Dear Family,
The subject of my email really doesn´t hold any significance other than that it is a track on one of my companion´s cds that we were listening to the other day. It´s some folk song.
So last week I went on about how I was going to get a hair cut and even sent ´´before´´ pictures. Well, I didn´t end up getting a much needed haircut. This is because the task I mentioned that we were doing last week ended up taking up our entire P-day. It was a sad day. We only barely managed to get our shopping, email, and lunch in. And we didn´t even accomplish what we were trying to accomplish. Thank you TACV for ruining my P-day. However, today for sure I will be chopping this mop off of my head. Or at least trimming it a touch.
This past week is been pretty good as far as teaching. We have already taught as many lessons up to now as we did all of last week. And we have one investigator set up for baptism next week. And we have found a few more that may potentially be baptised in the following few weeks. However, I think I´m leaving this transfer, July 5th, but I still don´t know. I feel bad for the General Secretaries because they have to try and order all the plane tickets for transfers less than a week before transfers. Again. Needless to say, I´m sure I´m getting off of Santiago which is nice to see other parts of Cape Verde, but I will be going out to the boonies. Praia is the only place with real grocery stores, and all the other islands only get mail and packages once or twice a transfer depending on whether or not President or the Assistants remember to grab the mail when they go out to other islands for things.
Mom wanted a comprehensive overview of my area, so here goes.
First off, there are really only 2 ´´cities´´ in Cape Verde, Praia and Mindelo. Everything else is either a town, a glorified town, a village, or a countryside. On the island of Santiago, which I´m on right now, there are two other towns of report, Tarrafal and Assomada. We have missionaries in both. We went to Tarrafal last transfer for our office activity and are planning on going to Assomada for our activity this transfer, next week. They are both more green than Praia. The mission office is in a nicer neighborhood. Which isn´t saying much. You can have a really nice house right next to a lot with a half built, abandoned house. Or a nice house next to a one room dwelling that has been patched up with wood planks and sheet metal. Everything here is built with cinderblocks. The difference between the nice houses and the others is that the nice ones have a layer of cement over the blocks, making a smooth face, and paint. There are a lot of buildings here that have one or two finished floors then leave the top floor unfinished. I heard that might be because of tax purposes. For example, if taxes were lower for unfinished buildings, then build a house and start building another floor but leave it halfway done so although you are living in the house, it´s ´´unfinished´´.
I don´t know. things here are different. Traffic is still crazy. I will need someone to drive with me my first few times when I get back to make sure I didn´t pick up to many bad habits here. I will be glad for real traffic laws though. Here they have all sorts of crosswalks everywhere and people just walk across without checking to see if anyone is coming. And since it´s a crosswalk, you have to yield to pedestrians. And that´s only if they choose to cross on a crosswalk. Pedestrians here drive me crazy. Drivers here do as well. Especially with speed bumps. People here will slow to 5 Km/h to cross a speed bump. It´s ridiculous.
The basic diet is beans and rice. Sometimes chicken. My favorite native dish is Cachupa. It´s basically just beans and vegetables and meat chunks, but it´s really good. I want to learn how to make it so I can make it when i get back. The thing is, every island has its own varient of Cachupa, and there really isn´t a recipe for it. We´ll see what I can come up with. The stores here in Praia have good quality stuff. I hear the other islands... not so much.
Anyways, Hope you enjoyed this issue of ´´Canute is still in Africa´´
Thanks for all of the updates, and keep it up. I like to hear from you especially when you mention the little every day things like ´´Julie stuffed food down the sink so I would think she ate her food so she could have a popsicle.´´ That stuff is hilarious.
~Elder Peterson
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