The national carrier of Cape Verde is seven hours late today picking us up from Dakar, so I had lots of time to kill at the airport. As I was waiting, a gentleman approached me to ask questions about my visit to Senegal and about the pictures that I was taking at the airport. His name was Mr. Claus Morgensen, from Denmark. He was wearing four ties and was with two of his friends, Mr. Marco Scatigna and Mr. Stefano Spalazzi, who were from Italy. We hit it off right away, starting to talk about life in general and our reasons for traveling on this particular day, even talking throughout our flight.
It turned out that Mr. Morgensen travels quite a bit and and Mr. Scatigna and Spalazzi both live in the islands of Cape Verde and have many successful businesses there. They are all good friends with each other and upon landing in Priaia, they offered to let me stay at the same hotel as them and travel with them to their next destination. It felt great to spend time with a few Europeans that happen to live in this country and know everything about it very well. The hotel is really nice too and it felt great to have arrived in a place that I felt comfortable with right away.
After checking into the hotel, we ended up going to the restaurant right across the street, which was very elegant and clean. Wow! You don’t know how good it felt to see this kind of place and be in the kind of environment that I’m more used to. I am realizing that I have been spoiled in my life by being exposed to so many great places and things, because the more that I am away from them, the more I miss them. At least here, I can charge my batteries for awhile before going back into the unknown. A great hotel, an awesome dinner, what else could I want…
Since it is the weekend now, it will be difficult to do any mission work on the weekend, so my great friends are offering to take me to Sal (another island of Cape Verde) tomorrow. Mr. Scatigna offers one of his apartments for me to stay in for the night. This way, I can avoid paying for a hotel and visit a new place this weekend.
I soon learn that my European friends know many people around here and are well connected politically, despite this country being made up of many small islands. Since they pay so many taxes to support the economy and have lots of local people working for them, my friends know a lot of important people. What a gift that they offer to me. They want to help me with our mission and the issue of Kosovo’s independence by talking with the local government and creating some pressure with the local politicians. What else could I want for this weekend? I am getting everything that I could want in these beautiful islands, thanks to my good friends who are now good friends to the people of Kosovo. And let’s not forget that their home countries have already done a lot for our nation.
On Saturday, we take another flight to Sao Vincente and then to Sal. Mr. Spalazzi is going to get off in Sao Vincent since this is the island that he lives. Thanks to our flight captain Carlos Amado of the ATR 42 (who brought us to these islands), I was offered a visit to the flight deck and even offered a seat on a full flight so that I could get to the Sal with my new friends.
After saying goodbye to Mr. Spalazzi, we arrived on the island of Sal. This is the island that I will stay at until the first flight out on Monday morning. Here, I meet with Mr. Patone Lobo, another successful businessman and wonderful person. It was him who called the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday to discuss my visit and Kosovo’s independence. What an awesome experience so far – spending time with wonderful European friends, in a beautiful place in nice restaurants, discussing the future of our country… It felt like being in paradise.
I will be sad to leave this country, but I have no choice, as our mission is calling me to continue. I will definitely be coming back to these islands someday because of the great experience that I had here with the people, food, beaches, nature, etc.
Back to the capital of Cape Verde on Monday morning after a 40 minute flight to Praia. I head back to work by meeting with the media. They are very nice to me here and my journalist friend Ricardino Pedro, who works for the newspaper A Semana, wrote an excellent article about Kosovo and our request to have our independence recognized. Mr. Asemedo Monteiro, with the Expresso newspaper was also excited to write an article about my visit there.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs were excellent as well. Thank you to Mr. Jose Luis Rocha, Director National for Political Affairs within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He received me promptly and I was able to personally deliver our letter from Vlora Citaku, Deputy Foreign Minister of Kosovo. Mr. Rocha promised me that his country was following Kosovo’s position in the world very closely. I found it very interesting and promising when he showed me Cape Verde’s constitution. It clearly stated that any country or it’s people of the planet has the right to self-determination and the right to freedom. He said that they (his country) can’t go against that and that they will have to recognize our independence eventually. He said that his entire cabinet has brought the issue of Kosovo to the table many times already, it’s just that those that do not support us are doing everything possible to delay that process.
You may have noticed that I had an excellent time in Cape Verde. They have the absolute friendliest people here and I recommend these beautiful islands to anyone thinking about a vacation destination.
All I have to say is Muito Obrigada Cape Verde
Next up on the journey, Senegal to get my airplane and then southbound to Gambia.
