The island of São Vincente is a place of culture—music, dance, gastronomy—the performing arts.
The locals quickly tell you that St. Vincent is the soul of the ten-island archipelago, and I suspect they’re right. The influence of the legendary singer Cesária Évora is pervasive—a huge wall near the harbor projects her image to the nation—and to the sailors that abound in the bars and restaurants dotted on the seafront.
Any country that projects a singer as its emblem, rather than the face of some erstwhile dictator, is clearly on the right track.
And yet, this is a nation that fights the odds—not just here in St. Vincent but on all the islands.
The approach from the northwest contemplates a lunar landscape, with the island of Santo Antão to our lee. Whitecaps are so fierce they turn the ocean into a reticle—we’re coming in from the barlavento. Here and there, little towns are shoe-horned into the cliff faces, surrounded by brown peaks thrown up by the angry crust of the earth.
I look at the whitecaps and picture the Phoenician and Roman galleys attempting to return home, swirling in the wild seas, and sinking without a trace.
It fell to the Portuguese to discover how to return home—this was the torna viagem, a long sail west until the northeast trades waned, and then north to the Azores to catch the (hard) westerlies home—os ventos duros do oeste. In between the two are the infamous horse latitudes.
The trade winds blow hard most of the year, and the schooners, ketches, and catamarans follow the wind to the Caribbean Sea. It was from Cabo Verde that Vasco da Gama began his foray into the unknown, and it was from here that Cabral reached Brazil.
In summer, the wind drops—this is the chosen season to sail east from the Americas to these parts. Some of the catamarans stay longer than planned—cocaine from Colombia and Brazil is regularly apprehended, the confiscated boats provide a much-needed boost to local infrastructure, and the crew spend time on the island as guests of the government.
Cape Verde is a land of evaporation—fresh water is scant. Energy is very expensive and little has been made of the huge solar and wind potential—each island could be a gigantic wind turbine embedded in a solar cell. The volcanic soil is fertile, but water scarcity and the sloping landscape make agriculture a challenge.
Despite this, there is delicious market produce—maize, plantain, papaya, and all the greens. Here and there, goats and chickens appear, but this nation’s love affair is with the sea. And Portugal has left a legacy of calm, good food, and… wine.
I never got a chance to taste the local red—it comes from an island called Fogo, or ‘Fire’, so it might be a pyroblend, to coin a phrase. But Portuguese wines are wall-to-wall in convenience stores—and I was told more than once that white wine isn’t a proper drink, just a refreshment—a very traditional Iberian postulate.
Hard liquor is based on the axiom: if you can grow it, ferment it. The weapon of choice here is sugar cane, just like in the Caribbean nations, but in Cape Verde the potion is called ‘grogue‘. The etymology of grog is rooted in cloth—coarse cloth, to be precise, or ‘gros grain’ in French.
Admiral Edward Vernon (1684-1757) of the Royal Navy was the first to administer rum to his sailors, to the tune of a pint a day—rather a lot in today’s alcohol unit straight jacket. The admiral, known as ‘Old Grog’ due to his grogram cloak, gave his name to the drink.
Mindelo is a town where folks smile, where there are no bars on ground floor windows, and where there are windswept ground floor bars.
This land has two universal exports: hurricanes and music. The hurricanes form as tropical storms in this evaporation nation and, like the carracks of the Perfect Prince, catch the trades and make their way west, gathering energy along the way. By the time they get to the Caribbean and turn north to hurl themselves at the American coast, they are powerhouses of destruction.
The United States met office names them after women, which begs the old—and thoroughly incorrect—joke: when they arrive they’re wet ‘n wild, when they leave they take your house and your car.
The music has traveled with the people—Cape Verde is a land of diaspora. A land with music is a land with identity, and the people of these islands are spread over Europe and America, taking with them their lilting siren songs.
At a local shrimp farm, smitten with the hardships of water shortage and energy costs, the owner introduced himself with an apology. “I’m a singer,” he told me, “and right now my voice is hoarse.”
Later, he took my arm and confided, as we looked at the blue sky and the infinite sea.
“I’ve lived for one hundred and fifty years. But I intend to live another fifty.”
The India Road, Atmos Fear, Clear Eyes, and Folk Tales For Future Dreamers. QR links for smartphones and tablets
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