Mauritius

I will post a blog about what we did in MAuritius later but right now I am in India and have a short amount of time to post pictures so I am making that first priority since it has been a while! I went scuba diving with a group in Mauritius and had a great time! It was so beautiful and unfortunately we were only there for one day.

South Africa

February 26, 2011

South Africa

                We were due to get into Cape Town on Thursday February 17^th. The whole ship was like a middle school the day before Spring Break. Everyone was really excited for Cape Town and everyone had big plans. It was finally a town that was more modern that had so many things to do. As I mentioned before my roommate had kidney stones and still hadn’t passed them before we got there so she had arrangements to go to the hospital once we arrived. Wednesday night a bunch of my friends and I watched the lion king to get ready to see something similar in real life. Hanna and I woke up early Thursday morning to join a group to watch the sunrise. I think it is a tradition to watch the sunrise on port days but this was an especially popular day just to live the opening scene of lion king with the famous ‘Circle of Life’ song that had been hummed on the ship since we came to Africa. It was rough but Hanna and I made it to the top deck around 5 am. The wind took my breath away and it was definitely the coldest air I have felt since I left Colorado in January.  We toughed it out and saw a beautiful sunrise and went to bed for a couple more hours. Thursday was the only day I didn’t have a field trip planned so I had a lot to get done so we were all ready to get off the ship when we went to breakfast. We still couldn’t see land which was very strange to us but we patiently waited for ‘the voice’ (the name of the lady that makes all the announcements on the intercom) to tell us we were about to go through immigration. Instead we got an announcement saying it was too windy for the pilot to bring us in so we had to wait until the wind died down. Unfortunately we got many more announcements throughout the day saying just about the same thing. They looked for other ports we could dock in but there was no luck. Instead we went in circles on the really rough sea and hoped the next announcement would bring better news than the last one. To keep us busy they played movies in the Union and planned an open mic night since the last one was so popular. Our friend Kenji always plays his guitar in our room and is really good so we convinced him to play a song. He seemed nervous but finally agreed. There were some really good acts and open mic is exciting because you never know what is going to happen. Last time this girl reinacted a Lady Gaga music video and it was SO funny because she was so serious and didn’t know any of the words and people thought she was kidding but she was so serious. She wasn’t going to leave it as a one hit wonder so she performed again and this time she did “Hot Stuff Baby Tonight”. She knew just as many words as the Lady Gaga song, maybe less but made up for it by ripping her sweater off in the middle of the song to keep the crowd roaring through the whole thing. For some reason it reminded me of something Emily, my sister, would perform for family and friends. Kenji also was a hit and probably had the best acoustic song of the night. I recorded most of the acts so I can share the laughter when I get home.

                We went to bed with an announcement saying we were supposed to reach the port between 11 and 1. People had already missed flights for their safaris and a lot of trips were missed. I woke up around 4 in the morning to the drawers banging in and out because we were still rocking back and fourth. I was pissed. We ended up getting in around noon on Friday. I had an Operation Hunger service project planned that day and it was still going we were just going to do the afternoon work. Pulling into Cape Town was jaw dropping. The city is framed in perfectly with 2 large mountains (Table Mountain and Lion’s Peak) and there are high rise buildings in the background behind the Waterfront port area. It was tourist heaven.  We drove through the town on our way to our Operation Hunger site. There were all sorts of high end designer shops, restaurants, palm trees, nice cars, and cute boys! Everything was so eye appealing. The drive on the left side and the driver’s seat is on the right. We were in the nicest tourist bus we had been in on the whole trip. It had a huge bathroom right in the middle of the bus, two entry ways, squishy seats, and tinted windows. It didn’t take long until we drove a few minutes outside of the main part of Cape Town and started seeing all the shacks in the townships line up. It was a sea of poverty as you looked out the window and saw townships that went 8 miles in from the highway.

                We learned a lot about the apartheid before we got there so we were keeping our eyes open to racism and segregation. Apparently the townships didn’t have much to do with the separation of the black and whites that had happened 20 years ago it was more of people coming from all over the country for work and getting stuck in the townships. The country has a 36% unemployment rate. We were with the founder of Operation Hunger and we were going to a place in a township that was a soup kitchen. Operation Hunger provides them with food once a week and on this visit since we had so many people we were going to help him by weighing all the children so he could keep tabs on them. The kids were so welcoming just like in Ghana. Once they saw we had scales though they got really shy and scared because any time they have seen scales and white people in the past that has meant they were going to get a shot from the doctor. Some of the little ones cried and fussed when we tried to weigh them but were happy to find out they weren’t getting a shot. Most of the kids spoke English which is the country’s main language but they also speak Afrikaan and Xhosa (sounds like klosa but the ‘klos’ is a clicking noise you make with the side of your tongue). Xhosa is a clicking language and is very interesting to listen to and try and figure out how they incorporate a click with the letters in the words. I still can’t even pronounce the name of the language.

                The little girls in the township had so many songs to chant for us and dance to it was so cute to watch them. A meal was made for them and they all stood in line with their Tupperware and got something that looked like mashed potatoes and a stew. There were way too many kids for the amount of adults that were there. I don’t know where the parents were but the kids were just roaming freely in the street. Driving through the townships was amazing. The shacks are so close together with metal roofs with tires or anything heavy they could find to keep the roofs on. There were electric poles that had about 20 wires dangling down into each shack. No wonder they have problems of fire! If once shack catches fire they all do because there is no way to get a fire truck in there.

                When I got home from that trip a lot of people were leaving the ship all giddy on their way to the U2 concert that was playing in the stadium that the World Cup was played in. Hanna along with 72,000 other people fit into the stadium and enjoyed a great show. I went to dinner in the Waterfront area in a nice restaurant with some friends and neighbors on the ship. It was a very nice restaurant but the food seemed to be very reasonably priced in South Africa so we all splurged a little. Being so thrilled to have a break from the ship food I got a peanut sesame chicken dinner and a ‘Robin Island Iced Tea’. I was so jealous of the girl across from me that got a Karibu Kiss to drink (Karibu was the name if the restaurant and had got awarded the best drink in Cape Town for this drink). It was a chocolaty banana drink in a glass rimmed with powdered chocolate and a massive chocolate elephant head hanging from the glass. It was delicious! Before dinner I thought my malaria medicine was trying to kill me because I felt so terrible until I finally ate some food and I am blaming it on the medicine because it does that from time to time.

                After dinner we all went to check out the hot spots on Long Street which is popular for all it’s bars and clubs. One of the girls we were with had friends that were studying abroad in South Africa so we met up with them and went to a club that was having lady’s night. It was fun and such a different experience than we had had anywhere else. There were finally so many people in the city that Semester at Sea kids blended in so much better. We weren’t the only white people for once and there were a lot more people around our age out and about. We went to a few other places and before the night got too late I went back to the ship with some people so we could wake up early to go cycling through the winelands.

                This was a trip put on through Semester at Sea so we packed into a few vans and drove about 45 minutes outside of Cape Town into wine country. I got lucky and was in a van with really fun people which is rare because I usually get stuck with some sour apples in my group. Our tour guides name was Neil and he had just spent the last 8 years traveling the world while he worked on a cruise ship. He was very interesting and was a really nice guy. When we were asking questions about South Africa he had a much less liberal view of things than most people that lived there. When talking about the crime in the townships he tried to explain to us that it was the very low percentage of bad people that gave townships their reputation of being dangerous and that the crime really isn’t as bad as people say. We got on our bikes in an amazingly beautiful town that reminded me of a quiet upper scale Californian wine town. There were mountains in every direction you looked. It is getting close to the end of summer for them so the weather was beautiful and the grass was green.

                We went on about an hour bike ride through wine vineyards and finished with a picnic at a winery. The views were beautiful and the ride was a little strenuous at times but very enjoyable.  Each picnic basket was made for 2 people with samples of all sorts of food and a bottle of wine. I don’t particularly like wine but this trip is all about trying new things right? Kenji (my friend from earlier that was in the open mic night) was on the trip and he and I shared a basket. He doesn’t like wine either so it made us a little more comfortable that we could gag at the wine together if we needed to. The wine was a rose wine and wasn’t too bad. Kenji couldn’t handle it as well as I could but we made a good dent in the bottle. The food was good too. I have no idea what anything was except for the chicken and fruit but it all tasted good! There were some kids playing cricket by us so we played for a little bit and then went to the winery for some wine tastings. I don’t know if it was because I had already had a glass or two but the wine we tasted was amazing! There was an African Jazz wine that was delicious.

                After our wine tasting we stopped in a town called Stellenbosch. It is home of South Africa’s oldest college campus. Again the town was really nice and reminded me of a California town.  When we were leaving our group split off and Neil, our tour guide, agreed to take us to Table Mountain so we could ride the cable car to the top and watch the sun set. He drove us there but the winds were too strong so the cable car wasn’t in service. Neil was so nice though and drove us to the other side of the mountain to see a really nice part of town and give us another view of Cape Town. It was beautiful! When I got back to the ship I was crossing my fingers that my roommate would be back from the hospital because she had already spent one night there. She wasn’t in the room. I was starting to get really worried because I hadn’t heard anything about how she was doing so I found the number for the hospital I knew she was in and got a hold of her. She was alive and I told her I was going to come see her and asked if she wanted me to bring her anything.

                With Jill’s toothbrush and some snacks in hand I headed to the hospital with Hanna and another friend Kelly. She was in this room with 8 other beds but only 2 other people were in there with similar problems. The stone still hadn’t passed so they had given her some other medicines and were still waiting to see if she would pass it and if not they would do surgery. She was in good spirits and was happy to see us. I couldn’t imagine being in a hospital alone for 2 days in a foreign country. Hanna and I were leaving for our safari the next morning so we couldn’t be there if she got surgery. She did end up getting surgery and is on all sorts of different medicine now but should be okay for the rest of the trip.

                On Sunday morning Hanna and I and 40 other kids from Semester at Sea headed to the airport to fly into Port Elizabeth and then drove an hour and a half to Kereiga Game Reserve for our safari. We stayed in a lodge on the reserve and it was so nice! They welcomed us with a massive buffet lunch that was absolutely delicious. Every meal from there on out was just as good and just as filling. I left that place with a serious food baby. We were in groups of 4 and had our own cabins called chalets. They were really nice and we all had our own room. The view was beautiful overlooking a green valley. We would go on drives in the evening and early mornings. My safari ranger was so cute! It is always a fun atmosphere when our trips are filled with kids our age so you can tell the guides enjoy it a little more. Terry, our guide, was our age so it was fun to learn about his life because we could relate to it. We saw all sorts of animals; all of the big five except leopard. The big 5 are the most dangerous animals to hunt. They are elephant, water buffalo, lion, leopard, and rhino.

The elephant were my favorite.  The first day we saw them they were walking right past our truck and we didn’t faze them at all. They would pull cactus off a branch stomp the thorns off and eat it. The second day we saw them the weather wasn’t as nice and Terry said the wind bothered them because their ears are so sensitive. We were driving and turned a corner and there was a huge elephant in the road so we stopped. The elephant was making a growling noise and flapping its ears and Terry said she was upset about something. She continued to eat and slowly came closer to us. She would lift up her front foot and kind of make a shooing movement which meant we were too close. And we were too close! Too close to start the car and get out of there because the engine would’ve scared her. She got closer and closer and luckily I was the farthest from the elephant in my row but the kid next to me was practically sitting on my lap. She got really close and lifted her head up and was looking right at us. I have this whole thing on video and the kid closest to her is in the whole thing and it is hilarious! He is looking at the elephant then Terry then the elephant then Terry. It was like he was waiting for Terry to do something but there was nothing to be done. Finally she backs up and walks in front of the truck and takes a huge dump right in front of us and we took that as our cue to leave.

We had a great time at the safari and made it back to Cape Town just in time to do some shopping before the ship left. I got a blueberry cheesecake frappe with my lunch and it was scrumptious!!!! There was so much to do in Cape Town but just not enough time. It was a place that I will definitely make my way back to. We just got to Mauritius today and are only staying here for the day. Apparently some voyage in the past stayed here for two days and just destroyed the island because they partied so hard so the government won’t let us stay overnight….that’s embarrassing. I plan on going scuba diving with Hanna and some people on my floor that organized a trip.

The sunrise on the first morning

Operation Hunger

Cape Town's best drink- Karibu Crush

Wine Tour

Bottom of Table Mountain

Visiting my roommate in the hospital

The place where our safari was

The view from my chalet

Wine tour again (i don't know how they got out of order)

The food at our picnic on the wine tour

Drew and I trying to hurry and use internet during our last hour in Cape Town....we failed (but there is the delicious blueberry cheesecake frappe)

Trying to figure out my calling card

Eating dinner on the ship as we left Cape Town



Ghana

February 14^th, 2011

I had a great time in Ghana! I felt so safe and comfortable the whole time and I don’t think my stories will do justice when trying to explain how nice the locals were to us. As the ship pulled into the port on Saturday morning you could see a bunch of people unloading all their souveniers and goods they were going to try and sell to us. There was a group of men dressed in traditional clothing and they started playing their drums, chanting, and dancing. They were as excited as we were that we had finally reached Ghana. The first day I had a trip for my class and that was to meet the Queen Mothers of Essikado (the name of a town). The port was really far from the town and about a 15 minute walk to get to the security gate where the taxis waited for us. If you had a trip that through Semester at Sea the buses could come all the way to the ship though and eventually there was a shuttle set up for us to take us from the ship to the taxis.

I got on my bus in the morning and headed to one of the Queen Mother’s houses where we had an open Q&A session pretty much. Of course the trip there was another culture shock looking out the window and I was just happy I wasn’t embarrassing myself trying to get into the bank like I was in Brazil. I got to gape out the window freely without much embarrassment. I just remember thinking this is soooooo different! It is hard to explain exactly what Takoradi looks like. It is definitely very poor but it wasn’t sad poor. It was hard to differentiate the poor from the decent. They all looked really poor but it just seemed like their way of life and people didn’t seem to be struggling, they just aren’t anywhere close to we are as far as technology and modernization. Most of the houses looked like shacks that were either made out of brick, shipping containers, or mud. The main road we drove around on was paved but nothing else was. It is their dry season so the dirt made everything really dirty. There were kids everywhere and they were always so excited to wave to us as we drove by. The kids were SO sweet. Everyone carries things on their heads. It was amazing to see what and how much they could balance on their heads. They would carry big bowls of water, boxes filled with things they were selling, a bowl of bags of water (their form of purified water), huge tree branches, and even suitcases which was funny to me. If they had to carry anything they would just plop it on their head and sometimes put a rag on their head to help with the balance.

So we got to the Queen Mother’s house and we were all a little nervous because we didn’t know the customs yet. Our tour guide told us it is rude to use your left hand, only the elders cross their legs, to speak to the queens we have to talk to him, he will interpret, and they will speak to him, then he will deliver the message to us. There were about 8 of them sitting in front of about 30 of us. They spoke a dialect called fanti and could understand and speak some English. It started really proper and was really hot and uncomfortable and really hard to try and not cross my legs. Apparently the way the queens work in society is that the county is broken up into regions, then districts, then parliaments. The queens are head of their parliament and work as a role model and political figure in each town. After about an hour a queen came running in and said she was sorry she was so late, she got caught up at church and joined the group. Once she got there everything was a lot more casual. She was so charismatic and lightened the mood. We took pictures with them after our discussion and headed back to the ship.

The port was far from town but their conveniently was a duty free store right across from the ship so the first night it was bombarded with Semester at Sea kids. Of course we had to go check it out so my group of friends went over there and were bombarded with locals trying to sell stuff. They would roll out these painting in front of you or ask you your name and 5 minutes later tie a bracelet with your name on it around your wrist. The ship was playing the Super Bowl so we went back and it started around 11:30 p.m. because of the time difference. I think I lasted about 2 commercials in and had to go to bed.

The next morning I was out at the bus at 6:45 a.m. to do Habitat for Humanity. The houses we were building were 3 hours away so I had more time to observe the culture as we drove past all the houses/shacks/vendors. The southern part of the country is very Christian and almost every store name incorporated God in it. I saw ‘Trust God Cosmetics’, ‘All Things Possible Through God Barbershop’, etc. Goats run around like stray dogs. They burn their trash to get rid of it. They have open sewage systems. They loved Obama! He was on billboards with their politicians and they had t-shirts with him and the Ghanaian flag everywhere. After the 3 hour drive we took a turn on a dirt road and as we were turning we hit the front of a school just a little. The bus couldn’t fit in the turn so he tried 2 more times and kept hitting it. The road we had turned onto didn’t look drivable for the bus and I’m pretty sure the group of 40 people plus me was holding our breath. We got as far as we could and got out and walked the rest of the way to the 4 houses were helping build. The process wasn’t very organized but I ended up helping move these 25 lb bricks that were laid across the lot they were going to build the next house on. We stacked them up and got them out of the way. It took almost the whole day. I felt like I sweat my body weight. There were little kids from the neighborhood I’m guessing that were walking around helping and taking pictures with cameras that the semester at sea kids would let them play with. They didn’t speak much English but they were really cute. Most people speak English there but their other language is Twe. After the long day we drove back to the ship and I was so dirty and sweaty and ended up being sore for 3 days.

I was free on Tuesday so I went to check out the market with Jill, my roommate, and 2 guys. It was similar to Brazil’s market where they sold anything and everything in their little vendors and everything seemed to be used. It was called market circle and there were buildings built in a circle and the vendors were lined up around them. If you went through the vendors into the middle of the circle that was the real ‘produce’ market I guess you could call it. It was an extremely congested, compact, disturbingly disgusting market. Somehow I got the privilege of leading the group and as we walked quickly trying to not look anymore touristy than we were and stay away from the annoyed looking women at their stands I got to hold all my gagging and shocked facial expressions in. They had the normal fruits and vegetables and then we saw dried fish baking in the sun, live massive snails crawling on each other, and pig’s feet dripping juices into a bowl. Imagine all of this in 90 degree weather and no such thing as a refrigerator so who knows how long that stuff had been sitting out. I felt like I could taste it, I couldn’t get away from the smell.

After the adventure through the market we went back to the ship for lunch. Someone told us about a really cool beach that he had spent the last 2 days on so we decided to check it out. It was amazing! There was only one other small group on the whole beach. The water was so warm and pretty. It was a great afternoon. That night we decided to go to The Ocean Bar that everyone on the ship kept talking about. I don’t know what was so special about it because when we got there all I saw was prostitutes scouting out which older white man (I don’t know where those guys came from because I felt like we were the only white people in the country)they were going to leave with that night. Luckily there were enough SAS people there to still have a good time and if we went next door to a reggae bar there were a lot of cool locals to talk to.

We went back to Busua Beach the next day but had a much bigger crowd. There were 15 of us. We had to take 3 taxis or so down to the bus station and then get on a Tro Tro which is the public transpiration system. It only cost us $3 cedi ($1.50 US) if we did it that way. We packed all of us into a van that should’ve only taken 10 people. The way it works is the Tro Tro goes one direction and people get on and off throughout the trip if they are going the same direction. We of course didn’t have any room for anyone to hop on but the driver still made a few pit stops (I’m guessing he was running errands). Luckily we were with a pretty cool group that could only laugh about the situation and the fact we were on an adventure in Africa. The ride was about an hour long and then we had another amazing day at the beach. It started raining around lunch but everyone was excited to swim in the ocean while it rained. Again my waterproof camera was very handy. In the afternoon the local kids started coming out and they were so interested in us so they came over and started playing with us. More and more kids kept coming and at one point I think I had 7 kids on my towel playing with my ipod, camera, and they were interested in my belly button ring. They were all so sweet we knew they didn’t mean any harm and they loved getting to play with our cameras. They were doing gymnastics for us and we played soccer with them and that was what made the trip so memorable.

The next day was our last day and I got a last minute trip to an orphanage from someone who was tryin to sell their ticket. It was another great experience with the kids. All the kids were abandoned or their parents couldn’t take care of them anymore so they were going to school and living at this home. We played all sorts of games with them and it was so fun to see them scream and laugh. It is amazing to compare them to American kids. There were some families from the ship that came on the trip and we were playing summer camp games like sharks and minos and everyone was getting pushed around as we ran around. The American kids were drop to the ground if they got pushed and gasp for air as they broke into hysterical sobs. The African kids would look at them like whoa what is wrong with them? Some would help them up and give them a hug but the American kids were way too dramatic to brush it off. Not many of the Africans were wearing shoes and they were fine the whole time.  We spent the day there and it was a great way to end the trip.

When we would come home from all the trips there were a couple tents with souvenier things next to the ship. You would walk past in the morning and they’d ask your name and somehow they remembered your for the rest of the trip. They were really cool to talk to once you would get it across that you weren’t going to buy any of their bracelets or paintings. There was a lady that really liked me and taught me how to make bracelets and the next day she gave me a bookmark that said Erica in Ghana 2011 in the Ghanaian flag colors. We exchanged addresses and took come pictures. A lot of people asked for our addresses or facebooks while we were there and were so friendly. Most of those people were from Accra, the Capital, but everyone knew when Semester at Sea was coming and they said it was like Christmas. A guy said the amount of money they make from us when we come is the reason their family has food for the year. When we pulled away at 8 they were packing all their stuff up but stopped and played their drums and waved as we left. My friend Sandra was still down there and somehow spotted me and yelled my name and waved goodbye. 

We have had class for 4 days since we left and have 2 more then we are in South Africa. My roommate woke up in the middle of the night with severe pain in her stomach so I got help and brought her to the health clinic downstairs. Turns out she has a kidney stone. They gave her a shot of morphine and some other pain meds. She has been sleeping all day and I have been really worried about her. I haven’t even heard her move around or go to the bathroom. I make sure she is okay every time I come in or leave the room but hopefully it will pass and she will be okay before South Africa!

Pictures coming soon!

The kids always chased the car waving when they saw white people

The Queen Mothers

Picture of a typical neighborhood

They loved Obama

Habitiat for Humanity

Our helpers

At the Father's Ministry Orpahnage playing sharks and minos

The whole group

My new friend Sandra

Busua Beach

Going out to Ocean Bar

More new friends

I wanted to take him home

More friends at the beach