Fogo Cape Verde. Island of fire!

     Fogo means fire. Why name an island fire? Because it’s an active volcano! It last erupted in 1995 and the hardened lava flows are present all over the island. Before heading to the island we were told that some time the island rumbles and shakes because of the still active volcano, “but of course not when there are visiting Americans,” laughed our friend in jest. There is a saying among the islands, if someone is acting strange they will say, “are you from Fogo?” basically “are you crazy?” I don’t know why the saying originated, some say it is because the people on Fogo are eccentric, I think it is because the Island is an active volcano, why are there 40,000+ people living there! Rumbling and dooms day aside, Fogo is beautiful and quaint. There are sweet little houses all around the almost perfect circle of the island. Every house seemed covered in some sort of flowering something; all had potted plants on the patios. Rita and I viewed the coffee plants with the green berries not ripe yet, and we sampled some Fogo coffee in one of the diners. Rita became an instant attic and began demanding coffee almost before we could seat ourselves at every restaurant (exaggeration). Having heard early on that you can hike to the volcano mouth, Rita and I began to train for the excursion. As we visited the other islands, whenever we happened to be taking the stairs or walking up a bit of an incline, we’d turn to each other and shout Fogo! Despite our elaborate training we did not end up hiking to the mouth, it was just too much to be done in our limited schedule. We did however hike the little peak beside the volcano that gave a pretty decent view of the 1995 lava flows. This venture was enough to prove our inadequacy for the actual peak. Walking up a volcano is like trying to hike up a pile of black sand. We were both wearing inappropriate hiking shoes as well, my Chaco’s helped zero in keeping the little pebbles and sand from creeping between the sole and my foot. They did a pretty darn good job at holding the pebbles in place once they crept in there. It was worth it though and fun to watch Rita try to bare foot it before realizing the ground was to hot and putting her flip-flops back on. 

      Our last night in Fogo, I awoke with a start, a loud noise, and did the building just rumble? “Rita did you hear that?!” Rita rolled over and sleepily responded, “Someone slammed a door, that’s all.” I was very awake and sitting up in my bed I was incredulous, “that was a loud door.” As I snuggled back into my sheets, two more very loud explosions shook the building. “That was not a door!” Soon Rita and I were hanging over our balcony listening to the Creole chattering of the neighbor’s and watching men running down the streets. I peeked at the clock, 4 am. We eventually decided to go find out what’s up and we followed the crowed and the smell of smoke two blocks down the road. Apparently a propane tank had exploded in a house (one of those small tanks used for cooking). There was smoke billowing out of the windows. The next morning we could see two explosion marks outside the building on the concrete. We never could get the whole story but the important thing is Rita and I did not get consumed by a lava flow.

     Probably my favorite interview was the one we conducted with a Brazilian ministry called Kyros on our way out of Sao Filipe, the capital of Fogo. It was my favorite because not a single sentence was completed in any one language. After greeting, “Bom Tarde!” we quickly run out of our Portuguese vocab. Then we are left with the French and Spanish words that they might know or that might sound similar enough to Portuguese to pass. Last we try English and charades. It sounds something like this, “Mon Ami, (person’s name) told (gesturing towards mouth), us (Gesturing toward each other) about Kyros.” Everyone around the table shakes head in understanding.  Though I don’t know what we communicated verbally it was like one Nazarene pastor said, “culture can separate us but God can unite us.” I felt close to those Brazilian believers who had also left home and normalcy to seek out God’s plan. I don’t always know what is going on around me, or why things happen the way they do, but God does and He orchestrates things for His own purpose.  And He unites His people across culture, denomination and language in beautiful ways.