Boas Festas

The figurine to the right was one of my favorite finds this year. We discovered it in Boa Vista, one of the Cape Verde Islands where we participated in delivering wheelchairs. We went to a local artisan studio and shop. We saw how they made the clay figures and, like any studio or factory in the US, the little tour ended in the store. I was delighted to find a nativity, made and signed by a Cape Verde artist and using Cape Verde clay. It was a wonderful symbol of what we wanted our Christmas Season to be – Christ-centered.

Next in popularity to "Feliz Natal" (Merry Christmas) was the greeting "Boas Festas" (good parties). Boas Festas references the many parties that happen between Christmas and New Years. Christmas parties are much more family centered, while New Years parties are with everyone.

The Christmas season didn’t start here the day after Thanksgiving. In fact, there was little evidence that Christmas was just 4 weeks away. But as the month progressed, more decorations, more lights, more people in the stores, more packages being carried were seen.

An important part of our Christmas was several service Projects. They all involved the Young Adults from the Center where we also serve. Below is one - wrapping gifts for a Jardim (school for children ages 3-6). The school bought the gifts, a Barbie-type doll for the girls and a Carz car for the boys. They had about 300 to wrap and we offered our services.

Here we are, all the gifts wrapped -- green for girls, red for boys! Dulcinea, at the far right is the director for this Jardim and 2 other small ones. We had to keep the door shut so curious eyes wouldn't see!

Another “Christmas” present was the arrival of the industrial sewing machine for the Red Cross Juventude 1 program that helps teenage young women develop marketable skills. The other sewing machine is for a project in Fogo. We just need to deliver it!

We along with the Red Cross personnel were invited to a lunch with the Juventude I program. When we arrived, we enjoyed looking at their finished projects. The meal was very good - traditional Cape Verdean feijão verde that the cooking program prepared.

Here is a sampling of the projects of the young women. They have excellent teachers and their work is very good.

They surprised us with a wonderful gift - 2 placements with counted cross-stitch pictures of Capeverdean life. That was a very generous gift. Counted cross stitch is another of the classes they teach.

 Our gift to the Young Adult Center was helping with their Baile Natal - or Christmas Ball. It included a delicious meal of Capeverdean feijão verde topped off with chocolate cake. We helped decorate the cultural hall of the church. With crepe paper streamers, balloon and red and green “snowflakes,” it looked pretty festive.

And Cape Verdeans love to pose for pictures! Here are some of our friends from the Center!

Jodi (far left) and Katy (center) spent an afternoon with me learning how to cut snowflakes. They did a good job!

Another Service project was buying shoes for the children’s emergency center, basically a foster care home. They have about 30 children and new shoes were needed! We also chose toys from our humanitarian toy boxes for each child and wrapped them. To finish the project, we joined them in the party along with members of Ramo 4 (Branch 4) in Mindelo.

Here we are in a typical Chinese store, the best place to buy shoes that don't cost so much. Simone, center, is a member of the church who works at the Emergency Center. She knew each child and picked out a pair of sandals for each one.

The "Wrap Center" at the Church. We had a total of 60 toys to wrap for 2 service projects. Everyone who was at the church helped us - The seminary students, the young adults and a couple of married couples. We got it done before Institute and Seminary classes began!

Some of the wrapped presents. Can you tell what some of them are??

At the party in the Emergency Center patio. A couple of our young adults
organized some Cape Verdean games, this one very much like "Duck, Duck, Goose."
They just say different words.

One of the children with her present. (Each toy was selected specifically for each child) She doesn't know it, but it is a doll!

The children presented a little program. Since Simone is a church member, many of the songs were Primary songs!

Our last service project before Christmas involved the pediatric unit at the public hospital. We wrapped gifts and then, as a group, not only delivered them, but sang Christmas carols and then visited and played with the children.

Here we are at the lunch room in the Pediatric department of the hospital. The youth are singing Christmas carols.

Vera is giving the gift to this little girl. Once she discovered it was a ball, she played and played with it.

Reading a story to the little one.

Here is everyone - the youth, the nurses, the patients with their parent and way in the back, Santa Claus!

We aren’t the only ones who give service. Below is a project we were invited to that was sponsored by the Adult Education program and a local high school. Students from the high school asked for donations of food from the community and they were packaged into good sized portions to give to poor families. This picture shows Elder Broderick delivering one of the packages. They were kind to include us, but they did all the work!

Cape Verde is a Christian Nation and we appreciated so much the displays of the Nativity

This is the creche in the local Catholic Church. We were passing by on Christmas Eve Day and since the doors were open, we went inside to see what it looked like. We noticed that the creche was missing baby Jesus. I am sure they were waiting for the Christmas Eve program to place him there!

This is the City of Mindelo's display in one of the main praças

Christmas Lights  - City hall all lit up.

Christmas Eve in Mindelo. Vi didn't have a place to celebrate so he join in our celebration. We walked around town looking at the lights, read the Christmas Story in Luke 2 and had the Broderick traditional Christmas Eve punch and Angel Thumbprint cookies for treats

Christmas day!! We, like the Church worldwide, had the single hour for Sacrament meeting. The youth provided the Choir music. Otherwise, it was a quiet day in Mindelo for us that included Skype visits with our children. The best present of all!! All our Christmas packages arrived, but after Christmas Day. It made it a day to focus on the Savior's birth and our family.

Elder Broderick ready to eat Christmas Day dinner!

An after-Christmas service project was hosting a dinner for the missionaries on Monday, the 26th. The mission gave us a budget and we had fun time getting the food and a little present for each.

Sister Broderick getting fresh produce from a street vendor
for the missionary Christmas dinner.
Usually they have the best prices.

Katy came over and help us get the table ready and helped Sis. Broderick get the rolls ready to rise. We are ready for the horde! (18 total including us)

Some of the hungry horde waiting to start!

Finally, DINNER!

Sister Pintual (from Portugal) and Sister Arlete (a mini-missionary from Cape Verde) wouldn't rest until all the dishes were done.

The cast of the Christmas Story Retelling.

As a service, the young adults wrote letters to each of the missionaries. We delivered them to the Mindelo missionaries at the dinner. Missionaries love letters and you can see how much they enjoyed reading them.

Oh, Oh! The White Elephant gift exchange!! But it was pretty tame and love prevailed!

We thought we would try a hike on December 31st if the weather cooperated. Dennis took the picture below of Mt. Verde early in the day and decided it was not going to be worth the hike, just yet. Let's wait for a really clear day.

New year's Eve came. Dennis and I played some games. Vi, our friend from Christmas Eve joined us for a while until he had to go to work as a security guard at the City Hall. He said people would be up all night long. We stayed up long enough to watch the fireworks from the roof of our apartment building. We could hear cars honking and people shouting when we went to sleep and it was still going on when we woke up the next morning.

Cape Verde on the last day of 2011. The big mountain you see in the background is Mt. Verde. You can drive a car to the top and see almost all the island!! They even grow crops at the top, too.

Dec 31, 2011 - A great way to end a year - get baptized.

As we begin 2012 we look forward to another amazing year in an amazing place. We feel greatly blessed to be privileged to serve as representatives of Jesus Christ on the islands of the sea. We wish each of you a wonderful new year which we hope you can share with us. Boas Festas to you all!

Hiking Santo Antão

A Spectacular Experience on the Trail

Cape Verde is no tropical paradise. But it is it's own type of paradise, especially in the interior mountains and canyons of Santo Antão, our big brother island. Many of you know that we like to hike together. We have backpacked in the Sierras and hiked many of the hills around Danville.

Our hike begins with a ferry ride. Clouds brooding over Mt. Verde create a beautiful sunrise.

Soon after we moved to Cape Verde we heard about the mountain trails of Santo Antão and knew we would have to do some hiking there when the opportunity arose. When Iven Neves, the Branch President of the Porto Novo branch on Santo Antão offered to take us hiking some day, we knew we had the connection we needed and began looking for the opportunity.

The LDS chapel in Porto Novo where President Neves presides

With Santo Antão being part of the LDS District of Mindelo, we run into President Neves fairly frequently. We had worked side by side painting the school so we felt pretty close to him and his wife Mirma. We set a date for our hike and encouraged President Neves to invite members of his branch to join us. When we stepped off the ferry President Neves greeted us. He had a pickup arranged for the day. Janet got the inside seat and Dennis and President Neves took the wooden benches in the cargo box. We swung by the church to meet up with other hikers. President Neves lives just a block from the church. We were joined by Mirma, Ravi, and Admir. Ravi had served a mission for the church. He and Admir who was waiting for his mission call had never hiked the trail we were headed for.

Most cross country roads, like many in the cities,
are cobblestone. This one is in great condition and it
takes us straight up the mountain.

Before we headed up the mountain we stopped to check out the final paint job on our school and pick up Fredson, who was very experienced on the trail. Before we got out of town we also picked up some students who were heading up the mountain to their home. Like many students who live in the interior areas they commute to school, however they can.

The group with our extra riders pretty well fill up the pickup. President Iven was as giddy as a school boy. He had grown up doing this hike, but as an adult life often got too busy to allow such activities. He was very grateful for this American missionary couple who shared his passion for hiking the mountains.

Here they are riding up to the trail head. Sister Broderick gets the inside seat.
The driver in his cool beret. The guy in yellow on the right is a student
catching a ride up the mountains to his home.

We could see clouds hanging on the mountains and wondered what we would find up on top. It reminded us some of the fog in the Bay Area spilling over the East Bay hills. Riding in the back of the pickup we got the full effect of the wind and the cooler mountain air. As you can see below, we actually have jackets on (except Janet who was very comfortable in the warm cab).

Here we all are starting with E/S Broderick, Ravi, Mirma, Admir, Iven, and Fredson.
We're impressed that all but Mirma have shoes on.

Most people who visit Cape Verde are surprised to learn that there are places where pine trees grow. We had seen them before, but the juxtaposition of the smell and sight of pines to what we have experienced in the rest of Cape Verde did not readily compute. We took a little side trip before starting our hike to visit a large radar station that serves flight traffic control over the mountains and throughout the islands.

Our hiking route is mostly downhill to the sea. Starting in an area called Cova, we first descend into the bowl of an ancient volcano. Next we climb up the other side then begin what looks like almost a free fall down from the lip. If you know the 4 mile trail in Yosemite from Glacier Point to the valley, you get the picture of what this trail is like.

Janet and Mirma had their own interest...collecting dried flowering plants for their dead plant bouquet. It started with one. Their interest slowed the progress of the whole group, but ended in a beautiful collection. As we write this entry Janet's dry plant arrangement sits on the end table in our living room.

Mirma had an eye for beautiful contributions to the cause.

The guys had an eye for anything edible. This is the guava (goiaba in portuguese) fruit which was in season during our hike. Dennis enjoyed the flavor of the goiaba but had trouble with the rock hard seeds in the center.

Our native friends had no trouble swallowing the seeds and couldn't get enough of the fresh fruit.

The clouds we had seen earlier were all around us now. They filled parts of the bowl and completely blocked our view over the edge into the valley of Paul (sometimes written Paúl) below. That was disappointing, but even so the experience was not. What you will not see here are the many wonders of nature we saw and photographed as we dropped down the very steep face in the clouds. An incredible cobblestone trail had been constructed all the way down. In some places it was damaged. In others it was a little slippery from the condensation and misty rain, but it put US mountain trails to shame.

The bouquet is growing. Not all the flowers are dead.
Note the white clouds behind them.

Janet and Dennis both recognized the opportunity the clouds afforded to look to other aspects of our hiking experience for the wonder of our surroundings. Plant life was plentiful and varied.

We also enjoyed getting to know our Caboverdean friends better. Iven and Mirma have been members of the church for a number of years. Iven's parents and most of his siblings are active members. He works for the local utility company reading meters and delivering bills while he continues his education in business management. Iven is a participant in the LDS Perpetual Education Fund. Without this loan assistance, he would never be able to continue his education.

Mirma is the young women's president in their branch. She is a fun loving person with lots of youthful energy. She is 20 years old. They have one 18 month old son, Joshua, who was home with grandma for the hike. Her full name is Mirma Josiane Gomes Delgado Neves. Long names are the norm here. Like Janet, she enjoys counted cross stitch and is teaching it to the five active young women in her branch.

Typical terracing along the trail.
These tomato plants are being hand watered.
We can only guess for how many generations
these terraces have been in use.

Much of the very steep teraine along the trail was terraced for farming. Some of the terraces appeared to be abandoned and full of weeds. Others were being actively cultivated. They grew a large pea like feijão verde (green bean), milho (corn), potatoes, squash, and various other crops. We guess that most of it is for subsistance farming, but Santo Antão also produces a lot of produce and fruit for sale on the island and next door to our island, São Vicente. We are enjoying bananas and papaya throughout this season from Santo Antão.

The terracing, like the trail, had taken generations of hard work to develop. Some were watered by aquaduck, but it appeared that most were watered naturally by rainfall or by hand, as with the tomatoes to the right.

As we descended further we knew eventually we would drop below the clouds. This is what we saw when we finally did...

The Paul Valley finally comes into view below the clouds.
What a view even from this low!

We could only imagine the view from the top without clouds. This is clearly the verde (green) of Cape Verde. It is also the incredible result of water erosion, not glaciers, that formed these and all the canyons of Santo Antão. We can't see the ocean, but beyond those mountains in the top center is the actual village of Paul and the Atlantic ocean (see the next to the last picture in the series).

Typical home construction in this area.
Notice the straps intended to keep the roof on, we guess.

We still have miles to go before we reach the ocean, but what a feast the whole course is. Up close we see stone houses and barn-like structures with thatched roofs. We would consider these people the poorest subsistance farmers. They surely don't feel that, but feel blessed to live in such a God blessed part of the world.

Immediately below us we see a small village with a cluster of homes, no doubt a church and a school plus the soccer field. This one is well developed. Be aware that the road from Paul reaches up to this village, so they are within easy reach by car or truck from Porto Novo.

Can you see the soccer game in progress?
Our wide, coblestone path is also in view just below.

Besides the vegetable crops being grown in these terraces there are the fruits. Every farm has banana trees, some loaded with fruit. Papaya is also very common. We don't see much more guava as we descend, but begin to run into mango and bread fruit. The mangos are not in season now. We will have to wait until next summer. We have seen bread fruit on the trees but never in the markets.

Not too much longer before this giant bunch of bananas will be cut down,
carried down to the road below, and shipped by truck to the local market for sale,
maybe to Elder and Sister Broderick through a street vendor in Mindelo.

The other crop we see more and more of is sugar cane or cana. Unfortuntely it is not grown much for sugar but to make grogue or rum. At higher elevations the cana had not flowered yet, but as we descended we were treated with "forests" of cana flowers. We couldn't resist plucking a few to wave in the air or make a bouquet.

Soul sisters enjoying nature's beauties.
Note the wide path and cana stands with large flower fronds.

We refer to this whole area as Paul, but in fact there are a series of aldeias or villages as you move up the river from Paul, which is right at the coast and the mouth of this beautiful canyon. We don't have the names for these other villages. The largest is probably this one with the walled in cement soccer field. It is pretty much at the end of the road open to cars and trucks that comes up from Paul.

Its Saturday, a perfect day for soccer games and several other types of games.
Clouds still obscure the tops of the mountains.

Besides bananas, we saw many papaya trees, like the one below. Some of them seemed to be flowering. Others not. The fruit always grow right off of the trunk at the base of the leaf branches. Once the fruit are finished, the next crop looks like it forms further up as the tree continues to grow.

A papaya tree with green fruit. We don't know if

There is a small papaya tree in front of our apartment building in Mindelo. These trees will grow all around the islands, provided there is at least a little water during the dry season. We will keep an eye on our tree to see how it grows and if it ever flowers or produces fruit. According to eHow, papaya are picked green and firm for shipping to market. We buy them when they are yellow and not too soft.

Local girls, probably hoping for a little change.
No one here seems camera shy,
and most like having their picture taken.

We found beautiful and healthy clumps of
nasturtiums growing along the road as we continued our descent. Knowing they were edible, we offered them to our hiking companions. Riva trusted us and took a bite, then had second thoughts.

We were captivated by their stone buildings with thatching lashed on and the lushness of their farms. These are not typical sights in the areas we have visited on other islands.

The scenery was spectacular all the way down
the valley. We believe the large tree is a mango tree.

One of the thatched houses we came across was not built with stones, but with glass bottles (not shown here). We don't see many examples of recycling here, but this was a great one.


Iven remembers when this resort along the river was still open and operating. He has great memories of family and church group events here. Now the pool is empty and the grounds are falling into disrepair, but the beauty of the location is hard to miss.

We couldn't pass up this photo op in the clump of flowering plants, showing an exotic bright red blossom.

Janet fits right in this incredible scene.

Spotting this farm house and animal shelter below us surrounded by cana fields and fruiting trees, we saw an idealic Paul farm setting.

We had enjoyed our hike so much we were running out of time to catch our ferry back to São Vicente.

Iven contacted our driver and he met us a mile or so up the valley so we didn't get to walk all the way to the sea. What a treat this day had been, and how we enjoyed our companions.

We reach the ocean at last. The Patron Saint of Paul and probably
all of Santo Antão is on the hill to the center left, Santo António.

The views of the mouth of the canyon are very impressive too, but we didn't stop to enjoy them this trip. This part of the island we had visited before. As the truck drove us back to Porto Novo I took one more shot to show the end of the trail.

A final shot showing tiny Santo Antóno overlooking the ocean
and the Vila of Pombas at the mouth of the valley of Paul

Taking the late ferry back to our home island we arrived well after sunset. The boat ride was most interesting as we visited with two couples from England who had reached Cape Verde by sailing yacht and had spent a couple of weeks sailing around and visiting the various islands. They had spent the day with our favorite taxi driver, Silvestre. We were very happy to be heading home to a comfortable apartment instead of a rocking boat.

We were welcomed back in Porto Grande, Mindelo,
by a giant cruise ship. The tourist season has begun
and these ships seems to stop in every few days.

Many people come to Cape Verde for various reasons. Santo Antão is attractive to the outdoor types because of the beauty we had witnessed during our hike. Some come with back packs to spend days exploring these mountain regions. We feel it a special blessing to combine excursions like today with the many opportunities our humanitarian projects provide to make a difference for the humble and happy people of Cape Verde.

Upon our return we learned from one of our good friends, Alcidia, that her mother and sister live along the road we had walked. Her sister needs a wheelchair to improve her situation as she cares for her family. One of the wheelchairs we delivered to this beautiful valley just might be hers.

Family History in Cape Verde

Just because we are serving a Welfare Services mission, doesn’t mean Family History isn’t important to me. I do miss having the time to work on family history as I did before, but my interest hasn’t waned. When we arrived, I was very interested to see what a Family History Center in Cape Verde would look like. I found that in many ways it is the same!

This Center has 2 computers and they share a printer. It is a relatively small room. The gentleman on the right is the Family History Center director, Alécio Soares.

You can see that storage space everywhere is always at a premium. The outside windows are essential to be open. It gets hot and there is no air conditioning! A breeze makes a huge difference!

Ah, Ha!! Katy, our determined indexer, is working on a project. She likes the hard Brazilian records and Portuguese isn’t a problem for her!

The Center has 2 nice microfilm readers.

 

This is the film drawer! No, there aren’t many films, but these films are records from churches, mainly Catholic, in Cape Verde. The Church has filmed all the available records. The Center has some of the films in the center and are waiting for the rest to arrive.

Basically, they don't need more films. The vast majority of people living in Cape Verde, have only ancestry from Cape Verde. Most immigration is from, not to Cape Verde.  Alécio, the Family History Center director, said, if they could get enough people indexing in Cape Verde, Family Search would make these records available for indexing.

I learned recently, that immigration from Cape Verde began in the 1860's when US whaling boats took on Capeverdeans as crew members, some of whom eventually settled in the US near Boston. Since that time, people from Cape Verde have settled in the United States and many other countries throughout the world. With so many Capeverdeans spread throughout the world (and nearly everyone has several relatives in other countries, especially the US), I am sure they would love the records digitized and indexed. That is the challenge here!

Many members of the Church here, including the young adults we work with, have worked on their family histories. They have submitted names of their ancestors to the temple for temple work. But with the closest temple in Spain (soon to be in Portugal) or Brazil, they are not in a position to do the work themselves. Yet, they still submit them for general temple patrons to do the work. We admire their faith!

PS. If you don't know what indexing is, drop me an Email. Janet.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving!! That word for Americans is full of traditions. When we invited the missionaries to our house for Thanksgiving, we asked them if they would like fresh tuna steaks or turkey. You could tell that the traditional turkey was the first choice of the American missionaries. So we decided to have as much of a Thanksgiving feast as Cape Verde would allow!!

Preparation was the key. We ordered 7 kilos (about 14 pounds) of potatoes from our Branch President who has a small mercado nearby. We bought the most orange squash we could find, cooked it up and tested it by made tiny “pumpkin pie” tarts. It worked and they tasted like pumpkin pies! The 3 pies for the feast were made the day before Thanksgiving. I found a box of Stove Top dressing mix in the cupboard that looked pretty new, so we had dressing.

But the Turkey. Where to find a turkey? Not in any of the stores we usually went to. Elder Go tipped us off on the location of a frozen turkey at Bento’s near his apartment. It was a 25 minute walk (one way) to the store, but we were on the hunt for a turkey. They not only had 1 but 3 turkeys, each about 3 ½ kilos (6-7 pounds). They looked so puny, we decided to buy 2. I will not disclose the price as you will think we went crazy!! “It’s Thanksgiving” and “We have 14 missionaries coming”.

Here are our 2 turkeys defrosting in the frig.

The day arrived. We set aside the whole morning to prepare. We had to eat at 1:00 as 4 of the sister missionaries had to catch the 4 PM ferry to Santo Antão. Dennis patiently peeled all 7 kg of potatoes. I cut up the papaya & canned pineapple for the fruit salad. Then, I made the dressing, augmenting the box stuffing mix with a loaf of raisin bread and all the sage spice I had in the cupboard. We used raisin bread because when Dennis was at the store, it looked like what I wanted and there was NOTHING on the bag that said it was raisin bread. I didn't realize it was raisin bread until I starting cubing it for dressing! It in fact tasted really good!

Here are the turkeys ready to carve!

By 12:00 the turkey was done. The roll dough raising. The dressing in the oven cooking. And the missionaries began to arrive. Some went to the Church with Dennis to get chairs. The sisters helped me with food preparation. All offered to help, but the kitchen area is quite small and there just wasn’t room. To help fill the waiting time, the missionaries gathered around a tray of olives, pickles and such things as we found in the store. It evaporated quite quickly. And didn’t really dent their appetites!

Sis. Barros, helping Sister Broderick cut out rolls. I though I had made a big batch, but they didn't last long and there were no left overs!

Busy Workers in the Kitchen. Sister Pintual would like to help but there is not room. Sis. Holland, in the orange blouse, is trying to whip up cream. See later in story!

Missionaries patiently waiting for dinner to be served.

More hungry missionaries.

Hmmm. The missionaries looked pretty focused. And on Thanksgiving day, what other reason than food. They are enjoying the pre-dinner appetizer plate.

It was within 10 minutes of 1:00 p.m. when the announcement came. Dinner is served!!

Finally! The line to fill up your plate. The elders were very polite and let the sisters go first.

Enjoying Thanksgiving dinner

A second table of missionaries!

The third table of missionaries! 16 missionaries total!

Ahhh. Some satisfied missionaries! All the elders are from the USA except for Elder de Barros, Cape Verde (far right)

Happy sister missionaries. Sis. Holland (in orange) is the only missionary from the United States. The other sisters are from Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique and Portugal. Sis. Pintual (arms around Sis. Pinto) is on her way to her first area in Santo Antão with Sis. Holland as her trainer. 

After the feasting (and there were few left overs, mostly mashed potatoes), we gathered together and shared our feeling of gratitude, especially for those who were a great influence in each missionary’s life to serve a mission. We feasted again - this time with the Spirit.

We truly are grateful for everyone who has helped us over the years. Thanks to both of our parents who gave us great examples of missionary service as senior couples. Thanks to our children for examples of serving missions and their encouragement and support. Thanks to Jan and Jane for caring for our home. Thanks to all our family and friends for their love. We love letters!

We finished the event with pumpkin pie and whipped cream. They were actually some of the best pumpkin pies (3 of them) that I have made! Sis. Holland's cream just wouldn't whip up. She spent about 20 minutes with a hand mixer. Don't know why because the carton said it was cream for whipping. I finally got another carton and it whipped up just fine. Who knows?

The hour and the taxi came to take the sisters to the ferry. And all the missionaries dispersed to their most important work of preaching the gospel to the people of Cape Verde. The clean-up was mostly done by the missionaries and so it didn’t take us long until we, too, were back to our missionary work. By, 6:30 p.m. we opened the Center for Young Single Adults and life went on.