São Vicente, Cape Verde (municipality)

São Vicente is a Cape Verdean municipality. It includes all the island of São vicente plus the nearby uninhabited Santa Luzia island to the southeast. The “"Dia do Município"” or “Municipality Day” is on January 22. The municipality includes only one parish, Nossa Senhora da Luz.

Settlements

*Baia das Gatas, E
*Calhau, E
*Lazareto, W
*Madeiral, S
*Mato Inglês, E cen.
*Mindelo, N
*Salamansa, N
*Seixal, ESE
*São Pedro, SW
*Topim, ESE

History

São Vicente was discovered on Saint Vincent's Day (January 22) in 1462. Due to its lack of water, the island was initially used only as a cattle pasture by some proprietors of the neighboring island of Santo Antão. The island remained practically uninhabited until the middle of the 19th century. It was only in 1838, when a coal deposit was established in "Porto Grande" to supply ships on Atlantic routes, that the population started to grow rapidly. Due to the lack of rain and consequent lack of natural resources, the economy of São Vicente is based mainly on commerce and services.
* [http://antigamente1900.blogspot.com/2005/03/s.html Postais de São Vicente 1914]
* [http://www.mindelo.info/forum/album_cat.php?cat_id=15 150 old vintage pictures]

Population

The population of São Vicente in the 2000 census was 67,163 of which 4,174 are rural. It is the second most populous island of Cape Verde. The annual population growth is around 2.7% (higher than the state (national) level of 2.4%). 94% of the population live in urban areas, higher than the Cape Verde's level of 54% and is the highest in all of Cape Verde. The life expectancy is 62 for males and 65 for females, higher than other parts of Africa. The birth and mortality rates are high.

The majority of the population are young; 66% of the population are under the age of 30, and 8.6% of the population are over the age of 60. The island has 16,000 families, of which there are an average of 4 persons per household, lower than Cape Verde's level of 5 persons per household. 56% of the families live in houses, the other 30% live in poorly-built houses.

About only 11% of the families own automobiles, which is 7.4% of Cape Verde's level.

Economy

The economy of the island was always based almost exclusively on commerce and services. Due to lack of rain, agriculture is at a subsistence level. Fishing has some relevance, but conditions prevent it from being more important, not only for the catch — lobster — but also for the associated industries: conserves, drying and salting of fish, and naval construction.

Porto Grande is the main port of Cape Verde, through which passes much of the country's imports. It has a terminal of containers, silos, and refrigeration units that make handling load overflow possible. There is also a modern seawater desalination plant, which provides water for public consumption and for naval shipyards.

In the industrial sector, the island presents an abundance of manpower, even though unskilled, resulting from the exodus of inhabitants of other islands to São Vicente. About 27% of the employed population is unskilled. Highly-qualified employees — company executives, public administrators, and managers and directors — make up less than 2% of employees. It is distinguished, however, by a bigger participation of women in decision-making positions than the national average.

According to the 2000 census, the island of São Vicente has the largest unemployment rate of the country — 23% — while the national average is 17%. Unemployment affects women more than men. The industrial park of the island — the Industrial Zone of the Lazareto — concentrates diverse types of manufacturing, essentially due to foreign investment, in the activities of footwear, confections, and fish processing.

In recent years, the National Center of Workmanship of Mindelo supports local craftsmen in the production and commercialization of ceramic parts, articles made of coconut rinds, and necklaces of shells and rocks.

São Vicente has a great tradition in sports; from here many sports have spread to the remaining islands. Windsurfing, for example, relies on the excellent conditions here. The beach of São Pedro is considered one of the best for windsurfing, as shown by the many world-class champions of the sport. Cycling, walking trails and horseback riding are good ways to explore the island. The English influence on the island is still recognizable today in the golf: São Vicente has an excellent 18-hole golf course. For these reasons, tourism has excellent potential growth on São Vicente and in the rest of the Cape Verde archipelago. Travel between the diverse localities of the island is provided by a system of public transportation operated by five private companies: Transcor.SA, Morabeza Transport, Transport Joy, Friendship, Sotral and Automindelo. However, especially for places farthest from the city of the Mindelo, namely Baía das Gatas, Calhau, and São Pedro, van and bus leasing are the usual forms of transportation.

São Vicente has churches, a post office, a few banks, shops (not as many as Praia), a hospital named Baptista de Sousa and squares ("praças")

Education

54% of the island's population receive education. Here are the schools and classrooms in São Vicente:
*Preschool - 25 daycares, the majority with a particular character, about 2,600 attendees between the ages of 1 and 6
*Primary Schools (1st year to 6th year) - 11,000 students in 225 classrooms with 379 teachers.
*Secondary Education (7th year to 12th year) - 8,000 students in 146 classrooms with 384 professors
*Post-Secondary Education - has a proportion of individual post-secondary schools (1.7, against 1.1% of Cape Verde's level) including ISEMAS and ISCEE.

Language

Other than Portuguese which is the primary language, Cape Verdean Creole is mainly spoken by the majority of the population. The São Vicente variant is known as "Crioulo of São Vicente" (in Portuguese) or "Kriol d Sonsent" (in Creole).
* [http://www.prio.no/private/jorgen/download/Orthographic%20guidelines.pdf Orthographic guidelines for writing São Vicentean Kriol]
* [http://www.mindelo.info/dico_crioulo.html Dictionary Crioulo-French]

Literature

*"A Poética de Sérgio Frusoni - Uma Leitura Antropológica" (Mesquitela Lima: Lisboa - 1992: Poeme im Kreol von São Vicente mit portugiesischer Übersetzung)
*"Left-dislocation and topicalization in capeverdean creole". (Braga, Maria Luiza: Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania - 1982; Crioulo of São Vicente)
*"Textos Crioulos Cabo-Verdianos" - Sergio Frusoni (In 'Miscelânea luso-africana' 1975, herausgegeben von Marius F. Valkhoff)

Persons

*Bana
*Bau
*Bela Duarte, a Capeverdean artist
*Carlos Veiga (b. October 21, 1949), a former Prime Minister of Cape Verde
*Cesária Évora, a Capeverdean artist
*Corsino Fortes (1933), a Capeverdean writer
*Dudu Araujo,a Capeverdean Singer
*João Cleofas Martins, a Capeverdean photographer and a humorist
*Luís Ramos Morais, a Capeverdean artist
*Manuel de Novas, a Capeverdean artist
*Manuel Lopes (1907-2005), writer, founder of "Claridade"
*Onésimo Silveira, poet, diplomat and a political activist
*Ovídio de Sousa Martins, a Capeverdean poet
*Sergio Frusoni, A Capeverdean poet ( [http://www.unb.br/il/liv/public/frusoni.htm] )
*Tito Paris (b. 1968)
*Vasco Martins, a Capeverdean composer [http://www.vasco-martins.com]
*Yolanda Morazzo (b. 1926), a Capeverdean poetess and a fictionalist

Transportation

The island is connected with three major roads:
*Mindelo - São Pedro
*Mindelo - Calhau
*Mindelo - Baia das Gatas

The secondary routes include:
*From Mindelo - Calhau
**road to Madeira
*From Mindelo - Baia das Gatas
**road to Monde Verde
**road to Salamansa

References

*

External links

* [http://www.cmsv.cv Câmara Municipal de São Vicente] pt icon
* [http://svicente.dragoeiro.com A walk in Mindelo with Jørgen Carling]
* [http://www.multiculturas.com/vb-saovicente.htm S. Vicente, Quel País] - a description of São Vicente culture pt icon