Hello Everyone!
Because of the bad weather, we are not going to be stopping in Mauritius. If we did stop, we would not arrive in India on time. It was a tough blow on everyone, they are all pretty bummed. We have 7 MORE days (12 in total) on the boat until we reach India! We are all getting a bit of cabin fever and the food is getting progressively worse.
Ev and I love the ship rocking! Towards the front of the boat you feel yourself going up and you hear the boat crashing down. Evs room is near the front and sometimes has trouble falling to sleep it is so loud.
The change in pressure as the boat moves is disorienting but really fun. You learn to expect when it will come down or go up. Also, its fun to see the horizon move and if you look out the windows you can see the boat get closer to the water and then come away.
We had a couple big wave jerks during dinner last night and we had to grab all the stuff off the tables to prevent it from sliding off. Everyone seems to be feeling better!
I have gotten all good grades on my papers though! Will write more later! Gotta study now!
Dear Semester at Sea Spring 2012 Participants:
To avoid inclement weather in the Indian Ocean, the Spring 2012 voyage has proceeded at a significantly reduced speed between the destinations of Cape Town, South Africa and Port Louis, Mauritius. As a result of the delays, the captain of the MV Explorer and ISE senior management have resolved to cancel the voyage's call on March 6 to Port Louis, Mauritius in order to arrive in Cochin, India as scheduled on Monday, March 12. Participants enrolled in SAS field trips in Mauritius will receive full credit on their shipboard accounts for cancelled FDPs and/or field trips.*
The plan is for the ship to stop briefly in Mauritius for a required refueling but not to disembark participants. Once refueling is complete, the ship will continue on its passage to India.
The Captain continues to track weather conditions in the region and is taking all precautionary measures to maintain a safe distance. We will notify you if weather conditions necessitate any further changes. Thank you for your understanding of this important health and safety decision.
Sincerely,
Semester at Sea
*Students with FDPs in Mauritius will receive assistance in making appropriate arrangements to fulfill those academic requirements.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Cape Town, Friday Feb 24th
S Africa
On Friday Feb 24th, I walked around Cape Town with two other friends and we wandered the streets. Most of the restaurants were serving foods native to other countries. I found the streets to be really empty. I think a lot of people come there to work and then return to their houses in the suburbs. It felt very European. Everything was very clean, the cars drove on the opposite side of the road, the gas stations were very modern and the city looked new and pristine.
We also noticed that all the people walking around on the roads were black or colored because the white people were the ones with cars. We stopped in a couple of shops. South Africa has a lot of recycled art. There were elephants, bowls, birds made out of old cans and wire. It was beautiful, reflecting back on it now; I wish I bought something of that nature.
We had lunch in a sidewalk café right near a bunch of vendors. The café felt even more European, the food was presented beautifully and there was incense burning near us to create an ambience. We had a bottle of wine and it was perfect. But the whole time we ate, I noticed that the blacks were the waiters and we were being served. We were sitting, relaxing and eating but I just was wondering what social and racial pressures were hidden underneath that peaceful city.
We met a couple of interesting people at lunch. I met a vendor that was from Argentina and was backpacking Africa and had been to the US to sell his stone jewelry. We also talked to two ladies who were sitting next to us. One works in America for half the year and knew about Semester at Sea! The South African accent is very peculiar. It is very similar if not exactly British.
We travelled into an area with pink, yellow and blue houses that was considered the Muslim area. I talked to a man there and he pointed out all the nearby mosques. The houses were painted in such strange color coordination because when they were built, this population was illiterate and could not write down addresses. They used the color combinations to identify their house. It was strange to see one area of town segregated for a certain type of people.
I also stopped at a store that sells goods made by women in the townships. I bought a beautiful beaded purse. It was really hard getting used to the money system because a US dollar is worth ~7 Ran (S. African currency). So lunch would be around 210 Ran but it was really around $ 30. Every time we get into a new port we have to change what word we use to refer to the currency and it gets confusing because people forget. Sometimes other Semester at Sea kids speak in how much it cost in US dollars and not the foreign currency.
On Friday Feb 24th, I walked around Cape Town with two other friends and we wandered the streets. Most of the restaurants were serving foods native to other countries. I found the streets to be really empty. I think a lot of people come there to work and then return to their houses in the suburbs. It felt very European. Everything was very clean, the cars drove on the opposite side of the road, the gas stations were very modern and the city looked new and pristine.
We also noticed that all the people walking around on the roads were black or colored because the white people were the ones with cars. We stopped in a couple of shops. South Africa has a lot of recycled art. There were elephants, bowls, birds made out of old cans and wire. It was beautiful, reflecting back on it now; I wish I bought something of that nature.
We had lunch in a sidewalk café right near a bunch of vendors. The café felt even more European, the food was presented beautifully and there was incense burning near us to create an ambience. We had a bottle of wine and it was perfect. But the whole time we ate, I noticed that the blacks were the waiters and we were being served. We were sitting, relaxing and eating but I just was wondering what social and racial pressures were hidden underneath that peaceful city.
We met a couple of interesting people at lunch. I met a vendor that was from Argentina and was backpacking Africa and had been to the US to sell his stone jewelry. We also talked to two ladies who were sitting next to us. One works in America for half the year and knew about Semester at Sea! The South African accent is very peculiar. It is very similar if not exactly British.
We travelled into an area with pink, yellow and blue houses that was considered the Muslim area. I talked to a man there and he pointed out all the nearby mosques. The houses were painted in such strange color coordination because when they were built, this population was illiterate and could not write down addresses. They used the color combinations to identify their house. It was strange to see one area of town segregated for a certain type of people.
I also stopped at a store that sells goods made by women in the townships. I bought a beautiful beaded purse. It was really hard getting used to the money system because a US dollar is worth ~7 Ran (S. African currency). So lunch would be around 210 Ran but it was really around $ 30. Every time we get into a new port we have to change what word we use to refer to the currency and it gets confusing because people forget. Sometimes other Semester at Sea kids speak in how much it cost in US dollars and not the foreign currency.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Pictures From Cape Town
Center of the Earth
Baby Ostrich
Great White Shark!
Safari ! This is not zoomed in.
Safari ! This is not zoomed in.
View from the top!
Sunset at Lions Head
This is Seal Island and there are about 50 thousand seals living here.
Still a Kid
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Feb 16- 17 Ghana
Feb 16- 17 Ghana
We also had the awesome chance to meet a couple girls that were studying their semester abroad at the University of Ghana. They had wanted a really different experience for a study abroad. It was really nice to share our different study abroad experiences and ask each other multiple questions about our experiences!
We ended the evening by walking about a half hour to the mall, crossing streets and getting a good look at the surroundings that we would have missed if we just drove by in a car.
The most prominent physical feature of Ghana is the dirt. There is only grass around nice fancy buildings but everything and everyone is covered with dirt. Also, so many people are idle, sleeping on the streets or just waiting for someone to come along to buy things.
I feel that this trip is the start of what I wanted out of my experiences in these countries and I am starting to get the hang of it. Many agreed from the Semester at Sea trip, they enjoyed Ghana a lot more than Brazil and I think that is because it was more of a culture shock which is what many of us expected on this trip. The other places we visited was not that unusual from the norm. I like the people interaction but I want to know what they want to change about their government. The guys I talked to (jay) said they don’t care about elections or politics because nothing that they say will matter to the guys on the top.
The Ghanaians have a very interesting handshake where they end the shake by snapping each other’s finger. Our tour guides were really trustworthy. At first, I was hesitant to become too close of friends but they were really trustworthy and never kept us in the dark. They also emphasized sharing among ourselves. We would switch meals and we made sure to purchase for their food. We got their emails and facebook names to keep in contact with our friends.
The fourth day was probably the most difficult and uncomfortable day for me. I had wanted to get my hair braided or twisted in a salon. I made plans to meet up with one of the guys and we had a lot of different expectations for how the day would play out. He had the taxi driver wait for me while I got my hair done and didn’t negotiate a price beforehand. In the salon I went to ,the women doing my hair would not really talk to me. It could have been a language barrier but it was frustrating because I was sitting there for an hour and a half and was really hoping to get to hear about Ghana from a woman’s point of view. My hair was perfect, it was still curly but kind of doubled up so there was significantly less volume. It did not stay long! Later that night we went out to a local bar that had an outside dance floor.
The last day we went to the City of Refuge which was a place that tried to help stop human trafficking. They are doing a lot of community development with single mothers and the fisherman that are purchasing the children.
They also had just started a school which is where we worked for the afternoon. I got to organize the soccer uniforms, they were going to have their first soccer game the next day on their new field. They were in the process of building a school that was funded by donations from other organizations, including one that was started by Semester at Sea students, Finding Refuge. The organization was just beginning its projects with big hopes to expand.
There are hundreds of child slaves in a fishing village that were sold there because their moms could not afford to raise them or they were orphaned. The owners have people working in the village talking with the community and are there to show that the organization is not there to get them in trouble with the law or to take away their livelihood. Many of the fisherman do not give up the kids easily because they think they are teaching them a trade and also many of them were slaves when they were younger. It is a really complicated situation and it is a system that many survive off of and that has existed for so long that it does not seem wrong to those who live with it.
Many of the children are malnourished, do not receive education, beaten and some die from the work they do. The organization we visited had about thirty children. They had living there after they had been taken from the fisherman. They do not ever pay for the kids because that encourages the cycle. I got a chance to work in the classrooms with the children. I helped a young boy with subtraction and I played with the preschool kids. They were all beautiful and loved being with us. I also went with two boys to put sand on the soccer field to make lines. They did most of the hard work but I enjoyed trying to help. One boy took my camera and was taking pictures and videos of everyone. That was one good way to get myself in pictures! Many of the kids love not only being in pictures but also taking pictures. We take it for granted that we have such easy access to cameras.
We also had the awesome chance to meet a couple girls that were studying their semester abroad at the University of Ghana. They had wanted a really different experience for a study abroad. It was really nice to share our different study abroad experiences and ask each other multiple questions about our experiences!
We ended the evening by walking about a half hour to the mall, crossing streets and getting a good look at the surroundings that we would have missed if we just drove by in a car.
The most prominent physical feature of Ghana is the dirt. There is only grass around nice fancy buildings but everything and everyone is covered with dirt. Also, so many people are idle, sleeping on the streets or just waiting for someone to come along to buy things.
I feel that this trip is the start of what I wanted out of my experiences in these countries and I am starting to get the hang of it. Many agreed from the Semester at Sea trip, they enjoyed Ghana a lot more than Brazil and I think that is because it was more of a culture shock which is what many of us expected on this trip. The other places we visited was not that unusual from the norm. I like the people interaction but I want to know what they want to change about their government. The guys I talked to (jay) said they don’t care about elections or politics because nothing that they say will matter to the guys on the top.
The Ghanaians have a very interesting handshake where they end the shake by snapping each other’s finger. Our tour guides were really trustworthy. At first, I was hesitant to become too close of friends but they were really trustworthy and never kept us in the dark. They also emphasized sharing among ourselves. We would switch meals and we made sure to purchase for their food. We got their emails and facebook names to keep in contact with our friends.
The fourth day was probably the most difficult and uncomfortable day for me. I had wanted to get my hair braided or twisted in a salon. I made plans to meet up with one of the guys and we had a lot of different expectations for how the day would play out. He had the taxi driver wait for me while I got my hair done and didn’t negotiate a price beforehand. In the salon I went to ,the women doing my hair would not really talk to me. It could have been a language barrier but it was frustrating because I was sitting there for an hour and a half and was really hoping to get to hear about Ghana from a woman’s point of view. My hair was perfect, it was still curly but kind of doubled up so there was significantly less volume. It did not stay long! Later that night we went out to a local bar that had an outside dance floor.
The last day we went to the City of Refuge which was a place that tried to help stop human trafficking. They are doing a lot of community development with single mothers and the fisherman that are purchasing the children.
They also had just started a school which is where we worked for the afternoon. I got to organize the soccer uniforms, they were going to have their first soccer game the next day on their new field. They were in the process of building a school that was funded by donations from other organizations, including one that was started by Semester at Sea students, Finding Refuge. The organization was just beginning its projects with big hopes to expand.
There are hundreds of child slaves in a fishing village that were sold there because their moms could not afford to raise them or they were orphaned. The owners have people working in the village talking with the community and are there to show that the organization is not there to get them in trouble with the law or to take away their livelihood. Many of the fisherman do not give up the kids easily because they think they are teaching them a trade and also many of them were slaves when they were younger. It is a really complicated situation and it is a system that many survive off of and that has existed for so long that it does not seem wrong to those who live with it.
Many of the children are malnourished, do not receive education, beaten and some die from the work they do. The organization we visited had about thirty children. They had living there after they had been taken from the fisherman. They do not ever pay for the kids because that encourages the cycle. I got a chance to work in the classrooms with the children. I helped a young boy with subtraction and I played with the preschool kids. They were all beautiful and loved being with us. I also went with two boys to put sand on the soccer field to make lines. They did most of the hard work but I enjoyed trying to help. One boy took my camera and was taking pictures and videos of everyone. That was one good way to get myself in pictures! Many of the kids love not only being in pictures but also taking pictures. We take it for granted that we have such easy access to cameras.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Photos from the Amazon
Cassie on the Amazon
Floating Forest
Floating village
A hawk or eagle for Mom
HUGE Lily Pads
Piranna Fishing
Cassie and Ev enjoying local candies.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Wed, Feb 15-University of Ghana
Here is the blog for the third day in Ghana- Feb 15th Lauren's Birthday!!!!
We had a beach side breakfast of banana pancakes (which had an omelet-like look). Two of our friends from the previous night volunteered to escort us through Accra to the University of Ghana. These two men (Richie and Jay) were both about 25 and were working at the hotel in order to make enough money to attend school. Richie attended a polytechnic school nearby and was from Nigeria. Jay was from Northern Ghana and wanted to study at a university.
Now having 2 locals to travel with made negotiations and wandering less stressful and easier. They knew the streets and short cuts well and also were able to get us the cheapest fare for the taxis because Ghanaians usually take advantage of Americans ignorance to average prices. We certainly were approached less by vendors because of our escorts. Jay also had many different “brothers” in Ghana. Jay would call up a brother to get a cab or a brother who attended the university. However, every time he said brother we asked him to clarify whether there was a genetic relationship.
We walked out of the hotel through a shanty neighborhood in order to get to the main market and from there we took cabs to the university. The University of Ghana covers a huge area of land and looks very much like a modern university. Not many of their buildings are very tall but they had many of the same departments as the US. Many of the students were dressed nicely for class because it is treated with more reverence than in the US. We wandered around and played a little on the soccer or football field. Some of the guys wrestled for a bit and there was a lot of fun and laughing.
Jay knew somebody living there and we were able to visit a dormitory. The building had old paint and there were different posters for upcoming events or raising awareness for different issues in between each stairwell. You entered the dorms from a balcony (like a motel) and all their laundry was hanging up outside.
The buildings kitchen was spacious but only with one microwave, oven and sink. Each dorm building is separated by sex to prevent students from doing “jiggy jiggy” as they explained it. The dorm we went into had two bunks for four people but were the same size as an average college dorm in the US. We chatted with two of the students living in that dorm, Francis and George. I had asked them if there was a lot of partying at college and they said their university had a reputation for it! Parties were usually broken up because of noise complaints or disruption of peace instead of illegally drinking.
For those reading this blog and do not know I am a Social Work major and have decided this as my career choice almost four years ago. I am really enthusiastic about this profession and hope to reach out to a lot of people through it. The reason I am now mentioning it is because one of the guys in that dorm that we had talked to was a Social Work major! I was ecstatic to have somebody internationally to share ideas of justice issues with. He told me that the Social work profession in Ghana is not really considered legitimate at this stage; they are still coming to terms with how to handle many of the issues they are facing. He hopes that after he graduates with his Masters (because like in the US you cannot do anything with bachelor’s degree) that the field will become more legitimate. He wants to work to help raise up impoverished
We had a beach side breakfast of banana pancakes (which had an omelet-like look). Two of our friends from the previous night volunteered to escort us through Accra to the University of Ghana. These two men (Richie and Jay) were both about 25 and were working at the hotel in order to make enough money to attend school. Richie attended a polytechnic school nearby and was from Nigeria. Jay was from Northern Ghana and wanted to study at a university.
Now having 2 locals to travel with made negotiations and wandering less stressful and easier. They knew the streets and short cuts well and also were able to get us the cheapest fare for the taxis because Ghanaians usually take advantage of Americans ignorance to average prices. We certainly were approached less by vendors because of our escorts. Jay also had many different “brothers” in Ghana. Jay would call up a brother to get a cab or a brother who attended the university. However, every time he said brother we asked him to clarify whether there was a genetic relationship.
We walked out of the hotel through a shanty neighborhood in order to get to the main market and from there we took cabs to the university. The University of Ghana covers a huge area of land and looks very much like a modern university. Not many of their buildings are very tall but they had many of the same departments as the US. Many of the students were dressed nicely for class because it is treated with more reverence than in the US. We wandered around and played a little on the soccer or football field. Some of the guys wrestled for a bit and there was a lot of fun and laughing.
Jay knew somebody living there and we were able to visit a dormitory. The building had old paint and there were different posters for upcoming events or raising awareness for different issues in between each stairwell. You entered the dorms from a balcony (like a motel) and all their laundry was hanging up outside.
The buildings kitchen was spacious but only with one microwave, oven and sink. Each dorm building is separated by sex to prevent students from doing “jiggy jiggy” as they explained it. The dorm we went into had two bunks for four people but were the same size as an average college dorm in the US. We chatted with two of the students living in that dorm, Francis and George. I had asked them if there was a lot of partying at college and they said their university had a reputation for it! Parties were usually broken up because of noise complaints or disruption of peace instead of illegally drinking.
For those reading this blog and do not know I am a Social Work major and have decided this as my career choice almost four years ago. I am really enthusiastic about this profession and hope to reach out to a lot of people through it. The reason I am now mentioning it is because one of the guys in that dorm that we had talked to was a Social Work major! I was ecstatic to have somebody internationally to share ideas of justice issues with. He told me that the Social work profession in Ghana is not really considered legitimate at this stage; they are still coming to terms with how to handle many of the issues they are facing. He hopes that after he graduates with his Masters (because like in the US you cannot do anything with bachelor’s degree) that the field will become more legitimate. He wants to work to help raise up impoverished
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Everett-Castles and Slave Dungeons
Tuesday, Feb 14, 2012 Ghana
Ghana Day 2- Our second day (February 14th) in Ghana was probably the best day of the entire voyage so far. Cass and I went on a SAS sponsored trip to the Castles and Slave Dungeons of the Ghanaian coast. We set off at the ungodly hour of 7am and drove for 3 hours to Cape Coast, Ghana, to Castle Elmina.
There we were given an extensive history of the castle and its use during the height of the colonization period as a storehouse for gold, sugarcane, spices, and eventually (and most infamously) slaves. We were then taken on a tour of the grisly estate. Such morbid sights included the female slave dungeon were ~300 women were kept captive to live in their own filth for months before transport, the small courtyard where the women were herded out of the squalid chambers for display and humiliation (as punishment for disobedience), and the balcony above it where the Dutch Governor would make his pick of the women to take to his bed.
The Male sections of the dungeon were equally disturbing, as ~700 men were forced into rooms that seemed impossibly small for that number of bodies. The smell of accumulated filth, feces, and death still pervaded the cells, and many of the group were forced to hold their noses to avoid being sick.
In one end of the male dungeon, a small passageway branched out underneath the castle emptying into a room called the “room of no return” in which the slaves were put for several days before their final and inescapable transport onto the boats headed to the Americas and the Caribbean. To enter many of these chambers we were forced to stoop over because the ceilings were not high enough for people to stand upright.
Near the back of the castle were two cell doors which stood next to each other, one tiled in white, the other tiled in black and grey with a skull and crossbones over the doorframe. The one in white was for the white soldiers who misbehaved during their service, and used as a temporary punishment for the unruly soldiers. The inside was dark and stuffy, but a small amount of light permeated from the outside, and there was adequate ventilation to make the stay bearable although unpleasant. The neighboring cell, in contrast, was pitch black with no ventilation save for the bars on the door, as it was here that the more uncontrollable slaves were thrown without food and water until they died of starvation or thirst, as an example to the other slaves who might consider stepping out of line. At times up to fifty slaves could be put in these rooms and the Dutch would sometimes leave corpses in there until all the prisoners had starved to death forcing the captives to sit next to the lifeless bodies of their friends.
Ghana Day 2- Our second day (February 14th) in Ghana was probably the best day of the entire voyage so far. Cass and I went on a SAS sponsored trip to the Castles and Slave Dungeons of the Ghanaian coast. We set off at the ungodly hour of 7am and drove for 3 hours to Cape Coast, Ghana, to Castle Elmina.
There we were given an extensive history of the castle and its use during the height of the colonization period as a storehouse for gold, sugarcane, spices, and eventually (and most infamously) slaves. We were then taken on a tour of the grisly estate. Such morbid sights included the female slave dungeon were ~300 women were kept captive to live in their own filth for months before transport, the small courtyard where the women were herded out of the squalid chambers for display and humiliation (as punishment for disobedience), and the balcony above it where the Dutch Governor would make his pick of the women to take to his bed.
The Male sections of the dungeon were equally disturbing, as ~700 men were forced into rooms that seemed impossibly small for that number of bodies. The smell of accumulated filth, feces, and death still pervaded the cells, and many of the group were forced to hold their noses to avoid being sick.
In one end of the male dungeon, a small passageway branched out underneath the castle emptying into a room called the “room of no return” in which the slaves were put for several days before their final and inescapable transport onto the boats headed to the Americas and the Caribbean. To enter many of these chambers we were forced to stoop over because the ceilings were not high enough for people to stand upright.
Near the back of the castle were two cell doors which stood next to each other, one tiled in white, the other tiled in black and grey with a skull and crossbones over the doorframe. The one in white was for the white soldiers who misbehaved during their service, and used as a temporary punishment for the unruly soldiers. The inside was dark and stuffy, but a small amount of light permeated from the outside, and there was adequate ventilation to make the stay bearable although unpleasant. The neighboring cell, in contrast, was pitch black with no ventilation save for the bars on the door, as it was here that the more uncontrollable slaves were thrown without food and water until they died of starvation or thirst, as an example to the other slaves who might consider stepping out of line. At times up to fifty slaves could be put in these rooms and the Dutch would sometimes leave corpses in there until all the prisoners had starved to death forcing the captives to sit next to the lifeless bodies of their friends.
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