Cape Verde #2

The babies in Cape Verde, ok everywhere for that matter!, are so cute!  A lady came in with her son and we asked if we could hold him...using our weird hand motions and such! 

All organized!  Saundra wants to get some shelves in here, which would be great. I love how the girls got everything sorted and organized over the couple of days we were there.  I've been thinking on this since we got home.  We had a room and a bunch of boxes.  And though we as humans are nothing, and we are all beggars before God, we are everything to Him. We are His children and came become like Him.  That means we are creative, we can change.  We have so many talents and abilities! It was interesting to me how we took this situation and organized it and made it better.  All very naturally. 

Saundra brought a second mirror for people to use as well.  I love that she also brought water and snacks for us.  Very fun! 

Boxes of extra glasses and lenses. 

Elden working the exam room again. Today was our last day.  Good Friday was the next day, so the staff at the building would be off for the holiday.  I was hoping we would go one more day to the clinic, but glad we could do 4.

This lady, I cannot remember her name, helped us with all the interpreting and explaining to people about paying for the glasses and picking them up.  The church partnered with this organization--ADEVIC--to provide eye exams and buy the glasses.  The people were charged for the glasses but not the eye exams.  Hopefully they changed the price.  It was set at $60 US dollars, which seemed really high for me for the plastic frames and considering the poverty of the people.  But ADEVIC has paid employees and other costs they have to cover, so....? 

Pure awesomeness!

Always fun to see lizards.  Or a gecko?

For the afternoon we went back to Linha d'Agua for lunch and to hang out at the beach.  

Here's the cabana we rented for $12 from the restaurant.  AND they take your order and bring you your food right to the cabana!  Felt pretty swanky for us! We also reserved two lounge chairs out on the beach.  So fun!  

Shanna and Haley commandeering the lounge chairs. 

Pizza right to the cabana!

Lee, Elden and Haley explored the tide pools.  I looked at them for a little bit, but didn't have the right shoes on. 

A cruise ship from the UK was there and we saw tourists around town on a bike ride and at the restaurant. 

Haley found this pretty shell at the beach.  Sadly it fell on the ground at the apartment a couple days later and broke in half. 

Relaxing at the apartment. 

Thursday night we did baptisms at the temple with the kids.  Kent and Saundra worked that night at the temple.  We saw Kent and he was in and out of the baptistry.  Saundra was working elsewhere in the temple so we didn't see her.  While we were there a group of members from one of the islands, Sal, were there.  A senior missionary couple had come with them.  This was probably the only time they'll ever go to the temple.  It was so neat how reverent they were in the baptistry.  The young women were folding their wet towels, and they would wait to enter the baptistry when the person was done baptizing someone.  They didn't want to interrupt the ordinance. Saundra was also telling us of a couple/family that came all the way from Iran or Iraq to receive their endowments.  They had to travel 30 hours by plane to finally get to Cape Verde because some airports won't allow citizens from that country to land in their airports. It's such a blessing to have a temple so close and to go so often.  We are richly blessed!

Because of the black sand and dirt, people wear booties inside the temple to keep the carpets clean. 

We had a late dinner that night at a place Saundra suggested--Anabel's.  It was really yummy!

Love the little signs...and the English!  Haha. 

Friday morning we walked over to a fun bakery.  Online donuts were advertised, but found out from another customer that they don't put them out till about 11am.  We went back later and they didn't have any exciting donuts so we never bought any. 

Some yummy desserts!!! We bought some cake for ourselves to try and also a piece for Kent and Saundra. 

We hung out for a little bit and headed to the beach for a couple of hours to lounge around and eat lunch. We drove around a little too. The day before when we came to this same beach, there is an upper parking lot where guys hang out to wash people's cars for work.  We told one guy that we didn't want the car washed.  I was sitting in the back seat getting stuff together when he opened the door.  He pointed at some food on the ground.  I am not sure if he wanted to eat it or not, but it startled me so much!  I moved the food out of the way, and he either left or I moved to close the door.  It was so weird that he would open the door! Friday when we came to the beach, we parked on the street and not up at the parking lot. 

Gotta order more cheesecake on vacation!

Haley stepped on a toothpick....OUCH.  And it looked so gross!

Kent and Saundra hung out with us for a little bit too at the beach.  We cleaned up at the apartment after our beach stay, then ate at Casa Dos Sabres.  After the kids hung out at the apartment while Lee and I did an endowment session at the temple with Kent and Saundra. 

After the temple we got the kids and went out for ice cream at Ice. Well, gelato actually.  It's right next to the grocery store we went to a lot. 

Saturday morning we headed to the other side of the island.  We started out with a short hike. 

The hike is also a pathway for people to travel from one town to another. We saw some people on the trail carrying goods, some abandon houses and animals.  Hey cow!

We found a lizard....then realized it was dead.

Fun to see the terrace gardening!

What a beautiful view!

A hut built around a tree. 

Mini bananas!

We stopped here first to pay for a permit for the hike.  After the hike, we stopped here again. Next door there is a park where we ate lunch. Right before we started eating, Haley sat down at the picnic table.  It wasn't probably stabilized and it upended.  Thankfully not all the way.  But it gave us quite the start! Saundra brought rolls from a local bakery that were yummy and there were only about what, $0.16 each!  Crazy!

Haha, loved this swing. 

After lunch, we headed to the tide pools.  They were so awesome!  The tide was pretty strong too which made it more fun. 

We also saw some rock formations like Giant's Causeway in Ireland. 

See the island behind Elden, on the back left?  That's Fogo Island. 

On the way to and from the tide pools we found some goats just hanging out. 

Fogo again. 

Our final destination was Tarrafal, a town.  You pronounce it "Taha Fall", so I thought we were going to some waterfalls! Haha. 

The tide was pretty strong so the lifeguards weren't letting people go out that far.  Closer to the building in the background there was a live band that was playing which was fun. 

So beautiful!

We ate at a restaurant close to the beach, Vista Mar.  People eat pretty late there, so we had to whole place to ourselves at 5:30pm. 

We were able to be there for Easter Sunday!  The guy who normally plays the piano wasn't there, so Saundra asked Lee to fill in last minute  This cute little girl was wandering all over and even went up to Lee during the opening hymn. 

So fun seeing all the sister missionaries there!  The one with glasses is from Liberia.  The one in the tan dress is from the Dominican Republic--she had only been there about 2 weeks! The blonde is from the states...I had fun texting her mom when I arrived back home. The two sisters on the right are the ones that live above Kent and Saundra.  Oh, and the sister missionaries standing next to me, I saw them on the street one afternoon and called out to them!

With Eli again! I recently found out her son got his mission call.  He's going to Liberia! 

Sunday lunch!  I thought the Parmalat was cheesy...but it was just cream haha. We added a little salt to it.  We did a quick drive over to Kent's to get some.  Their apartment was only about 6-7 blocks away from us. 

Oh, and had "Goodies" on the side. 

Some leftover sauce containers from when we ate at Anabel. I love the design! 

Kent and Saundra were super nice and fed us Sunday evening.  Kent wrote to the family on GroupMe something like "we had our traditional Easter dinner of tacos".  Too funny.  I don't know if I've ever had tacos on Easter!  But I LOVE tacos! Kent made really yummy chocolate chip cookies too.  We all ate several!

Their cute apartment!

That night we went up to an overlook area with a nice park and statue. 

I know this applies to the tomb, but, He is risen.  He is not here.  Happy Easter everyone!  What joy we have and hope we have because of Christ, our Savior!

This picture doesn't show it but in the building we stayed at there is a shaft or a cavity, that runs the length of the building.  It's just like they built a space for an elevator but didn't put in an elevator.  Just windows from your apartment to open up and then look down or up into the shaft.  It was really weird! 

A photo of the living room of our apartment. 

Fun dining lighting. 

Kitchen view. 

As always, it was time to go home.  We packed up that morning, returned our key to the manager and headed out.  We stopped by Kent and Saundra's to give them back the hairdryer and adapter that we borrowed and said goodbye. Sadly, we never drove by the mission home!  ARGH!  Oh, also, Saturday morning before we went to the hike, tide pools and Tarrafal, Lee played pickle ball at the stake center by the temple.  Kent and Saundra were there and also the mission president, Scott Labrum, his wife and a couple others I think.  When we were at the airport we saw the Labrums.  She was headed back to the states on the same flight as us to meet a new grandbaby. https://www.thechurchnews.com/callings/2023/4/14/23679037/new-leaders-of-5-missions-called-to-serve-from-california-to-cape-verde/

After we checked our bags and went through security, we were a bit confused about the gate....it was the only international gate, and we didn't see Sister Labrum for a long time.  But we found out eventually that we were in the right place.  Our plane was late.  We also didn't know, but we flew back to the Azores.  On the ticket it just read that we would fly from Praia to Boston. 

While we waited for the plane we bought water and some snacks. This was really funny. 

Goodbye Praia!  Not sure if we'll ever be back, but we loved our time there! 

I thought we might have this sandwich again since we were flying on the same airline.  I made sure to bring some butter with me from Praia.  YUM!  

Here's my butter! Haha. 

Back in the Azores!

One of the chocolate bars I bought for $7 at the airport, haha. 

Thankfully they also fed us on this flight!  6 hours to the states!

The harder part coming back is we flew into Boston...a long drive home ahead of 9 hours! Totally first world problems!   We were late arriving in Boston, so that put us home really late. We finally were on our way about 9-10pm. Caught a glimpse of NYC too!

 

We got home in time for Lee to rush off to work and then Haley came with me to Charlottesville to drop off the rental van. 

We had mail waiting for us that night and I just left it on the table.  After dropping off the rental van I was looking through it and right away a wasp stung me.  I was so surprised that I yelped and smashed it. Haley was wondering what was happening.  You don't normally find wasps in mail! Made my finger swell a little too.  Thankfully I'm not allergic.  And I got a paper cut right after that haha.  Welcome home!