Travel to Cape Verde and experience the local culture
If you love a culture that is “hot”, diverse and a little different from your own, don’t hesitate to visit the Cape Verde Islands. Here you will find colors, beauty, smiles, stories, good food, friendliness and good people who will make you come back as many times as you want. So, if you’re looking for reasons to travel to Cape Verde and get to know the country, here are a few curiosities about its people.
Braid
First we’ll tell you about African braids. Anywhere on the African continent, braids are a staple of the continent. Braids are made to make both children, women and men look good, but the real reason is that curly hair allows you to do a lot of hairstyles with it, since afro hair is not easy to “deal with”, even more so if it has to be let down constantly, so there is this versatility of “playing” with the hair, so to speak.
So there’s no shortage of African braids in this country. There’s no shortage of ideas for braiding your hair. Every day there are different and increasingly daring braids.
Not everyone knows how to braid hair, but those who don’t want to can’t learn either. Tourists also consider it a tourist attraction, in fact they love it, so much so that some try to make some of these braids in their hair, which is different to that of Africans.
A curious fact about African braids is that they emerged during the time of slavery and slaves used them to pass on information and create maps to the north, as well as to hide rice so as not to starve.
Mestizaje
The Cape Verdean people have always been a mestizo people, we are a mixture of different races. These people, being a mixture of Europeans, Africans and even the English, have a very interesting peculiarity that usually attracts some attention. These particularities, therefore, stand out from eye color, hair color, skin color and even in terms of nicknames.
You meet people with variations in color and features that enchant. That’s why it’s very common to find people with straight hair, green, blue or gray eyes, and very light skin color, which can often make you think (even with the locals themselves) that some of them are foreigners, but they’re not. There is also a book and some articles about this “beautiful” and happy mix.
In addition, a curious fact is that there is no racism in the country, apart from a few exceptions, although at the same time there is some xenophobia, largely towards foreigners from other African countries.
People of “sabi”
Finally, Cape Verde is the land of “sabi”, or sabura, as many say. In Portuguese, the translation that most closely resembles the expression is diversão e alegria.
Although small, the fact that Cape Verde is a land with a strong musical culture means that the festivals and dances also follow this dynamic.
If you’d like to have some fun, get to know the people of this country and their dancing skills on a closer level, just keep an eye out and you’ll be sure to hear about some party or other that you probably won’t miss.
Generally, people take advantage of the weekends to party, socialize or go to a concert. In the same vein, it’s important to say that there are around twenty or more festivals in the country alone (not counting the festivals that take place almost every month in some areas or municipalities of the country), both large and small, due to the people’s great love for the culture of music and “passa sabi”.
