When life in the UK lost its lustre, Beverley Chadwick took a chance on a fresh start in the Cape Verde islands. She tells her story in her own words“There I was, having a lovely life in the UK, living with a wonderful man, doing a job I loved, regularly gigging with two very different bands, enjoying all the diversity that life can offer. Then it all came crashing down one Saturday in April 2005, when my beloved soulmate and partner of 17 years had a stroke and died a day later. Life would never be the same again.
I eventually returned to my job at London’s South Bank Centre, which kept me going and kept me strong, but then I was made redundant when the Royal Festival Hall closed for refurbishments. When my cat died, aged 21, it was the final straw. I really needed to make a positive change in my life.
My late partner’s sister ran a property sales company, Cape Verde Property, which was the first UK company to sell property on the islands. Until that time they had sold from the UK, but thanks to the property boom in Cape Verde, they needed someone to go and work for them on the islands.
They asked me in September 2006, and I went with them to visit Cape Verde in October the same year. I did a trial period of 3 weeks in November, then finally moved there in January 2007. I had never sold property, never visited Africa (although Cape Verde is not strictly Africa, just very close). I had never even been on holiday alone.
I found myself on the island of Sal, one of Cape Verde’s nine inhabited islands, searching out an office and somewhere to live, befriending developers, meeting clients, selling property. Starting a new life.
And what a different life. In the UK I was living in a busy commuter town in Surrey, in a terraced house in a street of 20. I now live in a gorgeous two-bedroom flat, which is like a small chapel with a high wooden ceiling and a balcony. In Woking I was surrounded by traffic, shops, offices, cars and people, but my apartment here is in the middle of a developing area. Once I step outside my front door I am in a building site, but I’m just five minutes from the beautiful blue sea, on three sides.
Here the roads are unmade, there are communal water collection points, the shoeless children play, not with iPods or computers, but with sticks and tyres, or a margarine tub made into a truck. The women carry their wares on their heads, the men are resplendent in their fine robes. It’s wonderful.
There are no parking tickets, no congestion charges, no bus lane fines (very few roads, actually), no postcodes (very few street names, actually). There is no commercialism, no reality TV. I don’t have a television and I only know who Cheryl and Ashley are from the odd magazine left around.
We can’t go shopping for clothes or make-up. You will go out to buy what you want to eat that day; there is no piling high of shopping trolleys with things that will be thrown away at the end of the week. I have never seen a shopping trolley here; I have never even seen a sell-by-date. I recently had a dinner party and had to go to seven shops to find all the ingredients. One place sells bread, one sells meat, you buy the vegetables on the street, the wine in another shop, and so on.
It’s not cheap to live here, but you can only buy necessary things, which makes it more affordable. You can’t go browsing in the shops because there are none! The quality of life is better, because you only pay for “real” things, like food, water and electricity.
Once I started venturing out, I had to get used to being called ‘beautiful’ or ‘posh lady’ (the novelty of flattery never wears off, I don’t care if they say it to everyone). Being a musician, I found it easy to integrate. Carrying a saxophone with you makes you feel less worried about going into bars alone, and gets people talking to you. Musicians are very much respected here, so it wasn’t long before I found myself playing along with the local reggae band, and then forming ensembles of my own with local musicians."
Read more in the April 2010 issue of Living Abroad magazine
