Sal, Cape Verde

     Imagine the purest aqua blue that you can, this was better. I have simply never seen this color so brilliant and so consistently gorgeous with each new out pouring. As I watched the waves hit the white sand beaches of Sal, I cannot believe that color could be more pure than in that moment. And there is sand, I took for granite that beaches meant sand, until I arrived in West Africa. Around Conakry beaches mean black scum, but here clean, powdery, white, sand.

      Sal is the word for Salt in Portuguese. There are salt beds on Sal caused by… well I don’t know what, let me try to explain, there are these pools of water that have been captured from the ocean, so they are salty. And the ground beneath the pools are real hot, so the water evaporates and leaves salt. Also these pools are ridiculously fun to play in. Rita and I visited these salt flats not understanding quite what they were. As we approached the pools, I could see, a bunch of middle aged people acting very serious about their turn about the pool. To the side was some weird, tree-hugger couple they were scooping mud from the bottom and coating themselves with it (ew), they were also being very serious. The water in the pools acts just like the dead-sea and turns ordinary people into buoys. How could I not giggle? The ground beneath was sooo hot, it burned my footsies! So you’re hopping around trying not to burn your toes and you lose balance and that’s it… beached whale. It is so hard to regain composure, after your feet go bobbing to the top, involuntarily. I giggled a lot, okay I laughed out loud and the serious people gave me menacing looks.

      In Sal, we acted like true tourist and headed to the African trinket market but we were not looking for souvenirs. We went in search of West Africans from the continent.  Tourism is big business on the Islands of Sal and Boa Vista, and the draw of making quick money brings hundreds of West Africans to these Islands. Senegalese, Guinea-Bissauans, Nigerians, Togolese, Sierra Leoneans and many other have moved to Sal and Boa Vista in hopes of sustaining themselves and to send money back home to their families. Many of these West Africans can be found in the little open air souvenir market. Senegalese are especially prevalent, if you are approached by a salesman in the street a majority of the time he is Senegalese.

      In one of the kiosks, we met Leo, a Senegalese man from Dakar. Leo had been around the tourist game for a while; he was a tour guide, in an area called the Pink Sea outside of Dakar, before he moved to Sal hoping to make a bigger profit on the Island. Leo real name was Moussa (Moses), but he found his traditional African/Islamic name too hard for his European customers to remember. “I told them, I am Leonardo De Vinci! Then they remembered my name.”  Leo’s English was beautiful; he said he learned from an Irish woman down the street. Leo also speaks, Italian, French, Cape Verdean Creole, Portuguese and Wolof (and more than likely some other Senegalese languages). I had been in Cape Verde for almost two weeks, two weeks and not a single proposal I was beginning to feel I had lost my charm. A young American woman in West Africa can count on being proposed too multiple times each week. “Hello, what’s your name? Are you married? NO! (With genuine shock on their face) Well then you can marry me!” Leo didn’t let me down; his offer was especially attractive because his came with a promise to let me travel, “Yes! Yes! You can be my wife and go where ever and just call I will send you money.” Hmm tempting, I got his number just in case I change my mind. I didn’t even use the “you’ll have to talk to my father” line (btw Dad have you been receiving any long distance calls?)  Leo is a fairly devout Muslim. The Cape Verdean government has been fighting the influx of Islam into the country and has denied the Muslims the right to build any Mosque in Cape Verde, but Leo still meets every Friday with other Senegalese to pray. Rita asked what he did for prayers during the day, and he said he always closes his little shop and walks down to a meeting place to do prayers with other Muslims. Leo’s shop is one block away from an evangelical church, spatially he is close to the truth, but culture has built a strong barrier between Leo and truth. Many evangelicals are afraid even to talk to Leo because of the cultural difference. I pray that the Churches in Sal continue to push past the cultural barriers and reach out to the growing Muslim population, that they do not view Muslims as people to be feared but instead as people to be loved and brought to a saving knowledge of JC true nature.