’t seem to be any pluckable pawpaws today.

I keep heading down the road.

I walk past a few coconut trees.

A few boys recruited me into their coconut plucking mission the other day.

They asked if one of them could stand on my shoulders so he could reach the coconuts up ahead.

I said Haha okay.

They got a number of coconuts that day.

---

There’s a mango tree up ahead.

Hm. Mangoes. Hmm.

Sounds like an interesting idea.

I’m watching the tree from a distance, thinking of how to most effectively to approach it.

---

I’m at the tree. I’m attempting to pluck a number of fruits.

There’s a queue of tourists not far from me. I think they’re trying to check into the lodge here. The mango tree is in front of the lodge.

Something happens somehow, and I find myself in conversation with some of the tourists. I think someone was curious and and amused, and they asked what I was doing – something like that.

So we’re talking.

I’m talking with this couple from the UK. They should be in their forties or fifties. Or maybe late fifties.

They’re both doctors.

We’re talking about a number of things.

They say they were recently on a number of other islands in the country. We talk a bit about some of their experiences there.

They were recently at Sao Vicente. Sao Vicente is one of the other islands which comprise the Cape Verdean archipelago.

I’d really like to visit Sao Vincente.

Someone said they have a lot of parties there. Someone I met at Terra Boa – the town around the centre of this island – Sal. His name was Aurelio.

He said “Sao Vincente? Festa! Every time Festa! Every time!”

Haha. Sounds like an interesting place.

I keep talking with the Doctor couple.

The woman says something about her husband – says his knuckles are dragging on the ground or something like that.

I’m not quite familiar with the expression.

She explains a bit more.

I think it alludes to being something of a luddite.

In his defence he says a lot of recent technology just doesn’t go down well with him.

He talks about how they send tax reports in the UK.

I think it’s tax reports. Something like that. Some document they prepare and submit to the government.

He said previously you had to walk down to the office and physically turn in the document. That there was a resounding feeling of finality to that process.

“Now there’s just some page on the internet where you click a button to submit, and that’s it.”

“It’s just not the same thing. It just isn’t.”

Hahaha.

He says he prefers to still walk down to the office to turn things in.

That he’s never going to be comfortable with just doing that on a screen.

Haha.

We keep talking.

---

A man just walked out of the hotel entrance.

He’s Cape Verdean.

He’s pointing his finger and yelling at me in Creole.

Hm. I wonder what’s going on.

I think he might be the hotel manager.

Yeah. Yeah he is. Yeah he’s the hotel manager.

“Go away! You! Go away! Go and get a job!”

“Do you have job?”

He stares at me and asks on the very top of his voice.

“Do you have job?”

“Go and get a job! Go! Go!”

I have some sort of an understanding of what is happening.

He thinks I’m trying to ingratiate myself with the tourists somehow. With the intention of somehow getting money from them.

That’s something people here generally do. Tourists and tourism are the primary source of revenue on this island, and people employ formal and informal techniques to get in on some of that tourist cash.

I don’t know what this hotel manager guy’s problem is.

I was just having a plain conversation.

There aren’t so many people on the island I can converse in English with – everyone speaks Portuguese/Creole.

Ad so it’s usually refreshing coming across people with whom I can have extended conversations in English.

I’m a bit hurt, but I don’t blame him.

He’s not entirely wrong.

I do not have a job, or any serious source of income.

That part is true.

Ugh.

I knew my gap-year decision was going to come with consequences. Being misunderstood was one of them.

In all though, I’m not too bothered by him.

I say goodbye to the friendly tourist couple and head on my way, a few mangoes in hand.

---

Image: Random plant thing somewhere on Sal island.

“Red Wine In Straw”. 2.

I’m sipping some “Super Bock” beer. Wondering how this evening will turn out.

We’re exchanging some light conversation – me and the guy who has offered to host me for the night.

We’re doing what we can, given the language barrier.

Language barriers are so annoying.

I Like, we’re all human beings. Generally we all have this shared space of cognitive concepts we’re all familiar with. I’ve been alive as a human being on this planet for like the past twenty one years. This guy has probably been alive for a similar amount of time. There’s a lot we have in common – just by virtue of the shared experience of existing on this planet as instances of the Homo sapiens species.

But language barriers – language barriers make it seem like we’re completely different species with absolutely nothing in common.

I have things on my mind I’m unable to communicate to you. You have things on your mind you’re unable to communicate to me. I might as well be an ant that communicates with antennas on my head. And you might as well be a dolphin that communicates with underwater sonar signals. Because we’re just unable to exchange thoughts and ideas.

We’re doing so little actual communication because there’s no way to succinctly pass information across. Most of what’s happening between us right now is just vibes. We’re just enjoying this shared congenial vibe over beer at this local bar in the innards of Espargos.

There was this guy I met a while back. I was at a restaurant here in Espargos – I think I had something to eat, and then I was doing some stuff on my computer after. We got talking and he invited me over to his place at Palmeira. We spent over an hour together at his place, but exchanged very few words because of the frustration of the whole language barrier thing.

I was so annoyed. Like, “I know I’m going to like this guy. I know we’re going to be friends somehow, somewhat, to some extent. But we cannot communicate, We. Cannot. Communicate, WHHYYYYY.”

Every now and then I use Google Translate. The app is pretty good, and it translates spoken audio too. But so far it has only proven practical for very brief/more formal conversation.

Like I’m trying to ask if they have say potatoes in stock at a grocery store, and I’m not sure what “potato” means in Portuguese. So I speak into the app, and then a robot-ey voice pronounces the Portuguese equivalent of “potato”.

Those are generally the scenarios in which it has proven very useful.

But informal free-flowing conversation that hinges a lot on that constant continuity and flow in the moment? Especially for people who you’ve just met and are still in the process of building rapport? Nah. Translation apps just kill the vibe. They just don’t work.

---

We’ve left the bar.

We’re heading somewhere – I imagine his living space is the final destination.

We’ve just come across a number of his friends. They seem cool.

One of them is tall and athletic, with a head of mid-length dreadlocks – like a dreadlock afro. I like him.

We’re all walking along the street and chatting.

There’s a club nearby. Interesting multi-coloured lights and stuff outside. There’s a long queue outside the club. It looks interesting. It’s giving me flashbacks. Haha.

Somehow a carton of red wine appears. I think someone bought it.

So there’s this strange wine they have in Cape Verde. It’s not in a bottle. It’s in like a juice pack. Like the large hardcover sort of pack you’ll usually see like family-sized juice in. Yeah like that. But instead they put wine in it. Red wine.

It’s strange. It’s strange but it’s cool and interesting somehow.

So like, I can buy a “juice pack” of red wine at the grocery store on a random evening, take a few steps out of the entrance, sit down on the sidewalk and have myself some red wine. Straight out of the pack. Like I’m sipping juice.

I don’t know how you’d do that with a bottle. Like, first you’ll need to find a bottle-opener. I don’t think you can just ask random people on the road if they happen to have a wine bottle opener in their pocket or their handbag. Haha.

We’re passing the wine around, taking sips. We all have our own straws. So when you’re passed the pack you dip your straw into a hole on top, take a few sips, and then pass it across.

“Red wine in straw!”

It’s the tall guy with afro dreadlocks.

“Red wine in straw!” He says to me excitedly.

So there’s a way Cape Verdean locals speak English. Their pronunciation is different – for example they pronounce the sound “h” with a more pronounced constriction at the back of their mouths so their “h” sounds almost like a “k”.

So they say stuff like “Hkhow? Hkhow you do it Mayowa? Hkhow? Tell me, I want to know.”

There’s also something unusual about the way they space and stress their words.

For example this guy is saying “Red wine in straw”, but he says it like “Red winee IN…..strAW!”

I think it’s strange and amusing.

He has uttered the phrase like ten times now, and each time he said it the exact same way.

Every time he says it I burst into laughter. That’s probably why he keeps saying it. He looks so funny when he says it.

---

Something strange is happening. The initial guy I met at the bar – the one who offered to host me at his place for the night- His mood is souring and I don’t know why.

Every now and then he just stops and turns around and begins to shout and rant angrily in Creole. I don’t know what’s going on. It’s disturbing the vibe of the group. The other people are also concerned.

He doesn’t seem to be angry at anyone or anything in particular. He’s just becoming progressively irascible, and I don’t get it.

I don’t know anything about him, but the whole thing feels like the sort of pre-existing subliminal emotional turmoil that alcohol brings to the surface. I wonder what it is that’s actually stressing him.

We keep walking down the sidewalk.

The “Red wine in straw” guy keeps making me laugh and dismiss the other guy’s strange behaviour.

We keep walking and passing the wine around.

I keep watching as things progress.

All of a sudden the irrational guy walks towards me and drags my propane cylinder out of the crook in my elbow.

I’m watching in surprise. What?

He lifts the cylinder and slams it on the ground.

Ahhhhh!!!!

That’s it.

That is fucking it.

This is the last fucking straw.

Does this guy even know where I’m coming from?

Does this guy know how far I’ve brought this cylinder?

I’ve brought this thing halfway across the island!!

All for it to be ruined by this irascible motherfucker?!

Couchsurfing be damned. I can no longer stay within proximity of this person.

I pick up the cylinder and angrily walk away.

---

I’m about fifteen minutes away before I gradually begin to calm down.

I am still fuming and muttering to myself.

Irrational motherfucker. I wonder what the fuck his problem is.

Just threw the cylinder on the ground like that. For no fucking reason.

Fucker.

It’s almost midnight.

I have no idea where I’m going to spend the night.

The streets are pretty quiet.

Hm.

Hopefully the police doesn’t find me wandering about in the dead of the night.

Ugh. No. Not today please. Not tonight.

Every now and then I find myself in some sort of an issue with the island police. For the most random things. And like, I’m never actually doing anything wrong. Usually. It’s usually just some sort of a misunderstanding somehow.

A good number of the police guys know me by name at this point.

Like, now they call out to me and wave whenever we cross paths.

“Like Hey Mister Strange man, hope you’re doing good today. And hope you’re not planning to get into any trouble on this new day”.

I’m this guy whose life nobody understands, no-one including myself.

I’m not in the mood to spend another night being the butt of jokes from those annoying Police guys.

Let’s see what’s going to happen.

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Image: At Praia Antonio D’Souza. The beach on the southernmost end of Sal island, Cape Verde.

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This post is one in a series. The other pieces in the series can be accessed here.