Sunday, April 24th, 2005- La Guaira, Venezuela

Today I went on the Mount Avila hike. Our first stop was the Sabas Nieves Trail that has an altitude of 1,300 meters. Due to the fact that it was Sunday, the trail was crowded with people trying to get exercise. We then drove to the cable car station at Mariperez and took a cable car to the top at 2,150 meters in altitude. The ride up was quite scary because it was so high. When we reached the top I was surprised to find a five-star hotel on top along with an ice rink, shops, and vendors. It was especially surprising because the only real way to get up the mountain was by way of the cable car.

We then returned back to the ship and I decided to walk around by the ship to see if there was anything around. There was absolutely nothing.

For dinner I ended up going to the only restaurant in the area called Restaurant Avila and arrived just in time before all the other SAS people showed up. By the time we left the place was filled to capacity with SAS people.

In the evening I decided to just sit out by the back deck and write in my journal.

- We had a water conservation emergency. Due to the fact that a pipe broke in La Guaira, we couldn’t get anymore water to the ship and we had run down on our reserves. No one could take showers or use water for any reason unless it was emergency. We did make it and left with a little bit of water. It takes 10-15 hours to clean and replenish the ocean water for ship use.

- The film Our Finest Hour, that Ari made on the ship was shown.

Saturday, April 23rd, 2005- La Guaira, Venezuela

Today I went on the Coastal Explorer trip which was a bunch of four wheel drive vehicles driving along the coast. Here’s what the SAS Spring 2005 Final Field Program says about the trip:

Participants will board four-wheel-drive vehicles at the harbor and proceed along the coast past the towns of Macuto and Caraballeda to Los Caracas. There the paved road ends and a rugged dirt road ascends the mountains and descends into the valleys that form the coast as far as Cabo Codera. The trip goes past the fishing villages of Osma, Oripoto, Todasana, and La Sabana. La Sabana is a quaint village inhabited exclusively by fishermen, local farmers and their families. The ride to La Sabana lasts over two hours, and during that time you will see the rugged coast formed by ravines that drop into the ocean, and rocks that come out of the sea. You will also ford rivers and witness the forest of the coastal range. There will be time for swimming in the ocean at La Sabana and in a natural river pool where water cascades from the mountains… (p. 95)

Our first stop was at a beach about an hour drive from the ship. We stopped and stretched for a while and then continued. The roads curved up the mountains (the stretch of mountains along the coast of Venezuela is called the Coaster Corridor) and as we climbed we saw firsthand the effects of the damage from the landslides from 1999 and 2003. We stopped at another beach and swam for two hours, where most of the people body surfed. The river with the mountain waterfall was our next stop to wash the sand off. It was quite beautiful.

After about a half hour at the falls we headed for lunch at a place called Hotel-Rest. Egua. At the end of lunch we headed to a rural village to see the Museo de la Verdad (the Museum of Truth). The curator was a heavy set man in a cloth robe who resembled Jesus. The museum was filled with carvings, by the man, with political meanings. At the end of his spiel he then asked for money as we exited the shack/building. The villagers outside put on a drum performance while little kids danced. We then headed back to the ship in La Guaira with a short stop at a McDonald’s on the way.

Friday, April 22nd, 2005- La Guaira, Venezuela

I was lucky enough to walk onto the Rural Town Visit/ Afro-Venezuelan Drum Workshop combined trip. One of the leaders was Max Brandt, an administrator from ISE who lived in Venezuela for sometime and is very knowledgeable. The bus left at 6:00am and we drove west towards the state of Miranda. Around 8:30am we stopped at a restaurant off the side of the road in the middle of no where, and had a traditional Venezuelan breakfast of Cachapas con queso. It was like a corn pancake folded over a big square of cheese.

Our next stop was the village in Barlovento to pick up the Afro-Venezuelan Community Center Director and then we went to go pick up his daughter at a small local college. We went on a quick drive by the shore. Our excursion then brought us out of the town through a wooded hilly area to the cacao (chocolate) farm. We then drove down a little more and came to the chocolate factory, which was a small building that was basically a kitchen. It was opened six months ago by the Polar Corporation (one of the largest companies in Venezuela predominantly a beer brewer) as a community outreach program to help the rural villagers start industry in their area.

We then headed back to Barlovento to see an Afro-Venezuelan drum performance at the Community Center. After the performance we headed for lunch at a hotel outside the village called the Hotel Tasca Restaurant. We finished lunch at like 5pm and then started our two hour ride back to Caracas to the Las Mercedes section. We arrived around 7pm and had time to look inside one of the many malls of Caracas. There are numerous malls in Caracas and they all are very americanized. We ate at a very good restaurant called Restaurant Caracas where I had pizza to complete my goal of having pizza in every port.

Random Stuff:

- There are so many Chili’s and TGIFriday’s Restaurants.

- Baseball is like the national sport. I was real excited when I passed a TGIFriday’s in the mall and saw an American Baseball game.

- The Venezuelans call us Estado Unidocions (United Statesians). They bring up a good point that everyone in North and South Americans are considered “Americans”.

- Gas in Venezuela is real cheap. It costs 7 American cents a liter compared to the cost of a liter bottle water of 25-50 American cents.

Thursday, April 21st, 2005- La Guaira, Venezuela

I woke up in Venezuela feeling real sick. My stomach was so upset that I decided to skip the Diplomatic Briefing, which I had never done and never wanted to do. I was going to sell my ticket for my day trip but at the last minute, after resting a little bit, felt well enough to go. The day trip was the International Student Exchange: University Visit to the Universidad Simón Bolívar. The SAS Spring 2005 Final Field Program describes the trip as:

Here is an opportunity to make new friends in Venezuela! This practicum will introduce you to local university students who are excellent resources for information about current issues in Venezuela as well as for suggestions of what to see and do in the Caracas area… Then there is time to tour the campus and interact with the students. (p. 91)

Let’s just say there was only one student there. The school was on its trimester break so everyone was on vacation, which put a real damper on the trip.

After an hour drive past Caracas we arrived at the pristine campus and were met by a Language professor, Dan Bailey, an American. He gave us a tour of the administrative offices and then sat us down in a theatre and gave us information on the university.

- It’s a public university with tuition free to all residents

- Entrance exams are quite difficult and only 1 out of every 9-10 people who take them pass them.

- There is no on campus housing.

At the meeting we met the one Venezuelan student. We then headed up to the Professor’s House, which is the name of the faculty cafeteria up in a house on a mountain. Lunch was pretty good especially eating out on the balcony overlooking the campus.

After lunch is when we were supposed to meet the students but that never occurred so we went on a tour of the library. By this time a bunch of the SAS students were getting annoyed and both parties felt that there was really nothing left for us to do so we left. The bus made a stop in Caracas on the way back to drop off anyone who wanted to walk around.

Random Facts:

- The ship is docked in the La Guaira, which is the middle of no where. There is nothing in the area around the ship to do and you must take a taxi into Caracas in order to get near anything of interest. The ride can be anywhere from 20 minutes- 3 hours, depending on traffic, especially since traffic in Caracas is real bad. Another deterrent is the fact that it costs like $20-30 to get there. I plan on doing SAS field trips everyday to help save money.

- Venezuelans admit that they are crazy/bad drivers. There are really no traffic laws, just suggestions. Police don’t enforce the laws anyway; however they are all over the sides of the highways. They are basically there waiting for accidents so they can direct traffic after one occurs. On my trip today, I saw two alone.

Wednesday, April 20th, 2005- Atlantic Ocean

Today was the last day of finals. It was quite a relief to have them all done with. In the evening we had a Variety Show/ Talent Show. Most of the acts were talented and/or funny. It was a nice way to help wind down.

Tuesday, April 19th, 2005- Atlantic Ocean

For the second night in a row I have had to go up to the Bistro on Deck 7 and buy pizza for dinner. The food on the ship has deteriorated and the food has basically no flavor.

Monday, April 18th, 2005- Atlantic Ocean

Today was a study day for finals. I spent a good part of the day finishing papers and sitting staring at my computer screen trying to write my poetry paper. I’ve come to the point where I am really burned out with schoolwork and I just don’t care about the quality anymore.

Sunday, April 17th, 2005- Atlantic Ocean

Today was the final day of classes along with the Global Studies final. It was definitely a good feeling to get it over with.

In the evening the Students of Service held an auction that had items from crew shirts and Girl Scout Cookies, to trips to people’s homes in New York, Alaska, and Hawaii. I really didn’t get into it until the last item came up for bid, the trip to a professor’s second condo in Hawaii for like 2 weeks. I thought it would be a good thing to bid on and the price seemed pretty cheap so I started to bid. I came down to the end; while Amanda was egging me on to keep going and I was telling her to quit it because she was going to make me raise it to an exorbitant price that I was not willing to pay. I ended up pulling back on the bid at around $730 because I could hear my mom in my head saying, “Why are you doing this and where is this money coming from?” I guess at least I didn’t leave being more in the red than I am already.

Saturday, April 16th, 2005- Atlantic Ocean

Today in our final Global Studies Professor Robert Fessler ended the course with a speech that pretty much sums up our trip. I went as follows:

The Last Lecture – April 16, 2005

As far as I know, there is no course taught anywhere…in any university or any country…that is quite like this one. You have heard from a lot of different lecturers…representing many different disciplines. History. Economics. Music. Sociology. Political Science. Oceanography. Anthropology. Theater. Religion. Biology. What kind of course is this, anyway? What kid of course talks about the temples of Angkor one day and ocean currents the next? Female circumcision and media and haiku and Hinduism and Ho Chi Minh? What kind of course tries… in one semester…to enrich your experience…not only of the world, but of ten specific countries?

No, wait, scratch two…add another one. Wait…Hawaii’s not a country. Zigzagging around the dateline. January 25^th…January 27^th. What happened to the 26^th? A hole in the space/time continuum. Smack. The gods are angry. Wham. Waste baskets and televisions bouncing off the walls. Furniture tumbling over people…but don’t put your feet on the furniture! Wait. Where are we now? Fly non-stop to Shanghai. Okay…one stop. Wait some more. Over the dateline again. Where are we now? Does anybody have any idea what day it is? What a long strange trip this has been.

I knew from the beginning that there was no way that we could do everything in Global Studies. I remember telling the faulty that we could easily spend the entire semester on any one of the topics that I was asking them to present in 30 minutes. The history of China…Apartheid… Buddhism…in 30 minutes? So what was it all about? What was this kaleidoscope of information intended to do for you?

Let me take you back to that first session of Global Studies and repeat a few of the things that I said to you then. Anyone who has been around the world should not come back unchanged. You can do it, of course. People do. They travel around the world and stay in Western hotels and eat at Western restaurants and watch CNN. They may hear that India has a caste system…they may see the Candomble women with their colored necklaces. But all they come back with is a lot of pictures and video. They’ve seen the sights.

But as you know, the experience is very different when you know why the Candomble women wear those necklaces. When you know what it means. And when you understand how the caste system developed…and how it is intertwined with India’s history and religion…and how it affects relationships and politics and everything else in India. That was one of the aims of Global Studies – to help you see below the surface. To help you understand the underlying dynamics so that your experience would be richer…deeper…more profound. To help you become a “world traveler”, not just someone who has been around the world.

Global Studies was also designed to give you a concrete experience of how the academic disciplines interrelate. You have learned that the theater of South Africa cannot be separated from South Africa’s history and politics. You have learned that you cannot fully understand the music of Brazil without understanding the slave trade…and you cannot fully understand the slave trade without understanding colonialism and economics and African religion and so on. Each academic discipline has given you a slightly different profile of what is in fact an interrelated whole. And you have learned that the more you know about one discipline, the more you need to know about the others.

There was not enough time to do it all…but Global Studies was never intended to do it all. Only to assist you in getting here…today…with a greater global awareness.

Back at the beginning of the voyage I talked to you about the difference between individualism and collectivism. You had just come on the ship…650 of you…from different backgrounds, different schools, different religions, different countries…with different interests, different dreams, different hopes, different plans. And in those first few days you were trying to get your sea legs…and just beginning to get to know each other. There was a lot of excitement and enthusiasm…mixed with some apprehension about how the voyage would unfold…about what it would be like to travel around the world with all these strangers.

Look at you now. Shipmates. Friends. Many of you have found yourselves talking to people you never would have approached at home. Many of you have made friends with people you didn’t know you could be friends with. Slowly…so slowly that you can’t quite put your finger on when it began to happen…650 individuals became a community. The diversity is still there… maybe even more so than it was at the start. You are shaved and braided. Beaded and saronged. But you have learned to live with that diversity. And you have learned to be incredibly accepting and tolerant of each other. Want to shave your head? Okay. Don’t want to shave your head? That’s okay too. Guy wants to wear a skirt? Doesn’t bother anyone. Professor wants to wear a skirt. Yeah…whatever.

And it has been more than simply learning to accept the diversity. You have learned to appreciate the differences…to appreciate what each individual brings to the whole. It takes threads of different colors and textures to make a tapestry. It takes tiles of different sizes and shapes to make a mosaic. This is a collective society and each of you has your place in it. Not one of you can be removed without all of us losing something. Seniors and kids. Staff and students. Family members and crew members. Happy people. Cranky people. Serious people. Silly people. New Yorkers. Californians. South Americans. Canadians. Sky divers and poets. Myopics and mystics. Scientists and surfers. Philosophers and fools. Poker players. Preachers. Atheists. Smokers and weight lifters and drummers and sunbathers. Each of you belongs here. Not one of you can be removed without all of us losing something. Not one of you can be removed without disturbing the “wa”.

And we have achieved that in less than 100 days. Learning to look out for each other. Leaning to take care of each other. But most of all, learning to listen to each other. Social scientists have shown that the only way to break down the walls between people…or between groups of people…is to put them together in a situation that allows them to get to know each other…to get to see what they have in common. From the outside, it is too easy to make judgments about those who are different…to hold stereotypes. Us and them. But when we sit down together, the differences in our values…in our beliefs…in our assumptions…that looked so divisive from the outside, begin to be seen more as interesting variations…because we discover that there is so much more that we share.

We have shared a lot on this voyage. Some of it exhilarating. Some of it frightening. Some of it very funny. Some of it tragic. But all of it…enlightening. And those shared experiences have brought us together. Back in that first class I told you that you would have many new experiences on this voyage. Not one…not ten…not a hundred…but wave after wave of amazing experiences. To much to process all at once. Do you have any idea how much we have been through together? How much we have seen and tasted and touched and smelled?

Lunatic rickshaw drivers playing bumper cars in the streets of Chennai. Children without homes. Beggars without limbs. Open sewers and open sores. Neon nights in Hong Kong. Lion kills. Shantytowns. Dolphin and dong. Flying fish and flying pianos. Buddhism/Hinduism/

Caodaism/Confucianism/ Shintoism/animism/Feminism/Socialism/Communism/Capitalism/ Nationalism/Colonialism. The smell of popcorn in the Piano Lounge. A legless man crawling toward you across the sidewalk. A masseuse…with wandering fingers. Candomble. Germaine’s Luau. The untouchables. Babies holding babies. Midgets on tiptoe. Table Mountain. Rolex knockoffs. Dock time. Hidden orixas and inner fetuses. Rough seas and cubed cheese. A dead bicyclist lying on the pavement. Tiger beer and Tusker beer. Suck and blow…and the Panda Hotel. The Rex…the Voice…the bistro…the Bantu. Vagina monologues and Abba interruptions. 45 degrees to port…45 degrees to starboard. Samba…sunsets…street mimes and Swahili. Poverty and paper shortages. Life boat drills and laundry day. Lantau Island. Robben Island. Larium. Imodium. Clogged toilets. No toilets. Head wobbles and thumbs up. Rain forests and rhinos. Polygamy and polyrhythms and pasta who-knows-what? A surrealistic Alice-in-Wonderland voyage where clocks are retarded and sweatsocks are bartered and doctors shampoo tangerines.

Ba-ai-ah!

(Come on…this is audience participation. All you soccer fans, let’s try it again)

Ba-ai-ah! Ba-ai-ah!

I knew you knew that. And that’s my point. It is our shared experience that brings us together as a community and which makes our differences much less important.

I was in a jewelry shop at the Waterfront in Cape Town with my wife. She was looking at rings. And there was a black African couple there. The woman was trying on earrings…and the salesgirl was oohing an aahing about how fabulous they looked. The woman’s husband was standing back a few feet…and for a split second we caught each other’s eye…with a look of mutual recognition. In that brief second, there was no black or white…just two clueless guys who both knew we were in danger of spending a great deal of money on little sparkly things whose allure we did not understand at all. It was a “guy” moment. And it was great.

I hope you have had moments like that. I think you probably have. Maybe it was a moment when someone smiled at you. Maybe it was a moment when language differences stopped being a barrier and you found yourself communicating. Or when you quit worrying about being ripped off and just started talking to a street vendor. Or when someone taught you to dance a new dance …or play a new instrument…or sing a new song. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t expect the world to change easily. But I do know that the only way it can change is by finding the common ground. The smiles…and the “guy” moments.

You now know, more than you have ever known, that you are privileged. Sure, some of you have more money than others. But each of you has more money than most of the people in the world. More money…more freedom…more education…more opportunity. You are privileged. And in addition to that, you now have a global awareness. Don’t buy the myth that one person can’t change things. Whether you become a CEO or a lawyer or a Peace Corps volunteer doesn’t matter. You are in a position to do something…and a far better position than you were in three months ago. I don’t care if you spend the rest of your life in Kansas…you will always have a global awareness…an enriched understanding of your place in the larger whole. Make good use of that…and the voyage will never end.

Find a cause. Something you believe in…and work for it. It doesn’t have to be some big sweeping world movement. In fact, one of the things you have learned on this voyage is that small local projects…like the Grameen Bank…are often far more effective and productive than large decisions made high above or far away by people who may have good intentions, but who don’t fully understand the local implications. It may seem trite to say, “Think globally, act locally”…but small community-based and community-designed projects work. And small changes are real changes.

We are all in favor of the big things, like World Peace and the abolition of hunger. Those are things that are easy to believe in, but very difficult to do anything about directly. That’s the reason why people throw up their hands and say, “One person can’t do anything”. Well, one person can. You can. You’re smart…you’re free…and you are a lot more independent and confident than you were three months ago.

You have communicated with people from different cultures, different backgrounds and different languages. You can figure out how to get from here to there in India, just because you want to. You can bargain with the best of them in Beijing. You have skills. If you can cross a street in Saigon, you can do anything.

This voyage has been an incredible gift. It has changed you. And now you’re going home. No you’re not. At least…not to the home that you left in January. When you get off the ship in Ft. Lauderdale, you are going to know that. You already know it in your head. But when you get off the ship in Ft. Lauderdale you are going to know it in your bones. You are going to feel it in your skin. The world that you left behind isn’t there any more.

There is a story that I like to tell my students about a fish in a fishbowl. There is a way in which a fish swimming around in a fishbowl knows nothing at all about water. Because water is so much a part of the fish’s life. It is surrounded by water. It is embedded in water. In that sense, the fish does not really know water. If you want the fish to really understand water, you have to take the fish out of the fishbowl and say, “Look, that’s water.” Now…if you put the fish back in…the water never looks the same again. Well, in a certain sense, we’ve all been taken out of our fishbowls. You have been out of your fishbowl for 3½ months. Now you have to go back.

It may not happen to you immediately. Caught up in the excitement of seeing your friends and your relatives…it may take a day. Maybe a week. But sooner or later there is going to be a moment. It might happen to you at the airport. It might happen to you in your hotel room. Maybe not until you get home. But sooner or later there is going to be a moment when you realize that the world just doesn’t “fit” the way it fit before.

Many of your friends…even your good friends…are going to seem suddenly, strangely… stupid. You’ll want to talk about India. And they will say, “Yeah. Right. Sounds great.” And somehow that is just not going to be enough. And you’ll say, Yes, but I was in Varanasi…let me tell you about the colors and the smells and the people…and the bodies! Let me tell you about the burning bodies!” And your friends will say, “Uh huh”. And you will watch their eyes glaze over as they smile and nod and glance over your shoulder. So you’ll try Vietnam. “You know, I was in Vietnam. Saigon. Well, really it’s Ho Chi Minh City, but everybody just calls it Saigon. And they have the most unbelievable traffic! Hardly any traffic lights…and no one pays attention to them anyway.” And your friends will say, “Oh.”

And then your friends will suddenly get enthusiastic again when they begin to tell you all the great things you missed while you were gone. Like that big party…where everyone threw up on each other. And that really great episode of “Desperate Housewives”. And they will start telling you some of the lines…and getting excited as they are telling them to you. And you will be crawling out of your skin.

And you’ll say, “But I saw beggars. I saw children begging. Did you know that parents sometimes actually maim their kids to make them better beggars?” And your friends will say, “Awesome”. And you’ll know that they don’t get it. In fact, you might even begin to wonder if some of your friends really know what it means for something to be…awesome. Standing on the Great Wall of China and seeing it zig zag off across the mountains into the mist, that’s awesome. Waking up in a hammock on a small boat chugging up the Amazon River, that’s awesome. Floating in a hot air balloon over the Serengeti Plain at dawn, that’s awesome. The big party you missed while you were gone, isn’t.

And you are going to hear yourself sounding pretentious. You won’t feel pretentious, but you are going to hear yourself sounding pretentious. You know, here on the ship, if you are sitting around with one of your friends or your roommate and you start a sentence like, “One night in Saigon I was taking a rickshaw back from the War Remnants Museum…” That doesn’t sound odd, here. But can’t you just see your friends back home rolling their eyes? You are going to have to choose between sounding pretentious…and being silent. And you are going to long to be back here with us…where you can be normal.

And maybe you have a relationship back home. An important one. One that seemed really comfortable and promising…last January. Oh boy. All those emails you wrote? Or didn’t write? Some of them maybe feeling a little forced as you wrote them? That relationship might not feel right any more. Like an old pair of jeans that’s comfortable…but no longer your style. And you think, “I just can’t do this any more.”

Many of you have become independent on this voyage. Much more genuinely concerned about the world. About other people. Stronger. Braver. Better than you were last January. And the life that you had planned for yourself might not seem big enough any more. You might be thinking about changing directions. A new major. A new career. Maybe even a new country. Who are you going to talk to? How are they going to understand?

There are a thousand little ways in which the world is just not going to fit any more. And a thousand little reminders that it doesn’t fit. Television commercials are going to look really stupid. Houses and cars are going to be obscenely big. Restrooms are going to be disgustingly sanitary. Salespeople will look at you like you’re an idiot when you try to bargain. And everybody is going to have so much…stuff.

Even words aren’t going to seem the same. You’ll hear the word, “Shanghai”. Shanghai is a place…it’s not just a word. Cape Town. It all comes back. It’s not just a word any more. How could you possibly have imagined, back in January, that you would spend the rest of your life getting chills whenever you thought of the words, “Put on your life jackets and get into the hall right now!” With the steady haunting moan of the fog horn in the background. Who else will ever understand that? The world is never going to be the same again.

So what do you do? Well, I think one of the things you have to do is to forgive your friends. Looking at the pictures…listening to your stories…it’s not the same as having been there. You know that. You’ve looked at people’s vacation pictures before. You know that pictures can’t capture the same experience. They are going to be looking at it and listening to it…you’ve lived it. It has changed you…it hasn’t changed them. So you have to be a little patient with them… you have to be a little forgiving if they don’t quite get it. But I think that you can only do that if they are willing to let you be the person you have become. It is not the places you have been to …and it is not the things that you have done that have to be shared. It is who you have become that has to be shared. You don’t have to find people who have been around the world to understand you, but you have to find people to understand you. And if your old friends won’t let you be the person you have become, make new friends. There are a lot of people out there. You know those foreign students on your home campus? Those strange people with the accents? You see them wandering around confused and not knowing what building to go into. Been there. Done that. Go talk to them.

There are a lot of people out there who can confirm who you are…and who you are becoming. Even if that is not clear to you now. In many ways, the person you will be six months from now is still developing right outside of consciousness. You don’t know yet how much you have changed. And you won’t know for another six months or a year. It isn’t a good idea to make any major life decisions before then. You might want to…but give yourself some time.

Earlier I suggested that you might want to find a cause…something that you believe in…and work for it. I think that’s a good idea. But I’m not worried about you. I don’t think that you have to be urged to do that…you don’t even need to be reminded to do that. I think you are going to have to do that in order to feel at home. If the world doesn’t fit any more, then you have to create a world for yourself that does fit. A place where you can feel at home.

I have been on previous voyages…and gone home. So has Dean Wright…Dean Hansen… Kenn…Adrienne…and some others. We’ve all been taken out of our fishbowls and put back in again. And I think I can speak for all of them when I say, “Come on in. The water’s fine.”

Thank you.

Friday, April 15th, 2005- Atlantic Ocean

Today was the beginning of Final’s Week. I don’t really have that many finals, I just have to get papers done. The work has started to envelop me and I’m really looking forward to when it’s over.

-Ambassador’s Ball tickets went on sale and I decided that I would attend.

Thursday, April 14th, 2005- Salvador, Brazil

In the morning I headed out to Beu Machado Kindergarten. The SAS Spring 2005 Final Field Program describes:

The Beu Machado Kindergarten is a philanthropic organization founded by Beu Machado, a journalist from Salvador. Boca do Rio is one of the lower class neighborhoods of the city, where many children are from single parent families. To help them and their mothers survive, Beu Machado and his wife first transformed their own residence into a kindergarten and took care of many of the favela’s children so that their mothers could work outside of the home. The number of assisted children grew constantly, and on April 8^th, 1986 they inaugurated the new kindergarten building. Today, the Beu Machado Kindergarten in the Rua Cazundé attends 215 children and is directed by Maria José Machado, the widow of Beu Machado.

The institution cares especially for children in misery and looks to provide them with education, health (food), and recreation (games, sports, and excursions). The mothers are very grateful for being able to go to work while they know their children are in good hands. While the journalist Beu Machado was still alive, the Kindergarten received many donations from artists, who knew about and appreciated his social work and sense. Today Beu Machado Kindergarten is an organization with many expenses. The people of the Crèche depend on help from friends and authorities to be able to continue their work.

At present there are four different projects that are organized by the Crèche and need private financial support. The project “Don’t Cry, Granny” attends 60 female seniors and supplies them with basic nutrition, medical assistance, and activities. In the project “Away from the Street” the neighborhood’s youth receives courses and physical education as well as sport activities. In addition to the kindergarten, a literacy project, Projeto Ponte (“Project Bridge”) was founded in 1995, to intensively prepare the five to seven year olds for entry into the public schools.

The Beu Machado Kindergarten’s philosophy is to create a way out of poverty for the children and their families providing them with values and ambition to lead a worthy life without hunger and violence, to help them find proper education, work and self-esteem to live as full citizens within society. (p. 88)

We walked into the school and visited some classrooms. The children were busy doing work and didn’t really warm up to us as much until we brought out stickers. It was quite an uneventful trip and I felt that the school did a good job at soliciting donations because it didn’t look like they were doing badly at all.

After the visit we went back to the ship where I met up with Ari and Linda and we headed to the Mercado and then up to the Pelourinho. Ari separated from us to get some errands done and then in the evening on the way back to the ship he met up with me again along with Amanda and we all headed up to the Pelourinho to a Pizzeria for dinner.

We then made it back to the ship just before it started to downpour.

Wednesday, April 13th, 2005- Salvador, Brazil

I headed out on the SAS trip to Itaparica Island along with Josh and Katrina. We walked from the ship down to the ferry port to catch our private boat. This is what the SAS Spring 2005 Final Field Program says about the trip:

The great All Saints Bay, Baia de Todos os Santos, which has an area of 1,100 square kilometers and contains 38 tropical islands, binds Salvador on the South… First, stop at Ilha dos Frades [Monks Island] about 90 minutes from Salvador…Next, travel to the island of Itaparica… (p. 89)

We headed out and arrived at Ilha dos Frades [Monks Island] around 11am. Our boat docked at the small pier and we walked to a small building that was an entrance to the island. The sky was overcast as we walked onto a strip of beach that was lined by a row of small bars and restaurants. In the distance across the water we could see rain clouds emptying above Itaparica Island. On the beach there were a bunch of local men/ boys playing soccer. In the water were small fishing boats. The island was pretty much empty except for us and some of its 150 inhabitants.

I decided to take advantage of the beach and went in the water for about a half hour. After I got out I then walked down the beach to explore a little cove where a bunch of people were finding glass that had been smoothed out by the ocean. As I walked back I saw a contingent of European tourists coming down the pier towards the beach. There were so many of them and they were loud, annoying, and took over everything (It gave me a better perspective on how were probably perceived in many places). More boatloads of tourists came and the men who had been playing soccer on the beach stopped that immediately to perform Capoeira to try and pick up some money. Vendors then came out of the woodworks selling different things. To get away from this I walked with Josh and Katrina up a small hill overlooking the beach to an abandoned church. There was not really all that much up there but there was a beautiful view.

At 12:30pm we left the island and headed on the 40 minute journey to Itaparica Island. When we arrived the sun had finally broken through and we made our way to a restaurant on the pier for lunch. Itaparica was more developed with more modern buildings and roads and cars. After lunch we walked down to an area that had a couple of building that had been built in the 1800’s and some had been used as slave quarters. We walked around this area for a while and noticed that the whole island was pretty much quiet and no one was around except for some shop owners. We then walked back to the pier and guide brought anyone who wanted to go to a fountain, Fonte da Bica. There were three spouts, the first representing health, the second money, and the last love. If you took the water from these spouts and rubbed it on your body then it was supposed to bring you these. On the way out I met an old lady who was selling watercolor paintings. She told me she was Uruguay and asked if I spoke Spanish. After I amazed her with my six years of Espanol (sarcasm) she seemed happy that I had made an attempt to communicate with her in her native tongue. I ended up buying a painting because I felt bad that no one was around.

I hurried back to the boat as it was getting ready to leave. The two hour trip back was pretty uneventful except that the water became a little rockier with the setting sun.

Tuesday, April 12th, 2005- Salvador, Brazil

In the morning I decided to hop on a SAS service trip to the Algados Neighborhood. The Algados neighborhood is one of the poorest in all of Brazil. Our first stop was at a elementary school that had kids from 1 years old to about 7 year olds. The school is helped by an organization called Cross Cultural Sollutions. The SAS Spring 2005 Final Field Program describes:

Cross-Cultural Solutions is a not-for-profit international volunteer organization that operates volunteer programs in Brazil, China, Costa Rica, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Peru, Russia, Tanzania, and Thailand. Cross-Cultural Solutions partners with communities that are attempting to develop community run projects. Its program in Brazil is based in Salvador where the organization works mainly in the Algados neighborhood, a low-income community in need of basic services like education and healthcare. (p. 87)

We met the principal of the school, who over the past few years has really built the school literally and figuratively. As we entered we not only saw classrooms but also a kitchen in the open (to help promote nutrition) and we also saw a shower in the open (to help promote hygiene). The school washes the kids and teaches them to clean themselves. As we were leaving we saw a whole group of girls in their underwear leaving the showers (probably about 5 years old) walking in a line, holding the person in front’s shoulders and singing songs back to class.

I spent most of my time at the school playing with a class of three year olds. They were real excited to see us (or maybe it was the bubbles and the stickers). Every child in the class, no matter if male or female, wore only shorts; and by the end of our visit they were covered with stickers. Another interesting thing that we noticed was that one little boy kept smashing toys into another toy, as if he was playing the drums. Another difference that this brought up was that here he was allowed to express himself and maybe nurture some talent, while in the United States that would quickly be stopped in a nursery school. I also visited a classroom of 1-2 year olds. They were just walking around and playing with toys.

We left the school after a little over two hours and headed to the Mother Teresa of Calcutta Mission. While there we met Sister Mary Claire, who had just started there three weeks prior and had been previously stationed in the Amazon. We visited the nursing home part that had 12 residents; all females who had no where else to go and no one to care for them. We then saw the day care that provides a reliable place for mothers to send their children to. And because many of the families cannot provide food for the children, the mission provides all the meals for the children, sending dinner home when they get picked up. Our last stop there was upstairs to see the children with disabilities. These children live in the mission and are waiting to be adopted. Right now there are only six there. We were going to visit the church right up the hill behind the mission, where Pope John Paul II on his last visit to Brazil inaugurated it after it had been rushed to build in 3 months, but we were unable to go because the Sister thought it would be too dangerous for us. This really shocked me as it was less than 100 meters away. As we exited and walked down the block back to the bus the street felt so much longer. Our tour guide then mentioned to us that this was one of the most dangerous areas of Salvador because the people were so poor.

We headed back to the ship for lunch and afterwards Josh, Katrina, and I headed to the Mercado Modelo, where I finally able to see the basement. As we walked down the spiraling staircase I was sure not to venture off of it, not knowing who was down there. I chill went down my spine as I thought about all the slaves that had been kept down there in order to hold them to be sold. It was dark and it was all water except for large concrete slabs that were placed around to stand on. We then went back upstairs and did some light shopping. Josh was looking for a specific soccer jersey and capoeira pants. Capoeira is a martial arts dance that was started in Brazil by the slaves. Since slaves were not allowed to practice fighting, they instead masked it by making it into a dance. We headed up to the Pelourinho to find these items.

As Katrina and Josh were in a store I waited towards the front. Some beggar came up to me and tried to smooth talk me and then told me that he had AIDS and asked me to buy him milk at the café two doors down. I asked him how much it cost and he went to go find out. He came back and said it was 2.50 reals (equivalent approx. $1). I agreed and went with him to the café. Since the smallest bill I had was only a 5 reals note I pulled it out. The guy pulled it out of my hand and gave it to the person at the counter. I stood there confused for a second wondering where my change was. The beggar then told me, “You pay for my lunch”. Realizing that I wasn’t going to get change because the guy at the counter didn’t speak English, I just got fed up at the beggar and walked out. In retrospect I should have said, “leché solamenté” for my sad attempt at Spanish even though the guy at the counter may have only spoke Portuguese, but at least I would have made an attempt. It was only like $2 but the whole incident just got under my skin.

After Josh didn’t find exactly what he was looking for he settled for the next best stuff. We then headed back down to the Mercado Modelo on the way back to the ship.

On the ship Josh and I went to the pool, then we met all his friends for dinner. And since dinner was pretty bad, we all went up to the Bistro on the 7^th deck and paid for better food.

Monday, April 11th, 2005- Salvador, Brazil

In the morning Steve and this girl Jen that we met headed up to Pelourinho to go to a music shop so I could buy a guitar. This being my new endeavor to try and do, I bought an acoustic guitar. We then headed back down to the Mercado Modelo; where I we tried to get down to see the basement. After finding it closed off we eventually, after a struggle due to the language barrier, found out that there was a movie being filmed down there and we needed to come back later. At the market I was able to also pick up some instruments. One was like a whistle, called an Apito (pron. Ap ee to), and the other being a wood tube with the metal pieces inside that sound like the rain, called a Ganza.

In the afternoon we headed on the SAS trip to the Calabar Favela. The favela is the Brazilian version of the “ghetto”. It is made up of many close brick buildings with only a walkway in between. In the Calabar Favela there are 17,000 families with houses built of brick. Most of them are not finished on the outside because it costs very little for the basic supplies like bricks, but costs a lot for finishing materials such as paint. Our first stop was an elementary school. We interacted and played with the little kids and then watched a show put on by a theatre group made up of mostly teenage girls and one teenage boy. It is an after school program led with an 18 year old male as the professor. They all came up with a script that relates with issues that they deal with. Since they only spoke Portuguese and we only spoke English they performed a small portion of it for us. At the end our guide translated it for us. The scenes dealt with safe sex, police corruption (how blacks are discriminated against), and more sex. It was interesting to see how such adult topics were being performed in a school atmosphere by a younger group of teenagers, who will then perform it for area elementary schools.

After playing with the kids for a little longer (and trying to teach them that Play- Doh is not food), we then headed on a walking tour of the favela. It was just building after building. The insides of many of them did not look all that bad, with many having stereos and televisions (most of the people had the TVs on and were watching Jim Carey’s Ace Ventura: Pet Detective).

In the evening I headed back to the Pelourinho with Jen to go use the phone and then went to a Pizzeria/ Internet place. They were out of pizza so we went searching for another pizza restaurant (in order to continue my tradition of having pizza in every port). Some beggar came up to us and offered to show us where one was. He said we didn’t have to pay him, but I knew better. As he led us down an alley we were very hesitant, but followed because there were other tourists around. As he realized this he pointed to his head and said, “I’m not paranoid”. Let me just say that this was very reassuring for me (sarcasm). When we got to the restaurant he wanted us to pay him by buying him food at a place down the street. I told him that I’d give him money and he can just get it himself. I gave him 2 reals (equivalent of a little less than a dollar) and he was like “Give me 6 reals”. Of course I didn’t give it to him (it really pisses me off when beggars do that). We got some really good pizza and then ended the night by hitting up the internet café.

Sunday, April 10th, 2005- Salvador, Brazil

Josh, Amanda, Tracy, and I began the day at 9am by leaving the port and going to the ATM at the bank across from the port. Since it was Sunday the streets were absolutely desolate except for some small groups of men congregating every couple of blocks.

Before I go any further I should mention that the part of Salvador where the port is located is separated into two parts by a cliff that runs parallel to the port. There are three ways to get from one to the other. One is by the road, two is by a cable car (plano inclinado), and the third is by the Elevador Lacerda (elevator). The bottom level is called the Comércio, which is five blocks wide and is made up of mostly the banking district. The upper level is called the Pelourinho, which has more tourist shops and things along those lines.

So after the bank we went searching for the cable car to go up to the Pelourinho. After walking around through the empty streets we came across it and found it to be closed because it was Sunday. We then headed over to the Elevador and paid our 5 centavos (2 cents in US dollars) for the ride up. We were met mostly by empty cobblestone streets, except for some tourists, and European style architecture with different town squares. We walked around and did some light shopping in some of the tourist shops and then headed back down the Elevador to the Mercado Modelo right in front. The Mercado Modelo is a large building that used to be used for the slave trade. Brazil had the most slaves (3 million- compared to the U.S. 500,000) from Africa, with the slave trade going on from approx. 1580- 1880 C.E. (current era). The basement of the Mercado is where the slaves were kept before they were sold off. The building is now used to sell handicrafts and other tourist trap items. We walked around there for a while and then headed back to the ship for lunch.

In the afternoon I headed off on the Semester at Sea trip to see a soccer game between Bahia state rivals, Bahia vs. Vitoria. In all 400 SAS people attended, although many of them did not give off a good impression of us (i.e.- getting totally drunk, a girl making out with random Brazilian guys one after another). I really wasn’t too please to be associated with people like that, but I guess I have to take it with a grain of salt. The game was really cool. Our bus pulled up into a regular neighborhood and all of a sudden we walked up to a concrete stadium. As we entered through the turnstiles the Vitoria fans were yelling at us because a large contingency had bought the Bahia jerseys.

Just as we were walking to our seats it began to rain and then there was a downpour. Everyone was under the covered area as a game started on the field. I was kind of confused because the stadium was quite empty and there was a game going on, although we got there an hour early. We soon found out that it was the second half of the 19 & under Bahia and Vitoria teams. At the end of the game the stadium began to fill up and drums began to bang in unison. The fans from the two teams were split up by different sides and the lower levels were separated by metal dividers. The first game ended and the referees were escorted off the field by six armed and shielded riot army men. During the interlude between games a new set of police with riot gear and another set with dogs walked to positions surrounding the field. At this same time the fans from both sides in the upper levels began to walk near each other very confrontationally and then some members from the Bahia contingency threw some firecrackers and both sides ran back to their sides.

A new set of referees were escorted onto the field and then both teams entered with enormous cheers from their respective fan base. The game began and I soon noticed that players were very good and they also played very dirty. One of my favorite tricks that I noticed was that they would feign an injury and then the cart would come onto the field, pick them up, and then as soon as it got to the sideline they would roll off of the stretcher and go back into the game (since there are only three substitutions in a game of soccer they are very valuable leading to not so much substitutions). At one point the cart was on every other play and it limited the fluidity of the game. The game was really close and exciting and Bahia led 2-1 with a couple minutes left in the game. However in the closing minutes Vitoria scored the tying goal to the disappointment of the Bahia fans. I, on the other hand could have cared less because it definitely was a very interesting and exciting experience.

Saturday, April 9th, 2005- Salvador, Brazil

This morning we arrived in Salvador and the student was taken to the hospital. However, the rest of us were not allowed off. The one positive was that customs came on the ship a day early so that we could get off earlier tomorrow.

Friday, April 8th, 2005- Atlantic Ocean

Today Amanda, Josh, and I tried, and got on the Bridge Tour (where steering of the ship occurs). When we got there we were introduced to the Second Staff Captain. He showed us around the bridge and allowed us to take turns sitting in the Captain’s chair with a captain’s hat.

Conversation soon turned to the day of the storm and questions about that. The SSC said that looking back on it that it was a very scary situation and that we did have a good chance to go down when the engines went out. He said that the boat was rolling around 45 degrees each direction and that if it rolled over that it would take less than a minute to go down. When the question was asked if it were ever an option to be put in life boats he said, “No”, with his reason being that the lifeboats are for calm conditions and they wouldn’t stand a chance in the storms that we were in. Also with the temperature of the water we wouldn’t have survived more than a couple of minutes if we somehow fell in. This was all pretty scary to me considering they had tried to keep us so calm. To think that we really had come so close to the end.

Thursday, April 7th, 2005- Atlantic Ocean

Today we found out that a guy has appendicitis and we are going full steam ahead towards Brazil. The Brazilian Coast Guard helicopters are unable to go out further than 15 miles from shore so they are unable to airlift him off the ship.

Monday, April 4th, 2005- Atlantic Ocean

Today was the Sea Olympics. The only event I participated in was the 5am wake up call. The winning team was the one that had the most people wake up and sign in. My team didn’t do as bad as anticipated. We only came in second from last instead of last place.

Sunday, April 3rd, 2005- Atlantic Ocean

Today was the last day before the Sea Olympics. The Sea Olympics is a series of competitions and the winning hallway gets to disembark the ship first in Fort Lauderdale. I was all about that until I saw how my team fared in the opening event, the lip sync competition. The only thing that needed to be done was to lip sync a song and have a dance routine. My floor had by far the worst act and it was no surprise that we came in last place. To begin with the songs that were chosen had hardly any words, it made no point, and it ended up like softcore erotica. I was totally embarrassed and ashamed to have any association with them.

Saturday, April 2nd, 2005- Atlantic Ocean

This evening when I sat down at dinner with Amanda and Marisol we ended up sitting in the middle of a student’s meeting over the comments and alleged harassing teaching styles of a professor on the ship. This tends to have blown up into a pretty big situation. I don’t really know all the details but there are allegations that this professor made racial comments in class and at a Community College, and also has been teaching with a harassing learning environment. I don’t have him as a professor but I was at the Community College where he made the comments and, in my own opinion, I believed that they were inappropriate and politically incorrect. The one sad thing is that many students agree with his methods and teachings.

Friday, April 1st, 2005- Cape Town, South Africa

Today was basically just a day of errands. Ari and I went down to the Apple Store to pick up his laptop that was being serviced. I then did some final shopping at the Waterfront and then met Ari again for an early dinner at St. Elmo’s Pizza.

It became quite windy and the water in the port became very rough as I boarded the ship at 7pm. Due to the weather turning so bad, we were told that the ship would not leave until tomorrow.

This evening, before we left, the Langa Township choir performed.

Thursday, March 31st, 2005- Cape Town, South Africa

Josh, Amberly, and I finally headed to catch the train to Simon’s Town at 11am to see the penguins. I say “finally” because getting Josh up to go took some prodding because he likes to sleep. When we arrived at the train station we realized that it wasn’t the greatest part of town. At the ticket booth we were met by a poster that described the trains as having a high crime level and it was the rider’s job to stand unified in fighting crime.

The one hour train ride took us out of the city, around Table Mountain, and out into the suburbs along the beach and Atlantic Ocean. We arrived in Simon’s Town around 1pm and walked about 10 minutes up the street looking for a restaurant called Bertha’s. We discovered it at a pier but decided to eat at a different restaurant at the pier. After lunch we walked another 20 minutes to Boulder Beach where all the penguins were.

Entering the park, we walked down the boardwalk and saw the penguins. Then we left. Well before we left we saw them nesting and walking around, however it wasn’t as exciting as it was the previous time I had been there when I was able to walk on the beach with them. Since then the Table Mountain Parks Association had taken over the beach and built the boardwalk. On the way back to the train station we stopped to peruse at a couple of tables full of handicrafts in the parking lot. Our attempts at catching a taxi in the parking lot were to no avail and we had to walk very briskly to make the train. We ended up making it just in the nick of time due to our running the last 600 meters.

For dinner, Amberly and I were joined by Chelsea and Karah Lockman at a Mexican restaurant on the Waterfront. After dinner I met up with Ari, and then invited Kara Morgan to go to a South African Improv show at the Artscape Theater. At the end of the show, Ari talked with one of the actors, Jess, and she invited us out for drinks with them. We hopped into one of the other actress, Fiona’s car and headed to a bar called Yum. While in the car Fiona asked us how long we had known Jess. When we informed her that we had just met before the show she replied, “So I could be driving three crazy people in my car?”

We met up with some of the people from the show and some of their friends and were at Yum until about midnight. We then headed down to another Bar/Club down on Long Street called JoBerg. One of the friends, Michael, who was a director, drove us down. As we pulled into a parking spot we saw all the Semester at Sea kids outside of this place called Cool Runnings. We kind of just walked by them not wanting to just hang out with them. When we walked into JoBerg we were the only Americans there and soon danced (even though I have no rhythm). We bid adieu to our new friends and went back to the ship around 1am.

Wednesday, March 30th, 2005- Cape Town, South Africa

I headed out with Ari, Amanda, and Karen to grab a taxi to go to the base of Table Mountain. At the taxi stand we came across this driver named Arrol Crocker who ended up being a fine chap, among other things telling us that he wouldn’t rip us off. He shared with us that he was 65 years and 11months old, an ultra marathoner, and had hiked Table Mountain about 100 times in his 14 years in Cape Town. He dropped us off at a nice spot and gave us his business card.

Hiking up the mountain was a totally awesome experience. The hike was pretty steep and quite strenuous. The higher we went the closer we came to the layer of clouds covering the mountain. When we finally reached the top we were engulfed by clouds and were unable to see anything.

After a while the clouds began to move away and we were able to see just the most magnificent view of the coast. We ate lunch on top at the restaurant and then took the cable car down.

We called Arrol who then dropped Ari, Karen and I off downtown and brought Amanda back to the ship. We ended up walking down a street where I saw a very weird occurrence when I was coming out of a store. I came out behind these two black girls who were begging for money and one of them went up to this white girl that was passing them by and ripped her earring out of her ear and threw it on the ground and kept walking. As they walked a little further they were acting a little bit more strange by going up to employees at a music store and hugging them, while the employees looked confused. After this occurrence we headed back to the ship a little bewildered.

Following a little relaxing on the ship, Ari and I decided to go see a show at the Baxter Theater called Jesus Hopped the “A” Train which just so happened to be partially produced by the U.S. Consulate. The setting was Riker’s Island (prison) in New York. I felt that the story poorly depicted American culture for being produced by the U.S. Consulate. Besides the storyline not being all that great, the accents weren’t that good either. When one character was speaking in her “New York” accent she then all of a sudden changed to a “western” accent when she was trying to relate what someone else said. We ended up leaving at intermission; that’s how good it was.

The evening ended with us just walking around the Waterfront for a little bit.

Tuesday, March 29th, 2005- Cape Town, South Africa

This morning I planned on going to Simon’s Town to see the penguins at Boulder Beach. I had gathered a group of Amanda, Steve, Chelsea, Kara, and Linda but after we found out that the taxi would be too expensive we all just kind of split up. Amanda and I headed down to Green Market Square to do a little shopping.

In the afternoon I headed out on a Semester at Sea trip to the District Six Museum and Township visit. The first stop was the District Six Museum chronicled the events of the former township called District six which was located in Cape Town. It was quite an interesting museum.

After the museum we headed to the Langa Township about 30 minutes outside of Cape Town. As we went through the streets of the township we finally stopped in front of some communal apartments that can fit up to 16 families in them. As we disembarked the bus we were surrounded by little kids asking what our names were. They didn’t really care what it was because they didn’t wait for an answer and just continued to ask the question over and over again to the next person. The communal apartment we visited was quite small for 4 families to live in. The walls were bare and the conditions not so great. While the guide was telling us about the apartments all these little kids surrounded Josh to rub his shaved head, one kid even rubbed his head against Josh’s.

Back outside, we boarded the bus and headed to the Langa Township Cultural Center (which is kind of like a YMCA) to look at how they had instituted a job training program. The program centered around making handicrafts such as metals, pottery, etc. We looked at the workshops and on the way out saw to kids practicing their dancing.

Our next stop was at another township about 15 minutes away from Langa. It was made up of shack-type houses. We walked around and saw the outdoor outhouses with locks that 3 families would share each. I met a woman named Elizabeth who asked me to take her picture because she had had her picture taken by an English tourist some time ago and he had not sent her a copy of the picture as promised. I took her picture and promised her that I would send it when I got home.

The one thing that hit home with me after 8 years away from I township was that I realized not much had changed. An example of this was when one girl on our bus was made fun of by these kids (probably around ages 10-13) on the street. I felt for this girl because I remember going through the exact same thing on my visit last time.

Other than that one slight mishap, it was an amazing experience that I am sure to remember.

Monday, March 28th, 2005- Cape Town, South Africa

We pulled in around the Cape to the port around 7:30am and the sights were so incredible. The thick fog covered Table Mountain as the sun rose into the sky. After our Diplomatic Briefing we were allowed off the ship. Amanda and I walked around the Waterfront which is made up of shops and restaurants.

In the afternoon I went on a field trip to Robben’s Island which was originally a Leper’s colony, then a military base, and then finally it’s most infamous distinction, a prison from 1960- 1991. Former President Nelson Mandela was incarcerated there as a political prisoner for 27 years before being released. We went on a tour of the island and then took a tour of the prison with a former political prisoner, Derrick Basson.

After the tour I walked around with Kara Morgan for a while and then headed off to St. Elmo’s Pizza with Amanda, Steve, and Ari. Eight years later the pizza was not as amazing as I remembered but it still was good. At least it kept up the streak of me eating pizza in every country that we’ve visited.

Sunday, March 27th, 2005- Indian Ocean

On this Easter Sunday we had a Global Studies Test for all the students which was just a swell way to start the day. Talking about swells, they were still kind of large and we were still rocking a little bit as we came around the Cape. At about noon we were traveling only about 3 miles off the coast and were real close to Cape Town. However, because we were not due into port until tomorrow we had to go in circles in the ocean until then.

Tuesday, March 22nd- Saturday, March 26th, 2005- Indian Ocean

So to save both you time reading and me writing there really wasn’t anything exciting that happened these days. I, along with everyone else seem to be burned out during this stretch of the voyage. Personally I have many papers due and a couple of tests.

- Physically I re- injured the ankle that I ripped the tendons in last year so there’s nothing I can do about that now.

- As we sailed down the coast of Africa we once again came in between two powerful storms that caused us a lot of movement and led us to change our course to be closer to the coast.

Monday, March 21, 2005- Mombasa, Kenya

This morning I went into town with Linda and Kristin to take care of some last minute shopping and internet (the satellite went down so the internet again went down). In the afternoon I was able to get on the Mazeras High School trip. The school was 12km outside of Mombasa in a pretty rural area. We pulled into the Mazeras Memorial Girls’ School and were greeted by both the girls and then also the boys from the Mazeras Boys’ School. We all sort of broke up and introduced ourselves to each other. I ended up with three gentlemen named Abdullah, Rajab, and Ali who were all 18 and were in their last year of school. Abdullah became quite fond of my digital camera and soon found his niche as the photographer. We walked over to the Boys’ school and they showed me around the fields and then I planted a tree next to some that were planted by SAS students back in 1998. We then continued our tour around the property of the classrooms, dining facilities and boarding areas (the boys have a boarding school while the girls only have a day school). As I chatted with them we exchanged our cultural perspectives. I learned that they have four levels and follow a school schedule similar to a college in the US. They all enjoy biology and chemistry and one wants to be an accountant and another an engineer.

Afterwards we went over to the basketball courts and I played some basketball with some other boys while Abdullah continued taking pictures. The game went pretty well and fun was had by all.

Censor for next paragraph if you know British English bad words.

We then walked back over to the Girls’ school where I paid my respects to the mass grave that holds 26 girls that perished in a fire at the school in 1998. We then had a small closing ceremony to find out what everyone learned from one another. Our tour guide from the tour company was, I’m sorry to say pretty much a wanker and he spent most of the time at the beginning and end talking. For no reason at all he treated everyone like they were five years old, even the other adults. He was like, “Let’s have someone from Semester at Sea say a couple words about what they have learned.” I was off to the side of him and he was looking forward, and of course he pulled one of those “I’ll look forward and then at the last minute pick the only white guy on the side.” So he basically called me out and I so wanted to raise him up the flag pole he was standing in front, and hang him by his pants. So I walked slowly up to the little platform trying to collect my thoughts. I told everyone about how it was such an awesome experience to come and visit and thanked everyone for their hospitality. I was told later on that my speech was pretty good but I don’t really remember it all that well. The guide ended up calling out a girl from SAS and then a boy and a girl from the high school. Before we said our good byes they sang us a song called “Nakupenda Bwana” (translates “I love Jesus”). I said good bye to my new friends and tried to go past the horde of girls by the bus to board. Most of them wanted to shake hands. One girl came up slowly to give me a hug and then kissed my sweaty neck real fast and she pulled away all excited. Her friends were excited and jumping around. I was pretty much shocked and secretly inside kind of disgusted that someone would kiss my sweaty neck.

I had a really amazing time at the school and I hope that I can stay in contact with the people that I met.

Conclusion of Trip to Kenya

I feel that Kenya was so amazing even though I only stayed in Mombasa for most of the time. I learned so much. Women take pride in being subordinate to men and “taking care” of their man in every way. Everyone is forced by the government to retire by age 55 but the government doesn’t help them out economically. I mastered the matatus and bargaining. It’s the first country that I’ve been to on this trip that I have felt comfortable being in. Being here has given me has strengthened my love for Africa.

Sunday, March 20th, 2005- Mombasa, Kenya

I spent the whole morning relaxing. In the afternoon I went to the SOS Children’s Village in Mombasa. A brief description from the SAS Field Program Manual reads:

“A medical student, Hermann Gmeiner, opened the first SOS children’s village in Austria in 1949. Today SOS Children’s Villages in more than 106 countries are home to over 26,000 needy children. An SOS Children’s Village consists of 10-20 houses. In each house, 9-13 children of various ages live with their SOS mother. While providing a family environment for children who have been abandoned by events beyond their control, SOS also acts as a bridge integrating the children into the larger society. The children attend local schools and thus are able to keep in close contact with the surrounding community.”

When we arrived we were introduced to a family and welcomed into house five. We sat and chatted with the mother and children, who were mostly boys ranging from 7-13, for a while and then we asked them if they wanted to play soccer. It ended up being 8 on 4 with the advantage to the home team. This game was played on a full soccer field in very intense high 90 degree heat. Americans were dropping like flies and at one point our side was made up of me and this other guy. I was real surprised at my soccer skills that I have maintained since I was five years old, although I had the advantage of actually wearing sneakers while they played in their bare feet. The small kids and others that didn’t want to play soccer went over to the playground.

After the about a half hour we were invited back into the home for some refreshments. The little kids came in and asked to be carried or grabbed our hands. We then walked with Susan, our tour guide and secretary/ director to visit the school. The small ones followed and were excited to show us their classrooms.

We headed back to the front office and donated our materials because the whole village is run strictly on donations.

This trip was definitely one of my most amazing experiences so far being able to interact with families, especially ones that were formed by children with different backgrounds. When asked if there was a male role model, since there was no father in the home, Susan informed me that the head director acted as the father figure. It really surprised me how polite and well mannered the children were even with their rough backgrounds. This may be a nice program to institute more aggressively in the United States.

When I got back to the ship I ran out with a couple people to the internet café and right when I was about to call my mom the electricity went out, among other things people lost the long emails that they were writing.

Saturday, March 19th, 2005- Mombasa, Kenya

Today Aimee, along with her friends Darah and Sarah, and I went to the internet café for a couple of hours this morning. We then hit up the supermarket again. In the afternoon we went to the White Sands Hotel that was an extravagant hotel along the beach about 45 minutes away by matatu. As we passed the front gate we walked down the long tree lined driveway to the hotel where we ate lunch at the pizzeria overlooking the pool with the waterslide and some glimpses of the Indian Ocean. After lunch we went to go see about prices for jet skiing, snorkeling, kayaking, etc. but found the prices to be exorbitant. So instead we decided to walk down the beach a little bit but were soon bombarded by hawkers that were trying to sell their goods or the guys that were offering camel rides. We were first introduced to George, a gigantic camel, and I promised that if I decided to ride a camel that I would ride him. This would lead to a very angry Kenyan man later on.

We walked down the beach as this big Kenyan man tried to get Sarah to go dancing. She politely declined and he stuck to us like chewed gum on a finger. After we finally shook off the hawkers that were surrounding us on the beach me and Aimee went into the water… up to our knees. The water must have been in the high 80s and was filled with seaweed and touring boats among other stuff. Since it wasn’t really relaxing we headed back to the White Sands Hotel, with Aimee and Sarah taking a camel however not George. When we reached the White Sands Hotel George’s owner was going totally crazy on me screaming at me. I was like, “whoa buddy. Does it look like I’m on a camel?”

After talking to some guys about Jay-Z, 50 cent, and Tupac (these are rappers for any of you over the age of 30) we went to lay by the pool. Aimee and I actually went in for a while but were then approached by a pool boy asking if we had paid to go in the pool. When we said we hadn’t, he told us to give him 400 shillings each and he’d bring back a receipt. It smelled kind of fishy, and I don’t mean the smell from the beach, and I told him that we would pay at the front desk. As we were putting our clothes back on and debating on whether high tailing it he came back over and just told us to walk by and tell them that we hadn’t gone in the pool if someone asked.

We left the hotel and tried to pick up a matatu outside the gates but since we were in the middle of nowhere there was no stop, so we walked a good 10 minutes in the blazing sun. We picked up a matatu and headed to a different shopping center because Sarah was looking for a digital camera. On a side note, she was the second person that I was trying to help find a digital camera for. Kenya is not the place to try and buy digital cameras!

Friday, March 18th, 2005- Mombasa, Kenya

My friend from my Modern China class, Aimee, had invited me to go with her to go with a girl she knew who met a guy who offered to bring her around the city (very complicated). I invited two more people and when we all met in Purser’s Square everyone was just kind of invited in a chain and eventually the whole thing fell through because when we got to Moi Ave. the guy was not around. I ended up splitting up with the whole group and went with Linda, Amberly, and Joseph (the Field Office Assistant Coordinator). We walked 20 minutes in the hot sun to Likoni, which had stalls set up selling African linens and other stuff for the home that looked like second hand stuff that they had bargained from with tourists. There was also this open area that had a guy with a microphone next to an old Mercedes with a speaker on top of it. Originally we thought he was doing magic but we found out that he was actually a healer.

Afterwards, we ended up going to the supermarket that was right in the area and was very similar to Wal-Mart. After that we headed back to the ship.

In the afternoon I headed to the Bombolulu Handicraft Center which is a center that employs only handicapped workers to make their goods. The handicapped workers live on the premises with their families and their children go to nursery school on the premises so everything is pretty accessible to them.

Our guide Ali first took us to see the exhibits on the different houses of the African tribes. He then took us to go see some of the workshops where the workers were working. One of the shops that we stopped at was for making wheel chairs that had a hand crank to propel it. Since people can’t afford them they are donated by visitors or corporations, who pay $150 for each, and then given to the person in need. Other items that were being produced were jewelry and ornaments made from soda cans. Most of the products are exported (the ones to the United States are sold at a chain store called 1000 Villages), sometimes 50,000 pieces at a time.

It was quite an interesting experience in stopping at the center and it gave me the opportunity to see how some people with physical disabilities were treated in Kenya.

Some Random Interesting Facts:

- While in a taxi Amanda heard on the radio that Al Qaeda had threatened an American ship on the coast of Kenya. They didn’t name the city of Mombasa but named other cities on the coast of Kenya. After we heard about this there was noticeable security increase on the ship. Due to the fact that most of the people from the ship were gone on safari they don’t know about it because I think the people that know are trying to keep it on the DL (down low) until we leave Kenya.

Thursday, March 17th, 2005- Mombasa, Kenya

I woke up at 7:00am and went to breakfast with Amanda and her friends. We ended up going with our Kenyan interport student, Adema, into the middle of Mombasa. As we left the port we hopped into one of the 14 passenger vans called a Matatu, which is like a bus, their form of public transportation. They’re probably not the safest vehicles because they go so fast and stop so abruptly. They have stops that really aren’t designated and when you want to get off you just knock on the ceiling or wall.

We went down to Moi Avenue, which is the center of the whole island of Mombasa. We walked around a bit and hit up an internet café. The weather was really hot and I was sweating profusely by 8:30am. I later found out that March is the hottest month.

In the afternoon I went on the City Orientation and learned that Mombasa is made up of an island that is 3 miles by 2 ½ miles and has 1 million people. Our first stop was these huge tusks that towered over Moi Ave. (from what I could make out, I think they were a gift to the city in 1952).

Our next stop was Fort Jesus that was constructed by the Portuguese and finished in 1593. The Portuguese left shortly after and the Fort was taken over by many different groups. Whoever controlled the Fort controlled the whole city. It had some spectacular views of the Indian Ocean and of Old Town.

Old Town was our next stop and we walked through some of the oldest established parts of Kenya. We then headed to a market that sold different meats and spices. It was mostly outside and around the back of it there was a Christian Minister preaching on a stage beside his van that had a speaker on top of it.

Our last stop was the Akamba Handicraft Center. It employs 7,000 carvers that make carvings in huts along the compound and then sell them through the corporation. They had a lot of really good stuff.

We then came back for dinner and afterwards I went to the parking lot full of about 100 vendors right outside the ship. As I walked through I constantly got bombarded to stop at each “shop” (a blanket with handicrafts laid out). I bought a couple of things and then ended coming back out to place an order with a guy. By this time it was around 9pm, around 3 hours after I had first went out there. One of Josh’s friend’s from school, Ashley and I ended up sitting down to chat with one of the vendors named Jacob to discuss the politics and economics of Kenya and how he thought the government was not helping the poor out. Jacob said that the government continues to tax so much that it is hard to make money. We talked for about an hour and then as I left all the vendors called for me again. Due to the fact that most everyone was on safari, I was one of the only ones around so they all wanted to make deals with me to give me small gifts in return wanting me to get people to come straight to their “shops”.

Wednesday, March 16th, 2005- Indian Ocean -> Kenya

After my classes, Amanda and I spent the afternoon chillin on the deck and in the pool. I finally finished the book I had been reading for leisure since before I left, Fast Food Nation.

We arrived in Mombasa a little before 6pm, a half day early so we could clear customs faster. However, we were not allowed to leave the ship until tomorrow. One thing that was good for some students was that their parents were allowed to board the ship to visit them. There were a lot of parents due to the parent’s trip with their children on the safari. I’m not going to lie; it was a little disheartening to see all those parents but that’s how the cookie crumbles. As my mom always says, “toughen up kid.” So I spent the night sorting the mail with other students.

Tuesday, March 15th, 2005- Indian Ocean

It was pretty much just another school day. I had a test in my Women in Literature class that I was not really looking forward to because we had to write four essays and by know you have probably figured out that writing is not my strong point.

Monday, March 14th, 2005- Indian Ocean

Throughout the whole day the Ocean was uncharacteristically calm, almost smooth as glass like. A little after 5pm the captain came over the PA system and announced that we were crossing the equator. As I went outside I saw one of the most amazing sunsets that I have ever seen.

In the evening I went to go see Ari’s Improv show which became a huge thing after all the work that he put into advertising the club and his show. The show had agreat turn out with the whole Union totally filled with people.

Sunday, March 13th, 2005- Neptune Day- Indian Ocean

Neptune Day began with the crew dressing up in togas like Greek soldiers and marching up and down the hallways beating drums and blowing whistles. After breakfast we headed to Deck 7 and before the festivities began a bunch of guys performed and impromptu synchronized swimming performance. The crew marched up to the deck followed by King Neptune (the captain in green body paint) and his queen. The initiation began with the poem and then the festivities began to transform us from pollywogs to shellbacks. First we had a delightfully dreadful brown fish guts mixture poured onto our heads and then we jumped into the pool to clean it off. By the time I got to that step in the procession the pool was a brownish, gray color. The next step in the procession was to climb out of the pool and kiss a big, dead fish and then go pay respect to King Neptune by kissing his ring. It finally concluded with the sword being tapped on each of our shoulders (kind of like being knighted).

After lunch, Steve, Ari, and I went back to my room where we finished off our initiation by shaving our heads. They all ended up being ok by the time we were done considering neither of them had ever shaved their heads.

In the afternoon I went to go watch the “Global Studies Trivia/ Jeopardy Game” that Kira put together. The game had some faculty members competing against one another to see if they had paid attention in Global Studies.

The day was a lot of fun and was a nice break from having to do anything. The one ironic part was that we still didn’t cross the equator. We don’t do that until around 5pm tomorrow.

Saturday, March 12th, 2005- Indian Ocean

Tomorrow is Neptune Day, when we cross the equator. This evening they just had an auction to shave certain faculty and staff’s heads with the proceeds going to the Tsunami relief. I went in with a couple of people to try and buy Doc’s head (our theater teacher), however to no avail he went to a bunch of the Ancient Mariners (senior passengers). The captain ended up getting in on the action and also came up to be bid on. He gained the most money with a winning bid of $500. Ten people went in on it and also got the additional bonus of being allowed to blow the horn as we crossed the equator.

Friday, March 11th, 2005- Indian Ocean

Tonight in one of the community colleges we had a speaker talk about, “How to Be More Wealthy than Your Parents.” The speaker is the Senior Adult Passenger Coordinator’s husband who joined us in India and will disembark in Kenya. He is a millionaire that has made his money through real estate and smart saving techniques. He goes around to underprivileged high schools and speaks to students about different ways to save money. His way of making money is by doing things such us buying a bad house in a nice neighborhood, buying a used car after its 3-4 years old because it’s the first year when the car depreciates the most, and invest in mutual funds. Basically he says to only invest in things with appreciating value.

Thursday, March 10th, 2005- Indian Ocean

We left Chennai about midnight. Many people today do not feel too well. Most of the symptoms deal with not being able to unload either way. Josh actually had some of these symptoms and passed out in the public bathroom by the Union this evening. He ended up halfway in and halfway out the door. As the AV guy Sumner was walking by he weakly asked him, “Help me.”

Wednesday, March 9th, 2005- Chennai, India

I was supposed to meet Amanda and Katie at 8am for breakfast and then head off to the Mother Theresa Orphanage. Even after checking my alarm clock four times before I went to bed to make sure my alarm was set at the right time it still didn’t go off (of course I forgot to turn the alarm part on). I ended up waking up at 9:05am and found that they had already left. I ran into Kira and we headed over to the orphanage with Shannon and Linda.

When we arrived at the orphanage we were met by a nun who ushered us into an office that was attached to a room with an alter and a Jesus statue. As we entered, she told us, “Go say hello to Jesus.” Now I can’t say that I’ve ever said “Hello” to Jesus but I tried my best to do as I was told. We then went into another building where SAS students were already playing with a bunch of little children. At first I was a little overwhelmed for the fact that I hadn’t realized that the orphans were all children had some sort of physical disability. As I stood in the doorway a little girl came up right away and pulled me in. All the kids were so cute and looked so happy to see us with our gifts of little toys, coloring books, and stickers. When I went upstairs there were nuns feeding some kids and one little guy actually got a hold of a tag on my book bag and ripped it off as a nun tried to subdue him. The only thing that I found sort of depressing was that on the other side of the wall of the complex was a school with children playing outside while the children in the orphanage were inside. On the way out we again stopped at the front office and made a donation and asked the nun what they needed that we could send. She informed us that they needed razors, bar soap, diapers, shampoo, and chocolates, but told us that we needed to send them with the next SAS ship and not through the mail due to the post office going through the packages and taking most of the supplies. This truly pious told us to simply put the children in our prayers and to not worry about sending things. She said that they make due by people coming through.

We then headed back to the ship with a rickshaw driver named Paul, that Shannon and Linda had been with a couple of days before. After lunch Paul took Kira and I to go find a cricket bat among other things. I ended up finding a bat at a real good price. As we then got back into the rickshaw, Paul showed us pictures of his three sons aged 10, 7, and 6. He asked us if he could then take us quickly to three department stores in order for the store to give him a backpack for his eldest son. As we agreed he went on to explain that every time the ship comes (once every semester for 5 days) the different department stores make deals with the rickshaw drivers and every time they get customers to go into the shops they get either shirts or backpacks, etc as compensation. Paul went onto explain that this is the best money making time out of the whole year and told us that it costs 2000 rupees (approx $46.50) a month each to send his sons to a private school. This is a pretty exorbitant amount. This leads him to work 12 hour days (8am-8pm) and his wife to work as a tailor.

After spending the afternoon with Paul and learning a little bit about his culture we bid him adieu and headed back to the ship, where I got my cricket bat confiscated (hopefully I get that back at the end). This is the point where my mother would go on to say, “Why do you need a cricket bat?” which I would go onto reply, “Why do you like the Christmas Tree Shoppe so much?”

It will definitely take me a long time to process everything that I saw and experienced in India as it was quite a sensory overload. I think this quote about India definitely defines it: “Whatever you say about India the reverse holds true.”