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

Day Five- Last Day in South Africa

By some fluke, my group’s flight to the Amazon is scheduled to leave a little later than everyone else’s, so here are a few blog entryies!

Emily and I decided to spend our last day in South Africa on the Hop On, Hop Off bus. This is a double decker bus that takes you all around the peninsula. We took the blue line, which went farther from the city.

We spent half an hour jetting through Cape Town seeing everything from popular hostels to the University of Cape Town at the foot of Table Mountain. We got off the bus at the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden. It was gorgeous and boasted bajillions of flowers as well as sculptures and birds. There were local families picnicking and children chasing birds up and down the sprawling open grassy areas.

After spending an hour or two at the gardens, we caught the bus over to the World of Birds, a bird and monkey preserve that Emily really wanted to see. It ended up being an excellent decision. The birds were fun, but the best part of the World of Monkeys. We got to go into a monkey habitat and they climbed all over us! Tiny, cute, yellow and black monkeys all over! We weren’t allowed to pet them because they would bite, but if we stood still they would jump on us. There was even a momma monkey with a sleeping baby clinging to her back. Serious fun. I love monkeys!

We were running out of time, so we caught the next bus and decided to just take the tour of the peninsula right back to the ship. The drive took over an hour and the view was breathtaking. We passed enormous beaches and tons of seals. There are houses of all size built into cliffs right on the water and famous waterfront restaurants and guesthouses.

As were got close to the ship, we passed the World Cup Stadium and once again, it reminded me of the Olympic stadiums in Beijing. I wish I could be in South Africa to see the World Cup. Right now the stadium is quiet, but I can’t even imagine how crazy it’s going to be in a couple months. Emily and I hopped off the bus and spent a few minutes in the mall at the port buying FIFA/Springboks gear. We were back on the ship at 6 and set sail for Ghana at 8PM.

I need to go back to Cape Town. I had an amazing time and certainly don’t regret leaving for the safari, but there’s just so much that I didn’t have time for in Cape Town itself. Seriously… you could easily take a two-week vacation and keep busy/have an amazing time without traveling more than 45 minutes away from the city center.

Next time I’m in Cape Town I’m definitely:
-Hiking Table Mountain and rappelling or taking the cable car down
-Visiting Robben’s Island
-Spending the day in a township
-Cycling through the winelands
-Doing a one-day horseback riding safari
-Going to every single famous beach
-Visiting Seal Island
-A million other things


Also, another event that I’d forgotten to talk about: Before we even got off of the ship in Cape Town I had the privilege of meeting Linda Biehl, the mother of murdered anti-apartheid activist/American student Amy Biehl. If you’ve never heard of Amy or Linda Biehl, Google them right now.

Amy Biehl was a 26-year-old American student studying on a Fulbright Scholarship in Cape Town in 1993. She was working with local people to end apartheid, but the night before she was supposed to return home she was murdered. An angry, oppressed mob of young black men, the very people she was working to help, stopped her car, dragged her out and stoned/stabbed her to death because as a white person, she was perceived to be the enemy, an evil oppressor. They did not know Amy, or the work she was doing; they only saw her skin color and she never made it home. Three young men were arrested and found guilty of her murder; they went to jail for murder. Amy’s parents flew to South Africa, stayed for the trial and even met with the young men’s families. They started the Amy Biehl Foundation in their daughter’s memory because they knew how much she loved the South African people. Shortly after the murders went to jail, apartheid was ended and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established to promote honestly and healing. If people who had committed crimes during apartheid came forward to present their cases, they would be considered for amnesty and forgiven. With the support of Amy’s parents, both of whom realized how much the young men’s families were suffering with them in prison, urged the three men to apply for amnesty. The case was presented and Amy’s parents urged the TRC to grant amnesty to the three young men who had stoned and stabbed their child to death. They were among the relatively small number of people who did receive amnesty. Amy’s parents forgave them and they were released from prison. Today, two of the three men work for the Amy Biehl Foundation and have been practically adopted into Amy’s family. Amy’s dad passed away, but Linda Biehl works every single day with the men who took her daughter from her. She is like a grandmother to their children. She is one of the strongest people I have ever met. I obviously don’t have any children, but I already know that I wouldn’t have the strength to do what Amy’s parents did.

Anyways, I’ve learned about Amy Biehl in Political Science classes throughout college and never imagined that I’d meet her mother. It was an honor. She has managed to transform a personal tragedy into a foundation that works every day to better the lives of South African children and communities. Wow.


Okay, that’s the end of South Africa.


Love,

Molly

South Africa: Day Four

Day four in South Africa was the last day of our safari. Once again, we were woken up early, sipped early morning coffee on the veranda and then went for our final game drive. Once again, the drive revolved around a quest for rhinos.

It was dark when we stared out. We immediately ran into two giraffes; I’ve never seen a giraffe lying down before. After that, however, we drove for thirty or forty minutes in a light to medium drizzle. It stopped raining after an hour or so and immediately after it cleared up, we stumbled upon another herd of zebras. This one was bigger than the last, but we didn’t stay long because we were on a rhino mission.

We also drove past at least one hundred impala and then found a big old bull elephant eating breakfast. Watching elephants eat in the wild is hilarious and curious. This guy was grabbing huge branches with his trunk and ripping off all the leaves, stuffing them in his mouth and going back for more without chewing. He also smelled weird and pretty bad, which Palence explained as the elephant looking for a mate. Elephant pheromones smell pretty rank… You learn something new every day.

We left the elephant and drove, drove, drove, which was boring compared to our outstanding day before. We did see another leopard tortoise and a snake whose midsection indicated that it’d definitely eaten recently. Then we saw more hippos poking up out of the water.

Next, we ran into a huge herd of cape buffalo. Their intelligence is pretty obvious if you stop to watch them. The leader of the herd didn’t take her eyes off of us for a second. She was ready to defend her herd at any sign of a threat. Her baby just looked at us curiously, as if he’d never seen such weird animals before. Side note: we weren’t allowed to stand up in the rover even when we were parked and observing animals. One of the things that allow us to get so close is that the animals perceive us as one big animal. They ignore us because we’re huge and don’t seem to pose a threat. If someone stood up, our shape would be disrupted and either scare the animals away, or make them feel threatened.

After the buffalo, we headed back to camp. Operation rhino was a failure, but the safari was an overwhelming success. When we got back to the ship, we found out that while we were one of the few groups not to see rhinos, we were the only group to have seen leopards and the only group to see white lions.

We flew back the way we’d come; boarding our chartered plane was the only time I haven’t gone through security to get on an airplane. When we finally got back to the ship at 8PM I went from gross/dirty to showered, in makeup and wearing heels in 20 minutes flat. I went out for one drink, then Saahil and I walked back early. We did, however, talk to two blonde cousins, one from Zimbabwe and one from Ireland, who thought we were dating and complimented Saahil on me. I’ll take that as a compliment from cute foreign boys haha.

End of Day Four


Love,

Molly

PS. I’ll be in Brazil for the next few days, but this blog will be completely updated within the next two weeks.

PPS. Yes, that means that I will be home in 14 days. :-)

South Africa: Day Three

We were woken up by a knock on our door at 5:30AM on our second day at Motswari. The morning game drive wasn’t due to leave until 6:30, but they had set out coffee, tea and some light rolls for us on the verandah. After being on the ship for so many month where the only free coffee is coffee made from syrup, I’ve become even more of a coffee junkie. Let’s be serious, nothing beats an early morning cup of good coffee. I wasn’t in the mood for the pastries, so I just sipped my way through a couple cups and kept an eye out for the wild animals that tended to wander through the clearing across the river from the verandah. That morning we spotted a couple of giraffes munching on leaves and watched them until they disappeared.

At 6:25 we headed through the camp to the landrovers at the front gate. On the walk up to the gate we spotted a few monkeys playing around in the trees. One of them even posed at the top of the reception hut for us; I have a couple funny pictures of him. We stuck with the same rovers and the same seating arrangements the entire time, so I was between Saahil and Austin in the highest seat again. We definitely had the coolest seat on the trip.

The first thing we did was head around the river to find the giraffes we’d been watching from the verandah. It ended up being a mom and baby. Well, not quite a baby. Giraffes stay with their moms until they’re twelve years old, so it’s not uncommon for one giraffe to have a couple of kids hanging around. We got pretty close to the giraffes, which were definitely less aggressive than the elephants, and then moved on. When Palence asked, we told him that we were interested in seeing lions, so off we went.

The guides from all the local reserves keep in touch via radio, so if one group spots something cool, everyone gets a chance to see it, too. We had been cruising around looking for lions for an hour when we got a radio call that one of our rovers had stumbled upon a few leopards. This was ridiculously exciting information because we’d been told from the beginning that we probably weren’t going to be seeing any leopards because they’re nocturnal. As it turned out, we were the only safari that got to see them at all.

We had to drive thirty minutes to reach the spot where they’d found the leopards. When we got there, it was even better than I’d imagined. It ended up being a momma leopard lounging in a tree about twenty feet off the group half sleeping and half keeping an eye on her two cubs as they played! Leopards are surprisingly cuddly looking. They’re less lean than cheetahs and when they’re lounging in tress with their claws tucked in, they look like big stuffed animals… except they could rip your face off.

The cubs ran up and down the trees, sometimes coming within feet of the landrovers. One of them was even pulling the other one’s tail. The tail-pulling victim simple retreated to mommy for a hug and grooming. To make room for our third rover, we drove directly underneath the momma leopard. It was incredible to be so close to such beautiful wild animals. I had to keep reminding myself that it was real.

 After a while we had to move on to make room for other groups. We stopped to take a quick coffee/tea/cookie break (like the wine/beer/jerky break) and then resumed our lion quest.

Before much time had gone by, we got another call. This time it was a lion call. Our lion quest was almost complete! We basically took off down the dirt path, winding along so many different dirt roads that I don’t know how we didn’t get lost. After a while, we had to leave the dirt path and go crashing through the bush over small trees and around bigger ones. The lions weren’t conveniently camped out near the road.

When we finally caught up to the other rover the sight was breathtaking. Six lions were lounging in the shade lounging off an early morning hunt. There were two lionesses and each of them had two young cubs. Three of them, one mother and her cubs, had the typical tawny coloring, but the other three were different. We later found out that we’d stumbled upon three of the incredibly rare white lions. The two white lion cubs were lying next to each other, looking up at up curiously. They had big, bright, powder blue eyes and gleaming, golden white coats; their mother was the same.

White lions are not albino. Their coloring is due to a very rare recessive gene that is only found within the breed of lions specific to Kruger National Park. They’re so rare that until the 1970s, most people believed that they were a hunter’s legend and that they didn’t truly exist. I think they’re cute.

We hung out and watched the lions until we needed to make room for another group and then headed back to camp for breakfast around 10:00.

Breakfast, complete with more coffee, was phenomenal. They had made to order omelets, potato pancakes and the best fruit salad I’ve had in my entire life! I love breakfast!

We had a couple hours off in the afternoon to sleep, swim in the infinity pool and just hang out. I had bought myself a new J.D. Robb book (guilty pleasure birthday present) in the airport, so I curled up in our overstuffed chair and read for a couple hours while my roommate took a nap. At 12, I went to high tea, which was more coffee/tea and small treats, then hung out by the pool for a little while. The woman who owns the reserve was there and talked to us about how lucky we’d been that morning; she said that most people never see leopards and white lions, much less both in the same drive. She was super nice and we found out that she was the artist whose work hangs all over the camp, which really impressed me because it’s all professional looking. There was a short bush walk offered at 12:30 where Palence talked about traditional medicinal plants, but only Saahil and Austin went on it. We all met up again at 1:30 for a delicious lunch before our afternoon/evening game drive.

We’d already seen cape buffalo, elephants leopards and lions, so the last animal on our Big Five agenda was the rhino. We told Palence that we wanted to find rhinos and zebras, so he drove us in a completely different direction than we’d taken on our last two drives. We drove for a while without seeing anything big, but there were lot of cool little animals to keep us excited. We saw a honey badger hurrying away into the bush with her babies in her mouth. We saw a leopard tortoise and a bunch of huge ants that are smart enough to know how to protect themselves. When they’re hidden in the grass, they go about their business normally, but when they’re crossing the dirt road, they know that they can be easily spotted by birds, so they clump together into a huge, twisting line as they walk; this little trick makes them look like a snake and keeps them safe until they’re back in the grass on the other side. There were also tons and tons of beautiful birds, including eagles and impala galore.

We drove for a long time without spotting our rhinos, but eventually we found a small herd of zebras. They’re much more skittish than the other animals and every time we tried to get close they ran away. We were all super excited to cross one more animal off of our list. All we had left was a rhino. After the zebras, we stopped for a beer/wine break; it was around 5PM.

As it got dark, we spotted a couple more giraffes, but by the time the spotlight came out, we didn’t have much hope of finding rhinos that night. Difference did, however, spot another chameleon in the dark. This time was even more incredible because it was at least 30 feet off the road. He picked it up and let it climb from Saahil’s arm to mine. It felt super weird and the little guy was groping the air trying to find branches to escape into. Difference put him back after a minute.

Instead of driving us straight back to camp, we all met up at a clearing in the bush. They’d set up a huge buffet dinner and the only light came from the candles and the moon. Saahil is an astronomy major, so he used a laser pointer to point out Cainus Major, Sirius and the Southern Cross. After dinner, we roasted marshmallows around a fire and drank a little wine before they drove us back to camp.

It was an amazing day.

My 21st!

Molly, Bea, David, and I got up on April 13^th to go spend the day at a children’s home that Molly found. The director’s name is Luwis and she had been in contact with him for over a month and finally the day had arrived. We were going to take a shuttle from Tema to Accra, then a tro-tro (a big van that is used as public transportation) to Rasta, and then a taxi to the home in Teshe. We told the shuttle driver this and he said we were crazy. So he called Luwis and it was decided that we would just wait for a taxi to come get us and take us to Cafacayo, the home. So we waited out at the port gate for at least an hour and a half, even though the home is only about a half and hour’s drive away from the port. That shows right there the traffic conditions in Accra….so busy! But finally the driver, Isaac, showed up and we started off to meet the kids. We drove along the coast, past a military training base and fishermen wading in the surf, looking for that big catch like Santiago did off the coast of Havana. But these fishermen did not go out too far and they did not have old hands. We got off of the paved roads and onto bumpy dirt roads with patches of asphalt, sometimes. We turned down dirt street after dirt street, passing small houses and shacks all the while. Many people were on the streets, and I saw way too many school aged children not in uniforms and not in class. This is because of the education system, which I learned about and will talk about later. The roads weren’t marked but Isaac knew where he was going. The four of us pretty much sat in silence and just watched the surroundings of Accra go by. Eventually, after about half an hour, we stopped out front of a big cement building that had paintings of kids playing.

Isaac knocked on the big green door and we could hear feet running towards us from the inside. A little boys stuck his head out, yelled something, and then threw open the door for us. We walked into a small fenced in yard that was mostly dirt except for the pavement we walked on up to the porch. A man was shaving a boy’s head (it is customary in Ghana for children to shave their heads until they are 16, both boys and girls), and when we approached he threw up his hands and came to greet us. This was Luwis. His smile was big enough to cover every face in Teshe. He gave each of us a firm hand shake and a friendly pat on the back and then started to introduce us to the kids. There were only 15 or so there, the other 20 were at school taking their exams. We met Isaac, Elijah, Kofi, Marta, Mary, Elizabeth, Ralph, Joe, and many more. The youngest of the bunch was about 7 and the eldest was in 6^th grade. They all had smiles as big as Luwis’s, who was father to all of them. We also met Luwis’s nephew Kofi, who looked after the home when Luwis was at his home in Germany (he went to school in London, met a German woman, married, and moved to Germany, but started Cafacayo about 20 years ago and quit his job in Hamburg 3 years ago so he could be in Accra more, and is hoping to soon make it his permanent home), and also his daughter Tina. We also met one of the two mothers who stays with the children and sleeps with the girls at night. They showed us where we could put our bags and then we got a tour of the home. There was a boys’ and girls’ room, each with bed space for 6 or so to sleep and the rest on the cement floor; there was a kitchen with a small stove and a fridge, and two classrooms, one of which was filled with bed frames that someone had given but were far too large for the rooms, and the other was empty. Each was about 25’ x 12’ or so, and Luwis said that eventually they wanted to make them classrooms for the kids and also a library for the community. We also went to see the garden, which is about the size of our garden by the wood shed. They also had a goat and a chicken and were planning on having their own little farm. Goats were everywhere in Ghana, like cows were everywhere in India. All of a sudden a herd would come running down the road, as if called home by some inner voice. It reminded me so much of you Coral and I kept picturing Cotton and how she used to jump and kick in your barn. But ok, back to Accra. J

We had brought some school supplies and a little candy, so we handed it out to the kids and they were so excited! It is amazing what some blank paper and colored pencils can do for a child. But after the kids looked at everything Luwis had them put it all back because the eldest brother, Kwame, was at school and he and his second in command would divide it up equally between all the kids. That is something we noticed: how much responsibility they have. One of the boys was busy cutting pieces of wood to hold labels the other kids were making for the garden to show what vegetables were where. He came up with the idea of carefully cutting a slice at the end of each stake so the label could fit in there. And the labels were under the supervision of Marta and Mary, the art directors. They had the others tape together old cardboard flashcards, cover them with paper, and then draw and write the name of the vegetable on each label, on both sides. It was amazing.

After this we sang some songs. And they sang me Happy Birthday! It was so touching. Then they sang some religious songs. We took them into the cleared out classroom and I led Boom-Chica-Boom and the Hokie Pokie and then they sang some more songs and danced. Ah, it was so much fun! Eventually we all went back out so they could finish up the labels for the garden, and the four of us went over to see a mound of dirt that needed to be moved and spread out behind the building because water leaked in when it rained. They had a pick ax and a couple of shovels and so we started in. Soon all of the kids were over with us, helping us move the dirt from the pile to the back of the house. Bea was at the pick ax, David and I at the shovels, Mollsy babes was spreading out the dirt, and all the kids were either being little photographers with our cameras or carrying buckets of dirt to Molly on their heads. That is another side note on Ghanaians: they carry everything on their heads. Our guide at the slave dungeons told us that they start this when they are very young and chew bones to help strengthen their jaws and necks. Here we were carrying the buckets awkwardly in front of us while the kids were carrying the same weight, though they were half our size, easily over their heads. There was this little guy, Ralph, who would grab any bucket that was full, even if it weighed half of what he did. Every time we would call him our strong man and he would get this shy smile on his face before he hoisted the bucket over his head.

After about 20 minutes or so we had the job done and we took a group picture with the kids and all our tools. The kids were so amazing that we had finished the job so quickly. Luwis later told us that it would have taken them a day to get the work done, between watching the kids and keeping them interested. This seems like a lot of the projects that need to be done: just a lack of time but with a group of people so much could be done in a very short time.

After this we just kind of hung out and talked to Luwis, Tina, and Kofi about what Cafacayo needs most and what we can do. They are planning to fill in another chunk of the dirt yard with cement because when it rains the whole yard just turns into a mud pit in which Luwis sinks up to his knees. So they are saving money to pay for the materials and labor. Bea, who is from Puerto Rico, said that architecture students and engineering students from her university there do service projects in Cuba and Costa Rica and that she was going to look into seeing if they could organize a trip there. That is something that we all noticed: how much work there is to do that is in the way of bettering the home, and most of the jobs a group of us could do in a day. These are the projects that have been waiting to be done for a couple of months, at least:

 

-Move all the stuff in the second classroom to a home over on the Cape Coast, which is about a 3 hour drive, but it costs too much to rent a truck for a day.

-Pouring the cement for the yard.

-Getting goats and chickens that won’t be stolen in the night.

-Getting book shelves, desks, white boards, chairs, and books for the classroom.

-Painting the classrooms.

-Building a playground for the kids.

 

These are the things that I can think of right now, but I know there are so many other little projects like the ones we did that will make all the difference when they are completed.

I sat down with one of the middle-aged boys, Isaac, and taught him Rock, Paper, Scissors. Soon David joined us along with five or six other kids and we had a huge circle going for about 15 minutes. Our little strong man loved being rock and every time he would go “Pow! Pow! Pow!” as he hit our scissor hands. And the rest of the little munchkins loved being scissors! So David and I were paper, and our hands got cut every time. Molly taught them the game where you put your hands together, on person’s facing down and the other’s facing up, and the person on the bottom tries to slap the person’s hands on top. Dang those kids were quick! At first we were letting them win, but soon they were winning and we couldn’t do anything about it. This whole time Luwis was going around taking pictures, and Bea was talking to Kofi about what we can do and what are the best ways to support Cafacayo. He said that sending material things was a good idea but it was too costly: back packs were sent from some German sponsors and they had to pay 200 euro in Germany and then Luwis had to pay 300 cedis in Accra, which meant there was less money for food. So if we want to give something give money and they will use it for whatever is needed most.

We went into the classroom and drew, took pictures, and just played together for the last couple hours. All the kids wanted to take videos and then see themselves, so Molly got videos of almost all of them saying, “Hello, my name is ____. Welcome to Cafacayo. Byebye!” That is another thing: when we got there each child came up to us and introduced themselves and welcomed us with a smile and a hand shake. I talked to Elijah for a while and he asked me if I ever saw black people back home. I told him that my hometown didn’t have much diversity because it was a rural area, but cities had quite a bit. I told him that in big cities there were Hispanic people, African Americans, Asian people, Middle Eastern people, and mixes of these races and others and he was just amazed. He was so surprised that I knew non-white people. *Accra is not a place that many foreigners go to, so we stood out quite a bit. Even just walking down the street people would come up to us and ask us for our e-mail addresses so we could talk and then we would take pictures together. It wasn’t like in other countries where it was mainly a man going up to women, but it was everyone coming up to all of us. A lot of us have heard from people we met on the street and continue to have e-mail conversations. I am going to send an artist I met a post card from Brazil and he said he is so excited to get something from another country. It is one of the friendliest places I have ever benn.* Strong Man fell asleep off to the side and I went over and tried to tickle him awake, but he wouldn’t wake up. At first I thought it was so cute and then one of the older kids told me he was sleeping because he was hungry. His body didn’t have the energy to keep him awake. So I picked him up and he woke up a little but fell right back asleep against my chest. I held him for a while, until it was time to go, and then Luwis took him and put him to bed.

When Isaac came back to take us back to the ship all the kids lined up and said goodbye to each of us one at a time. Then Luwis made sure they knew each of our names and that they wouldn’t forget them, and then they prayed for us. Two girls prayed in English for us, to keep us safe and to protect us and to return us, and then a boy prayed in Twi, one of the more common Ghanaian languages. I stood there, with my hands clasped and my head down, and cried. When the prayer was done I tried to hide my red eyes, but Luwis just hugged me and smiled, a smile that went straight to my soul. We told him that we didn’t have any money with us, but that we wanted to go buy food for the home. So we made arrangements for the next day and as we pulled away in the cab everyone at the home came to the gate and waved goodbye. We waved to each other until we turned the corner.

We went back to the ship, had a quick dinner, and then Molly, David, and I headed out to a bar in Tema so I could get a birthday drink. There were a lot of other SAS people there and it was a great night. And thank you all so much for all of your wishes and thoughts. I love you and will see you in just over 2 weeks. I’m going to write another blog about Cafacayo and our plans for the future, but I figured I’d post this little guy first. J

South Africa: Day Two

April 1- MY 21ST BIRTHDAY!!!

This was an early morning and a long, long day in the best possible way. I had to wake up at 4AM to meet my group and leave for the safari. 4AM is early, but SAFARI!!!

We took a bus to the airport for a two-hour flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg. Up until this point I hadn’t been able to find anyone who was on my safari (to the Motswari Private Reserve) and had been a little worried, but it ended up working out perfectly. The group was small, 21 people in all and about 15 students. I hung out with Saahil, Austin and Bri (my safari roommate) most of the time. There was a lot of confusion at the airport, but eventually we caught our flight. We landed in Joburg (that’s what they call it in South Africa) and hopped on a chartered plane to some place that starts with an H. I have the ticket stub, but I can’t remember the name right now. The group of safari-goers in Cape Town was big, and then we dropped one group in Joburg. By the time we got to H… we still had about three safaris worth of people (the Krueger group was HUGE).

We were coasting down the runway after landing and glanced out the window to see TWO CHEETAHS sitting on the side of the runway!!! Welcome to your safari. Eager to see wild animals? Okay, here are a few CHEETAHS! We later found out that they were actually trained cheetahs… Not quite as exciting. There’s an organization that takes in abandon baby cheetahs and raises/trains them to keep impala, springboks and sable off the runway. Still pretty cool.

This was where our groups divided. We had a couple vans waiting for us, as did the Kruger group. The third group, on the other hand, had four big, open landrovers come crashing out of the bush to pick them up. Holy dramatic/awesome entrance. We were all a little jealous.

Our drivers took us about an hour away to the Motswari Reserve. Along the way we spotted cape buffalo (one of the big five) and one giraffe. It was a pretty sweet start. One of the unexpected details we picked up along the way was that the cape buffalo are actually among the most dangerous animals in Africa. They kill tons of people every year, especially hunters because they’re strong, smart, organized and don’t run away from a fight. You have one shot and if you fail to kill the buffalo, you’re in BIG trouble.

The lodgings at the reserve were gorgeous. Each “room” was a separate, circular hut named after an animal. Bri and I were in “sable.” They were big, open rooms with two white beds pushed together in the middle and covered by a mosquito net canopy, which actually looked beautiful. There was no bathroom door in ours, just a curved wall that hid a giant tub (equipped with bath salts), stone shower and toilet. We weren’t allowed to leave our rooms alone at night because animals wander through the camp; the guide said he’d seen everything except hippos and rhinos come through at one time or another. We were also told to keep our windows shut when we went out because baboons would come in and make a mess/steal our stuff.

We’d only been there ten or twenty minutes when they took us on our first game drive. Saahil, Austin and I claimed the back/highest seat in one of the three landrovers. Our driver was Palence and our tracker/the dude who sat on the chair protruding from the front of the rover was Difference. The Motswari Reserve has hundreds of unmarked, twisting dirt roads and our guys knew them like the back of their hands. It was incredible. Palence asked us what we wanted to see and we said elephants, so he chose a road and we were off to find some elephants.

Right off the bat we saw the yellow beak hornbill, or “Zazu” and then several herds of impala. The impala all have a black “M” on their butts, which has prompted the joke that they are the McDonalds of Africa; everyone eats them. We also got to see a few hippos. During the day, they almost never leave the water, but even their heads that are barely poking above the water are HUGE. We saw a baby hippo half climbing on its mom to keep its head up.

Then we found the elephants. To accurately describe these awesome (in both sense of the word) creatures would take more time than I can spend right now, so let’s just say that they were enormous, gray, generally passive creatures whose ears were shaped like Africa. Since this was our first drive, I wasn’t accustomed to how ridiculously close we were getting to these wild animals. It was super exciting at first, but suffice it to say that by the time the teenage bull elephant started charging us, I was ready to get out of there.

Charging elephants!?!? Wait, what? Yes. He was a teenager trying to show us how tough he was. This is not what I thought it looked like; it definitely looked more to me like he was about to kill us. Our guide revved right back at him. This bull was running alongside out landrover, smashing small trees to show his strength and trumpeting at us. Every minute or so he would kinda lunge at us like he was going to charge. I have cool videos of it, but it scared me a little.

We hung out around the elephants for a while and slowly got closer and closer until Big Mamma elephant decided that it was time for us to go. The guide ignored the teenage elephant, but the second momma elephant started slowly walking us back, we gave them some space. She wasn’t as obviously intimidating, but she had a cute little baby elephant on her heels and that made all the difference. If we hadn’t backed away, she could have done some damage. When we gave them enough space, they relaxed and started using their trunks to throw dirt on themselves. We watched for a while and then we left.

After the elephants, we drove to an open area for watch the sun as it set over the gorgeous African landscape. The guides set up a little table and put out a selection of beer, wine, pop and beef jerky for us to munch on as it got dark. The three land rovers were on completely separate adventures (save the leopard and lion experience on day two) so it was just us, nine people in total, out in the bush. It was quite and wonderful. Plus, it was still my 21st. It was getting pretty dark and we were toasting my birthday when all of the sudden, someone was like, “wait, there’s something over there!” Difference flipped on the spotlight and we saw a single hyena skulking across the open space about thirty yards away. It stared at us, eyes glowing in the light and then disappeared into the bush.

The guides packed up the table and we headed back to camp in the dark with Difference in the front sweeping the spotlight back and forth looking for animals. We didn’t see anything big, but out of nowhere we stopped and he focused the light at a small bush. I don’t know how he did it, but at night, that man using only a spotlight, managed to spot a chameleon that was blending into the bushes as we drove pretty quickly down a bumpy dirt path. We couldn’t even see it until he hopped down and pointed it out to us. Haha

We got back to camp and were taken back to our rooms by the guides. My roommate and I stayed up talking for a while, but then crashed pretty hard because it had been a long day and we had an early game drive.

End of South Africa, Day Two AKA THE BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!

South Africa: Day One

We pulled into Cape Town around 8AM on April 31st. I was up eating breakfast as we came in and watched as we passed Robbens Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years, then the newly constructed 2010 FIFA World Cup stadium and then pulled into the harbor for a great early morning view of Table Mountain, tablecloth and all.

South Africa quickly turned out to be nearly everyone’s favorite port. I think it has something to do with the language and feel of the port. After so many months away from home, crossing through Asian countries where we didn’t understand the currency, menus or directions, Cape Town felt like home. Everyone spoke English and it was clean. My experience in South Africa did not include filthy squat toilets where you had to provide your own toilet paper. It did not include guessing at the menu. In a way, it wasn’t as exotic as some of my other experiences on this voyage, but I think that’s something I needed…a little boost of familiarity and a great port to turn 21.

When we finally got off the ship (there were a bunch of seals and jellyfish in the water!) Helen and I went on Professor Sumner’s FDP to a local Maritime Museum. It was only a few minutes walk from the ship and only lasted an hour or so. After the museum we watched some street performers and I went around trying to exchange my leftover rupees. I had about $10 worth from Mauritius and about $20 from India. South Africa was full of places that exchanged Mauritian rupees because, after all, Mauritius is an African nation. Unfortunately, the great subcontinent of India is technically in Asia. Fail. I still have a bunch of Indian rupees. Maybe I can exchange them in the US… haha.

After the museum, Helen, Fi and I went out to Mitchell’s (a local bar & grill) for lunch. Fish and chips has never tasted so delicious. Plus, we each got a beer to celebrate our arrival. They had quite a selections and they were all pretty good. Lunch was fun and I enjoyed getting to know Fi better. We’ve always had a class together, but I can’t believe that it took me three months to discover how awesome that girl is! I wish we’d started to hang out earlier in the voyage. We had a long, fun lunch and then went back to the ship to meet a few people.

The rest of the day was spent exploring Cape Town with Max, Helen, Emily, Fi and a couple other people. We took a cab to the District 6 Museum. District 6 is famous because before apartheid, it was practically the only community where black people and white people lived together peacefully. It was a thriving community until apartheid came into effect. Our driver told us that he lived on Aspeling Street until one night he came home from work and his home was gone. They bulldozed the entire community because it was deemed that black people weren’t allowed to live in the same area as white people. Even today, District 6 is still gone. I can’t imagine coming home one night to find my house or apartment and all my belongings completely gone. I wouldn’t know what to do…

After the museum we walked down the street to check out the Castle of Good Hope. The Dutch East India Company built the castle in the 1600s. We didn’t get to go inside because it was closed, but we took some cool pictures with Table Mountain in the background.

After the caste, we explored a street market and met a wonderful local woman who was out with her sister, brother and grandson. The brother proudly told us that he had four wives and eighteen children, which was a culture shock; it was the first time I’ve even met a polygamist. The woman was super friendly and the little boy shyly checked out our cameras. It was the Wednesday before Easter and she invited us to her house, which we would have definitely taken her up on if we hadn’t had plans. We talked for about twenty minutes and listened as she told us about how she was hosting Easter at her house. By the time we left, I felt like we’d made a new friend.

After we’d explored a little more, we crammed six people into a taxi and hurried back to the ship because it was the night before my birthday and more than anything, I wanted to celebrate on a pirate ship. The Jolly Roger was the first time I’ve ever been on a booze cruise. There was a decent number of SASers on the ship and we basically took a sunset cruise around the peninsula and drank champagne poured by Pedro the Pirate. The sunset was gorgeous and all around us, seals poked their heads up out of the waves to watch us pass. We got to meet people from all around the world, including Innocence and Richard, two South African cousins who invited us to go to church with them on Easter Sunday. Unfortunately, this plan did not work out, but I really wish we’d been able to go. One of the highlights of the evenings was that the Captain let me wear his pirate coat and even let me steer the ship for a minute. I’m not too good at determining starboard from port, so the steering privileges didn’t last long.

After the pirate ship, we got food and went to a bar on Long Street for a little while, but ultimately ended up at the ship pretty early. I had to pack and leave for a safari at 4AM.


End of day 1

Sorry for the lack of updates. I’ve been swamped with schoolwork.

3 Months at Sea!

Today, we have been at sea for 3 months. In three months I have seen many different cultures and met so many people. I don’t know what has changed about me, at least not yet, but I know things have. I am so inspired and it is because of the people I have met. It is all about the people. Accra was not a pretty place, but the people were wonderful and it is them that are drawing me back. I am barely 21 and I have seen so much. I was given the opportunity of this semester because it will not be wasted on me. It can’t. These past 3 months have helped define my future and what direction it will go in. Thank you all for being such wonderful people and for supporting me in my adventures. I love you all.

Slave Dungeons of Cape Coast

This is not for the innocent who have yet to learn the horrors of reality and a sad part of our country's past.

First we went to Cape Coast Castle. As we walked in there was a coat of arms that said “Freedom and Justice.” This is Ghana’s motto, and it seemed so ironic that it would be on a place that kept people from both. We walked in and the court yard was beautiful: white stone leading up to amazing views of the crashing waves with local fishermen and boys working the surf with their nets. Then, then I saw the cannons. All lined up and pointing out into the beauty. They were black and unforgiving. Piles of cannon balls were all around us. This is when I began to picture the terror that had happened on these white stones. Less than 200 years ago they were not white, but stained with blood and sweat and hate.
After a few minutes of looking around our guide began his tour. First he took us to the male dungeon, which was made for 1,000 slaves but held up to 1,500. We walked down a dark, narrow tunnel into a room that had one small window, maybe 1’x6’’, about 12 feet up the wall. There were 4 rooms, each about the size of half of a volleyball court, that were connected by large arch ways. In one room those who were rumored of planning a revolt or escape were chained to the wall. This is the total space for 1,500 bodies, 1,500 men who had almost no ventilation and had to fight each other for the food that was thrown down on to them by the guards. The ground was cement but there was still a thick layer of a hard, dark substance that our guide told us was a mixture of feces, urine, blood, and sweat. The smell was over powering, even after 175 years. The air was heavy and I felt as if we were in a dark, deep, damp pit of death. We walked to the 4^th room where there was a shrine to those whom had died there in the dungeons, on the sea, and in the Americas.

After this we walked back out of the dungeon and talked about the Europeans. Where did they have their church? Above the dungeon. In the same building there was death, guns, and God. The Dutch and the British held this castle at different times, but the only thing that changed was the name of the castle, not the treatment of the people there or how things were conducted. They traded people as they traded gun powder.

We walked over to the women’s dungeon, which was meant to hold 500 but held up to 800 at times. It was about the size of two of our living rooms at home. There were a couple of small windows, so at least they had a bit more ventilation. There was also a door, known as the Gentlemen’s Door, at one end. This was a tunnel which the governor, merchants, traders, and other Europeans could go through, pick a woman for the night, and take her back to his room. This was actually seen as better than the conditions in the dungeon because the victim was given a bath before she was raped. Imagine, feeling a little lucky to be chosen by a disgusting man. If the women became pregnant in the dungeons, they were taken to other quarters until they gave birth and then it was back to the cell with them. These children stayed at the castle and went to school there. Prisoners were usually held for about 3 months, so if a woman was raped early on she would show before she got on the boat to cross the Atlantic. If a woman was found to be pregnant while at sea, she was thrown overboard to the sharks that followed the slave boats. Imagine this:

You and your wife are stolen one night from your village, walk several days, all the time chained and without food and water, to a dungeon where you are separated. 3 months pass and then the ships come and you see each other for the first time. 2 weeks into the voyage your wife shows that she is pregnant, and she is thrown overboard, alive, along with the food scraps. She was first taken by a man and now by a shark. Days later food is running low so sharks are caught to feed those of you who are still alive in the bottom of the boat. You eat the shark that ate your wife.

This is the story our guide told us. He reminded us that there has been slavery in every society for all of history, but never before was it this inhumane. Outside of the women’s dungeon was the Door of No Return, which led to the sea where small boats would take prisoners, who were lashed together with ropes and chains, and row them out to the waiting ships. Some prisoners would rather die than leave Africa, so they jump, taking their companions with them. Today those waters are full of men and boys fishing and swimming where their ancestors drowned to forgo a worst death at sea or in the Americas.

President Obama and his family visited Ghana last year and walked through that door. Our guide happily reminded us that they did come back, but what if they had been born 200 years before? The man who guided us around all day was a tall, strong, handsome man. How did he walk though this place of Hell and not feel that it was all built to keep him in? On one of the walls by the men’s dungeon is a plaque that reads:

“IN EVERYLASTING MEMORY of the anguish of our ancestors. May those who died rest in peace. May those who return find their roots. May humanity never again perpetrate such injustice against humanity. We, the living, vow to uphold this.”

Did we? The Holocaust happened, the Rwandan, Cambodian, Darfur, and so many more genocides happened and are still happening. We the living need to realize that we live in a time of opportunity and ability and we cannot forget what our ancestors did, no matter if it was good or bad.

The next Castle we went to was about a 5 minute drive down the road. It had two moats around it and it was a woman’s dungeon. Again, the church was above the prisoners and also another in the middle of the court yard. When we walked in, we passed a cell with a skull and cross bones above the door. This was where those who had attempted escape or the so called “Freedom Fighters” were put in here and the door shut. They were left in there as long as it took for them to die of suffocation, starvation, or despair. We walked to the dungeons and as soon as we walked in we were hit with the smell of thousands of women’s lost lives, their lost blood, their lost hearts. There was one window for ventilation. Whenever the governor was feeling frisky he would have the guards let the women out into the court yard for the day. He would stand up on the roof and pick his prey for the night. If she refused, she was chained to a cannon ball and made to stand in the court yard, meant to break her spirit and to act as a deterrent for others who were thinking of protecting themselves. We walked up onto the roof and below were local children playing soccer, on the very ground their countrymen and women were killed.

All during the slave times in West Africa, do you know what the region was known as? The White Man’s Grave. So many Europeans died within weeks of arriving on the coast because of tropical diseases and the heat. When someone thought they had malaria, they drank alcohol because that was their medicine. Three bottles later they were dead. So many people died, on both sides of the battle. Where would our world be right now if Europeans had stayed home? I cannot pretend that I understand what happened there and the repercussions that resulted. All I can do is learn what happened and go from there. If we don’t know the past we’ll never be able to gain the future or appreciate the present.

Let me preface this post by saying that I wish we’d had more time in Mauritius. Due to SAS behavior on past voyages, the length of our stay in Port Louis has been shortened from 4 days to 2. Suffice it to say that SASers generally treat Mauritius like Spring Break and have an unflattering reputation on the island. Some people said they experienced SAS backlash and were treated poorly by locals, but I personally had an incredible time and wasn’t met with any hostility.

Also, thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday, especially everyone who sent me birthday cards in South Africa! I haven’t gotten any mail all semester and it meant a lot to me to come back to the ship and find such a huge pile of colorful envelopes. They made me feel loved and I love you, too. Thank you!

Mauritius: Day One

We docked in Mauritius on a rainy morning. I was up early enough to watch as pulled into the harbor, which provided a great visual as we sailed in and the small island with its mountainous profile became increasingly visible through the early morning drizzle and fog.

I was signed up for an FDP led by my oceanography professor, Dan Abel, on the first day in port. Our group left immediately after we cleared customs and as we walked down the gangway, we were greeted by local men and women in traditional dress playing drums and dancing. It was a fun way to greet the morning.

One of the first things I learned about Mauritius was that the rush hour traffic is horrendous. The island itself is tiny, but the traffic and the mountains make getting anywhere take longer than you’d expect. Sometime we were simply not moving.

We took a bus to a local Marine Research Facility for a lecture on sustainable fisheries and a quick tour of their labs. The lecture, while informative, was pretty boring.  The tour was more interesting, but once they drove us across the island to Blue Bay the day really got rolling.

From Blue Bay, we hopped in a couple of glass bottom boats that would take of to a private island for lunch and snorkeling. In the boat, we slowly explored the reef below us. Compared the to bleached, starving reefs in Hawaii, Mauritius is exploding with color and vibrant marine life. I was in a boat with Doc Abel, so he was identifying most of the fish we saw, which was cool. I even saw a cuddle fish, which made Emily mad because she’s obsessed with cuddle fish and she missed it.

The island was gorgeous, absolutely tropic paradise. We got off the boats and were greeted with a delicious buffet lunch on the beach. After lunch we went snorkeling in two different shifts. I was in the first shift. They gave us fins, masks and snorkels and took us a bit off shore to swim around. It was beautiful! Steph even found an octopus lurking in a small hole in the reef. He wasn’t too happy to see us, but Emily and I hung out and watched him for a while. Overall, the coral was healthier and the marine life was more diverse than any other reef I’ve seen on this trip.

After our snorkeling adventure, the second shift of people got to go out and I sat on the beach. It was so wonderful to sit and watch people wind boarding and snorkeling and playing volleyball (though that was difficult because of all the coral in the sand). The experience made me reflect on just how incredibly lucky I am.

We eventually made it back to the ship where I showered and walked to the waterfront to grab dinner with friends. We stayed at dinner for ages, just talking and laughing. I got a local beer called Phoenix, which was pretty good. After dinner we went to a casino next to the restaurant; it was shaped like a pirate ship. I spent the Mauritian equivalent of $3 and lost it all, but it was a lot of fun. Yensi, on the other hand, used one token and walked away with about $10 hahaha.


Mauritius: Day Two

Early the second morning, Emily and I hopped in a cab to get across the island to make our scuba diving reservation. Our driver was an old Muslim man who talked to us about the Mauritian people; he was an interesting guy. One of the most incredible things about Mauritius is that when the Dutch landed in the 1500s, there were no native people. They did manage to drive the Dodo birds to extinction, but there was no local human population to decimate. Over the course of hundreds of years, slavery and immigration resulted in the Mauritian population being very diverse in skin tone, religion, customs, etc and THEY ALL LIVE IN PEACE. It’s wonderful. Our driver said, “yes, I am Muslim at home and a Muslim in my heart, but I have Hindu friends and Christian friends. Islam is right for me, but it might not be right for everyone and I respect that.” The two national languages are French (Creole) and English, which made it much easier to communicate.

Anyways, we pulled up to the resort in Flick n Flack where we were supposed to meet the dive master and were immediately in awe of the five star resort we pulled up to. Holy crap, it was amazing! We took a bunch of pictures as we walked through the resort to the beach. Mauritius is a European getaway, for sure, especially the French. It’s complicated and expensive for Americans to get to Mauritius and the Europeans like it that way haha.

Anyways, our dive was incredible! We were in a group with German, French and South African people staying at the resort. We saw two octopi sliding around who, like the last octopus, didn’t seem too happy to see us. I wish I had an underwater camera because I can’t even describe they gorgeous fish and lilac color clumps of coral we saw. It was wonderful and the visibility was spectacular.

After the dive, we hurried back to the ship because I had to leave for an SOS Children’s Village in Beau Basin at 3PM. We rushed to buy postcards and got back to the ship with 15 minutes to spare.

We had a small group going to the Children’s Village, which was nice. We did get gridlocked in traffic due to an overturned semi on the road. We were worried for a while that we wouldn’t be able to get there and back before on ship time, but we eventually made it through.

The kids who live at the Children’s Village are between the ages of 2 and 18, older if they’re going to college and need a home base. They’re not orphans and are not up for adoption. They’re children who have been removed by court order from the care of their parents. Once removed, they are placed in homes with six or seven other kids and one “mother” where they grow up. They attend local public schools and the organization, which exists all over the world, does its best to make sure the kids feel like they’re a part of a normal family.

Midhun and I spent the first thirty or forty minutes slowly gaining the trust of two shy little boys, three-year-old Antz (I don’t know how to spell his name, but it sounded like this) and his four-year-old brother Milos. They didn’t talk much, but eventually the Mr. Potatohead that Midhun brough along lured them over to us. Antz, the livelier of the two, played with my camera while Milos plopped in Midhun’s lap. The kids LOVE playing with cameras and seeing themselves on the screen.

After a while, we took Antz and Milos over to the other kids where suddenly we were mobbed by a group of boys and girls of all ages. Going into this experience, I just wanted to hang out and cuddle some little kids. What I wish I had realized earlier is that it’s not the littlest kids that needed me the most; it was the older girls. The ten, eleven and twelve year old girls wanted nothing more than to hold my hang and play with my camera, learn hand games and do cartwheels. They wanted a hug and a friend and someone to write to. A big sister. Most of the kids only spoke Creole and a tiny bit of English, but the emotions translated. We were supposed to leave by 5 to make it back by on ship time, but the ship was nice enough to let us stay 30 extra minutes because we’d gotten there late. It was tough to say goodbye and my arms ached for days from holding so many kids for so long. Definitely worth it.

I’ll try to catch up with South Africa before we get to Ghana on the 11th, but I can’t promise anything. South Africa is going to take up many, many pages.


Love,

Molly

Day Two in Cape Town!

We got up and headed out on an SAS trip with the organization Operation Hunger to the townships. During the Apartheid regime colored and blacks were forcibly moved from the city of Cape Town and were relocated to unincorporated towns on the outskirts. People also move to these communities from the rural areas in search of work in Cape Town. Families built tin shacks and eventually, years later, the government comes in and builds small concrete houses for these people. These towns do not have electricity, indoor plumbing, any type of social services, or grocery stores or any other place to get essentials. As we drove out of Cape Town we passed miles and miles of these communities lining the highway. Millions of people’s homes.

The first place we went was to a clinic in Site C. This clinic provides care mostly for people with TB or HIV/AIDs. We got there just as they began to hand out lunch, but only a fraction of the people there could eat because there weren’t enough plates. And I was thinking of the piles of plates we all have in our cupboards. We helped hand out the plates that there were, and I just felt so useless and trite. We were the white people giving food to a sick, hungry African so we could go home and feel better about ourselves. The clinic is the only one for about 4,000,000 people, yet only about 300 at the most come for food 5 days a week. I had never met someone with HIV/AIDs before; at least not anyone that I knew had it. And here were close to 100 people with the poison in the blood.

We only stayed there for about 20 minutes and then went to a newer township, Los Angeles. The big joke by the program director was that he was taking us to LA, but in South Africa, not California. We pulled in in our huge bus and walked off to take packaged food to the kitchen for the community. It was a small tin shack slightly raised off the ground, maybe 6x12. There we learned more about the community and the people in it, then it was time to work. Some of us weighed the kids to see if they were malnourished and so Operation Hunger could track them individually, others of us tried to help in the kitchen but found that we were just in the way, and so we just started playing with the kids and talking to people. I ended up talking to these guys for quite a while. They both were 20 and it was just amazing to meet someone my age and see the stark differences in our lives. One of them built his room off of his mother’s shack because he wanted his own space. He had posters on his walls not for aesthetic purposes but to help keep the rain out. My room at home is plastered with pictures and quotes; even my cabin on the ship has decorations.

We also visited the school house where we met the principle who was also the doctor, secretary, and teacher. Three other teachers worked there, and there also was a small garden out the back to grow vegetables to sell for income for the school/preschool/church, which were all housed in the same room.

After playing some soccer and goofing off with the kids a bit more, we headed out to get lunch, which seemed so wrong. We went to a gas station and most of us bought things to take back with us and didn’t eat all of our lunches so we could give the kids some. In the culture it is the girls who eat first and the boys and men eat second. It is also interesting to see how when there is work malnutrition increases because the parents are not home to feed the children.

When we went back we walked off the bus to the swarm of children and one little girl, no more than 3 or 4, came up to me and I hoisted her up on my shoulders. As we walked I stepped over open wires on the ground and those hanging over head. These kids play with all of them around them. After a little walk we came to an open shack with a bunch of kids inside, sitting in rows. Three men were there and said they are professional dancers who came back to the township to work with the kids to give them something else to do besides get caught up in violence, drugs, sex, or gangs, or anything else like that. So the kids did their stretches, then the three guys danced, and then the kids did a dance. All of this was without music and only to the beat of a drum and the voices of the three men. Even when they were dancing they made the beats with their vocal cords. It was amazing and moving and I want to do more. Somehow I will.

After this we went back to the kitchen where all the kids were given a piece of bread, a small cup of soup packed with protein, and a treat from our lunch boxes. This was the only meal they got that day.

When we left after this I was surprised by how I felt. As this semester has progressed I went through so many emotions: First I was so embarrassed by how sheltered and ignorant of the world I was, then angry at our history teachers and our media. Second I became aware of my opportunity and privilege and I felt guilty. But driving out South Africa’s LA that day I felt inspired and hopeful. I am going back to UW and hoping to learn Xhosa, the local language, and start learning about what is needed most in the townships from an academic point of view. Couple that with the people from Operation Hunger and I plan on being back there as soon as possible. I know that I go through whims of passion about doing things, but this is different. This is there and I saw it and met the people who live it every day. Without knowing it I had been searching for South Africa all along. On the bus ride home I talked with my friend Rory about what we were going to do after this semester. We both worry that we will miss something or not take advantage of where we’ve been or what we’ve done or who we’ve meet, but we both realized that we are both here because this will not be wasted on us. This has not been a semester long Spring Break where we have been drunk and stupid. No. We are learning about places we have never been so we can go back and do whatever we can to improve the living standards of people who were not born with an American citizenship to families who support and love them, as we both were. We are so lucky. Thank you so much Mom and Dad and Miah, you are my rock, my family, my blood.

When we got back to the boat my friend David and I met up with a group of guys, three of whom go to UW, and headed to a semi-professional rugby game. The Springboks were playing away while we were there, but one f the UW guys talked to this guy who used to play professional rugby and semi-professional, so he drove us to the game to root on his old team. He name is Gavin and he is part owner of this Extreme Sports company that takes people bungee jumping, sand boarding, shark cage diving, sky diving, and a bunch more. So, if you are ever in the Cape Town area, look him up! On the way we stopped at a pretty popular bar to get a drink. This girl came up and started talking to me and when I told her my name was Helen she thought I was from Holland and got all excited because she was from Norway. She started speaking Dutch to me so my friend Jordan stared speaking Hebrew to her to throw her off….she was a pretty drunk little skunk so she didn’t really notice. Jordan told her he was from Afghanistan and she got even more excited because she had been there before. Oh, fun drunks. J

After this we went to the game and wow, those men! They are huge and play rugby quite differently than I used to. They kick so much and with every hit you can hear bodies colliding. The scrums were amazing to watch: strong flankers, no turning, perfect passes to the back line. It was so amazing! None of the people I was with knew much about the game, and I remembered way more than I thought I would. It was so much fun to be able to say why a whistle was blown or why this team got the ball or what was happening, or why the heck they inbound the ball so funkily. It was a great time.

After this we headed back to the ship and hit the hay. Oh my gosh, I cannot explain the passion I have for South Africa, and I was only there for 5 days. I can’t believe it. I am so ready to get back there and start working. Ah, what life!

Cape Town Day 1!

Whew! Alrighty, so I woke up around 6:00 on the 31^st and ran up to the 7^th deck well before the sun found her way above the horizon. To my left were the dim lights of Cape Town and to my far right was the light house on the Cape of Good Hope, cruising over hundreds of ship wrecks that have been there since before Europeans came to North America. There weren’t too many of us up yet, but after about 20 minutes, when the first rays of fire were coming up behind Table Mountain, the starboard side decks were full of photographers and eager faces. There was no need for coffee to wake anyone up this morning.

We eventually docked around 8:00 or so and instead of having a diplomatic briefing by US officers from the State Department, Amy Biehl’s mother spoke to us for almost an hour. If any of you do not know Amy Biehl’s story, please look it up. She was a white American student working in South Africa on a Fulbright to help end Apartheid and on her way home from giving some of her black friends a ride in August of 1993 she was stabbed to death by an angry mob of black youth. In the international news she had a face and a name while her murderers had neither, only numbers. Amy’s mom said that this is exactly what Amy didn’t want, that she had always said that if something ever happened to her that she wanted to be a number and not a white face, because that is how it was always portrayed for blacks that died. 4 men were convicted of her murder, and in 19997 at the TRC Amy’s parents heard their story and met the men and their families and asked for two of the four to be given amnesty. Now those two are high up in the Amy Biehl Foundation hierarchy. Amy’s mom sees these two men, now with children of their own, as sons; their children as grandchildren. It was amazing to hear her story and how she coped with her daughter’s death. Also look up the book Mother to Mother; it is a book written by one of the young men’s mothers to Amy’s mother. This was my introduction to South Africa: the murders of apartheid and the miraculous organizations and relationships that resulted from them.

I had a short trip to a maritime museum for class, and then after some delicious lunch we rounded up and headed to the District 6 Museum. District 6 was a vibrant community of people of color and blacks that was deemed a White Only area by the Apartheid regime. Everyone was forcibly moved out, the houses and building bulldozed, and all the history of generations of people destroyed. One of our cab drivers said he used to live in District 6 and one day when he came home his house was gone. The museum commemorated the traditions and culture of the people there, as well as had many personal stories and a map of what the neighborhood used to look like. There were also places where people wrote their feelings and memories of what happened, and one quote was, “Apartheid regime is like Nazi-regime without final solution.” We learn so much about the Holocaust and so little about the genocides and racism that are still killing people today. The Jews got Israel, but what do the black South Africans get? District 6 is now acres of empty lots. The whites didn’t use it, they just couldn’t let people of color or blacks use the land. Why did I not learn about this earlier? Where was this in history class?

After leaving the museum we went to the Cast of Good Hope, which was built in the 1650s by the Dutch to fight the British. We couldn’t go inside because it was already closed but we got some pretty fun pictures outside. The whole time we were talking around Table Mountain was above us, covered with the famous Table Cloth, which is when clouds settle on the top and slowly roll off the sides. It was so freaking gorgeous! Eventually we headed back to the ship, but instead of taking 2 cabs we got one, so it was six of us plus the driver jammed into a taxi meant for 4 passengers. It was a fun ride. Our driver was from Zimbabwe and came to Cape Town to work because he couldn’t buy food back home. He’s been dating the same woman for 7 years and is saving up the money and courage to ask her to marry him. I was really happy that we gave him our business.

We got back to the waterfront just before 6:00 and Molly, Emily, and I took off running to catch a sunset pirate boat cruise. There were about 10 or so SAS people on it, some of which I had never met before, and the crew was a blast. We grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrred! for 2 hours together! We also met this sister, brother, and uncle from Malawi that now lived in Cape Town. Chicodi was 20 I think, Innocence (yes, that was his name!) was 21, and their uncle was Richard. And guess when Inno’s birthday was? April 13^th! Craziness. It was so much fun to just talk about whatever with people from around the world. That is what this entire semester is all about; the people. We also met a group of people from Iran and the woman and I talked politics for a while. She said that Iranians love Americans, hate their president, couldn’t stand Bush, and adore Obama. It is just amazing to discover more about my major from people from other countries.

After ‘Land Ho!’ we got some dinner and headed to Long Street, which is the main night life place. Molly, Emily, and I went to this place called The Waiting Room to try and meet up with Brandon Wolding, but we must have missed each other. It was a good night though, as Mollsy turned 21 at midnight! Oh, to turn 21 in a country where the drinking age is 18…. J Eventually we headed back to the ship and ran into some of the crew who were headed out, all snazzed up for the night. What a first day in what I hope to eventually be my home.