Tales from Sao Vicente - Cape Verde

We bought an LCD TV - Cape Verde style ........ by Karen Madej

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 11:58:00 GMT

Six weeks is a long time without a TV set, especially when, if you're anything like me you enjoy your daily fix of as many American TV series I can fit in to my schedule. But finally, we have the cash, (there are extremely limited credit facilities in Mindelo) we have chosen the shop to buy our Samsung 32 inch LCD TV, this is based on a twelve month warranty (other shops only offered six months), the right price, they had a bracket to fix it to the wall with and they provided the assistants to fix it to the wall!

Three of us go to the shop, Tim and I have been assigned with the task of negotiating the price down. George and I are both uncomfortable doing this but Tim loves it! It's the inner salesman in him, bursting to get out. George takes the shop people through the list of items and the prices we have been given already and concludes with, “so is there any chance of a deal here?” Oh dear, I think, having done a little sales work myself, that didn't sound very strong. Tim takes over, there is initial resistance from the shop people but after much discussion the end result is a 5000$ Cape Verde Escudos saving on a TV and wall bracket with an original price of 81,000$. Both George and I would have paid the original price, cowards that we are. Tim then starts negotiating for a piece of kit that ensures that electrical surges would not damage electrical goods but George is happy and ready to go.

Now this is the great part of the story, G asks when the TV can be fitted, now, it seems is as good a time as any. Two of the shop chaps, gather tools and pop them in a carrier bag, box the TV and the bracket and carry it all outside. George says “shall we get a taxi?” One of the young men goes off to hail one from the busier main street, Rua de Lisboa, brings it back within moments, then they load the boot and we all pile in for the short journey to our home. The shop assistants expertly fix the bracket to the wall and hang our new TV on it. They then plug in the set top box and make sure all is in working order for us. Brilliant service!

Where would you get this service in the UK? I am so impressed!

Mindelo Fish Market - by Karen Madej

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 11:20:00 GMT

My friend and I found the fish market, located on the Avenida Marginal (the main coast road), we'd walked past the new marina Ponto D'Agua and the new Banco Interatlantico Africano (BAI) on our right hand side until the pavement stopped so we crossed the busy road to the other side where we found a long parade of a variety of shops; a supermarket on the corner, a Chinese Loja, Khym Negoce Decorami, a Cafeteria, tiny little shops not much bigger than a cupboard, selling amongst other things; dried beans from sacks; vegetables, toiletries.

The pavement outside the shops is full with street vendors, their enticing wares of fish, fruit, herbs, eggs and vegetables, also potential customers and passers by. There are so many groups that in places, it is not possible to pass by them on the pavement, so we step off to walk around the parked vehicles into the oncoming traffic, quite hair raising, I can tell you!

Further down we cross a side street, filled with yet more vendors, walk on a short way to a painted crossing, where we cross the road on to a skinny pavement between a wall and a barrier, there is only just enough room for two people to pass, not comfortably and if someone has a bag of fish or one of the men who drag washing basket sized plastic containers full of fish to distribute to the street vendors needs to get past, we have to press ourselves up against the wall!

The whole area around the fish market is buzzing with people and conversation; shouting; selling; negotiating; smiling; frowning; transactions. The street vendors are in the main dressed poorly but are clean – well as clean as it is possible to be if you spend your day cutting up fish! Some of the women have scarves to protect their exposed skin from the sun rays that reach round some corners and between the roofs of the buildings, this side of the street the buildings mostly provide shade for the items being sold as well as the people. Most street vendors have flip flops, unlike some of the beggars, who are barefoot. If they've had a fruitful day with the tourists, will make straight for one of the eight foot by eight foot (estimated) spit and dust (not sawdust, just dust that the wind blows in) bars that sell the cheapest grogue to obliterate their problems and blacken their lungs with individual cigarettes for a few shcuds. We watched, fascinated (and yet at the same time disgusted) from outside, not brave or curious enough to venture in.

At last we enter the fish market, you'd have to have lost your sense of smell to not know you were somewhere near from about twenty meters away. On entering, I wished I had lost my sense of smell. This is one occasion I am delighted that I hadn't had breakfast, as if I had it would have quickly been mingling with the blood, water, dirt and stray animals on the floor. The flies were really happy swarming all over the fish, the chopping boards, people, animals, not a surface untouched. Walking down the middle aisle with counters either side, there are fish of all shapes and sizes and I don't recognise any of them, well maybe one, possibly a red snapper. There was no ice in sight and the stench was unbelievable. The mongers were vying for sales, thrusting whole fish or sections of what looked like tuna at us as we walked past, overcome with incredulity.

Turning left at the bottom of the aisle, I can see a small jetty at the back of the hall, where the fresh fish are being brought on to land, whole huge tuna, what looks as though it could be a sword fish, I'm no expert but it had a very long pointy snout that looked remarkably like a sword to me! Turning left again away from this cornucopia of activity We found there was another side to the fish market that had other fish and lo and behold eggs on two dozen trays – some were broken, others had holes in and there were a few that were OK but we decided to leave them, deciding that we couldn't actually carry them back with us.

So having failed quite miserably to purchase anything on our first visit, least of all fish, we decide to try again a few weeks later.

On the second visit to the fish market, having entered by the first entrance as before, we make our way down the main aisle and position ourselves at a stall in an attempt to observe some fish buying transactions, to see how much the fish is but it's not very clear at all. The customer pays the monger, the monger then gives her fish to another man who disappears off with it. We get cold feet about the whole thing, not knowing which fish to buy and deciding (irrationally I was later to find out) that it was too expensive. So we go round to the other side and buy some veg and a tray of eggs that appear to all be intact.

We leave the fish market, my friend has gone haring off down the street, Avenida Amilcar Cabral carefully balancing the two dozen eggs in their tray and I am faffing around on the steps outside, as I am prone to doing, when the lady who had the stall with the eggs appeared looking very worried, it would seem we hadn't paid for them! In the Municipal veg market our experience of the stall holders was that one would take payment for all the items regardless of how many stalls you bought from, apparently not here. The woman didn't want to take my €10 so I tried to call my friend back as he had some Escudos, he didn't hear me and I thought he'd never look around for me. Eventually he did and I waved for him to come back.

We apologised to the best of our ability and paid the stall holder 490 CVE (€1 = 110$25 CVE fixed) and went on our way. Our second visit and still no fish!

On our third time lucky trip to the fish market we are taken by a lovely man called Mark, he is a Cape Verdean who lives in America now, near New York, he has offered most kindly to take us around the fish market and show us the ropes.

Once again the stench hits me and I nearly gag, a man passes by smoking a cigarette, I didn't think I'd ever welcome the smell of cigarette smoke but on this occasion I certainly did!

Mark leads us down one of the aisles and asks in Creole how much the tuna is per kilo, 250$00 CVE, now if I remember correctly, you get two small tuna steaks, maybe 300g for about £4 in the UK. Wow! Fresh fish, caught this morning could possibly be the cheapest item we've found so far in Mindelo. The red fish I had thought might be red snapper, Mark said were actually grouper. We bought a kilo of swordfish, a kilo and a half of a plump silvery gold fish, we have no idea what it is called and a kilo of sardines, already gutted, all of these were 250$00 CVE per kilo. The two plump silvery gold fish were taken away by one of the many men who de-scale and gut the fish for 50$00 CVE each, we followed him to the area past the jetty where lots of men are lined up behind a counter, with backs turned, scraping the scales from fish with specially adapted metal Castillo butter or tuna tins and gutting them before handing them back to the customers. We waited for him to finish our plump fishes and then with great satisfaction and a real sense of achievement decided to call it a day.

I thanked Mark and said to him that we had no idea of how the process worked before he enlightened us. What a kind man to take us. Finally we know how to buy super fresh fish, how much to expect to pay and what happens to the fish when the monger gives it to a man and not the customer!

Oh, take your own carrier bags, if you remember!

Karen.

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Mindelo Municipal Market - by Karen Madej

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 11:24:00 GMT

The Municipal Market is found on the right hand side of Rua Lisboa just over half way up, past the Lisboa bar, by the way, this bar has no toilets, OK during the day when patrons may use the public conveniences located to the right of the Municipal Market entrance, not so pleasant when one's only option at night is the side street, also frequented by the ladies of the night and their “customers”. I went to Bar Lisboa late one night with friends but stopped drinking when I was told where I would have pee! I digress, back to the Market!

Above: photo taken in 2008 of Rua Lisboa

The entrance to the market is wide and opens into a foyer type area of a couple of meters wide then to either side is a staircase, straight in front is a tiled wall. Taking either staircase one actually goes up to the hall where the market stalls are. There are quite often a few of the local beggars loitering around in this area, they will hold their hands out to everyone in the hope of getting a coin or two. If one takes say for example the left hand staircase and were to turn left at the top and left again you would find a few more steps to the gallery area, where for some reason, I know not what it is, all sorts of folk like to hang out and watch the activity down below.

Up the stairs on the first level there are shops to the left and right hand sides, there's a café and bar, a shoe mender, a seamstress, a health food shop amongst others. In the centre of the hall there are two rows of back to back stalls and three aisles to walk down. At the far end is another entrance, where there is a butcher either side of the building.

The stalls themselves are laden pretty much with the same items, dried herbs, fresh chillies, small ones red and green along with small water bottles of the home made chilli oil favoured by the Cape Verdeans, peppers, red and green, potatoes, yams, mandioca, tomatoes, onions, cabbages, pumpkin, kale, lettuce, cucumbers, bananas, mangoes and if you are lucky, this week, lemons and garlic bulbs. I say lucky because there is a shortage of both on the island, the lemons on the only stall I found selling them were 400$00 per kilo, I bought six lemons for 800$00 (over 7 Euros) Ouch! I thought I had quite likely been ripped off again, but on sending my bar manager in to ask, he came back to say he had been given the same price. The stall holder must have known there was a shortage! Fair play to her, however I don't think I'll be buying any more at that price!

Back in November 2009 I swore I wouldn't go back to the Municipal Market to buy vegetables when it was pointed out to me that I was being ripped off! One of the empregada de mesa (table staff) in the Irish Bar kindly weighed the veg I bought there and said I should have been charged about 500$00, I'd been charged double. This is a great shame as the market stall holders have really let themselves down here, so short sighted.

Being just another white person to the Cape Verdeans, visiting for a week or two then going back home, I suppose it makes a big difference to their takings for the day if they over charge, why should they care if a tourist is ripped off? Sadly, they lost my regular long term custom. There are many fruit and vegetable shops, as well as the supermarkets, they all sell the same available groceries at the same prices. With the exception of one enterprising new grocer and wholesaler, who has priced his bulbs of garlic at 1000$00 per kilo, reckon he knows no one else has any?

Some of the stalls also sell the small round goats cheeses, these are not refrigerated. Please do not buy one and eat it, like I did in my first week on the island. Unless of course you like to spend much of your day on the loo with a seriously dodgy belly.

But if you want to visit the Municipal Market to haggle and have a bit of fun, be prepared to walk away to get a better price, there are many stalls to chose from and I have since got better prices by taking this approach. Oh, remember to take a carrier bag with you as they charge 20 escudos for one!

Bye for now,

Karen Madej

A bus ride in Mindelo - by Karen Madej

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 11:30:00 GMT

I jumped on a number 4 bus yesterday afternoon, before it arrived the scene was very much as one would expect in the UK, a number 10, a number 3 and two private company owned number 5s came and went. I waited for the right bus with the extremely talented Chef from the Irish Bar (I may be slightly biased here as I am responsible, with my husband for making a success of the Irish Bar), her husband is a bus driver for the Camara rather than the private company called Amizade, so we had to wait for a number 5 that wasn't an Amizade or as it turns out, a number 4 would do, so the Chef and her daughter could use their company bus passes.

On boarding I greet the driver with a “Boa Tarde” and a big smile, being greeted always seems to delight the drivers, gives me a kick too, hand over the correct change of 35$00 (it's the same price for every journey, no matter where or how far you go on the same bus) and go sit on the opposite side of the aisle to my companions. It is indicated to me that I have sat on the hot side of the bus, the Chef says “sol” and points at the window, the Mindelians are experts at being in the shade where ever possible, I shrug my shoulders, smile and say “I don't think I can actually get that much hotter than I already am” then point to the window which is wide open so I will feel the benefit of the breeze when we get going. “Ahh” says the Chef with a smile and a raise of the eyebrows to show her understanding.

The number 4 bus zooms along the Avenida Marginal, the main coast road, past the Fish Market, turns left to go past the Praca Strela and up and around past the two Enacol garages, then takes a right in to, for me, an unexplored residential area, the bus bumps along on the uneven cobbled road, cobbles not as we know them, English cobbles being smooth and rounded, Mindelo cobbles are sharp pointy black rocks, most unpleasant to walk on with thin flip flops, I can tell you.

I have also learnt my lesson previously where bumpy roads are concerned, when I decided to go on a mystery jaunt on a bus, just to see where it went, I sat at the back and soon discovered why no one else was, every bump the bus flew over I flew up in to the air my backside departing the seat by at least a foot until I managed to wedge myself in to the corner!

Anyway, I digress, out of the window of the number 4 bus I see a baby doing a John Wayne swagger in a filthy nappy in the dirt of the pavement, attempting to play with a dog, I see plenty of dogs, something of a plague in Mindelo, most dwellings are not finished or ramshackle, some young girls are dressed prettily, a shabbily dressed old man stands unsteadily to catch his breath. We arrive back at the main road and go straight at the roundabout.

There is a shop called Stop & Shop which sells American Crunchy Peanut Butter on the left, a Caixa Bank a bit further up on the right we go past the turn off for the Monte Sossego Electra building, we turn right, go straight for maybe a mile then turn back on ourselves, there are a few shops and street sellers then we arrive in the road where the store Semedo & Semedo is, the bus turns right before we reach the store so we jump out at the next stop and walk to the store.

Above : photo of buses that were travelling alogside the port area of Mindelo. Main roads are tarmac.

I discovered Semedo & Semedo a week or so ago when I was looking for a good quality, reasonably priced large pot for making huge quantities of everyone's favourite cachupa. Ours is the best I've tasted because it actually tastes of more than simply refried beans, the Chef uses fried onions and herbs to achieve this great flavour. We purchase our pot, after the shop lady has found a lid for it and the Chef has chosen a couple of large plastic bowls with handles for washing alface (lettuce) and kale (couve) and the like, I point out some dinky paper cases for fairy cakes which the Chef likes and gets 50 of. While I wait for the cashier to find the business stamp to authenticate the receipt so my accountant will accept it the Chef and her daughter explore the upstairs of the shop where I can see lots of furniture.

Finally, we are sorted, we go outside, the Chef puts the goods on the ground and we wait in the shade, I don't think she is getting the bus back as she lives in the area but she waits with me. I get a 500$00 note out, being 5$ short of the fare, she asks her daughter if she has any change the girl replies “she is the chief” implying that it is my problem I guess, this saddens me somewhat but I don't let it show and the Chef finds a 10$ which I swap a 5$ for. When the bus comes she grabs the pot and bowls, puts them in my arms and I run for the bus, 20 metres away.

The only seats left are at the back, fortunately I manage to stay in my seat pretty much due to the weight of the pot keeping me down as we fly over the humps and bumps. Over one particularly large bump, taken at a fast pace by the driver, I do take off a little, I laugh out loud and the young woman next to me does so too. Standing up, pots in one arm, resting on a bent leg, trying to keep my balance whilst holding on to a pole with the other hand, I manage to stay up right sort of until the bus lurches to a final stop. I jump off, walk round the corner to the Irish Bar and leave the spoils in the kitchen for the Chef.

After all that excitement it's definitely time to have a long, icy cold, refreshing beer!

Thanks to Karen for providing blogs on Sao Vicente.