A Penny for Your Thoughts - Pre India Style

It’s about ten until seven on the morning of our arrival in Chennai, India.  Usually, around this time getting into a port, you can find me up on the highest observation deck watching the land come closer and closer.  However, this morning, we can’t see a thing!  It is very densely foggy.  Good think Captain Jeremy is awesome, and our pilot boat should be running up along side us any minute now.  It’s sort of a bummer though, because seeing the port from a distance usually helps me acclimate myself a little bit better than just stepping off the boat and walking around.  I just looked out the window in the dining room that I’m typing this in, and we can see land sort-of.  It just looks like a VERY industrial strip of land.  Which, I’m being led to believe, Chennai is.  Apparently, the port in Chennai is one of the grossest, perhaps the most gross, port we will be docking in: the pollution in India is so bad that you actually bring in back on board the ship on your clothing and shoes, so they’ve covered all of the floors with cardboard and plastic wrap sort of stuff.  I wish I could cover my lungs the same way.  I am really trying so hard to be positive about India.  It was one of the ports I was looking most forward to, but after Casablanca, I’m feeling very apprehensive.

I think, for the next five days, I’m going to be on senses overload, and I don’t do well in that situation.  I shut down, which defeats the purpose of being in the situation in the first place.  I think that I will be completely over-stimulated until I get back onto the ship on Tuesday evening.  I need to make sure that I take care of myself in this port; be SUPER cautious of what I eat, while still trying everything; be unaffected in the moment by poverty, but still trying to do everything I can…  I don’t know, I’m stressing out.  Good thing this is India, and if I need to just stop doing whatever I am doing and concentrate on my breathing… no one will think I’m crazy.  Maybe I’m “borrowing trouble,” like mom would tell me.  I probably am.  I just want to be prepared, and not as shaken up as I was after Morocco. 

So I’m going to have my breakfast, and hopefully buy plane and train tickets for China this morning.  Also this morning, we have a diplomatic briefing, and then I’m signed up for a yoga demonstration, an orphanage visit, and the welcome reception tonight.  Tomorrow, I go on my home stay!  I will be spending three days and two nights with an Indian family in Chennai, and on the last day, I’m doing a school visit, and hopefully I’ll be able to join in on a few Global Nomad events.  It’s going to be crazy. 

I’ll be writing in a few days.  Until then, be well everyone. 

Ps. India smells a little bit.  Like grime.      

Mauritius - an educational party?

Mauritius: being here is slightly perplexing.  I’m sure you’ve google image-ed this place, and I’m sure you are seeing beautiful beaches a la the Caribbean… trust me, the partying happened (a lot – consider yourself warned. read on only if you want to), but there was also some educational value to this little island.  I believe that the number one reason Semester at Sea stops here is for cheap fuel between South Africa and India, but I also believe that the administrators of SAS have us stop here because it is a good transition between Africa and India.  The major religion of Mauritius is Hindu and the biggest ethnic group on the island is Indian, so I think it is sort of a “warm-up” to India- major.  I am totally thankful for that, too, because the more I think about it, the scarier India seems.  I’m glad that all of my days in India will be with Semester at Sea trips and familiar faces within the chaos.  Who knows?  I might love India.

So, Mauritius.  On the first day, as soon as the ship was cleared, I had an FDP to go on.  It was called Traditional vs. Modern Medicine in Mauritius.  First, we went to the China Town in Port Louis and visited a Chinese Herbal Medicine shop.  It was pretty neat; there were all sorts of dried everythings that are elements in crazy medicinal concoctions.  For instance, there was a shelf about 5 meters high just covered in various sized bags of various species of dried fungus.  It was incredible.  There was a 5lb bag of dried shiitakes.  Five pounds of dried mushrooms is HUGE.  After that, we went to the central market of Port Louis, which is apparently very famous, and we saw an Ayurvedic healer.  He was the fourth generation member of his family to take over their business of herbal remedy teas.  I have amazing pictures of his stand… he had a tea mix for EVERYthing including cellulite to rheumatoid arthritis to gas to aphrodisiacs.  He gave us a tiny free sample of a tea for “stress relief,” and, as far as I can tell by just reading the package it’s made from verbena.  I’ll try it soon and let you know if I feel de-stressed, perhaps I’ll have it after India.  After that, we had lunch at an incredible place.  I’m not even sure what it was.  I think it was a little bed and breakfast/restaurant thing.  Our table was set up for us outside among papaya and mango trees, beautiful birds, and one hell of a huge spider.  It was pretty awesome.  Our appetizer was samosas and chili bites (lentil balls with chili, deep fried) with a really hot green chili sauce.  Delicious.  More excitingly, our main course was served to us on a banana leaf and it consisted of about six different things.  There was a veggie curry, a pumpkin puree, a potato and leek cold salad, and a green paste-y thing that looked like spinach, but was a plant related to the lotus (this one was totally my favorite).  We also had the most delicious white fish I’ve ever had and it was served with a fried bread and rice to eat it all with.  The greatest thing about these sorts of meals we’ve been getting is analyzing how complete and balanced they always are.  Americans eat like crap, and I cannot wait to get back into the kitchen with my pictures and memories and start re-creating.  For dessert, we had a pastry sort of thing that was made from chickpea flower and raisins and tamarind marmalade.  I LOVE TAMARIND, I will find it at home – I WILL!  After lunch, we visited an Ayurvedic hospital where we were told about some traditional medicines and watched a massage demonstration (my friend Joanna got to be the model).  We learned that all health care in Mauritius is government funded, which is awesome, not only that, but citizens can CHOOSE between going to a modern hospital or an Ayurvedic hospital or both.  I’m telling you – America has some serious learning to do.  After that, we got to visit a modern hospital that just opened and is one of those new “resort hospitals” you have probably been hearing about.  Americans or Europeans who need some sort of surgery are now going to these tropical places to get their surgery done WHILE being pampered at a spa like place, for the same price that just the surgery would cost at home.  It’s really not a bad idea.  This hospital was opened in July – so it was sparkly new, and they were very proud to show off their machinery.  We saw all the “scan” machines (ct, cat, mammogram…), and they showed us their trauma/triage area.  It was pretty wild, and reinforced in my mind how I do not belong working in such a sterile environment.  I’m sure working in a hospital is probably exciting all the time, but I feel the need to be a little bit more messy than a hospital can be.  Wowie.  It was cool though.

So after we got back to the ship, I was able to call Daddy!  A friend of mine has an iPhone, so she let me use it.  It was great.  Then I had a little bit of ship dinner, and then I went out with some beautiful people for Indian food and wine.  I went out with Eric (he’s been in a few of these stories.  He’s from Arizona), Alex (he’s a wonderful guy – we do yoga every morning and talk a lot of philosophy and psychology.  He’s from NYC), Liz (she’s in my pictures from Morocco – she’s got the dreads, and is such a good soul.  She’s from Maryland), and Anjuli (who I just recently started hanging out with.  She’s from Venezuela/Boston, and quite a lovely lady).  This was an excellent dinner.  We talked about everything.  Each one of us is totally different, but completely open (open to new experiences and new ideas, but also open in talking about ourselves and our feelings).  We also housed two bottles of wine, while eating not much more than naan (whatever. Don’t judge - it was Mauritius).  We talked about everything from Alex Grey (an artist – check him out), to psilocybin, to homosexuality, to open relationships, to money, the state of the economy, poverty… everything.  After dinner, we went to another bar where we met up with another group of excellently cool people had some beers, and then went down the street to another bar.  When it was time to go, the 14 of us all piled into a water taxi (that’s right!!) back to our ship.  I filled up my water bottle upstairs and took a few laps around the ship before bedtime.  It was a pretty fun night.

The next morning, I had a trip to an orphanage.  It was called the “Terre de Paix Children’s Center.”  “Earth of Peace.”  This place is home to just a few kids, while the rest of the kids who go to school there live with foster families.  It’s a pretty neat, grassroots organization.  They have a preschool as well as a school for kids between the ages of 6 and 18.  The kids take classes like art and music, as well as sex ed.  Most of the kids who go to school there or live there do so either because the government removed them from their parents who were doing drugs or involved in prostitution or because they were doing so poorly in the mainstream schools.  Partly the reason these kids were doing poorly in the mainstream schools was because school is taught in English, and these kids don’t speak English.  They don’t speak English at home with their families, or they don’t even have families.  So, Terre de Paix teaches mostly in Creole (the language everyone speaks) or French.  I was able to attend the sex ed, music, preschool, creativity, and sculpting classes that day.  It was pretty excellent.  And… a boy picked me flowers.  One of the students saw me taking pictures of some of the neat flowers, and also saw me admiring the mango trees, and a little bit later I felt a tap on my shoulder, and this kid who couldn’t have been older than 13, handed me a tiny little bouquet of mango tree flowers.  aw.  I totally got a picture of him with me.  It was cute.  This was only a half-day visit, and so we said our goodbyes and went back to the ship.

After lunch on the ship, I went with some magnificent ladies to the beach!  But first, we went to the central market to grab us some tropical fruits to munch on the beach.  We got papaya and lime, tamarind, coconut, pineapple, and some grapes (I know, not tropical), and we also went to a supermarket to pick up some beverages.  We took the local buses to the beach for a whopping 60 American cents (awesome!), and then had a party on the beach!  It may or may not have included some dancing, some [topless] swimming in the INDIAN Ocean, and lots of snacking.  We also met some really awesome locals, but that is a story for real life, not typed in a blog.  Remind me when I see you, you will love this story.  When it suddenly got dark (how did that happen?!), our new friends called us a cab and gave us the local price for the ride all the way back to the port.  It was an incredible cab ride…oh man.  That’s a story for real life, too.  So, when we made it back to the waterfront safely, we went out to one more bar before heading in for the night.

The next and last day in Mauritius, I slept in until about 9, and then Kirra, Katie and I wandered around the town.  We went to the central market for a fruit breakfast, and then we pretty much just wandered.  I found my fabric and a wonderful outfit that I can wear in India.  And we also found one hell of a street vendor sandwich.  It was this chicken that is roasted on a stick (kind of a like Greek gyro meat), but it had this red, spicy marinade, and sliced really thin and then chopped in with some cabbage, carrots, onions, and pineapple.  It’s all loaded into a toasted baguette with green chili sauce.  We got one, and devoured it, and had to go back for seconds.  This is something I WILL spend the rest of my life re-creating.  After lunch, we made our way back to the ship so that we could get there with plenty of time to rest and relax before on-ship time.

So, Mauritius was quite the party, but it was nice to have the break and crazy fun before crunch time.  We will be in India for five days in two days, then we have about five days on the ship, then five days in Vietnam, then about three days on the ship before China, and same between China and Japan.  It’s going to be insane.  I really thought it would be easy going between port and classes, but it is NOT.  After ports, I could really sleep for about 3 days straight.  But instead of sleeping, there are classes, and real college work.  Some of the classes I’m taking on Semester at Sea require much more work than some that I took at SUCO.  That’s alright though.  Knowledge is power.

Now would be a great time to tell you all more about ship life, except that today was Sea Olympics (I know, you have no idea what that is), and tonight there is a BBQ for dinner – which is in about fifteen minutes.  I hope life back in the States is good for all of you.  I gave a commemorative speech in my public speaking class yesterday on autumn.  I hope you are all enjoying it.  I really, really miss it.      

NGOs, Baha'is, and Video Conferences - times in South Africa: part II

Alright, I am back to finish writing about South Africa.  I regret that I tend to be so bad at updating this quickly after port.  Here I am, finally finishing my post on South Africa, and we will be docking in Mauritius tomorrow at eight am.  I mean, I wish I was more diligent about this for my sake too because I want to make sure that I remember everything the way I want to.  I also need to remember to write more about being on the ship.  Even though, at this point, the novelty of the boat has sort of worn off.  It’s still exhilarating to walk to class and see nothing but ocean, but on the other hand, I find myself, when I’m doing school work in the “study hall,” which is really just a dining room, thinking something like “I JUST WANT TO BE STILL!”  The boat rocking definitely gets to you.  It’s hard to write a paper when you are rolling in your seat.  Anyway, I’m not complaining.  There is a life long learner on the ship, Gretchen, who, when she catches anyone complaining, puts her arms up over her head in a circle shape to signify “we’re going around the world, morons.  Why are you complaining?”  She’s totally right.  So what I’m saying here is that I will try to do my best to update more often.

The fourth day in South Africa, I was free to do what I wanted, meaning, I didn’t have any pre-planned SAS trips.  I got up really early with Kirra and we went to breakfast at this cute little café in the mall with a couple other girls and our friend, Eric.  Kirra, Laurel, and Katie each had things they were leaving for pretty early, so after breakfast, Eric and I set out to find some adventure.  We started by going back to the ship.  Ha.  We wanted to get our computers and find some internet so that we could find something great to do.  While we were leaving the ship, we ran into the Global Nomads who invited us to go with them for the day.  So, this requires a back-story:

The Global Nomads Group is an NGO based out of NYC and their mission is to connect students around the world through video conferencing.  I’m sure you can imagine what a videoconference is, but for those of you who may be less familiar with it, a videoconference is essentially a phone call, but through the computer or a satellite with video and audio.  So the kids get to talk to and see each other and ask each other questions about their countries, their lives…really about whatever they want to know about.  The GNG consists of six people total, and four of them are on our voyage right now.  Tonya, Johanna, Kim, and Jon.  I heard about the GNG and knew what their mission was, but I didn’t really get it until after I got to see one.

So, back to my story:  Eric and I hopped in the Global Nomads taxi and we took it to a conference center where we met a group of South African high school students.  The school they were from, Pinewoods, is one of the first schools to fully integrate after apartheid and they base their student population on the population of the Western Cape.  Western Cape is the province that Cape Town in is.  So that means the majority of their students are black and there are more colored students than there are white students.  When the students got to the conference center, Tonya, a Global Nomad explained to the students what was going to happen, and they had a chance to brainstorm what they wanted to ask the students in America.  Eric and I also had an opportunity to meet the students and get to know them a little bit.  We spoke with three different, high school classes in the US that day: one in New Jersey (about 15 minutes from NYC), one in Miami, and one in San Antonio.  It was fun to see and hear about the differences in cultures just between the students in the states.  The videoconference theme was on Globalization, how it affects the high school students and what evidence exists to back up various theories on globalization.  The students asked amazingly thoughtful questions about politics (Bush vs. Obama, or Apartheid and it’s legacy), about teen pregnancy and HIV/AIDS, about sports and the World Cup, and about music.  Jani and Megan also attended this videoconference, and at the end, the South African students were able to ask Eric, Megan, and me whatever questions they had left.  One student asked us about mac&cheese.  She said that she heard mac&cheese gets eaten in the states ALL THE TIME because it’s really cheap and that college kids eat a ton of it, but in SA, mac&cheese is special, because the ingredients are expensive, and it’s like a “Christmas meal.”  A lot of the questions, while being funny, actually expose a certain insight about the differences (or similarities – I explained how we also have a “Christmas” mac) between the cultures.  When it was time to leave, the students specifically asked Eric and me to return on Thursday (this was Tuesday) when they were having the wrap-up to their video conference.  My heart melted a little bit, and so I decided I’d sell my ticket that I had for Thursday and go back to the videoconference.

After the videoconference, Tonya, Johanna, Jani, Megan, Eric and I were trying to figure out cab situations to get back to the waterfront when Tonya’s phone rang.  She sounded wicked excited and when she got off the phone she told us “My friend, Pamela, just called me.  I haven’t seen her since I was fifteen years old at a summer camp up in Maine, and she lives here now.  She’s going to pick me up and we’re going to go to a devotional service.  Do any of you want to come?”  --Aunt Cara and Grandma Smith, this is for you.--  So I asked what sort of devotional service she meant and she explained to me that she and Pamela are both practicing Baha’is, and they were going to go to a Baha’i gathering in a township, “did I want to go?”  Um, let me think… YES!  And then I got to thinking… they met at a summer camp in Maine and they are Baha’i, was it Green Acre?  YES, it was, and so I launched into this story about how I really don’t know all that much about the Baha’i Faith, but that my Aunt is Baha’i and my grandmother was Baha’i, and my aunt got married at Green Acre and everything.  So Tonya was thrilled to take me along with her.  Jani and Megan decided to tag along as well.  When Pamela got to the conference center to pick us up, we all piled into her car (which was a five person car and was filled up with Pamela and her three wonderful kids), so Tonya and Pamela sat in the front, and Jani, Me, and Megan all sat in the back with the kids on our laps.  We wore seat belts – not that that makes it much safer, but…When in Rome… Anyway, these kids were amazing.  The kids were all born in Rochester, New York, and they moved to two different places in California before finally moving to Cape Town about a year and a half ago, and they already speak Afrikaans and Ktosa, two of eleven of South Africa’s official languages.  Ktosa is one of the African languages with clicks in it, and so for most of the car ride, we practiced our clicks.  Also during the car ride, we listened to the kids tell us their “South African Adventure” stories, which most of the time included big animals like elephants and whales.  The kids were 10, 8, and 6 years old...and just wonderful little beings.  Our first stop on our way to the devotional service was the Kayaletcha Township.  This is one of the most famous townships outside of Cape Town, (I’m not sure why), but we were there to drop off a pair of shoes.  Pamela’s family was allowing a student from the Kayaletcha Township stay with them because he attends the school that her kids do, and he has to commute a long distance each day.  He was living with them to decide if it was worth moving from the Township.  Anyway, this boy, who is also 10, was in the 8 year old class with Pamela’s son, and so they are best friends.  When we got out of the car in this township, we were inundated with hugs.  It was wonderful.  The family of the boy with the shoes was so thankful that Pamela would go out of her way to drop off the shoes, that they were almost in tears.  It was a cool moment to be in.  Then, this boy’s whole family, introduced themselves to us, one by one, and gave us the South African hug, which is three hugs in one.  We talked for a little bit, and then we had to be on our way.  On our way to the devotional service, we stopped by a stand to pick up a township treat.  Pamela and her kids were raving about this bread, and so she stopped and bought us all one.  It was the same “fat cook” (I really regret that I can’t remember the Ktosa word for it) that I had at the Habitat house.  Me oh my, that stuff is good.  So, after a short car ride to another township called Delb (I think), we got out to a train of kids running after our car because we were carrying the drums.  When we got there, it wasn’t time for the devotional service to start, so we played a MASSIVE, and I mean huge, game of soccer in the township.  Also, a cool moment that I don’t want to forget…  I have been collecting sand in each port, but this day in South Africa, I didn’t have a zip lock bag with me, and just as soon as I asked Jani if she had a bag (which she didn’t), a littered bread bag blew in the wind right to my feet.  Jani said, “Well, there’s one.  It’s just for you. Use it.”  I was skeptical at first, but I decided that I really wanted this township sand, so I picked it up, and the brand of the bread was “Albany.”  Not that I really believe in superstition or divine happenings, but that was pretty cool.  As I was filling the bag, more and more little hands were helping me fill my bread bag of sand, one of them being Fatiema, who became my best friend for the rest of the time we were visiting.  So when it was time for the devotional to start, we all piled into a township house.  There were the five of us, Pamela’s husband, Daft, and two other college-aged kids, and then about 50 children all under the age of 13.  Pamela started this devotional service, but then, it was ENTIRERLY run by the kids.  Pamela made prayer cards that the kids pass around and read from (in at least two different languages) and the kids played drums and sang many different devotional songs.  Fatiema basically walked me through each part, as well.  She was tap on my shoulder, and then whisper to me what we were going to be reciting or singing next.  I actually recognized some of the songs!  At the end, they sang the South African national anthem, which I was able to really sing along with, and they were so surprised that I knew it (Thank you, Paul Simon.)!  After the service, which was awesome, though I didn’t get too much of the religion aspect because it was run by kids (☺), the kids of the township performed a dance for us while I talked with the college students.  They were both students at the University of Cape Town, and both declared their Baha’i membership (?) at fifteen and teach religion classes in this township with the kids on Saturdays.  I got their e-mails so that we could stay in touch.  Pamela’s kids went home with their dad, Daft, and Pamela drove us back to the waterfront where our ship was.  We talked a lot on the way home about moving to another country, about the dangers of living in South Africa, about the Baha’i faith, about Green Acre, and about Pamela’s wonderful kids.  I also got Pamela’s e-mail address so that I can stay in touch with her family as well.  We said a meaningful goodbye, and then Jani, Megan, Tonya and I went out for a traditional South African dinner. 

That night, and since then, I’ve been doing as much wikipedia (it’s one of our only free websites, so I can’t get any real information) research as I can on the Baha’i religion.  While it is probably the only monotheistic religion that has an appeal to me (equality among men and women, familial importance, education, meetings in homes rather than huge, scary “mega churches”…), it is still a religion and I just can’t agree with some things.  For instance, even though the Baha’is, as all religions, ban homosexuality because “marriage” is for a “man and woman,” tend to be most supportive if a member of the Baha’i community does come out as homosexual; but I just can’t get behind the idea of asking someone to “fix” themselves when they are not doing anything wrong.  I, while I don’t need to drink, don’t like it when something or someone forbids me of anything.  That being said, I got all of my information from wikipedia, and would love to discuss the issues with a person – Aunt Cara, I’m hoping.  There are a few questions I have about the faith as well.  For instance, I know that one of the tenants is that the Baha’i community calls for an auxiliary language in addition to one’s mother tongue.  What language?  Arabic? Persian?  The Bab is an Arabic word for the Gate, I assume he named himself that because he was seeing himself as the gate between the new and the old, the good and the bad…also, the “holy” books of the Baha’i faith are called Al Kitab [whichever], which means book of [whichever] in Arabic.  I wonder about the auxiliary language.  I also like how the Baha’i faith seems to have taken all the best bits from the Islamic religion and made it better.  Anyway, it is a good conversation.  I’m glad I had the opportunity to seize the day and visit that township with such wonderful company.

The next day, I joined the Global Nomad Group again for another videoconference with a NGO located in South Africa called LoveLife.  This again, needs a back-story.  One of the greatest parts of Semester at Sea is our Interport Student program.  In each port, we pick up one or two students that live in the next port, and for the time we’re at sea, we learn from each other.  In Ghana, we picked up two interport students, and I was lucky enough to make good friends with our student named Bulelani (Boo-Lay-LAni).  Lani works for the LoveLife program.  Like I said, LoveLife is a NGO, and they work exclusively with South African youth between the ages of 12 and 17 on how to prevent HIV/Aids.  They have centers called “Y-Centers” (Youth Centers) where the kids can go to socialize with other kids, use computers and the internet, play football or rugby indoors or outdoors, make PSAs for radio stations, and where there are free clinics and counseling.  The rates of HIV in South Africa among women between the ages of 18-25 is 1 in 3, so this type of information and this sort of environment is invaluable for these kids.  LoveLife partners with Kaiser, Int. as well, so LoveLife gets a pretty substantial amount of funding to make public advertisements and campaigns.   So, Global Nomads and Lani hooked up and set up a videoconference between some students at LoveLife and two US high school classrooms, and I tagged along to see what a satellite conference was like and to check out B’s work.  We got there at about 10 am, and the conference wasn’t scheduled until 3pm, so we got a tour of the facility, got to meet the staff, learn about their newest campaign which is “Make a Move,” and it’s tied in with the World Cup that will be in SA in 2010.  We also took a walk around the township, Langa, that this particular Y-Center was located in.  We got lunch, and then the kids arrived.  This particular videoconference’s theme was on HIV/Aids, and so we prepped the kids on what sort of questions they wanted to ask the US students and what they wanted to know about life in America.  These kids were particularly interested in the rate of teen pregnancy in the US (it’s very high in SA), and what crime rates in US neighborhoods are like (the students in SA explained that they are most often scared to walk around in the neighborhoods because of the chance of being mugged or raped…in their OWN neighborhoods).  I think the American students were surprised and upset to hear the rates on rape and about feeling unsafe in their own communities, and I think the South African students were equally surprised to hear that teen pregnancy is just as big a problem in the US as it is SA.  The students, of course, wanted to talk about pop music and sports, and dating too, but that is why these videoconferences are SO IMPORTANT.  Students from all over the WORLD get connected and learn that while their cultures are so different, people all over the world are exactly the same.

If there are only two things that I’ve learned so far on this trip, they are that 1) this world is seriously f-ed up, and 2) people all over the world are the SAME.  Everyone suffers, and yet everyone perseveres and cries the same, laughs the same, and most importantly, loves the same.

So, after a meaningful discussion with the staff and the students at LoveLife after the conference, e-mails were exchanged, and B and I had a pretty sad goodbye.  I’ve decided though, that goodbyes are not that bad if you say “I’ll see you soon,” and truly mean it – even if you mean after death; life and everything about this earth is totally impermanent. 

That night when I got back to the ship, I went out with SASers for Alyse’s birthday.  We went to a great seafood restaurant on the waterfront and then we got gelato and crepes and went back to the ship for a movie night.  It was a pretty great birthday party.  I try my best to make sure that people with birthdays on the ship have a good day, because I think that while having your birthday on Semester at Sea would be a wicked story, I also think that it would be one of my worst homesick days.  So, after the movie, Alyse and I stayed up really late just talking about everything and having lots of hot tea.  It was a nice night.

The next day, Alyse and I went out for a WONDERFUL breakfast that included the fanciest eggs benedict that probably exists, and really wonderful granola, and I met up with the Global Nomads for one last videoconference.  This one was the same school, Pinewoods, from Tuesday (this was now Thursday – our last day in port).  The students videoconference-ed with the same three schools from the States, but this time it was a little bit more casual.  Instead of talking about only globalization and sticking to the topics that they prepped, they spoke a lot more about teenage life in their respective countries.  They even each performed their national anthem for each other.  These videoconferences are powerful stuff.  Also during this videoconference, another NGO joined us.  They are Grassroots Soccer.  Look them up.  If I don’t get the Nature’s Classroom job I’m hoping for, I will apply to intern with this group.  They’re awesome.  Two “team members,” Alan and Elise, from Grassroots Soccer were at the videoconference, at after the conference was over, I got to go with them and Tonya to their office in downtown Cape Town.  It was another really lucky situation I found myself in Cape Town thanks to the Global Nomads, and what an excellent time I had.  Alan just graduated from Middlebury College in VT and is interning in SA for six months, and Elyse went to Dartmouth and she works for Grassroots Soccer and lives in SA all the time.  I got their e-mails to stay in touch too.  After a quick tour of the office, we brainstormed ways that GNG and GRS could work together in the future, and then we had to book it out of there to make it back to the ship before on-ship time.  Alan and Elyse drove us back to the ship, but we got stuck in some serious traffic so we had more time to visit, and they were even able to get out of the car when we got to the ship and take a little “outside tour” of the ship.  It’s pretty nice digs. 

So, I know this is a little rushed at the end, but I just wanted to get it all out.  All in all, I learned SO MUCH, so so so much, and met really incredible people in South Africa that I plan on staying in touch with more a long time.  I will return to SA one day.

--Stay tuned for the update on Mauritius; my goal is by the end of the day.

NGOs, Baha'is, and Video Conferences - times in South Africa: part I

Oh man, Cape Town.  The wake of Apartheid remains and raises ships unequally and unevenly still through what we know now as “Economic Apartheid.”  The governmental structure has changed, but economic apartheid is evident in all other areas of life.  It is confusing and entirely evident everywhere.  It is evident in schools, in neighborhoods, in traffic, in conversation, on billboards, in new political doctrine, and to try and write this out is a limitation on expression because the words don’t exist or I just don’t know them.  The way I can write this out so is dry, but the emotional experience is where the “bulk” resides.  Feel me?  But anyway, what did I do?!  Let me just preface this by saying that most of what I did was totally spontaneous and from now on, that is how I will try to travel.  The best times are the good times that aren’t planned.

So, you already know what I did on the first day.  It was a great day.  Now Jani has officially “adopted” Kirra and me and because of that… I am able to get a “Mom hug” every day!  It’s wonderful.  It’s also great because I tutor Megan, and she is just SO smart.  All I have to do is check over her work, which is most often perfect, then go over the new concepts with her.  It’s pretty awesome.

Anyway, on the second day in South Africa, I took a cooking class in Cape Malay.  Cape Malay is the Islamic area of Cape Town and it is beautiful.  The houses line the streets going uphill right onto the side of Table Mountain, and almost every house is painted a different bright color.  I took a lot of pictures of this, but we’re back to the grind here in being able to post said pictures…I’ll see what I can do.  So we did a small walking tour of the area and then we went to our cooking class.  This class was held in our instructor’s kitchen and her two assistants were her daughters and her apprentice assistant  - her granddaughter.  There were only six SAS students on this tour, so it was amazingly cozy and homey.  Our instructor, Faldela, was great!  She was wild!  There was no room to be timid in her kitchen, and she wanted us to jump at jobs.  So while another girl in our group worked on the basis of our chicken curry, I started making the dough for the roti.  Roti is the bread that curry is eaten with.  I mean, my hand were COVERED in dough, it was wonderful to be cooking again.  The vestibular and tactile stimulation of cooking, I think, really keeps me sane.  That is why I love to cook so much:  because it is de-stressing and it is the only creative outlet I excel at.  After the roti, we learned how to make a sambal, which is that delicious “salsa” that accompanies Indian food; she even told us her secret ingredient.  Not only that, but my favorite part of the class was the “spices quiz.”  Faldela put out a beautiful tray of spices and we were supposed to sniff them and take a guess as to what they were.  Oh man.  I kicked butt, to be humble. ☺ Why were we cooking Indian food, you are wondering?  Well, Cape Malay is the most diverse neighborhood in Cape Town, and remained so even during Apartheid.  There is a huge Muslim population, but they were Muslims who immigrated from Indian in the early 19th century due to persecution.  So, the food is South African with a decidedly Indian touch.  It’s wonderful too, instead of red curry; it’s a delicious yellow curry.  In case your wondering, Thai food is where you are most likely to find green curries.  Okay, so after the sambal, we made samosas.  Faldela had already rolled out the dough for the samosas, so our job was to carefully separate the pieces, make the filling, and then roll them up!  The process of folding the samosa quite similar to folding the American flag: Corner to corner.  I’ll show you this one day at home if you want; because you better believe that I will make this meal again!  Anyway, after our meal was cooked, we all sat down and ate together like a family.  And… I want you all to practice something until I get home.  Whenever you eat something that is “finger food” or something that you can eat with your hands, do so with ONLY your right hand.  It will be good Islamic practice for you for when we eat this meal.  It’s surprisingly hard.  Why do Muslims eat only with their right hand?  “Because the left hand is for impure actions not to be discussed at the dinner table.”  Also, monetary transactions can never be completed with the left hand either.  Interesting, no? 

So after the Cape Malay cooking tour, I returned to the ship, walked around the mall on the waterfront with my friend Lila, who goes to Berkley, and then I took a nap.  Kirra returned from whatever trip she was on and then we went to find the elusive, not at all superfluous internet.  On our way down the hallway to the gangway…whom did we find, but our lovely cabin steward Rene carrying MAIL?!  That day… cabin 3155 received 7, count them, 7 (!!) pieces of mail.  I got four and Kirra got three.  Not only that, but some of the mail that I received was forwarded from Ghana.  Amazing. I felt so loved.  In total now, I have received two pieces of mail from Scuttle, two pieces of mail from Andrew, and one card from my Mommy and Daddy.  It was great.  So, if you are wondering, the way to find my snail mail address is on www.semesteratsea.org.  Go to the website and click on “map and itinerary” of the Fall 2009 voyage.   Then, on the left side of the new page, there is a link that says, “staying in touch.”  Click on that and on that page there is a list of addresses of the ports we will be in as well as the way to address the mail.  Make sure you don’t forget my name.  If possible, somewhere on the envelope, write “cabin 3155,” but don’t put that in the actual address.  Also, make sure you write the name of the country after the address.  I know it seems daunting, I promise it’s not that bad.  There is also a suggested date to mail.  Make sure you mail it before that date, otherwise I probably won’t get it and not all ports will be as nice as Ghana and forward mail.  So, that night after uploading pictures, reading my mail, and having delicious rooibos tea, I went to bed early to meet my bus in the morning at 6 am. 

The next morning, I got up nice and early to work on a Habitat for Humanity house.  After having breakfast on the ship, we picked up our box lunches and boarded our bus.  I sat up in the front because I’ve decided that is the best way to learn on the SAS sponsored trips, and so far it’s not proven me wrong.  I’ve also decided that a lot of South Africans are rather prophetic and poetic in the way they speak and what they speak about.  Our bus driver was a colored man (in SA, that means “mixed race” and is not politically incorrect to say) and he was talking about…well, everything, but what he said that resonated with me most was “Putting money into a society to try and fix all of the problems is like putting water into a colander.  Only a little bit gets to each area and it’s just not enough that way.  We need to put our money into schools and clinics and other areas that can spread the messages effectively.”  He was a smart, and well-informed guy.  It was neat talking to him.  So we drove into a township called Mfuleni where Habitat for Humanity has a headquarters and where in the past ONE year, has put up 360 houses.  During the 4 days that SAS was in South Africa and working with Habitat for Humanity, we put up one whole house.  I went on the first day and when we got there, all that was done was the floor.  Our job was to mix cement, and put up the cinder block walls.  We finished each of the four walls up to where the windows were going to be put in.  We also unloaded a truck that came during the day that was full of the concrete roof top pieces and the pieces of concrete that go on top of the windows and doors.  I had a lot of fun, but I was also really, really sore at the end of the day.  Some interesting things about Habitat for Humanity:  They are an international NGO and the day that we were working on this house was World Habitat Day.  Because of that, lots of Cape Town press came out to the site and took pictures and interviewed us, and…the next day, we were in THREE papers.  I have the front pages saved on my computer, so you all can see me in the South African newspapers when I get home.  Also, the way Habitat works is like this:  To be eligible to become a Habitat for Humanity homeowner, you must make less than a certain amount of money per year, and usually, you must have another circumstance.  The sustainable part of the organization is that before work begins on your house, you must put in more than 50 hours working on other Habitat for Humanity houses.  Reciprocity remains because the percentage of Habitat for Humanity homeowners that continue to work on future homes is about 85%.  It’s a pretty awesome NGO.  So, after about 3 hours of work on the house in the morning, our homeowners, who are both deaf, brought us out tea, coffee, and this delicious bread/donut thing called “fat cook.”  After another two hours of work, we had lunch (which most of us donated to the kids in the township), and got back to work for the rest of the day.  At the end of the day, we took a walk around the township, which was a good opportunity.  White people, especially tourists, are not recommended to visit townships because they are generally very unsafe.  We walked around this township with our job Forman and just about every child in the neighborhood; it was like a parade.  When a child noticed us and the other kids, he would join in our walk.  At one point, I was carrying a little girl who told me she was three, and each of my hands was being held by at least one child.  It is like a race for these kids to be touched by us.  It was the same in Ghana when we were there, and was that way in each of the townships I visited.  They compete for everything; even love.  It’s a bittersweet tendency.  After lots and lots of hugs, we got back on our bus and traveled back to our ship.  That night, I went out for South African wine with some girls from SAS.  It was nice, we had a cheese plate a couple glasses of wine, and shared a dessert.  That’s my kind of dinner.  Cheese and flambéed crepes.  ☺

Wowie, that’s a long one, and I’m only halfway done with SA.  I need to take a break because my mid-term portfolio evaluation for my Service Learning class is right now.  I promise to finish this though later today because I’m pretty much free until the pre-port this evening.  Global Studies mid-terms don’t scare me!

Jazz and Stellenbash Reds

Jazz and Stellenbash Reds

Wow, how lucky am I? Cape Town is… well I don’t really know because I’ve technically only seen the waterfront and hiked a mountain, and I have not seen the townships so far, but Cape Town is great. Today was one heck of a day. I got up early to watch the sun rise as we saw the first glimpse of land in 6 days. It rose right over this wonderful mountain range as we watched seals play around in the only area of the world where the Atlantic Ocean meats the Indian Ocean. This is also the first place I’ve been in the entire world that is not humid. I climbed a mountain in no humidity for the first time in my entire life. I ate dried ostrich today. I took a wicked fast “gondola” today down 1,033 meters while my ears popped worse than they ever did under 60 feet of water pressure or in an airplane. I spent the day in really wonderful company.

First thing I did when we were able to get off the ship was do a little dance on land. As I’ve mentioned, the trip between Ghana and South Africa was the roughest we’ve seen it so far, and it was really good to be planted with two feet right on Terra Firma. Anyway, Alyse and I went with some other girls around the waterfront. The Cape Town Waterfront is wicked touristy, and you know what? I like it. It is really refreshing to be able to let my guard down just a little bit. It’s also nice to be able to walk right off the ship into an area that has something in it. We were able to do that in Spain, but in both Casablanca and Tema, we had to arrange transportation to anything, and being able to skip that step is pretty great. It’s a good break. I recognize though that things can change really quickly when walking around Cape Town. The distance between the touristy waterfront to a township is small, and we might end up there on a surprise and it’s likely that they do NOT want us there. I understand the risks and the statistics we were told about. Anyway, we just did some walking around and checked a bunch of stuff out. We went to grocery store, which is great because I ran out of granola bars and got some new ones today. I had lunch on the ship and then Kirra and I were going to find a way to Table Mountain (Google it). On the way to the gangway, we ran into Jani and Megan who decided to come with us. Megan is a ‘dependant child’ on the ship. She is 15 and a high school junior; I tutor Megan in AP Calculus when we are at sea. Her mom, Jani, is the physician’s assistant on the ship. We shared a cab to the trail head (sort-of) to Table Mountain, and then we took the cable car up to the top and once we got to the top we did about three hours of hiking around. The views were INCREDIBLE. Really, you should google image it. Jani worked for Outward Bound and so we were a great group, and we had a really great, great time. Jani has basically adoped Kirra and me as her other daughters and we had a much needed family day. After a picnic of tea, lattes, and cheese at the summit, we took the gondala back down and another taxi back to the waterfront. Jani and Megan had a SAS trip tonight, so Kirra and I had dinner on the ship, and then we met up with Kyle and Alyse and a couple other people and we went out to a jazz bar. Yep. A jazz bar. Again, wonderful. We had a glass of wine from the Stellenbach region of South Africa which is very close to here, watched a great set and got to know each other a little bit better. Then we shared a wicked awesome piece of cheesecake (this bar was PRICY and the quality of the food was worth it. It was pretty awesome to be at.) and had another glass of wine all while watching jazz. It was like The Great Gatsby was transported to South Africa. It was a wonderful night. Now, here I am, at 0:34, writing this blog.

Tomorrow morning, I am taking a SAS sponsored trip to Cape Malay, which is the Islamic area of Cape Town to visit a mosque and take a cooking class. A COOKING CLASS. Do you know how much I have been missing cooking? SO MUCH. I am really hoping that this is a good SAS trip. I think it will be, but I don’t want to be disappointed. By tomorrow night, I should be able to make a traditional samosa. I CANNOT WAIT. I love samosas. Watch out, Samosa Mon in the Burlington, VT farmer’s market. I am going to learn your secrets.

Be well everyone!

Ghana? Seems so long ago?

I really loved Ghana, but I got the e-coli disease on the last day we were there. We only had four days in Ghana, and so I really only got three, but man… it was a great place. Compared to Casablanca, Accra was “African.” When I say that I mean it was distinctly African versus North African and Arab. The port of Tema, which is where we docked because our ship is just so huge was a really, really industrial port. Tema, as I read on signs, is the “Industrial Capital of Ghana.” Tema is one of two of Ghana’s seaports and most of their imports and exports go through the port of Tema, so the security at the port was higher than any of the ports we’ve been to so far. No “unauthorized” vehicles or people were able to meet our ship. The port itself was huge, so to get just to the port gate, a shuttle was set up for us and ran every 15 minutes, and to get to Accra, the capital of Ghana and the main city, we had to take a bus. Accra was about 20km away, but generally the trip took about an hour. Yeah. Infrastructure in Ghana was… well, under colonization, many African countries, South Africa for example, under Dutch rule was built up considerably more than countries under English rule like Ghana. The roadways while there, were most of the time barely paved, and over packed. In the past ten years or so, Ghanaians have been making more money and most people in the major cities (Tema and Accra) are able to afford a car. The roads just can’t handle all of the volume, and so traffic is unavoidable. As in grid locked just about always. This, as I’m sure you can imagine, really put a damper on our Field Office programs, but man…it was interesting. It was like a drive-thru everywhere! People, mostly ladies, would walk around with baskets of things on their heads that you could buy… bread, sugar cane, nuts, dates, toys, and crafts are just some of the stuff. During one particularly bad traffic jam one night when we were trying to get back to the ship after a trip, we bought some sugar cane out of the window of the back of the bus. The transaction itself was sort of surreal for me. But then we ate the sugar cane. We didn’t really know how so we asked our guide, and basically you take the little bit of sugar cane (which sort of looks about the size of a wine bottle cork), and bite the thing length-wise. All of the water in the sugar cane juices out, and it’s the most delicious sweetness ever. I felt a little like a bee.

So on the first day in port, I went with my music professor and his wife to the city of Tema. DeVeaux, the professor, spent many years back in the 70s in Ghana, and so he met up with a friend of his from then and we all walked around Tema looking for fabric. The plan was that Kujo (DeVeaux’s friend) was going to take us to the best places for fabric and then he was going to set us up with his favorite tailor so we could all get dresses or shirts made. An important piece of information on Ghana: “You are not ON time, you are IN time.” And so, getting anything done, was sort of impossible because we were all on our Western imposed time schedules. Anyway, we ran out of time to get to the tailor, and so we tried to set it up so that the tailor could come by the ship to get our measurements before we all had to leave for the “welcome reception” scheduled for later that night. Remember the security at the port? Anyway, I didn’t get a dress made which is a pretty big bummer, but I do have a wonderful piece of fabric now hanging on my wall. If you didn’t know, I am collecting fabric in each port we visit so that when I get home I can make a Semester at Sea quilt, and with the extra, I’m just going to make … I don’t know, anything. Shower curtains, widow curtains, pillows, table cloths, maybe a skirt. So even though we didn’t get our clothing made, walking around Tema was pretty awesome. The people are just so warm. We had a great day of walking and talking with the locals and learning the secret Ghanaian handshake and looking at shops. Shops in Ghana are nothing like the shops in Morocco by the way. Shops in Tema are dispersed between houses, and so it’s like walking through a neighborhood and sometimes getting to shop. In Morocco, the area known as the shops is nothing but shops, and the shop owners are aggressive. Now, I didn’t get to go to the markets in Accra, but I heard that it was more like Morocco there. The shop owners were more like Morocco with “hello pretty, come into my shop, I’ll give you good price…” sort of thing, the like I said, the people in Ghana are just so warm. If you declined going into one of these shops, you didn’t get sworn at, and if you did go in but didn’t buy anything, the shop owners were still your friends. Everyone in Ghana called each other “brother” and “sister” which I just loved. So, after we got back to the ship that evening, we got ready and then went out to the Welcome Reception. Which is something Semester at Sea sets up in some of the cities we visit with their local university. We get to visit the university and meet and talk with other university students. It’s pretty cool. So I got to meet a few Ghanaian students and I spoke with the principal of a K-9 school and the Chancellor of Education of Ghana. YEAH! It was very neat. It was after this night that I wrote the short little blog post about how I loved Ghana, and it was because of the welcome reception that I decided that America has a lot to learn from Ghana and not the other way around.

The next day, I went to the rainforest! We walked on a canopy walkway that was 40 meters above the forest floor. It was pretty rad. And after we were done, we had the lunch that I’m pretty sure got me sick (ha) and then we got to see a bamboo orchestra. It was amazing! I’m being quick in how I’m describing these things because (I know you probably don’t belive me) I am planning on posting some pictures tomorrow.

The day after that, I went to a village in Ewe Land where we took a drumming and dance workshop. Also incredible. I will explain about that later too.

The next day, I did nothing because I was incredibly dependant on having a bathroom near by, so I stayed on the ship. It was okay though because I had an amazingly wonderful time in Ghana.

Jeez, I’m sorry, everyone, that this blog entry is so bad. I just wanted to get it out there in rough outline form before I go to South Africa, which is tomorrow. Eh. My goal tomorrow is to get to an internet café so I can put up pictures and write a little bit more about Ghana and then I hope each night in South Africa, I’ll put up quick little posts about each day. I think that will be easier, and better for you guys. So, that’s my goal. We’ll see.

I hope everyone is doing well.

Kalista