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Day 131 - 11 November 2005 São Vicente and a day of rest Off to S. Vicente for a primeira vez! here it goes-keep up. so the big boat is out of commission lately because of routine maintenance. so what’s “in commission,” you ask? why the klunk-a-klunk, per dunk-a-dunk as my favorite children book writer would say. the good ol’ li’l boat. the li’l tinker of a glorified fishing boat with a corrugate plastic “roof” that is most famous for waddling across the channel and swayin with such force that half the passengers end up losing their lunch. of course, the old man selling the tix for the boat is even more famous for charging people of lighter skin color twice as much for the ride, whether they be tourists or not. so I try to buy a ticket from the guy, obviously speaking the local language that no tourist would speak or even understand and he looks around for an old pack of tix from last year, makes it out and tells me to pay twice as much as the CVeans around me are paying. WTF mate?? so I don’t give him any money and I ask why? he calls me that dirty word “turista” and says that they pay this price and the “mós” (meaning dude) behind me only needs to pay the local price. so the volume of my voice automatically elevates as I tell him that I live very close in the next neighborhood and that I’ve already lived here for 2 months and will be here for 2 years working for PC. then he says no and shows me some list of tourists that are supposed to come in today and that I have to pay like them. I again tell him I’m not a tourist and ask if it’s only bcuz of my white skin that he wants me to pay like a tourist. I then ask (in a yellin tone) that if I stayed in the sun longer till I was more black, would he charge me the local price then. so he gets mad, takes the ticket he just filled out for me and puts it down behind the counter and does his usual old man uncontrollable shaking thing and looks completely overwhelmed as he screens the crowd. so I look at the guy behind me super pissed off and he looks back at me and shrugs his shoulders like he feels sorry for me. WTF!! so after a minute or so I say fine, gimme the ticket and gimme my change and I storm out of there, all pissed off. so much for the weekend startin off on a good note. and so of course I go down to the dock and proceed to wait for the next 3 hours while the boat unloads passengers and cargo, then loads cargo goin the other way. after all the cargo and all of the passengers’ big bags are loaded on deck, I finally get to push and shove my way onto the boat (there is little organization and personal courtesy here). so is the boat as fun as it sounds, you ask? lemme get a HELL YEAH! the baby boat is definitely a swaggerer and feels like it’s gonna tip right over as waves periodically splash up the side of it, spritzing the entire deck of us as a “WHOOOOOOOAA!” goes over the crowd. it’s fun the first few times, then the sun disappears behind a cloud and it continues to get colder with the wind tunnel of a deck in full effect. I notice a bunch of folks startin to not look so good. and then one woman pulls a bucket out of nowhere! that’s right folks, it’s a barf bucket, and boy did she use it. her head must’ve been in that thing a good half of the trip. a few other ladies around her brought their own plastic bags. what a community effort! after a good hour of some undelightful sights and sounds, we arrived and I was a bit frigid in my shorts and undershirt. thankfully it was warm and sunny in the big city and I made my way to a fellow volunteer’s place. so for my first trip to the big city, my buddy decides to show me around a bit after a bit of a rough night. what a trooper. he takes me to a café that has REAL DSL internet at lightning speeds! (basic DSL back in the states) the café is a pretty groovy lookin place with a full bar and modern furnishings and a big screen TV. it’s a whole new world for me. so I meet the owner of the place- he’s a cool guy and speaks perfect English, something I will come to notice a lot of people in the big city tend to do. then we make our way to my buddy’s work and I meet the folks and the kids and get a quick glimpse into his professional life there. a bunch of cutie patootie crianças a few super nice ladies runnin the place. but there is one that confuses me. she’s so angry and my buddy totally provokes her. she has this super bitter, hate-a-everythin attitude that just keeps on givin. and my buddy loves it! I just don’t get it, why is she so angry? so after a good half hour of feze sexu teasing with her, we split and make a pit stop next door to visit a few of his Norwegian friends who are also volunteering at the organization next door. so we make plans to kick it with them later. then we make a break for lunch. the first place we try to go is this rooftop canopy-covered open air deck café. cool lookin place, but there’s some guy using a high power drill on one side of the deck and my buddy’s headache can’t take it, so we take off only for the drill guy to point his drill playfully and my buddy and scare him off. what a psycho! (the drill guy, not my buddy) so we walk around and find this place with some sort of nautical décor and I hit up the espetatas! soooo good. and yes, we have a HOTHOTHOT waitress. it’s a pretty cool lookin place. so we bounce I go to get my key made, which was the main reason for my trip. so I’ve been havin trouble tryin to get a copy of our downstairs door key bcuz it’s not one of the standard types of keys. already had trouble in my town, so I came to the big city to find the right type of key. I find a shop that makes copies and both the owner and I look at the key to see if it will work. we don’t know, so he tells me he’ll make one and I can go try it, but I tell him I live on the next island so I need my 3 copies now and hopefully I’ll have good luck this time. so he reluctantly makes my copies and I go on my merry way, only to find that the keys don’t even fit in the lock when I get home even though they look pretty durn close to the original. poop. so we head back to my buddy’s place to chill for a bit and take a break from the heat outside. when night falls we head out to a video rental place and get Batman Begins along with a few refreshments for the viewing. so it turns out to be an alright move, nothing spectacular though. later on, we head out to meet up with Norway and CVean accompaniments. we chill for a bit at the same Nautical place from earlier and then head to a club to do more of the same. after a while we realize that we’re in the middle of a love triangle of sorts and we bounce. on the way home, we hit a roach coach for tosta mista and a final refreshment. I realize on the walk home that my boat home is in 3 hours and for some reason find that the living room floor is more comfy than the bed in the extra room. after what must’ve been a couple hours, I wake up, pack my stuff, then take a quick nap on the bed before I make my way for the port. so I miss the little boat by a few minutes and end up having to take the big big boat from another company that runs on weekends. SWEET! it’s a super nice boat and has TONS of seats and I find a bench to lie down on for the next hour. what a great hour nap! I wake up to see that I’m basically the last person on the boat and I make for the exit. I get home to see my roomie heading out and we try all 3 copies of the keys. poop. none of them work. great. and on goes the saga of the keys. so I head to bed and never get up. I wake up a few times to answer phone calls, but I never leave my bed. sweet. always good to have a day of rest in there somewhere. <--- week 1 done!                usando o teclado --->