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.

A Story of a Hungry Gap-Year Student and some Untouched Hotel Food.

It is an afternoon on the island of Sal.

I am headed somewhere.

Maybe to find some electricity to charge my computer.

Maybe.

I am headed somewhere to do something.

My computer is in my backpack.

---

I am hungry. I am immensely hungry.

I have not had a decent meal in a good while.

Usually my sense of personal pride and agency is sustenance enough to withstand the discomfort of physical hunger.

But every now and then, even that gets depleted.

And then I resort to my tagline:

Hello, I’m a student on a gap year from college in the US. Do you think you could help me with some money?

Usually people are sympathetic. Cape Verdean natives are generally very generous. Not with money- not really, because they themselves might not have so much to spare. But with empathy, with goodwill, with food, with company, and with alcohol.

Usually the problem with generous Cape Verdean men playing board games at local bars, is that I end up with a hangover the next morning- From drinking ill-advised amounts of Grogue– their unfamiliar rum.

Tourists generally have more money to spare, but I’m even less inclined to ask them for money because usually they’re Europeans on vacation in the Cape Verdean islands. And so there’s a perspective from which it’s really just some disadvantaged Black guy- You know, just one of the innumerable disadvantaged Black people in the news, asking some White guy for money.

I think that’s an immensely horrible picture. And it’s just absolutely horrendous imagining myself as the disadvantaged Black guy happily receiving Aid.

I’d rather just stay hungry.

I don’t enjoy having to depend on people’s sympathy, and so I usually avoid employing that “Gap year student” tagline.

But every now and then, push comes to shove and I have to admit the reality of my current financial situation.

---

I am hungry. I am immensely hungry.

I am walking through a cobblestoned walkway in Odjo D’Agua hotel.

Odjo D’Agua is a four-star hotel on a rocky promontory of Praia D’Antonio Souza- Sal island’s southern beach.

I think it’s a really interesting hotel. It’s owned by a Cape Verdean native. I don’t know for certain that he owns the hotel, but it’s not unlikely. He definitely feels like someone with the means. Plus, he does not have the air of an employee. He moves with the air of someone who built something from scratch. Or maybe it’s just me.

I think Odjo D’Agua is really interesting, and I’m particularly fond of it because it’s the most prominent Cape Verdean hotel on the island. It’s the most prominent one which actually aims to promote Cape Verdean culture and tradition, in addition to providing a luxurious hotel experience.

Pretty much all of the other renowned hotels are foreign. They’re also really interesting, I’ve spent some time exploring a few. I just think it’s important for a good proportion of the most prominent hotels to be locally-owned, and designed to promote the native culture. Like, what’s the point of even spending time in a country if you aren’t going to soak in as much of the culture as you can.

I was in a conversation with his younger brother- The hotel owner’s younger brother, at his own restaurant in Espargos earlier in the year: Caldera Preta.

Caldera Preta. Black Pot. That’s the name of the restaurant.

Odjo D’Agua means Sea View.

It was my first time meeting him. I picked up the menu, wondering what to order. A dark-skinned man in a light white beard turned to me and said “Sorry, we don’t have pizza today”. In case I was thinking of ordering pizza.

We began to engage in conversation. Interesting guy.

At some point he mentioned his older brother- who I didn’t know at the time, and some issues he was facing with directing tourist streams towards his hotel.

A lot of the foreign-owned hotel chains in Cape Verde have their visitors book all-inclusive stays. So you’ve got tourists coming in from Europe and the US, booking their stay at these foreign-owned hotels- complete with food, island tours, recreation, etc, before even stepping foot into the country. And so most of the money they’re ever going to spend while in Cape Verde, is going to be spent inside these foreign hotels.

Of course that’s a problem for locally-owned hotels who do not have as much of an established presence, both online and in the scene of international tourism. Or locally-owned restaurants who don’t experience as much patronage because the tourists have all their gastronomic needs met in their walled-in, all-inclusive hotels.

Impecunious gap year student that I am, I definitely empathise with the local business-owners.

---

I am walking through a cobblestoned walkway in Odjo D’Agua hotel.

I am walking by the dining area, which is separated by some palm trees and decorative plants.

The owner of the hotel is having a meal. He seems to be having a date with some woman.

She looks very young. Relative to him at least. She looks like she’s in her thirties. The Odjo D’Agua guy on the other hand, must be at least Seventy. Or sixty-something.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s not a date. Maybe they’re just having lunch. Maybe I’m just reading into things.

I keep walking.

---

Not so long ago, I was having a conversation with a tourist couple from the UK on the Santa Maria pier. The man was mentioning to his wife about the fibreglass job on one of the fishermen’s boats, and how it was similar to that on their own boat in the UK.

I was curious what fibreglass was, and they seemed like friendly people so I asked them a question.

We ended up talking for about thirty minutes on the pier.

We talked about the man’s profession and his career decisions, we talked about their recent Safari vacation in I think, Tanzania. When I mentioned I was studying Computer Science in the US, he told me the husband of one of his daughters worked in Tech, and was doing VERY WELL. Like, VERY WELL in Caps.

That’s one aspect of the entire conundrum I’m grappling with during this gap year. Everyone says Tech is a great professional domain to venture into. I’ve got the skillset for it, but I don’t feel like that’s the path for me. Usually people are primarily concerned about the financial prospects of a career path. That’s usually enough motivation to forge ahead. For some reason I’m not really like that.

How am I like? What am I like? I don’t know. That’s why I’m here on some island in Cape Verde with no money in the first place. To figure things out.

At some point our conversation touched on the Odjo D’Agua hotel. The man said they had been vacationing in Cape Verde for a number of decades. He said initially the entire southern beach of Sal island used to be empty. There was nothing there. No one. No businesses, no restaurants, no Windsurfing schools, nothing. Just the Odjo D’Agua hotel.

I found the span of his perspective immensely interesting. That was something a person my age would just like, never know. Just because they weren’t alive or usefully sentient back then. That was something I could really only learn from talking to someone much older than me.

Given that one piece of information, it was very possible to visualise the trend of business-population formation on the beach over time. Initially it was just the Odjo D’Agua guy. And then as both the tourist numbers and the awareness of tourism as a stream of national income increased, businesses gradually began to dot the beach.

In your head, you could practically visualise the beach populate over time.

I thought that was really interesting to think about.

---

I am heading back.

I am walking back through a cobblestoned walkway in Odjo D’Agua hotel.

The Odjo D’Agua guy and his “date” have left the table.

The hotel owner guy left his food practically untouched.

I need to get back to the—

—-

WAAAAAIIIITTTTTTTT

The hotel owner guy left his food practically untouched.

There is Food on that table. Food- There is Food on that table. Practically untouched Food.

What is going to be done with the Food???

Yeh! What is going to happen to the food??!!

In this very moment, my body ceases to be my own. My legs begin to march around the palm trees and decorative plants, towards the hotel dining area.

What Rubbish.

Because he owns a 4-star hotel he thinks he can waste food however he wants.

What Nonsense.

I find myself seated at the table. My backpack is on the ground, resting against one of the table legs.

The rice in the plate ahead of me begins to rapidly disappear.

As I sit there, munching and fuming, face practically buried in the plate of rice, I vaguely perceive a uniformed being hovering over me.

I am completely incapable of processing what is happening. All of the currently ensuing events are far outside the circumference of my shrunken consciousness.

My sole concern in life right now, is effectively seeing to the plate of rice before me.

---

I am about to finish the rice. Hunger somewhat assuaged, my sense of environmental-awareness gradually begins to expand to its usual extent.

Now I have the cognitive resources to process the visual signals I was receiving earlier.

The hovering uniformed being was a waiter at the hotel.

The waiter carted away the bowl of chicken on the table.

Ah that’s true, there was chicken.

A pang of grief stings me. I find myself grieving the departed chicken.

Why did the waiter take the bowl of chicken away? Couldn’t they see I had plans for it?

I finish up with the rice.

At some point my ears begin to function, and I can hear the ocean waves crashing against the beach a number of metres to my left.

I couldn’t hear all of that before.

I drink some water and prepare to leave, fuming sub-vocally at the overzealous waiter.

I pick up my backpack and sling it across my shoulder, as I find my way out of the hotel dining area.

Today has not been such a bad day.

Not so bad. Not so bad at all.

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Image: Random day at the Santa Maria Pier, with the Odjo D’Agua Hotel in the background.

Calheta Funda: Ethereal Visions, Voyaging Discomfiture, Craggy Rocks and a Shingle Beach.

Ilha do Sal, Cape Verde.

February 2017.

Waves periodically crash against the black rocky shores of Calheta Funda.

 

I shift a little in the cave where I lie- the ground is hard and interspersed with pointed edges; I am shifting to minimize my discomfort.

[What song was I playing?]

There is a hole in the roof of the cave. I stretch my right hand outwards through it. Maybe cellular reception will be substantially better outside.

 

---

 

Waves periodically crash against the black rocky shores of Calheta Funda.

I am thoroughly heartbroken.

There are a number of unattended messages on my phone. A number of people wish to interact.

I do not want to talk to them. I do not want to talk to anybody.

I miss my girlfriend.

I’m scrolling through her pictures again. This is probably where I expend an inordinate proportion of my internet data budget- scrolling through pictures.

I miss my girlfriend.

It feels like I have the emotional space to care for very little else. People wise? Nobody. I do not feel like I have any room to spare. The entirety of my emotional insides feel thoroughly wounded.

I was watching the waves earlier in the afternoon. The rippling crest of each wave looked like a troop of glittering translucent horses, each racing all of the others-determined to reach the shore first.

The wave crest had layers of these ripples- these horses. And every few seconds, a new layer of water horselets would clamber over the row preceding it.

I found it fascinating.

 

---

 

Yes, cellular reception is indeed better outside the cave. I withdraw my arm. The page on the screen is done loading.

I think back to a number of popular scary stories I used to hear people tell when I was younger. In Nigeria. Superstitious stories. Stories about mermaids that transformed themselves into beautiful women, with the intention of wreaking havoc on the lives of men.

And apparently being alone right next to the sea at night had its caveats, because these very dangerous women could emerge at anytime to accost one.

I have been sleeping in this cave for a number of days. No maleficent mermaid has come to demand rent from me, not yet.

Psht. Nigerian superstitions.

 

The sound of the waves is calming once you get used to it. It’s very easy to learn to see the waves as your friend- the ocean as your bosom companion on your solitary, amply-apprehension-inducing expedition.

Bosom companion my foot. I got back from the city the other day and virtually all of my food supplies were gone. One half of my pair of skateboarding shoes. The entire pair of the Italian shoes- the ones I only ever wore like once- with the suit in San Francisco.

I searched and searched in vain.

Bosom companion my foot.

Please make calming soothing sounds as much as you want, just don’t touch me or my things ever again.

—

I very recently learnt of the term “Shingle beach”. It’s a beach consisting of rocks- smoothed and rounded by progressive weathering by the waves, in lieu of sand. I did not know that before.

“Shingle beach”. Hah.

—

I shift a little in the cave.

I have very little money left. I’ve inserted discreet job-hunting into my island exploration bucket list.

 

Virtuality the entire rectitude of my future plans depends on some research I am conducting- which in turn is presently typified by a piece of computer code I am working on.

A piece I have been working on for more than a month now.

I wonder what sort of an impression a person who had very little experience with technology, would have of my current situation.

 

Like, hey. Hey, look at me. I am pushing a number of black buttons on this silver piece of metal. Is there some sort of reason to my pushing these buttons? Some sort of order? Some sort of rationality?

Who knows?

The meaning is only known to me. I believe I know what I am doing. Against all of the scaldingly adversarial social currents. To you I might as well be a monkey at a piano.

And yes. Here I am- on this island where I know absolutely no one- in this country within which I know absolutely no one personally. and my entire future and my entire life is reliant on the sensibility of all of these my disconcertingly abstruse endeavours.

Hah.

Goodluck to me.

Good good, luck to me.

I am playing a metal song I just downloaded. I’m not particularly sure what the singer is saying. I think the volume is too high.

But it’s Metal. There is really no such thing as the volume being to high, is there.

I am outside the cave now. I am staring into the stars.

I hear people’s voices in my head. People I know- people I used to know. I can hear them talking. Not to me, no. About me. I can hear these people talking about me. I am not sure what it means.

You know how feel when someone you hold in some sort of regard, gives you a compliment? Yeah? Good?

This is like that, but the other way round. Like I feel a particular way, and then in my head I hear these people saying things about me, that usually would inspire that sort of a feeling.

Like inverted ethereal complimenting. I am not really sure what it means, or what purpose it serves- not really.

The Metal song is still playing.

 

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Waves periodically crash against the black rocky shores of Calheta Funda.

The moon is floating in the sky, entirely immersed in adoring its glamorous reflection in the black waving water.

I am thoroughly heartbroken.

Crystal black sky.

Stars.

The Metal song is still playing.