Mauritius

Mauritius is the stuff that post cards are made out of, the water is a deep blue  crystal clear, the sand is soft, fish are plentiful and coral reefs dot the shores. Our ship docked in Port Louis in the northwest corner of the island though my plans for  the 12 hours we were in the country were concentrated on exactly the other side of the country in  the area known as Blue Bay.

Blue Bay

Upon docking, two other friends and I boarded the express bus for the ~30 mile journey to the blue bay marine park. Blue bay is a nature reserve that was created around 10-12 years ago to protect its reefs from the destruction caused by some of the local fishing practices. One method in particular that our guide mentioned was the use of grenades, which although is an effective fishing method, curiously seemed to damage the coral reefs. Regardless, today blue bay is still some of the best snorkeling on the island so that was our destination.

Breakfast

Lunch

After the 30 cent, hour long bus ride past sugar cane fields, local villages and universities we made it  to the other side of the island. We started the day off perfectly enough by buying some type of chicken and spicy green leaf sandwich for $1 and then chartering a glass bottom boat to take us out around the bay (for $10!). This was my first experience ever snorkeling  that I can remember  so trying to breath without getting water in my lungs while constantly cleaning my goggles as they fogged up marked the first 10 minutes in the day. Thankfully after that ten minutes my experience playing underwater hockey for a night kicked in and it all worked out.

The snorkeling was absolutely gorgeous, there were way more fish around the reef then I expected and they had no fear! You would have to practically touch them to get them to move, else you could just float in the water and they would swim right up to you  and meander around in front of your goggles. Fish of all kinds were darting through the cracks and crevices of the coral, some blended in, some like the parrot fish shone blue for everyone within a hundred feet to see

When we returned to the beach that afternoon, we spent the rest of our short short time in Mauritius gathering sunlight on the beach before trekking back across the entire country to meet our ship in Port Louis.

The Port

Lip Dub

Sorry for the lack of posts, but in the mean time, you guys have to see this!

http://blog.isevoyages.org/2011/12/03/semester-at-sea-lipdub-ship-tour/

Day 6 - Wine Tasting and Cheetahs

My final day in South Africa I decided to spend at the wineries about 30-40 km away from our dock. We took a taxi to the train station that morning to pick up whatever train we could get heading out there, though it turned out we just missed one by a few minutes and the next one wasn't rolling out for another two hours. My fellow intrepid wine taster Heidi and I bought our tickets for the next one and then left the station to walk around the city surrounding it Luckily enough for us it turned out that there happened to be a large street market nearby which provided ample entertainment. We picked up some produce to take with us on the train (South Africa has delicious apples), we browsed through counterfeit movies, rugby jerseys and gypsy pants, then grabbed a quick lunch before hopping on the train.

The train traveled through the city, past the townships and finally the urban landscape gave way to agriculture. We disembarked the train in Stellenboch and walked about another quarter mile to the Speir winery to begin the tasting. We tried wines with hints of citrus, notes of zinfandel, smoky aromas,  full bodies and whatever other jargon  that can be used to describe them but unfortunately it all went over my head. The whites were good, though I couldn't tell the difference and I really wasn't able to get into any of the red wine (it tasted like ash for some reason). Who knows, one of these days when I'm more classy I'll have to head back.

After the tasting it was time for something a little more my speed: petting cheetahs. The winery happened to have a cheetah reserve attached, which for me takes the cake as one of the weirder combinations of the trip. When you stop by and visit you can pay a small fee and enter the cage with the cheetahs and their handlers and spend some quality time with them. I was sad to find out that I had just missed David Hasselhoff, Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift who had came through weeks before

After the cheetahs we split a cab with some other SAS kids we ran into back to the ship. I skyped, I bought a lot of snacks and then boarded for our next stop in Mauritius.

Day 5 - Aquarium

We left Gugulethu that morning after a quick breakfast and goodbyes with our host family. I met my roommate on the ship and we ventured to The Two Oceans Aquarium a short walk away from the port. The aquarium gets its name from the way it is organized, with one wing dedicated to the Atlantic Ocean that on the west side of Cape Point and another dedicated to the Indian Ocean on the east. I travelled there for an independent class assignment, though aquariums are always fun. I saw deadly box jellies, crabs with legs 3 feet in length, a tank dedicated to Finding Nemo and  the giant shark tank that some of the more daring students scuba dived in. 

That afternoon I bummed around the port for lunch, used the precious internet time a cup of coffee bought me to Skype my parents then went back to the ship to meet up with my roommate and some friends for dinner .We travelled out to Camps Bay which I mentioned on day two to watch the sun set. Dinner was at a beach front Italian restaurant where we each got wine, appetizers and entrees for $10-12 with a beautiful view of the sunset, not to shabby if I do say so myself.

Day 4 - Townships Round 3

After returning from Vicky's that morning I went back, yet again to the townships. This time was for an official SAS homestay with many of the same ladies who hosted the cooking class on the first day. Townships are an essential part of South Africa and are often are overlooked by vacationers passing through. Every waiter, taxi driver or busboy you meet in Cape Town has probably commuted from one of these townships by taxi or train and will head back that evening.

This time another SAS student Alex and I stayed with Mama Nucintu, her husband and five children.  We walked from the bus in which we were dropped off through the township of Gugulethu to her house. We were greeted by the neighborhood children outside of her home (including two of hers) playing soccer. She let us in on the fact that her son was happy to have two boys to play with instead of the two old ladies they had hosted previously. With that in mind when they asked us to play we immediately joined in and I took my place as the position I am most suited for, absolutely dominant goalie. They may be a bunch of little 5-8 year olds that come  up to my elbows but I wasn't going to show any mercy. Don't worry too much though, the kids were very capable and after a lifetime of practice they were able to sneak a few past me.

With the setting of the sun, our soccer game dissolved and most of the kids went back to their homes. Mama Nucinto had her young daughter and her little friends show us around the neighborhood. All of them took us to meet their families (I got a marriage proposal after one found out I was studying engineering!), we walked by spazas (tiny snack shops) a makeshift arcade and a hairdresser housed in a shipping container. In fact, a lot of the buildings were in old shipping containers. It was in one of those containers I met the local carpenter who used it to house his workshop. He studied his craft in England, served with the military I believe and somewhere along the way learned 11 languages. Various people in my group of SAS students (a few more had tagged along our walk around the neighborhood) tested his French, Spanish and Portuguese and surprised even his neighbors with perfect responses. That was definitely one humbling experiences you have so often during your travels.

Eventually, the gaggle of girls returned us home for the evening. We sat down for the evening with our host family and just talked over another delicious dinner. We heard concerns about how Somalians were moving into townships and taking over spazas with the Wal-mart strategy of undercutting prices. We found out that both of our parents were technically unemployed and unable to find jobs, though they were resourceful. They get money through a local snack bar they opened, by driving students to school every morning and by doing the homestays we were on. Maybe the most interesting tidbit of info I  remember from my trip was our host fathers passion for classical music and WWF wresting, a combination almost never found in the US. Later in the evening when the conversation died down Alex and I passed out after a few nights of little sleep.

Day 3 - Vicky's B&B

Day 3

I woke up early morning with the goal of making it to table mountain before sunrise on day 3, we were only thwarted by teensy little fact that the trams up and down don't start running till eight.  We passed time with a leisurely breakfast and made our way to the top later in the day. We hiked around, napped in the shade, absorbed the views and took too many photos before heading back down and to lunch. It was there that I discovered my long dormant talent as a food photographer, I may just have to drop out and follow that as a career path.

For the evening was a recommendation from past voyagers, I was going to go back to the townships, this time Khaylitshe, and spend the night at Vicky's Bed and Breakfast. The only hitch was getting there.

"You don't want to go to Khaylitsche, even the locals don't go there."

"The trains are too dangerous! Why do you want to go there?"

Every verbal reaction was reflected in a complete change in facial expression as well, needless to say this got us a little worried. Don't worry parents, I took caution and ended up chartering a taxi who knew the area to take us to the township. Well in the end we made it and it turns out, at least in my experience, those fears were unwarranted. The townships are a vibrant, overflowing with a sense of community and lately they have been improving rapidly. Those shacks much like those seen in District 9  are being replaced with houses and apartment buildings. In Sector-C of Khayelitche, this is especially true due to the work done by Vicky. We arrived in the evening and toured the township where some shacks still remain, though the people living in them don’t spend much time in there. The kids are playing soccer with each other in the streets, the parents are grilling  chicken feet, making fat cakes or  crafts along the side of the road when they aren't just hanging out. I was truly jealous of how integrated the community was in this place versus the U.S. where I don't know half of the people living on the street of 6 houses I have lived on my entire life. The dinner I had that night was one of the greats of this trip and was cooked entirely by the middle daughter of the family. My friend and I bummed around the kitchen while she was cooking and spoke with her about her favorite music (Lady Gaga), her interest in law and her role in the school play the week before we had come last.

The next morning her husband, who had built the entire Bed and Breakfast by hand, took us around the township and showed us some of the sights. We met a man who made flowers from trash found on the side of the roads, taken to a hill overlooking the entire township and the local craft market to do our part at boosting the local economy.

Later in the week when I returned to the ship, this is the experience I chose to write about in one of my classes. Below you will find the essay I wrote describing Vicky's  transformative role in her township and a little insight into her experience during apartheid:



In the video “The Girl Effect” (look it up on youtube!) two tales are told about a single girl. The first, it is the reality we see in many developing countries today, a girl who never made it to school, is married off early in her teens, has kids and ends up dealing with HIV and hunger with little to no say in the matter. The story is then retold; this time with that same girl actually having an opportunity for an education, she gets a loan and opens her own successful business, she gains the respect of her town and is ultimately asked to serve on the city council. Well in South Africa I met the “girl” from story number two and her name is Vicky.
Vicky had made it all the way up to her third year in college for Electrical Engineering by the time classes became too expensive. She applied for her grant from the apartheid government to continue with schooling under her name of Vicky Bowman, and as a result of her academic record was selected for a face to face interview with the awards council. To begin the interview, the placed a pencil into her hair as a test of race, her lighter complexion combined with her name indicated that she was “colored” as opposed to “Black” or X’hosa as she was in reality. The test was whether the pencil would fall out or not, if it did she would be considered “colored” else she would be labeled as “black” severely diminishing her chances of receiving aid to continue on with school. It fell, leaving her with what she described as one of the most difficult decisions of her entire life. Deny her heritage so she can continue on and complete her college education? Or disclose her X’hosa heritage and deal with the repercussions.
In the end, she chose the latter, was denied the scholarship and ended her college career then and there. She stayed in Khayelitsha, but she did so armed with an education. Soon she noticed tourists, cameras blazing, passing through her township in tour buses more and more frequently without ever actually stepping foot in the townships.  She approached the companies arranging these tours and requested that they would stop by her house from time to time so she could provide the visitors with another side of the story. She started inviting these people into her home to stay the night and over time it grew so popular that she decided open a bed and breakfast with her husband to meet the demand.
Her bed and breakfast has had incredibly far reaching effects throughout the community and has more than doubled in size since its creation. She’s worked with her neighborhood to reduce crime in the area, which has led to more guests feeling comfortable staying there. Those guests, in turn, have donated heavily to schools and other causes within the township, providing money, books, underwear, toothbrushes, uniforms and more to kids throughout the neighborhood. In addition, this steady stream of tourists in the township has provided a boost to the local economy, benefiting the craft market, the food stalls and even the local pub which was just recently able to afford a renovation as a result. All of that has further increased motivation to keep the area secure resulting in a truly stunning transformation of this township neighborhood in the span of a decade.
My time at Vicky’s Bed and Breakfast emphasized to me the importance of empowering developing areas to take control of their own destinies. This one woman has transformed her neighborhood through her ingenuity, resourcefulness and most simply because of the fact that she was given the chance to. Her story is a shining example of how engaging a nation’s entire workforce can accelerate its development. This experience has also shown me that with the rapid and extensive globalization our world is experiencing today, any country not taking advantage of their entire talent base –i.e. women- is going to be left at an almost insurmountable disadvantage. It only makes sense that it would be advantageous for all global citizens start off on equal footing with no artificial barriers such as gender or race to stand in the way. If not for purely ethical reasons, it stands to logic that a country could reap tangible benefits by removing any unnecessary obstacles from the path of any citizens trying to contribute to their country socially, artistically, scientifically, spiritually or economically. Vicky’s story is only one of many that are being written daily; let’s just hope that trend continues.

P.S. Just a little follow up on the story, Vicky is now on the City Council equivalent for her town and is the one in charge of all of the construction for the new houses and apartments being built. It is truly an amazing story.

Day 2 - The Grand Tour

Day 2 -

Day two was the day I left completely open. The ships strategic location right in the middle of everything is very conducive to this because all of the students end up sleeping on the ship instead of roaming throughout the country.  I grabbed a group of all-star traveling buddies and we started the morning by heading to the Malay quarter for breakfast.

In case you haven't seen it, the Malay quarter is truly unique and a feast for the eyes. On some streets, every single building is painted a different incredibly bright color. We stopped and got brunch at a very European art boutique/coffee shop called "Haas" where I had a mocha cappuccino  and chicken & mushroom bake to eat, it was a good thing. We continued roaming, stumbled on a weekend market that sold all kinds of food and crafts  then headed back to the ship to meet with a  car we had hired earlier in the day.

The car was set to take us around the cape to see some of the city's more popular destinations. Cape Town truly has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to scenery, and we did our best to see them all in one day. I'll make the disclaimer now that this day is going to be difficult to convey through words, I think the pictures will do a much better job later. First stop: Camp's Bay which is a popular tourist beach lined with ocean front restaurants and bars. We continued on through some mountains, along the coast and made our way into the alcove known as Hout bay, a particularly striking area of the coastline. We then cut eastward across the cape to Simons Town Beach. What's so special about Simons Town Beach you may ask? Penguins line the coastline, sunning, nuzzling, waddling, napping and whatever other things penguins do. Then it was on to the main attraction; Cape Point, one of the southern most points on the entire African continent, which lies roughly at the border of the Indian and Atlantic Ocean. It was by far the coolest stop on the trip because of the fact that it was  where I ran into gator nation!  Walking back from the peak of Cape Point a lady walking the opposite way yelled "Go Gators! We have  a big game coming up today (Kentucky)".  We then visited the Cape of Good Hope before making our way back to town for dinner and sleep. Again sorry about the laundry list of activities, the pictures should make up for it!

South Africa: Day 1 - Cooking before Theater

South Africa! What a beautiful country, a shining gem in the continent that has been absolutely incredible already. This was the first port on the itinerary that I dragged myself out of bed to watch the sunrise for. It was pitch black when we walked out onto the deck in the morning. The sky brightened as the sun approached, the iconic table mountain was silhouetted against the sky. Cape Town greeted us that morning with an absolutely unforgettable sunrise.

Getting off the ship later that morning, I set off on a SAS trip to the township of Guguleta for a cultural introduction to the X'hosa people (pronounced: tongue click - "hosa") through the universal language of food. The township itself was one of many set up throughout the country as a result of the period of government mandated  racial segregation known as apartheid. Driving along the highway to our destination we passed other townships along the way consisting of shacks made up of not much more that corrugated metal and wooden beams, which themselves were a large improvement over the undersized tents that used to populate the townships. Our temporary home of guguleta has come extremely far since the days of apartheid, it now resembles an American suburb much more closely than it does a shanty town. For our time there, we split into groups of four and followed our Mamas (township matriarchs) to their respective houses.

On the menu for today was chicken, and I don't mean chicken breast or drumsticks. I mean a live chicken we butchered in the bathroom before plucking its feathers and cleaning it. Afterwards we performed exploratory surgery on the animal, removing its intestines, heart, liver and other various organs in addition to discovering a fully formed egg inside. We then through it all into a large pot (unborn egg and all) and let it cook with vegetables and spices. Meanwhile while we let that mixture stew, our Mama had prepared a dough of flour, salt, sugar and yeast which we rolled up into balls and fried to make "Fat Cakes", awesome little African doughnuts often served with Rooibos tea.

Back to the stew we were making,  about halfway through the cooking time our Mama took all of the aforementioned nasty bits out and placed them on a plate, which I presumed was for the trash or used to make broth later. Imagine my surprise when she threw on a little  seasoning and set them down for us to enjoy. I didn’t come half way around the world to be squeamish so I, hesitantly, dug in. Mama Ningwesa (completely misspelled I am sure) was extremely surprised to hear that none of us had tried any of these before and remarked "If you don't know these then you don't know anything."

In case you were wondering what each were like, I am happy to report that they all tasted like chicken, and were not too bad to tell the truth. The gizzard and heart were the best as they had a fairly normal texture. The intestines were rubbery and the liver was like a gritty paste, neither of which I find very appealing. When all was said and done our Mama dished out the meal of chicken, carrots , cabbage and pap that we had seen go from the farm to the plate and we enjoyed a meal together before our group left the township in the late afternoon.

After I made it back to the ship, I changed quickly into some nicer clothes then ran back outside to hop a bus to the Cape Town Artscape Theater. Our guide for the evening was the Drama theater on board the ship, it also just so happens that his day job is the Managing director of the Cape Town Opera in that very theater. Once arriving we split into two groups, with one following him and the rest (including me) following the pit orchestra's conductor through the backstage area where we met the cast, crew and director. He showed us some of the behind the scenes magic they use including a large see-saw type rig that provides the illusion that one cast member was floating during a certain scene in the play. He explained how the Cape Town theatre was unique in it's "Cross" design which means that attached to the central, visible main stage were spaces to the left, right and behind that were the same size as the main stage. This allows them to store entire sets on either of the three hidden stage spaces and completely transform the stage very quickly. 

After the tour we congregated in an area sectioned off from the main lobby and participated in a wine and cheese tasting before milling into the theater to watch a Performance of "The Fiddler on the Roof"  15th row back in the center. Needless to say, and it might seem a little redundant after all of these blog posts, but it was an incredible day. Both opportunities were something I would have been hard pressed to find traveling independently and something that really helped to flesh out South Africa  as a place instead of the "tourist  destination that used to have apartheid" vision that I along with most people had going in. It was  a day of complete contrast as well, a day in which I saw two completely different sides of the same city. A city that is still progressing towards the rainbow nation that it aspires to be.

Neptune Day

Neptune Day has to be the worst kept secret of Semester at Sea. It has its roots in the old Navy tradition of hazing sailors passing over the equator for the first time, but in this context is a little less hazing and a lot more fun. Set on what was scheduled as a reading day on our academic calendar we were woken up early in the morning by the crew marching through our hallways chanting, banging on drums, pots, pans or knocking on our doors. At the end of the noisemaking train the photographer and videographer were in tow to take 6am bedraggled portraits of each of us as we opened our doors.

The entire shipboard community was corralled to the pool deck later in the morning in order to make our way through the right-of-passage ceremonies which included the (optional) shaving of heads for men and women alike. We all used the opportunity to relax and blow off some steam from the surprisingly busy semester. Even the professors joined in to demonstrate the dance moves of their era.

Ghana Days 3 & 4

Day 3-

Roosters crowing before sunrise marked the beginning of my third day in Ghana. They served their purpose as we needed to be up early to see the monkeys of the village before they left for the day. We all congregated where the edge of the village met the forest, our guide called the monkeys with  what sounded like an exaggerated kissing/smooching sound. Soon the leaves above us began to rustle and we spotted the first of the monkeys darting around the branches above us. With each of us armed with a banana, we assumed the official monkey feeding stance.  For those of you curious about the official monkey feeding stance it goes like this: you stand with your feet firmly planted within jumping distance of a branch BUT you must make sure to stay out of their reaching distance to ensure maximum effectiveness. Then you extend your arm, with the base of the banana grasped firmly at the base.

If all goes as planned, the miniature poodle sized monkey will jump from their branch onto your arm and peel the banana while it it still in your hand. For my first attempt, I got a little too close to the tree. The monkey just threw out its upper body and grabbed onto the banana with its hands while its tiny feet clutched onto the branch. It stayed stretched between the tree and my arm until I decided to let go of the banana leaving the monkey to dangle around on the branch before it then scurried up to a higher branch to enjoy its loot. My second go around worked as planned, as the monkey leapt from the tree onto my arm and sat there patiently as it peeled the banana from the rind  and enjoyed.

After the monkeys were satiated, our guide lead us down the road to the elementary school of the village that was just getting started for the day. The kids were assembled  in rows in front of the school singing their national anthem when we arrived. Our guide had us split up into small groups and stand behind a class during the assembly. When I walked to to our class, a young kid named Francis turned around and whispered "you stand there" pointing towards the middle of the line and then pointed the two girls in my group to the front of the row. A small group of boys in the back of then began to play the drums in the back of the assembly. Immediately all of the students started marching in place, and after staring around blankly for a few moments Francis signaled to me that I should join in as well. We marched through tight laps in the field in front of the school before the student in front lead us into the classroom.

One of the first things I noticed walking in to the classroom was the student's textbooks. They all had a picture of Barack Obama eating shaved ice on the cover, I am sad to say I didn’t capture them on camera. We all went to the back of the classroom where we sat and waited for the teacher to come in. We waited and waited some more until one of the administrators came by and informed us that WE were the teachers for the day. It turns out that this school did not have enough teachers so they rotated them through classes periodically. We did the best we could, placing some math problems on the board to solve, some sentences for the students to read and the grand finale of singing "Row Row Row Your Boat" in rounds. In the end, we led the students outside to play for the rest of our time there. I let one group of students loose with my camera while I followed Francis around the school yard.  Francis showed me around the school like a tiny 11 year old diplomat. He explained that the girls usually played a game akin to hop scotch while the boys competed by playing a game the opposite of limbo, trying to jump over a stick as it was held higher and higher each turn. Something that surprised me was the fact that kids got some of the most excitement when you just showed them a picture you had taken of them. As one of the other SAS kids remarked "It would be nice if Polaroid still made film".

Lunch time for the students meant bus time for us, we had to get on and trek back to Accra to end the tour.

Day 4 -

My last day in Ghana was for errands, skype, drinking coconuts, and recovering from the three day tour de force described earlier!

Ghana Days 1 & 2

Ghana started much like my time in Morocco, hopping on a bus and driving deep into the country on our way to the Tafi Atome Monkey sanctuary. I must admit that my first impression of the country was mixed after we walked off of the ship into a crowd of  merchants using pushy sales tactics to offload bracelets and paintings onto students while we waited for our shuttle to arrive.

Any fears I may have had were laid to rest the second we made it out of the Tema/Accra area where we docked and got on the road. Our first stop was for lunch right on the green shores of a river whose name I do not know. I had a local meal of Yams and chicken which was incredible, and make note, this is the start of a theme here. Almost all of the food I had in Ghana was memorable.  We continued driving for most of the day, stopping here and there in attempt to find what seemed like the one and only MasterCard ATM in the entire country. We passed basket after basket of treats carried on the heads of women weaving between cars to make a sale. I personally spent the time getting to know the other people crammed into the bus beside me. In the evening we stopped at what was a missionary built in Amedzofe some time ago that houses visitors to help keep the doors open. The dinner that night was the best I have had on this entire trip so far (currently writing this after leaving South Africa). It was simple, some chicken and tomato/vegetable based sauce over rice, but made to perfection. It was cooked by three ladies operating out of what looked like a closet that happened to have a rice cooker and a stove. After dinner, was sleep in long sleeves and pants. covered in bug spray.

Day 2 -

My second day in Ghana was an adventure. We woke up bright and early around 5am for breakfast before most of the group went off to hike over steep, moist and mossy rocks to see some waterfalls around the village. Given my colorful orthopedic history, I decided to stay behind with a friend who was on crutches and figure something else out. We ended up recruiting the three women who had also cooked us breakfast in the morning to play some card games. This relaxing morning of coffee, card games and conversation ended up being something much more enjoyable for me, especially after seeing the rest of the group returning an hour and a half later exhausted and covered in dirt and sweat. Besides, the next stop on our trip was a much, much bigger waterfall.

Near the Tafi monkey village where we would be spending the evening, we parked the bus  at a small market that was about a 45 minute hike away from the waterfall. This hike had us passing through the forest by bamboo shoots, under pods of cocoa beans and over trickling streams. You hear the roar of the waterfall before you see it. I also heard the gasps, ooohs and awwws of the other hikers in front of me as they emerged from the dense foliage around the path and the waterfall came into view. It is an absolutely stunning sight to see, with the waterfall emptying from over one hundred feet above our heads into a shallow basin below, making anyone who stood near it look downright tiny. To make it a little more interesting the cliffs on either side of the fall were lined with thousands upon thousands of fruit bats. I don't know how it happened, but at some point while we were at the fall they got spooked and took to the skies in unison. It's a sight I'll never forget, with them almost covering the sky in a way that pictures will never do justice. You are just going to have to come to Ghana and see for yourself.

That evening we spent in the village nearby. After another unforgettable home cooked meal made with the simplest ingredients we went congregated with some of the villagers in front of their church. They brought in chairs, lamps (as there are not street lights in the village) and drums from houses all over the village and set up a drumming and dancing workshop of sorts for us. They started with a slow shuffle in a circle in front of the drum section, chanting low and slow to begin the evening. With each new song, the tempo and theatrics of each picked up as well. A well trained eye could pick an entire story out of each of the dances but for me I just sat back and enjoyed. After their demonstration it was our turn to try, though mercifully it was only the slow shuffle that we had to replicate. When the drums stopped beating for the evening, it was time for some well deserved sleep.

Pencils of Promise

To be honest, I was completely indifferent when I heard that Adam Braun would be joining us as an inter-port lecturer on the leg of our trip from Morocco to Ghana.  When it announced that he would be giving a speech as part of the Explorer Seminar series  I mentioned earlier, I only ended up going because it so happened that I literally had nothing else to do.

Adam started off by explaining that he was a Semester at Sea alumni whose first inspiration for the organization came during his voyage while they were docked in India. It was an encounter with a child, who when asked what he wanted if he could have anything in the world, simply replied a pencil. He began passing out pencils to children throughout the rest of the voyage and in all of his subsequent travels. It was only later, after he had moved to New York as part of a full time job that the idea for Pencils of Promise fully formed.

It is the organization's mission to partner with developing communities in order to ensure a good education is available to the children living there. In the only three years POP has existed they have broken ground on 41 schools throughout Laos, Guatemala and Nicaragua and are still picking up steam. POP is unique in the fact that they truly form a partnership with the community by requiring that each one provides between 10-20% of the funds (either monetarily, through supplies or labor) in order to ensure that the community feels like they own the school instead of viewing it as a handout.

 Adam himself is an incredibly gifted speaker who could start up a non-profit giving silly straws to seagulls and would probably still be successful but his focus on education coupled with the for-profit mindset his business background has instilled into Pencils of Promise make it a non-profit that seems to have a great future ahead of it and one that I might like to be a part of.

Morocco - Days 3 and 4

Marrakech Day 3 - Culinary Action

Morning time meant cooking time, my traveling group and I made our way across town by taxi to the hotel "La Maison Arabe" to partake in a Moroccan cooking class.

It is worth mentioning the somewhat flexible pricing structures of Moroccan Taxis and merchandise in general. A group of 9 of us split into 3 taxis on the way to the class and bargained for our fares individually. Upon arriving my taxi had paid 40 dirham ( ~5$) for the three of us to make it across town (seems reasonable to me!). Our friends who arrived after us revealed that they had only to pay 20 dirham much to our embarrassment. It was only when third taxi arrived a few seconds later and shared that they had only paid 5 dh. (~63 cents) that we realized how badly we performed. This was a lesson well learned for me in terms of bargaining, a skill necessary in every facet of commerce in Morocco.

When we made it to our class we got to work on learning how to make Chicken Pastilla; an awesome half dinner, half dessert dish that is big enough to replace both.  It consists of:

Chicken and scrambled eggs in delicious stuff, covered with almonds tossed in butter and brown sugar, wrapped in Filo dough (crunch wrap supreme style), fried in oil and dusted with powdered sugar, cinnamon and almonds. Also of note, I now know how to make a rose out of a tomato skin which will most definitely come in handy some day.

After class, which turned our creations into a fantastic lunch and made our way back to the hostel before visiting Marrakech's massive outdoor market in the heart of the city. They sell everything a tourist could want in morocco: spices, soaps, oil, slippers, garments,  instruments, tagines, tea sets and lamps, wood work, scarfs, carpets and all types of street food. I tried my hand at bargaining to various degrees of success then had a few glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice before heading to the train station to catch the evening train to Casablanca. Fun Fact: the McDonalds in the station sold both a "Royale with Cheese" for all you Pulp Fiction fans and a Toblerone Mcflurry, the latter of which I purchased while waiting for our train to arrive.

Day 4 - Casablanca

I spent the first part of my last in Morocco exploring the fisheries of Casablanca as a field extension of my Marine Biology class. Afterwards I broke off and explored Casablanca with a few friends. I hopped a taxi to the Hassan II Mosque -the second largest in the world I believe- had a quick meal at the underwhelming Rick's Café of silver screen fame then walked back to the main port area through some back roads where we ran into an actual Moroccan market. No more souvenirs, this  had fresh fruits and vegetables abounding, butcher shops, kids playing soccer and no other tourists in sight. It was a brief but nice glimpse behind the curtain and something I plan on seeking out in other countries.  After we made it through the market we arrived our ship. I boarded the MV Explorer at 4pm and had made it through the first port on my Itinerary intact.

Thoughts:

Morocco in my opinion was the perfect choice for the first port of my itinerary,  it was definitely out of my realm of normal travel and as a result provided me with significant challenges. Bartering is something I had never dealt with previously and as my taxi example illustrates, I wasn't perfect. Though as time went on I got better (talking down an item from 200 to 25 dh on one occasion!) and it helped to prep me for the rest of the itinerary going forward.

There were many negative things about the country as well, I felt like a walking dollar sign in many areas, especially those frequented by tourists. There was a noticeable discrepancy in the treatment of the male and female students traveling with me. And ultimately it proved to be a little bit dangerous, with a small number of students who were intimidated, robbed or even mugged while we were in port (though admittedly some of those were walking around with their cameras around their wrists or money belts hanging outside of their shirts)

For me personally, Morocco was an overwhelmingly positive experience. I will always remember my trek under the stars,  the satisfaction of bargaining successfully, trying my hand at Moroccan cuisine and the incredible time I had just talking with a  car full of Moroccans on the train ride back to Casablanca. Its incredible to think that there are still many more countries to go.

Morocco - Part 2: Road to Marrakech

Seeing these camels was a truly surreal moment and a kind of validation for the rest of the entire voyage. We were actually in the middle of the Sahara under the most vibrant and beautiful display of stars I had ever seen in my life.  We were in Canada only a week before and Ghana would be coming up the week after, all of this was actually happening and that is the point where it finally sunk in for me. All of the other students and I grabbed our bags, left the bus and stood next to our respective camels.

Now for all of the horror stories you hear about camels -they're ornery, they spit, they smell, they're violent- ours were pretty docile, gentle  and even regal creatures. When we first approached them they were sitting and had kind of folded themselves into a manageable size in which you could just swing your leg over and sit down, standing up was the interesting part. Camels don’t stand up as much as they just unfold step by step, back legs first so you are left holding on for dear life at a 45 degree angle forwards. Then the front legs come up and you equalize at a pretty sizable height off the ground. Just when you thing you are done they almost double in height again and you are sitting about 8-9 feet off of the ground.

We trekked under the stars  to a small Berber camp about 40 minutes away where we were treated to another dinner of chicken Tagine, learned from our guide how the Islamic religion made it's way into Morocco. After the meal we were part of a quick, interactive drumming demonstration during which I thoroughly embarrassed myself before we decided to spend the rest of the night sitting on the dunes of the desert with our hosts.

We talked about everything, played music, sang "Hotel California", dug our feet under the cool night sand deep to where it was still warm from the harsh afternoon sun before finally retiring to bed around two or three in the morning.

We woke up the next morning at sunrise, washed up, ate a quick breakfast of bread, butter and honey with mint tea to drink before beginning the trek back to our bus and continuing on back through the route that brought us from Casablanca. We stopped to buy cactus fruit which tastes a lot like watery watermelon with about 50 times more seeds. We stopped above a valley that was absolutely filled with palm trees as far as the eye can see and we made a detour through one of the Kasbahs, Moroccan forts with walls made of clay and straw that have stood for hundreds of years before we made it to Marrakech in the evening.


On the way to our hostel, near the main square of the city, our guide told us to have our bags packed and everything ready to go when we stopped. A few minutes later we pulled over on the side of a busy road and rushed out of the bus as quickly as we could. Our guide then lead us directly into the swarm of people lining the road as we made our way to the hostel. Merely walking peaked your adrenaline, people accosting you buy their merchandise, motorcycles whizzed through the packed crowds and human traffic was headed in every direction. In the end, we finally made it to our hostel in Marrakech and passed out for the night

Ghana

Sitting in the Tema port now, waiting to debark into Ghana!

Morocco - Part 1

Sorry for the delay (Mom and Dad!) this ship has a way of keeping you really really busy. I will be walking off the ship into Ghana in literally 8 hours, I dunno how it came up so fast

Morocco So far......

We debarked the ship in Morocco after a quick diplomatic briefing from U.S. officials about the cultural Do’s and Don’ts along with a little history about the country. The itinerary for the day was a 12 hour journey deep into Morocco, past the city of Zagora to a camel trek and desert camp in the Sahara desert.
It was thankfully a small group (6 people) in a large van (12 seats) with a pretty interesting guide (Hassan) so the drive was not as intimidating as that figure alone would indicate. We drove along desert highways recently expanded by King Mohammad the VI as one part in a larger plan to nourish the tourism industry Morocco is so heavily dependent on.

The first stop on our trip was the large tourist city of Marrakech where we had our first meal of the trip.
*Just a prior warning, I will probably dedicate a pretty large portion of my entries to the food I encounter, its what I am most excited about in each port*
I’ll start off by saying that Moroccan food is great and this lunch was the perfect introduction, it consisted of the following, shared family style:
 A Moroccan Salad: in Morocco, the term salad refers to any type of fruit or vegetable, cooked or uncooked in any other term you can think of. What we were served was a collection of dishes; 5 types of olives, potatoes, fresh & cooked dates, pastries, peppers, tomatoes and other unidentifiable but entirely delicious dishes. The crowning achievements were these little entrail-looking & cinnamon-tasting pastries which I hunted down in the Marrakech markets later in the trip (you will be able to see all of these if I am able to upload pictures any time soon.)

3 Tagines (Entrees) Chicken, Lamb and Cous Cous – The chicken was marinated lemon juice and other great stuff, served with olives and potatoes, it is something safe but entirely delicious that I could go back to in a heartbeat

The main course was followed by Almond pastries and a platter (literally a platter as big as my arms around) of apples and grapes and a steaming, frothy, aromatic pot of Mint Tea (consists of fresh mint, a lot of green tea and a fist full of sugar)
  
If you are looking for Moroccan Cuisine: 101, this is it, as basic as it gets with a lot of the staples present and executed extremely well. Mint tea is definitely something I will try to recreate when I make it home.
Another part of the meal that was unique to Morocco was the building that we ate it in. It is called a ‘Riad’ and they are extremely popular in Moroccan cities. Most I encountered were built with an open courtyard in the center and invited an extremely social atmosphere among its inhabitants.  They are truly the Moroccan bed and breakfast, with the top floor being the restaurant we ate at and the others below containing hotel rooms. Another popular feature throughout the Moroccan architecture was the salon ever present at the top of every building which contains long benched couches lining the room in a semicircle and facing each other. It seems as if the entire country was designed to promote conversation and interaction among people.
The next leg of our lengthy drive was up and over the Atlas Mountains; lined by cacti, small villages, and people everywhere. Something that I noticed about the highway in Morocco is that people are very much a part of the landscape. As opposed to driving along the highway for hundreds of miles without seeing a person on the side of the road, drive on a Moroccan highway and you will see children playing soccer, workers collecting cactus fruit, Mothers leading their children or men riding donkeys side saddle.

In the end after the 12 hours of driving we made it to our destination, which turned out to be the side of the road, hours away from civilization with only our headlights to show us that nothing else was around.
“Asalam Alykum! (Greetings!)” our guide yelled into the darkness to no answer
“Asalam Alykum!”  he repeated, again with no answer. At this point, the 5 other students and I looked around the van at each other wondering what was happening. We had stopped unceremoniously in the middle of the desert with no explanation and no camp or camels in sight so we were slightly uneasy.
After no response for the second time in the evening he made a call on his cell phone and after a quick conversation in his Berber language we got back on the road and continued for another few minutes down the road and pulled over to the side of the road where this time the headlights actually revealed camels.

A Unique Style of Learning

Today was an "A" day, the schedule here works based off of two alternating  days of class labeled "A" and "B" days.  I am a busy busy person on A days, as you can see from my schedule below:

 Breakfast \ The Business of food \ Global Studies \ U.S. Ethics and Foreign Policy \ Lunch \ Work-Study  \ Academic Writing Workshop \ Dinner \ Free Time.

Thankfully "B" Looks like this:

Breakfast \ Free Time \ Lunch \ Marine Biology \ Work-Study \ Dinner \ Free Time.

Today struck me with how different the learning experience is on this floating campus vs. my beloved swamp.  Class  sizes are small, one as small as four students, with world class professors who actually know my name, a feat rarely accomplished at my home institution.  You get the sense that professors are just as excited to be here as the students with one saying "We have been waiting for you (the students), after five days straight of orientation I am excited to finally meet you all." It's happened many a time where professors will mention a country off hand during a lecture, pause for a moment to think, then add on "You can see this for yourself in about a month when we dock in ______________."

In addition to the academics there is a wealth of other experience aboard shared through the SAS version of TED talks titled Explorer  Seminars. We have travels writers aboard (Journey Woman; follow her blog for something a little more eloquent than mine detailing our journey) along with a full time photographer and videographer. The last two were on display this evening and delivered a presentation on how to be an effective photographer while in port. The most important piece of advice for me was this:

"Don't walk around with huge DSLR around your neck, take a day or two to let the culture sink in before you start taking pictures. Taking out that camera immediately changes the dynamic between you and everyone else you meet in port, in many cases, that is a year or even decades worth of their pay dangling around your neck and it speaks loudly.  If you want to prevent that wall from going up between you and your subject than introduce your self first, learn a few phrases in their language and build a relationship before you start snapping away. The pictures you walk away with will be much better in the end."

Again the difference between a traveler and tourist was reiterated.  In photography as well as all aspects of the journey we should participate in the countries we visit instead of snapping a picture, buying a souvenir and then boarding the ship for the next destination.

Embarkation

Embarkation
               
        They released the tethers at almost exactly1700 hours, as you can imagine students were pressed against the side rails and a large cheer rose as the Captain sounded the horn. Most of the students had only been on board for a few hours and were still introducing themselves  to the person next to them while waving their parents goodbye.
              
The Voyage so far

        For the first leg of the Voyage, the MV Explorer has been a social experiment. That are almost 500 hundred college kids
placed in this strange environment where almost no one knows one another. Sure there has been some communication through facebook or a few students who boarded together, but for the vast majority it is a clean slate. There are students from Poland, Kenya, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Venezuela, Canada and about 40 of the 50 states represented on this Voyage. To top that off, there is a crew of almost 70 "Lifelong Learners" and around 30 faculty and their families aboard.  aboard. My first few days were a blur of interactions and orientation.
      
Speaking of orientation, the first two days were filled with it:
      
Life Boat Drills
Floor (Sea) Meetings
Welcome speeches
Safety Lectures
Academic Honesty Lecture
Medical Lectures
Independent Traveling  lectures
              
       You name it, we  heard it, and by the end of the day it was painful. Not because of the content (though that helped) it was mostly that fact that all of us were sitting silently in a room for hours upon hours taking in bit after bit of information when there were still so many introductions to be made. I was stopped many a time in the hall by other students who just wanted to talk to someone they hadn't met. The excitement of embarkation had not worn off in the least and was still buzzing throughout the ship.
               
The Ship
              
         The ship is beautiful! I'd imagine it will become our giant White and blue 25000 ton safety blanket while in other ports of call. My room is in almost the exact center of the ship as I am staying in an inside room on the middle deck towards the center of the deck lengthwise. My room consists of two twin beds, a small tv and refrigerator, desk, storage and a bathroom.
              
        Around the ship there is a gym, pool, spa, pool, library, and computer lab aboard, none of which I have had the opportunity to use. What I have made extremely good use of is the ping pong table. Building on the note I made earlier about the unique social environment here; I witnessed a doubles match consisting of the ships Photographer and the Director of the South African Cape Town Opera/Drama Teacher vs. two fellow students.
              
The Classes
              
         The classes are easily one of the most exciting aspects of this voyage to me. This is the first time in my academic career I have had the option of choosing whichever class interested me with no regard to major requirements. This freedom has left me with an academically confused schedule to say the least:
              
Global Studies (Required for all students)
U.S. Ethics and Foreign Policy
Academic Writing Workshop
The Business of Food
Marine Biology
              
        In addition to primo courses I was able to get, the quality of the professors leading them is incredible. Just take a moment to think about what they are getting in return for their services and you start to see how SAS (Semester at Sea) was able attract such good professors. Each has had extensive international experience as a prerequisite, with mine alone hailing from  Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cornell with  multiple Fulbright scholars and at least a dozen books published between them.

TPA => YUL => SAS

Now that we are smoothly sailing across the North Atlantic with classes started and my work study begun I have finally wrestled some time to myself to send out an update:

TPA => YUL

My Semester at Sea began with my Mom in tow as we flew from Tampa International this  past Sunday with a longer than expected stop in Toronto then finally on to our first port of call of the voyage: Montreal. Packing for the trip was an accomplishment in itself and might warrant it's own post later on.  My two large rolling duffels and travel backpack we filled to the brim with everything from Clothes and school supplies to Nutella and dinosaur stickers.

Canada was my first port-o-call and I wanted to use is as a practice run of sorts before diving into some of the more exotic countries on itinerary this fall.

During our short time there we summited the Olympic stadium, had crepes for breakfast, poutine for dinner, explored the biodome, took in the Notre Dame Basilica, watched Tai Chi in china town, sailed the Lachine Canal and tasted our way through the markets.

More importantly, I was able to withdraw currency, test out my credit card while abroad and navigate using public transportation . I learned the hard way to be a little more prepared when my brand new electronics  and I were caught in a rather spiteful rain storm (don't worry, they survived). 

While I saw all of the required sights in Montreal my favorite experiences by far were the interactions. The slightly  awkward and nervous yet overwhelmingly optimistic first meeting of a small group of semester at sea students on my first night in the city. I was able rendezvous  with  a friend from UF and we went to the other side of the city for some french fries covered in gravy, cheese curds  and whatever else you could think of(Poutine) at restaurant that legitimately appreciated the musical stylings of Rick Astley  (Poutine la Banquise). Most memorably was my last night in port having a traditional French dinner a few hundred feet away from the floating campus that will be my home for the next 100 or so days. I spent my last few hours on land celebrating what it sure to be one of my most memorable birthdays with my mom and sister, then heading back to the hotel to spend another hour skyping with my dad before boarding the MV Explorer.

My Email While Abroad

One important note about this upcoming semester is that for a vast majority of the voyage I will not have access to regular internet (Only academic websites for school research). While this is probably a good thing, it does put a damper on my ability to communicate with friends and family.

 If you would like to get in touch with me for some reason during the voyage you can email me basic text (no pictures or attachments i believe) at rrpasecky@semesteratsea.net.

I hope to hear from at least a few of you guys during my voyage, it'll make the thousands of miles between me and home a little easier to digest.

Driving Home

Welp! My time in the desert of Arizona came to an end recently which means I had to pack up all of my things and hit the ol' dusty trail. I am happy that I got to spend some of my last days in the US participating in one of our most ancient  traditions; the road trip. 

The Arizona Landscape

Fighting dysentery, snakebites and food spoilage my fellow intrepid explorer Stephanie and I fought our way through the south west

Dust Devils along the Highway

Our first stop was in the completely forgettable Van Horn Texas, we had the choice of staying in the "El Capitan hotel" or the Days Inn down the road and chose to go with the known evil.This particular Days Inn had an air conditioner with only two settings, "Off" and "Tundra" which led to a very poor motel experience. Our next stop however will not soon be forgotten.

Austin TX is a wonderful city, I love it, It would love to live there and I still can't believe it's Texas! It's like they saved up all of the awesome in the state and dropped in on one patch of land and called it Austin.

Austin Lake Oasis at Sunset

Dinner at the Oasis

After Austin we drove through a few hundred more mile of Texas, which is scenic in parts, but in the end there is just a little too much of it.

The next stop was good old New Orleans LA. Understandably after our third day straight of driving too much we were lacking motivation to fully commit to the new Orleans experience, instead settling on exploring the city in a lucid state. I was able to grab a fantastic meal from my favorite New Orleans restaurant Bennachin by the skin of my teeth so I came away satisfied. On the other hand, in true New Orleans fashion there were plenty of other vacationers picking up the slack in the alcohol department. Many belligerent arguments, bachelorette parties complete with neon genitalia hair pieces and even an elevator full of hung-over hotel guests with fresh tattoos were witnessed in our short time there. We started the next muggy morning off right with iced coffee and beignets at the always-fantastic Cafe Du Monde and hit the road for the final stretch. 

Walking around the Streets

Souvenirs in New Orleans

The last stretch was uneventful, we were focused on the road and completing the cross country road trip. We stopped in Mobile Alabama are the Dauphin Bicycle Shop for some pretty unique tacos and  a Dairy Queen in the middle of the Pan handle for Blizzards. It was a good day.

What the road looked like by the end of the trip

Summer Reading

When it was first settled that I would be participating in the Fall '11 Voyage of Semester at Sea I decided on a whim that I should read a novel for each country I will be visiting. It was a great decision.

I am not even half way through the list (~4.5 books down) yet all the bits and pieces of information I am picking up along the way are helping to make the prospect of this Journey a little less intimidating. I tried with each selection to pick a novel, not a history book, in an attempt to get a somewhat candid view of the cultures and customs of the countries I am visiting. So far I've learned a little about the importance of haggling, the purported exquisiteness of the durian fruit, and how to recognize a malarial attack, though I only hope to use two of those learnings this fall.

(My stack of summer reading)

So far I have finished my reading for Morocco, Ghana, Malaysia and Vietnam, with South Africa still in the works. I'm going to write a short little review of each for my own practice. The goal is that I write at at least the 6th grade level by the end of this voyage!

Preparation

Creating this blog is just one of many in my items in the expansive list of things left to do before I embark on what is surely to be one of the great adventures of my life. As I am writing this I am happy to say much of the heavy lifting is finished.

Thus far, I've rearranged my academic schedule, taken 8 months off from college to save up money and have applied and been accepted to the Semester at Sea program.

Next comes the more nit picky stuff:

Visas
Too many scholarship essays
Planning itineraries for 12 countries
Medical check ups
Vaccinations from Yellow Fever to Japanese Encephalitis
A bureaucratic marathon of academic paperwork for my home University
Class registration
Country Research
A self imposed summer reading list of one novel per port
Determining a packing list
And finally a lot of shopping for items that i am going to need abroad (voltage converters, back-up camera batteries, luggage, watch, etc...)

While I am trying to avoid complaining about first world problems, this has easily been the most logistically daunting task of my lifetime and all of my deadlines just keep steadily marching forward. What keeps me going is that the incredible itinerary below is coming along with them.

EMBARK: Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Casablanca, Morocco 

Takoradi, Ghana 

Cape Town, South Africa 

Port Louis, Mauritius 

Chennai, India 

Penang, Malaysia 

Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam 

Hong Kong / Shanghai, China 

Kobe / Yokohama, Japan 

Hilo, Hawaii, USA 

Puntarenas, Costa Rica 

Traverse Panama Canal 

Havana, Cuba 

DEBARK: Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA