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.