Big Day!

February 6th was a big day in the Ralles Household. It certainly didn’t start out as a typical Wednesday morning. I woke up Mike with the news that we were expecting Baby Ralles! As I sat home that morning trying NOT to announce the pregnancy to the world, Mike went to work in a daze. After a few short hours, Mike called because we received the much-anticipated email (yes, email) announcing our next assignment with the Foreign Service…Vienna, Austria!

The weeks that we were waiting for our next assignment were filled with great anxiety and a little sadness. We started to realize our time in this special, tiny place was coming to an end, an end that will come rather quickly. But as soon as we found out about Baby Ralles (due October, 2011) and Vienna (ETA March, 2012), we started thinking about the future with equal anxiety but this time much more excitement.

The Ralles Adventure timeline:

August- Rachel returns to the U.S. to wait for Baby Ralles
September- Mike comes for a visit and brings Strela to the U.S.
October- Mike returns in time for Baby Ralles’ arrival
Early December (est)- The Ralles Family (minus Strela) returns to close out in Praia
End of January (est)- The Ralles Family leaves Praia for the U.S. (training in DC and home leave)
End of March (est)- The Ralles Family reunited with Strela head on for the next adventure in Austria!

We hope to see as many friends and family as possible in our time in the States. As for 2012, our visitor count in Cape Verde stands at 20. Can we surpass that in Vienna? Only you know the answer!

Playing Catch-up

Not such a great blog when you do not write on it between the months of March and May, but I will try to do a quick (there is no way it will be) write up of the highlights of Ralles Adventure and post some new photos from on Flickr. After this catch-up, I hope to get back on track.

1. March 6-8th Carnival! After not doing anything remarkable for the all-important holiday of Carnival in 2010, we decided to pick up and head to the island of São Vicente for the celebration this year. São Vicente, and its capital Mindelo, is known for its lavish parades, all night parties, and general Carnival flavor. We got it all! We spent four or five days there eating, drinking, and being merry in the company of good friends from Praia and my cousin Amanda visiting from the States! See photos for the elaborate costumes and beautiful scenery of São Vicente.

2. Rachel got a job! At the beginning of April, I started as the Community Liaison Coordinator (CLO) at the Embassy, which Mike kindly refers to as the Social Chair. It is the PERFECT job for me, because not only is it all about working with people at the Embassy, which I love, it is also only part time (8:30-12:30) so I still manage to fit in long afternoon naps, General Hospital, and time with Strela. Oh, yeah and cooking and grocery shopping at eight different stores as well.

3. Visitor’s Galore! We have been the luckiest (and busiest) of all the officers at the Embassy keeping up with our plethora of visitors. In January, Mike’s cousin Erica came for a week and along with vacationing, did some really interesting work and research into Cape Verdean politics and elections. After she departed for her own whirlwind trip around the world, our friends Elizabeth and Joe from DC came for a week and we certainly made the most of pool time, a hiking day trip, and of course more eating. As mentioned above my cousin Amanda’s visit was perfectly timed with Carnival for a trip to another island, but she also got to see all that Santiago had to offer with afternoon trips to Cidade Velha and Assomada. In April, we had our first mini-visitor, Mike’s friend from Minnesota, Tobit, and his wife Thia brought their 2 ½ year old cutie pie, Aven. Tobit and Mike snuck away from Praia for a few days to hike the picturesque island of Santo Antão, while Thia, Aven and I spent our girl-time at the beach and pool in Boa Vista. Aven seemed to LOVE the African wildlife, and here that means cows and goats. This, we welcomed Mike’s cousin Steve and his two buddies flying in from Minnesota. They mark our TWENTIETH visitors, which we think is incredible! We feel so fortunate to have such adventurous family and friends, and are definitely the leaders in visitors to Embassy Praia. Go Ralles Adventurers!

4.U.S. Trip Extravaganza! Mike and I just got back from a fantastic vacation in the States. We know that our life sort of looks like a vacation all the time, but this was our first family-free (sorry moms and dads) vacation since our honeymoon and we did it up! First we made a quick stop in our old stomping ground of Chicago. The weather totally cooperated and we got to spend some serious quality time with good friends and of course (here we go again) good food. We especially enjoyed a trip to Whole Foods with Rachel Sher, where we commandeered a box and just walked the aisles filling it with things we miss from America. Rachel ended up getting a couple of new things for her pantry as well ☺.

Then from Chicago we ventured West, as far west as I have ever been, to the Pacific Northwest. We arrived on a beautiful and sunny day, took in a Seattle Mariners baseball game (they actually won!), took the ferry to Bainbridge, walked the markets of Seattle, and spent some time with our CV friends Kelly and Ná.

After a grand time in Seattle we drove north to Vancouver for my first trip across the border to Canada, eh? (Yes, I have been to Albania but never to Canada) We had an awesome visit with Mike and Lily Leung (you may recognize them from our 2010 visitor list). Mike was an excellent tour guide, showing us all of Vancouver and then Lily hosted us for a night up in charming Whistler. I am sure you are not surprised to hear that we also ate our way through yet another city, but the food is just so good, and there are so many choices, like a KimChi Korean Burrito and Poutine! Photos from our USA vacation are coming soon.

After a rainy drive back south to catch our flight, we left Seattle armed with some Copper River Salmon and headed to NJ for a couple nights before flying to Lisbon. Since this is probably the best Portuguese we (and by we I mean Mike) will ever speak we decided to take it for a ride and spent a few days in Porto, Portugal, which was beautiful with sunny, warm weather, and of course more food. It was only a little awkward and mildly embarrassing when I opened my mouth to speak Portuguese and out came Cape Verdean Kriolu. Oh well!

Well, if you are still reading this long, drawn out post, THANK YOU! And because you are still reading, I promise to be a better blogger in the coming months!

Lots of love from the land of sunshine!

Sometimes I forget we live in Africa...

Then I take Strela for a walk and find a large grazing horse on the way.  Strela looks at it like it is an oversized dog, and she doesn't know if she should run to it to play and run away in fear.  Luckily she is on a tight leash, so doesn't have the option of doing either.

Yesterday during our walk we encountered three cows and their owner.  I tried to joke around with him that in America it would be strange to find cows grazing in the middle of the city, so that is why I was standing on the street corner taking pictures of his livestock.  The humor seemed lost on him, but then again this was all in Kriolu so who knows what I was really saying.

Then during lunch, my conversation was interrupted by a pick-up truck driving past with huge speakers on the back blasting music announcing the big event at the most popular club this weekend.  This is a common occurrence in Cape Verde as the most popular means of advertising. Legislative elections were last weekend and we were relieved when they were over because that meant that we wouldn't have to trail these trucks on the road blasting the opposition party's loud, but catchy, song (see video), MESTI MUDA! This means, "need change," wonder where they got that campaign idea from?**  Thank goodness we live in a quiet cul-de-sac!

mesti muda mp3 download

Last week I started a new tradition that I know I will miss when this experience ends.  We have an orange tree in our front yard that has become quite prolific in producing delicious, unique oranges native to Cape Verde.  They are green and yellow on the outside and their flesh is a key lime color.  They are sort of a cross between the sweetness of an orange and the tartness of a lime and their juice reminds me a little of grapefruit juice but sweeter.  Though it takes me about thirty to forty oranges to make a pitcher of juice, I don't mind taking the time because it is SABI!  And really, what else do I have to do? :)

Sometimes it is easy to forget where we are when we spend time in our house dubbed mini-America by our friends who don't have all the perks that come with being in the Foreign Service.  Especially after last week when we received a shipment of goodies from the States that we purchased and shipped when we were home in October.  I don't know what we were thinking with our several flatbed carts at Costco, we have no place to put all of this stuff!  In fact, I have itemized four major boxes to store some extra canned and dry goods until we run out of what I can fit in our pantry.  Ah, life in Africa.  In all seriousness, in the four months it took for all of this food and drink to make it here by boat via Antwerp and the Canary Islands, I have gotten completely used to making due with what I have available to me, that I was almost annoyed that I had to deal with all of these things.  Then we ate chips and salsa and had a Mexican feast complete with Corona so I decided, hey I could live with this.

Love from Mini-America to Maxi-America!

**Please note that The Ralles Family does not endorse any candidate, political party or policy in Cape Verde.

Family Time

Happy New Year!
Originally uploaded by mralles

You know you are behind on blogging when you are about to start a new post with: So one month and one week ago but... one month and one week ago my sister Meredith and her husband Ted arrived for a week-short visit. It went by so quickly, I am surprised we have so many pictures to show for it!

We traveled from our island of Santiago to the nearest island, Maio (named for the month of May, when it was discovered) and the flight by propeller plane lasted only 7 minutes and 54 seconds. Yes, you are reading that correctly, the flight was LESS than eight minutes long, which was probably a good thing since my sister was not too pumped about the ride. I think it actually took us three to four times as long to get our luggage as it did to fly to this island.

Anyway, we were picked up at the airport by a slightly creepy German guy who showed us to our "villa." I am putting villa in quotation marks because I can sense all of your thoughts of amazing, luxurious conditions; and while our home for two nights was adequate, it was not what you dream. However, the view from all areas of the house and the two hammocks that hung on our large terrace were highlights of the trip for sure. We chose Maio because Meri and Ted wanted beaches, and Maio, with its tiny population of 4,000 people (we think we may have seen everyone), is known for unspoiled, private beaches. In fact, the rumor in Praia is that Maio is where you go to walk along the beach naked. Don't worry, we didn't try that.

During the day we defrosted our Manhattan visitors on various beaches around the island, and during the evenings we ate and drank to our heart's content at the island's two main restaurants enjoying the local delicacy buzio (conch), African lagosta (lobster) in a variety of ways, and fresh caught tuna carpaccio. Some confusion did arrive on the first night when we asked for dessert. In Portuguese/Kriolu, we thought we were asking for a crepe with banana AND chocolate. The waitress asked for clarification and we said we wanted "both." Then a crepe arrived with just chocolate, we were a bit sad for no banana, but we ate it and enjoyed it and waited for the check. THEN a second crepe arrived with just bananas. After having a good laugh at the expense of Mike's and my language skills, we had no trouble digging in for a second helping of dessert.

It was hard to leave the quiet and breathtaking views of Maio, but it was New Year's Eve and time to get back to Praia for the parties. We had made (what we thought was) dinner reservations at the 4-star hotel in town which turned out to be a full party with open bar, live music, and A LOT of food. This was a welcome surprise except we were also expected at the Diplomatic Wine and Cheese party. There was no doubt that we made this work out by attending BOTH parties!

Meri and Ted's visit was rounded out on New Years Day by lunch at our "empregada," Conseição's house. She really has become part of our family and it was so nice that she invited us to have lunch with her family. She made (and sent us home with) an incredible amount of delicious local food including Feijoada which was a Segal family favorite. Meri told me if I don't learn how to make it while I am here, it is just a travesty.

The photos don't lie, this was a great visit, now if only we could get our parents to come...

Getting Crafty in Africa

Sad attempt at sewing, actually a third sad attempt.
Originally uploaded by mralles

So it turns out that I am about as crafty in Cape Verde as I am in the United States. Not so much. In November I decided to be a joiner and attend a week-long workshop at the Brazilian Cultural Center to make holiday decorations. Being that we are going to stay put for the holiday season, I thought it would be a good idea to brighten our house with some festive decor.

After the first night was spent listening to the instructor, in Portuguese, lecture us on the appropriate colors of the holidays season [don’t you dare use purple to decorate your Christmas Tree!] I was not sure I was even going to return the second night. Turns out, I have nothing else to do. So I showed up on Tuesday with my homework complete. I was to cut out fabric Christmas Trees. Upon arrival at class I found out we were going to have to sew these things together, turn them inside out, stuff them and make little pillow ornaments out of them (see lead photo). I thought, “How hard could that be?” Wow. Sewing. Way hard. To add insult to injury I attended this class with two women, Joy who is an exceptional sewer and Susan who certainly understated her experience sewing, both from different generations than me, if you know where I am going with this. Not to replay the whole conversation, but at one point it was said, “Your mother doesn't sew, how does she get through life?”

On night three, I have decided I am just done sewing. I really don't care if everyone in the class has made four different ornaments and I have yet to finish my one. I am done. I eye the glue gun when I get there and am ready to rock it out with that. The whole night everyone is telling me how beautiful my candy dish looks the way I decorated it with these red and green rocks, so I think I am doing a fantastic job. Until I get home and show said candy dish to my lovely husband. That is when I realize this candy dish is actually kind of ugly (though now I secretly love it). What's worse is that I had three burnt fingers to show for it.

The fourth night Susan had the brilliant idea to bring wine to class. Not only did this loosen all of us up (and that is when my creative juices really took off), but it also offered us a new prop to decorate. Wine bottles!

In the end, the workshop was a lot of fun and I made several neat little decorations from it. Each year I will take these decorations out at holiday times and think of purple not being the right color, sewing is not for me, burnt glue gun fingers, and that wine makes everything just a little more fun.

Happy Holidays!

Visitors for Thanksgiving

After lunch at Vander's, Group Photo
Originally uploaded by mralles

The day before Thanksgiving, Jen Keyte and I spent the first day of her vacation in Cabo Verde making chocolate mousse, pumpkin pie, and setting the dinner the table…in bikinis. Between cooking various dishes, time was spent sunbathing or taking a quick dip in the pool. From the outside nothing seemed typical about this year’s Thanksgiving, but when the day arrived it felt like all traditions were in place.

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade played on TV, and while the spectators looked cold, the sun was shining and sky was blue outside our door. The whole house was filled with the typical smells of Thanksgiving. However, the oven was full of three small stuffed chickens when we found out the only way to get a turkey was head into the “fora" and find someone to kill one for us. Football entertained the crowd after dinner was over, but I was unable to indulge in my typical tryptophan nap because my parents were not here to do all the work so I was in charge!

We certainly missed our family, but we gathered our Cape Verdean family of friends together for the big day including our visitors, Brian (who came from Liberia/Geneva where he splits his time) and Jen (who came from New Orleans, by way of many other US cities as she came on vacation off a series of work travel).

It was the first Thanksgiving that Mike and I hosted as a family ourselves and I settled (exhausted) into bed that night with the biggest smile on my face.

After recovering from the holiday, we had a great time showing Jen and Brian around our island of Santiago. We drove to Assomada, the second largest city, and took a long walk to see a huge baobab tree in the middle of a dense green valley. Though we were not sure what to expect, I think we were all quite shocked buy the enormity and beauty of this tree, rumored to be one of the oldest ones in the world.