Oh Brazil, you were certainly an adventure. From commercials to capoeira, piranhas to not catching the Amazon virus. It was crazy.

Salvador, Brazil: Day One

Bea was turning 22 on the 26th, so this was the only free day and night we had to celebrate her. It was a good one.

We left the ship and were immediately greeted by a youth drum corps. There were drummers, jugglers and kids on stilts. It was a pretty sweet good morning.

We had a tough time finding a working ATM because it was a national holiday and apparently ATM fraud is a huge issue in Brazil. We ended up walking ten minutes to a huge local market and getting in line behind about fifty other SASers at the lone ATM. Everyone elected one friend from their group to run downstairs and return with giant Brazilian beers to tide the line standers over. It was hilarious to see so many people disappearing, and then returning with six enormous sweating beers in their arms. Victor made the run for us.

When we finally had money (real) we started to explore the market. We hadn’t planned on spending too much time there, but it started pouring (this turned out to be pretty common) and we stuck around for a while.

The market itself was amazing. Everything was so colorful and they speak Portuguese, which is close enough to Spanish for my 4 years of high school Spanish to kick in. I had no idea how much I remembered and had a great time awkwardly communicating and bargaining. I ended up buying a couple paintings and necklaces and one queso (cheese) empanada, which was delicious. The guy I bought a necklace from had a crush on Bea, so he gave us free candied cashews, too.

After realizing that the rain wasn’t going to stop anytime soon, we decided to grab lunch outside the market under an awning. I’m not quite sure what we ordered, but like most Brazilian food, it had something to do with rice and beans. While we ate, we got to watch a capoeira performance, which was incredible. After lunch we ended up talking to the group’s teacher, Jonathan, and set up a meeting time to take a lesson ourselves.

We had a few hours to kill, so we took the elevator up to the Old Town District of Salvador. It had gorgeous old buildings and cobblestone streets. There were also tons and tons of cats. Some guy was breeding them and keeping them in their weird hole in the main square… I don’t know… We explored for a while and then hung out in a coffee shop to avoid another downpour.

After the rain finally slowed down we wandered down the street and stumbled upon the filming of a commercial. It was for the 2013 FIFA World Cup, which in being held in Brazil. We spotted a few SASers dancing in the background and hopped in. Long story short, the commercial is going to be nationally and perhaps internationally aired and we got to meet the musician whose song they were using. Apparently he’s one of the most famous Carnival singers in all of South America. I don’t know his name, but he was super nice and we took pictures with him.

After the commercial, we continued on our adventure, wandered around a little more, and then met a few local guys back in the main square. At 6 we met up with Jonathan and he took us to this tiny room that we were told was a popular dance club. The floor was a little bit damp, but he gave us an hour and a half long capoeira lesson. It’s hard to describe without pictures, but it was incredible. Difficult, but incredible. Later that night Jonathan took us to a great local restaurant where he had a few drinks and watched live music. He and a few of his friends met up with us again later that night and we stayed and talked for hours.


The second day was spent traveling from Salvador to Manaus/the Amazon. Let’s just say that I had a lot of time to catch up on reading that day… We didn’t get to the riverboat until midnight and we stayed up talking/watching the remnants of a meteor shower until 3AM.

The next couple days were spent on an Amazon riverboat, but this blog is ending here because we’re docking in Ft. Lauderdale in 8 hours and I want to go hang out with people.


This semester has been an incredible adventure. I have experienced more in these fourteen short weeks than I could have ever imagined; my eyes, mind and heart have been opened in ways that I never realized they could be. I am the luckiest person in the world for having family and friends that have supported me on this adventure and in life. I love semester at sea and I love you.

Ghana Day Three- April 13th

This was Helen’s 21st birthday! She already wrote a long, passionate blog about our experience at the Cafacayo Children’s Home, so in the interest of time, I’m going to leave that one up to her. This is not, however, the end of Cafacayo for me.

There are 35 kids at that orphanage and Helen and I are going to get them sponsored (aka into private school and eating regularly). I don’t think that $50/month for 35 kids is too big of a goal for us to accomplish. We’re going to start some sort of a student org or non-profit to get this orphanage and these kids sponsored.

They deserve a real education. They deserve to eat regularly. They deserve mosquito nets and a enough beds so no one has to sleep on the floor. We’re going to figure out a way to get this organization the money it needs to properly support these amazing kids. I can’t wait to share my pictures/stories with everyone at home.

We spent most of the day at Cafacayo and then went out to a small local bar to have a couple drinks for Helen’s birthday. A good time was had by all.


Ghana Day Four- April 14

The next morning I had a trip to the OSU Children’s home in Accra. We left at 8AM in a bus packed with SASers. Within thirty seconds of stepping out of the bus at OSU, I made a friend. Her named was Victoria, she was five and she wanted nothing more than to be carried and hugged. I carried her until I truly couldn’t lift her any longer; it was the only time I can remember ever wishing lifted weights and I had stronger arms.

OSU was fun and I’m glad we got a chance to play with the kids, but it is sponsored and structured and truly contrasted with our Cafacayo experience the day before. All orphanages deserve our time and support, but at the end of the day, the OSU kids get three meals a day and a bed, not to mention a decent education. My visit to the OSU Home made me even more motivated to support Cafacayo.

One of the other differences, however, was that the OSU Home has babies. The youngest Cafacayo kids weren’t any younger than five or six. OSU had three-month-olds. They had an entire building for infants and children under 18 months. We got to hold the babies and some people even got to feed them.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love babies. I remember being jealous of the girls who got to hold and feed the youngest babies, but then I noticed a little boy sitting on the blanket all alone. He was surrounded by people, but they were all holding other kids or talking. I don’t know his name or how old he was, but he was tiny and he didn’t make a sound when I picked him up. He weighed next to nothing and promptly grabbed one of my earrings, didn’t pull it, but just hung on to it.

I pushed the thought of feeding newborns out of my mind decided that I was meant to hold that little boy for as long as he needed it. I walked around and held him for a long time, singing him songs that my mom used to sing to me when I was little because I didn’t know what else to do. The only time he made a sound was when I tried to put him down and he started to cry; the second it stopped trying to put him down, he stopped crying and just quietly hung on to my earring. Eventually, the caretakers came to put all the kids down for their afternoon nap and I had to let him go. I’m going to remember that little boy forever.

After spending the day at OSU, we drove to lunch, then back to the ship. We had to be onboard at 6PM to leave for Brazil by 8.

End of Ghana.


Love,

Molly

Ghana Day Two- April 12th (the day before Helen’s 21st!)

On our second day in Ghana, I had an SAS trip called “Mona Monkeys and Wli Waterfalls.” It was an all day trip because in Ghana, nothing is close. The Wli Waterfall was a 4 hour drive away and the monkeys were another hour past that. It was a long ride, but I read The Old Man and the Sea to pass some of the time.

When we finally got off the bus, we met our guides. They led us through a small village where we got to stop and look around. I bought several pairs of awesome earrings for less than one dollar per pair. The hike to the waterfalls was a beautiful 45 minute walk through a forest and over a river that snaked back and forth eight times; the dirt path was littered with sun ripened mangos, which we peeled and ate.

The Wli Waterfalls themselves were breathtaking. I’m pretty sure it’s the tallest natural waterfall in the western hemisphere, but I could be remembering that incorrectly. Either way, wow. We had swimsuits, so we waded into the water; it wasn’t too chilly. Standing in the water looking up at the falls was incredible. The day was sunny and the light was reflecting off of the lush green moss covering the rocks and crevices all the way up either side as water crashed down into the pool. Bats were flying back and forth dodging the falling water. It looked like a scene out of Avatar.

We swam out and posed for pictures under the falls for a few minutes. The water was coming down pretty hard and it was practically impossible to see, but it was super cool. We found a deeper part of the pool and jumped off of the rocks a few times before we had to get going. I would have loved to stay longer, but the downside of traveling on SAS trips is that you have to stick with the group. We shared more wild mangos on the hike back. I bought a Coke from a local vendor and we ate lunch on the bus on our way to the Mona monkeys.

Our next stop was to a monkey preserve where we walked into the forest and got to hand feed the Mona monkeys. You hold a banana and they’ll run right down the branches, peel the banana in your hand and start eating right there. One of them even held my wrist still while it ate! Super cute! Unlike the monkeys Emily and I played with in South Africa, these monkeys were much darker in color and a bit bigger; the babies clung to their mama’s belly instead of her back.

We had a five-hour bus ride back to the ship that night.


Love,

Molly

Hola!

I just wanted to announce that we left Salvador, Brazil at 8PM last night. The mvExplorer is officially on it's way home! We will be docking in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on May 5th at 8AM and I'll be on a flight home that same night.

This also means that I'll be MIA from this blog for a few days because I have projects and finals to finish/study for. I do promise, however, that I will finish blogging Ghana and Brazil before I get home.

I will be home 9 days (plus a couple hours) from right now. Start the countdown!
I love you all and I will see you soon!!!


<3 Molly

Brazil!

Well, we are headed home. We left Salvador last night and are heading straight north to Fort Lauderdale. We have 2 days of classes, 2 study days, 3 exam days, a packing day, a re-entry day, and then we wake up on the coast of Florida. I don’t fully understand that we are coming home, that we don’t have any more ports to stop at, no more cultures to experience, no more people to meet.

Brazil was amazing; I went to Chapada National Park and spent the night on the rocks downstream from a waterfall. All in all we hiked between 25 and 30 kilometers in two days and swam in 2 waterfalls and went down one natural water slide. You know how people want to be ski bums out in Colorado after they graduate? Well, I want to be a Chapada bum. The town we met our guides in, Lincois (the c has the squiggly over it) was about 8,000 people and such a vibrant place. Everyone was so nice and even though none of us spoke Portuguese our Spanish actually got us around pretty well. When we got back from hiking we had about 5 hours before our bus left for Salvador and so we hung out with our two guides, Yuri and Anderson, and got some dinner and drinks. We also went to a capoera session that was going on in the main square. The masters where facing off with each other and their students, some of which could not have been older than 3 or 4. Then we just sat in the square and listened to people playing music and just soaked in the atmosphere. It was amazing! And our guides were great. During the trek Yuri would stay with the back of the group and Anderson would lead the way. Also, both of them were barefoot. And here we Americans were with our sturdy running shoes and we were still complaining about our feet. And this was some serious hiking! Up one mountain, down through the valley, up another, and then down to the river that we slept by. Also, “lunch” didn’t happen until around 5:00, and then we had dinner at 7:00. If we had done this in the US we would have had to sign so many release forms and safety waivers. We were walking along the edges of cliffs, scrambling up and down rocks, and jumping streams. Don’t worry MaPa, I was a safe little girl. I was usually up by Anderson and when he would stop to wait for the rest of the group he and I would have broken conversations in his Portuguese and my Spanish. He taught me some words and I taught him English words. It was pretty fun to try and communicate when words were so different. That is one of the many things I have really learned on this trip: you don’t always need words to make friends, just smiles, gestures, and happiness.
Now we are back on the ship and finishing up all the papers and projects that are due way too soon. But hey, we just went around the world….I think I can handle a little school work. J

Cafacayo!

So, we have some fundraising ideas for Cafacayo, such as sponsoring a child to go to school. It takes only $60 a month to pay a child’s tuition at a private school, books, uniform, materials, and food. The public schools are as follows: if a student arrives at a school after the first day of the school year, they must wait until the following year to enroll. This is an entire year the child is not learning and is had huge risk for getting involved in illegal activity. And even when the child goes to the public school it is usually a classroom of 60 students and one teacher. Now here is a private school: better quality education, children are allowed to enroll anytime during the school year and take an exam to place them into the appropriate class, and the usual class is about 20 students to one teacher. Bea is going to sponsor one of the children and Molly and I are going to see if our apartment wants to sponsor one, as well. If any of you out there want to sponsor a child, or even just give a little donation, please let us know. We have the contact information and everything and my e-mail is hvosborn@semesteratsea.net and Molly’s is mnsheetz@semesteratsea.net. We have been there and met the kids and the directors. This is not a fraud or anything like that; it goes directly to the kids. Or if you don’t want to give any money please give us your ideas! We have some ideas for fundraising and are going to look into starting a student org. back at UW, and we could always use as many ideas as we can get. J

Ghana was an experience that I’ll begin to discuss here, but I hope everyone is ready to hear about it when I get home. Every day in Ghana was wonderful, but day three is and always will be especially close to my heart. Helen already posted a wonderful blog here about the Cafacayo Children’s Home, but I can’t help but talk about it, too. I hope you’re ready.

Ghana Day One

We pulled into port at the usual time. Though our destination was Accra, the harbor was in Tema, which (in traffic) is a forty-five minute drive from the ship. SAS arranged shuttles for us, which I thought was fine, though some people were annoyed. They ran every hour on the hour throughout most of the day.

The first day we didn’t have plans, so Helen, Emily and I set out to explore. We rushed off the ship and managed to snag seats on the first shuttle leaving Tema. The ride itself was interesting; it gave me time to watch as daily Ghanaian flew by. There were goats everywhere, businesses labeled things like “Jesus is Christ Beauty Salon” based in tiny shacks (think backyard tool shed) and hundreds of bats flying around in broad daylight. At first we thought the bats were birds, but upon further inspection, they revealed themselves to simply be bats that hang out in the daytime. Also, the women in Ghana are incredible. I don’t know how them manage it, but it seems like everyone had a baby or toddler tied to her back and it carrying something huge/heavy on her head. Most men carried things on their heads, too, but without the added weight of a kid on their back. Ghana is the first country we’ve visited where it’s more common than not to see people with something or other balanced on top of their heads.

Hels, Emily and I got money (cedis pronounced CDs) and started exploring. There were long streets packed with vendors. Everyone was selling something whether or not they had a stand set up. There was a good chance that anyone who came up to talk to you was either selling personalized bracelets or beautiful/generic oil on canvas paintings. We walked up and down the street for a little while and then asked a one of the vendors to point us in the direction of an awesome local restaurant. He told us to walk fifteen minutes up the road and eat at the Country Kitchen, which made me laugh because the name made it sound like a Cracker Barrel or something. We took his advice and made the walk.

It was a Sunday and a lot of businesses were closed, but we got to the restaurant just as it was opening for the afternoon. We were the only people there and the waitress looked pretty surprised to see us. It was open-air seating under a thatched roof not too far from the road. There was a picture of Reverend Jesse Jackson hanging on the wall from the time he’d visited years ago and eaten there. We’d been told to try jollof rice with tilapia, so we took the risk and ordered.

We were told that it would take a while, but we weren’t expecting it to be an hour before our food came out. We didn’t really mind though; it’s not like we had anywhere to be that day. We talked and laughed and half watched a Ghanaian soap opera that the waitress was watching on a fuzzy TV. I couldn’t understand any of it, but I’m pretty sure there was an exorcism or two going on. Either way it made me smile and wonder what our waitress would think if she watched General Hospital or All My Children.

The food came out eventually and though I think my jollof rice with chicken tasted the best, Helen’s was certainly the most entertaining. She had ordered the tilapia and it looked like it had probably been alive when we were ordering. It was a whole fish, eyes, tail and all. There was also some sort of a salsa and a ball of dough that reminded me of peach dumpling dough before it’s rolled out. In Ghana, they don’t really use utensils; they’re generally available upon request, but for the most part you just use your hands. The waitress was nice enough to show Helen how to eat her meal and we all tried it at least once.

First you pinch off a piece of the dough, then you swirl it around in the salsa, which was super spicy, and finally you pinch a piece of flesh off of the fish, doing your best to avoid the tiny bones (at one point she simply pulled the entire spine out…) Simply pop the mixture into your mouth and enjoy. We encountered a few problems along the way (ie. the ball of dough was scalding and stuck to your fingers… ouch!) but eventually with Helen’s guidance I managed to try the tilapia. It was amazing. I definitely preferred my own meal, but the fish just staring up at you from the plate definitely made her meal more interesting.

Jollof rice is a common West African dish. It’s flavored rice that looks like it has been packed into a bowl and flipped over onto the plate, leaving it to hold the form of the bowl. It comes with either tilapia or chicken and what I think was coleslaw. Em and Helen both had some of the rice because it was so good. Yes, I know I talk about food a lot, but holy delicious! I love ethnic food, especially when I have something to compare it with at home. Seriously American Chinese food, I love you, but where are the dumplings? I didn’t have a single egg roll in China! American Indian food, you’re a bit more accurate. Good work.

After lunch we were walking back when we ran into a group of little boys who were kicking a ball around. It wasn’t one of those stretchy, soft, gell/rubber-ish balls, but we jumped in and started playing soccer with them. They thought it was hilarious and pretty soon we had a good-sized group of seven or eight year old kids running around. A few adults were watched from their business huts and just waved/smiled and laughed; I’m not very good at soccer, but it was a lot of fun. Some of the kids were wearing flip flops, but some were barefoot and there were definitely broken bottle lying around; I don’t know how they avoided getting hurt. We probably played with them for at least thirty minutes, but then someone’s dad was yelling and we decided that it was probably time to move on. My feet were caked with dirt that I had to scrub off later.

When we got back to the main street we did some more wandering, then set off in search of an Internet café. We knew that afternoon was the only down time we’d have for the rest of our visit, so we took advantage of our relaxed schedule. Emily had some stuff to research and computer updates to download. Helen and I used Skype for an hour. Then we got ice cream and went to another recommended restaurant, Frankie’s, for dinner.

Frankie’s was overrun with SASers and it wasn’t nearly as delicious as Country Kitchen, but it was still pretty good. I wasn’t too hungry, so I got a milkshake. We wanted to catch the 7PM shuttle back to the ship, so we ate pretty quickly, and then ran to a local store to pick up a few school supplies to add to our growing pile of things for the Children’s Home we were visiting on the third day. We made the bus with two minutes to spare and were back to the ship around 8. We all had to be up early, so the three of us watched Apocalypto (that Mel Gibson directed move about Mayan human sacrifice…) then went to bed before midnight. We were exhausted; it was a solid day.

End of Day One!

Love,

Molly