Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Oi! I’m done with the last port and heading back to America… Can’t believe it went by so fast. I just want to keep traveling, and not just travel but SAS travel. It is amazing how great an experience it is visiting all these countries with the knowledge that you have the safe haven of SAS, the group of people to travel with, and the programs that they provided. Brazil was an interesting experience and sadly not the best way to end my semester abroad. Here’s how it went down…

Day 1: Spent the day in Salvador in the old city walking around and doing some shopping, was part of a music video for the Brazilian World Cup team

Day 2: Left for Rio de Janeiro, had some trouble with the hotel, went to a football (soccer) game, tried to go out but started feeling sick and went back to my hotel

Day 3: Still didn’t feel well but didn’t want to waste my only full day in Rio in a hotel bed, went to Sugarloaf, a mountain with absolutely beautiful views but didn’t fully enjoy it because I got sick there, went back to my hotel where I spent the rest of my time in Rio

Day 4: Flew home, felt a little better but not 100%, was going to try to go out for the last night but due to miscommunication issues ended up staying in with three of my good friends who also had the stomach virus that I did

Day 5: Went back to the old city and spent the day walking around there

So yeah, not too much that I did, but what I did do I loved so at least that’s that.

I don’t think that I am going to write a whole long post but instead just touch upon some of the things:

First day- Filming the music video was SO COOL! We walked to the end of this street to discover that they were filming a music video and after standing there for a little while, they decided to bring in the people watching as extras and have us hold flags (because it was for the World Cup they had a bunch of different flags that they were waving around) and dance in the background. We ended up spending a few hours there doing it and learned the whole dance and everything. It would downpour every once in a while so we would have to huddle under whatever cover we could and we got to talk to the dancers as much as we could. It was so much fun. (We found out on the last day that Michael Jackson filmed a more recent music video of his in the exact spot and we got to watch it, it was pretty cool) I bought this umbrella hat for fun at one point and in one of the downpours I noticed this little boy huddled under a ledge wearing nothing but shorts and shivering. I went over and gave him my umbrella hat as a little bit of cover and he was so happy. We tried to talk using the little Spanish I know that is similar in Portuguese but I didn’t get very far. His smile was one of the best I have seen this trip though. We eventually forced ourselves to leave and walk around a bit, checking out some of the stores.

Old town is just really amazing. The streets were all cobblestone and the buildings were painted colorfully. It was just a cute area to walk around. A lot of us said that we were reminded of a lot of European cities and such. However, the crime is really bad around there. Even though I fortunately didn’t have any problems, a lot of people from the ship were mugged. The most amazing story that I have heard (don’t know how much of it has changed since it originally happened, it traveled around the ship) is that someone tried to steal a girl’s necklace, apparently her grandmothers and very important, but he pulled it off, then dropped it in a drain and kept running. A homeless man sitting on the side of the road saw it happen, pulled it out of the drain and turned it into the police station and she got it back! I like when nice things like that happen, no matter how true or untrue the story may be. 

Soccer game- one of the most amazing sporting events I have ever been to. We got to stand in the section that most of the hardcore fans were in with their drums, sparklers, and giant flags and they literally did not stop cheering the entire game. I have never seen something like it, even at a Wisconsin game. The only thing that would have made it better would be if there were more people there because it was basically empty aside from two sections. The teams that played were Flumenese and Portuguese, we were rooting for Flumenese who WON! It was worth going to Rio and spending the entire time there sick for.

So yeah, that’s basically it. Goodbye! (In English, because we are going to the States, wowwww)

Tema and Accra, Ghana

The first day in Ghana we had to deal with a lot of technical difficulties. The port was about a 45 minute drive away from Accra, the main city in Ghana and so there were supposed to be shuttle buses every hour that would take us to Accra. However, Ghanaians are on island-esque time and very, very laid back so we ended up waiting an hour and a half out in the heat with a bunch of other SASers for one of the first shuttle buses that didn’t show up. We learned after that that ‘once an hour’ is a very lenient time frame. We never even ended up taking the shuttles that Semester at Sea provided for us because they filled up really quickly when they finally did show up so we went with a big group of people in a hired bus. We were dropped off at a market that ended up being this amazing craft market and we spent the next few hours there. We were immediately met by a crowd of people that sold their crafts in the market, but they were much friendlier than people in other countries. One man walked us down the street to show us where a bank was, which I originally thought was strictly because he was going to walk us back and throw it in our faces that we got money but he left us and didn’t pressure us to buy his stuff when we returned. I met some amazing people that were all around the market and it was really cool. I was there with three other friends, and we got separated at one point two and two. So, my friend and I sat around waiting for a while to see if the other two would finally show up because we had been there for awhile and said we were going to go and eat something. I waited while my friend searched the entire place, asked a bunch of SASers if they had seen them but no one had. We weren’t sure if they left or what. So, in the meantime we didn’t want to just leave them there and I decided to go and talk to one of the women that was selling food and had an adorable baby in her arms. I asked if I could take a picture but she asked for money for the picture and that was when I noticed a little girl tugging on my shorts and asking for ice cream. There were a bunch of little kids around and it was so hot out so I agreed. They led me around the corner to this tiny little ice cream stand and I handed the man selling them some money for the rest of the ice cream and gave it out to around 20 kids and a few mothers. They were all so happy and excited, it was really amazing. We ended up spending the next half hour or so playing with them, taking pictures and dancing. In the end, we left the market because we were supposed to be meeting up with other friends and we didn’t want to miss them. We passed my friends on a street later while we were in a cab so they were fine.

After spending some time in a café with my friends waiting for everyone to arrive from their various whereabouts, we went to find a place to eat dinner. The place that was recommended relocated from the location the cab driver knew of so we ended up asking them to take us somewhere good. We were brought to basically the Chuck E Cheese of Ghana, called ChurCheese. There was an arcade and a jumpy thing, but the food was real and pretty good. Then we decided to go check out one of the bars that a friend from school who spent the semester in Ghana recommended but because it was a Sunday it was closed so we went back to the main road by the shuttle and went to a bar that we knew was opened. We spent some time there before heading back to the ship on the early side before the shuttle service ended for the night.

The next day I went on a service visit to the OSU Children’s Home in Accra. When we arrived we got a chance to speak with one of the “mothers” who told us about the home and who lives there (children there are orphaned and abandoned), how long they stay there, etc. As she was talking, there was a boy walking up and down the aisles over and over introducing himself and shaking our heads. It was really cute. After a little confusion, we got to go and play with the children. There wasn’t a plan of what we were doing so after we started off being just given a tour of the facilities, I broke off when I found the room where some children with disabilities were. There were three kids just lying on a mat in this room and one child sitting and crying in a stroller. They were all incredibly tiny, even though the staff person in there told us that two of them were six years old but looked two years old at most. I sat down with one little boy and was tickling him and getting him to smile and it was just so adorable. He was not only so tiny for his age, but literally had his ribs sticking out and it was pretty heart wrenching. Eventually, I left and found some of the other kids and students playing soccer and hanging out under a tree. A lot of people under the tree were holding these tiny, adorable little babies. I went over to a group of boys between the ages of 8 and 12 and talked to them for a while. We played catch, they enjoyed using my camera and we colored in a coloring book. One of the boys had my camera while I was coloring and was lying down videoing himself talking into the camera. The video was pretty funny. You can’t really hear what he was saying but he was making funny faces, and then watched the video and laughed. Some of the kids were in school and they had a break at one point and came out in their little uniforms and played with us for a while too. I wasn’t really sure why some of the kids were on break and others weren’t, but that’s what they told us. A little boy stumbled out of a building at one point crying so I went over to him and tried to figure out what was wrong. He just kept pointing at some of the older boys in one of the housing units and I figured that he took something of his. Turned out it was the sticker that I had given him earlier so I gave him new ones and it was fine. He was so cute clinging to my leg though, I felt so bad for him. Then we had to leave to go have lunch at a hotel restaurant. It was a delicious Ghanaian meal. We returned to the home after to do what we thought would be some painting and other service stuff, but it turned out that they didn’t have the supplies that we needed and the rest of the kids were either napping or in school so we signed out of the trip and headed into town. We were spending the night at a “resort” area about an hour outside the city by the beach so we were planning on cutting out early anyway. However, one of my friends wanted to stop at the market so we decided to quickly run back to it so she can get some stuff. Of course, we stayed a while this time too. Some of the people that we had met the day before remembered us, remembered who with were with and everything! It was really impressive. While my friend shopped my other friend and I hung out with some of the locals and played around with their drums for a while. They tried to teach me how to play but ended up giving up and played some stuff for us. It was awesome. We finally left as the sun was setting for the beach. Traffic was horrendous and it took us over two and a half hours for what should have been a forty-five minute drive. However, we got to see some interesting neighborhoods along the way. The hotel was located past a bunch of villages basically in the middle of nowhere so as we drove along we got to witness the incredibly social nightlife in these villages. Everyone was along the streets, cooking food, talking amongst one another which was all so interesting and amazing. When we arrived at the place (called Big Milly’s), we found out that there was no where that we could get food that was right there. They didn’t sell food and the two restaurants that were right there were already closed even though it was 8 pm. However, one of the locals that was hanging out at the bar at Big Milly’s offered to have her friend take us to one of the villages and get food there. He walked us over, got everything taken care of ordering and everything, and then waited while we ate our delicious chicken and rice meal in this little hut before walking us back. It was so cool to walk through the village and see all the people, some of them waving at us, following us around, giggling when we passed by. When we arrived back at Big Milly’s, our other friends that we were meeting us there had arrived. Some of us hung out at the bar with some of the locals at night before going into the house that we rented and hanging out there. I slept under a mosquito net which was pretty cool and it was all a lot nicer than I thought it would be. The next morning I woke up feeling like I was on a farm because of all the animal noises around us. It was pretty crazy- I have never been actually woken up by a rooster before.

My friends that met up with us there the night before had actually been driven there by a friend that they met their first day in Ghana. Each voyage has an interport student from the country that we will be visiting that spends the time on the ship in between the port before their country and their country and shares with the shipboard community information about their culture and such. My friends randomly happened to run into Nii on a street in Accra, who was the interport student for the last voyage that went to Ghana. He was really awesome and so he came and hang out with us at Big Milly’s and then spent the next day there with us. We started off our morning eating a meal at someone’s house that Nii set up for us when he ran into this person in the village the night before. We thought that this persons house was a hotel, it was that incredible and beautiful. There were about 9 people living there one of the woman told us, and she had actually spent some time in the US and now tries to take in exchange students when possible. It was nice to talk to her. They cooked us an amazing meal and it was just such an interesting experience. After seeing the villages down the road the night before and then seeing this house that was gated in, we could really see the difference in wealth in Ghana. After we ate we went to go find a spot on the beach to hang out at. Nii had been in the area a bunch of times and knew of a secluded beach section down the street from where we were so we went there for a little while. The tide was high so the waves were literally coming in and sweeping the entire beach. They were also so strong that it was hard to even stand when they would go in and out. It was fun to hang out for a little while, but because the waves were so strong there was no space that was dry to lay out. So we decided to leave and find another area, and on our way out we were stopped by someone that said it was a private beach and we had to pay because we used it. Nii argued with him for awhile because he said that he has been there a bunch of times and never had to pay. We ended up paying but it was annoying. The next place that we walked to was perfect. We got to lie out and the water was nice but the waves were still huge. I was started to fall asleep when everything got eerily quiet and I felt like something bad was about to happen. I looked up as my friend was basically attacked by a huge wave, fell over comically and I guess I screamed a little because it got my friends attention luckily as this huge wave reached all the way up to us even though we were up on a hill. We grabbed all of our stuff as quickly as we could (which wasn’t quick enough) and one of my friends shoes was swept away. It was pretty crazy. Further up on the beach wasn’t really smooth so we stood around for a while before deciding to call it a day. We headed back to Accra, ate a little snack at a restaurant by the shuttle stop and then went back to the ship.

That night I went to a bar in Tema, the port city. There were hookers EVERYWHERE. It was so funny, one of my friends just literally sat there in shock for a while. The bar was really cool though, it was outside and had a dance floor and everything. There were a bunch of SASers there as well as some of the crew and it was a really fun night.

On the last day I went on a trip for a class to the Accra Psychiatric Hospital. It was really interesting. I had gone to the psychiatric hospital in Hawaii so it was great to see the difference between the two. The facilities were not as bad as expected, but unfortunately they are understaffed. There are only six psychiatrists in the entire country and four are at the hospital. We saw a bunch of different wards and spoke to a bunch of different patients, which we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do at an American hospital because of confidentiality issues. All in all, it was a great day. When we arrived back at the ship, my friend and I went out on a search for the post office to buy stamps. We got in the shuttle that they had for getting from the ship to the port gate (it’s an industrial port so it’s not very suitable for tourists). We asked the driver about how far the post office was and he ended up taking us there and back himself for free. It was awesome (once again though, time and responsibility is clearly on a different level). I really loved Ghana and definitely loved the people. It was a great port and an amazing time. On to Brazil next…

"We are GHANA have fun!"

Ghana- where you sweat from pores you didn’t know you had. I love Ghana though, end of story. Never did I think that I could be in a place so close to the equator and leave wanting to ever go back. This has definitely been one of the hardest ports to leave because it was just such an incredible experience, I met some amazing people and did some amazing things. Because I am swamped with everything in my life right now, I will just give a recap and HOPE that I have time to blog a full blog about my time before getting to Brazil in a few days. So, here we go….

Day 1: Traveled from the port to the main city of Accra about an hour away, walked around a market there for a while, met some incredible people, met up with friends for dinner and drinks

Day 2: Went to a children’s home in Accra through SAS, traveled to a beach area where we would spend the night, got to eat dinner in a village and hang out with Rastafarians at night

Day 3: Spent time at the beach, went out in Tema (port city) at night

Day 4: Went to the Accra Psychiatric Hospital

It was probably the place where I did the least when I lay it out like this but where I got a lot out of each thing that I did. More to come soon hopefully...

Cape Town, South Africa: Day 3, 4 and 5

Malo! The third morning in South Africa I met up with my friends in the morning with the intention of going up Table Mountain. The sky was extremely overcast and foggy though, and Table Mountain is great mostly because of its incredible views over the city so we spent some time trying to come up with a potential plan B and a plan for the afternoon regardless of what we did in the morning. By the time we finished procrastinating and trying to come up with a plan, the sky opened up and the sun came out so we immediately jumped in a cab and rushed over to the bottom of Table Mountain. We clearly went at a good time because the lines for the cable car were short (we waited 2 and a half hours less than friends who went two days before) and we were up to the top overlooking an absolutely beautiful Cape Town in no time. We walked around the top for a while, saw some friends and wished them luck as they geared up to repel down the side, and took some awesome pictures. We then went and got a delicious lunch at the restaurant on top of the mountain before walking around for a while longer. I believe the top of Table Mountain is something like 2 miles long so there was a lot of space to walk around and different views to see and it was pretty awesome. We spent some time talking to an old English couple who were on vacation for about two months and also came on a boat. They were flying home though after this. As we were waiting on line for the cable car back down, we were trying to decide what to do we saw posters for things to do in Cape Town and decided to go to one of them which was the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.

The gardens were absolutely beautiful and had a ton of just grassy areas that families were picnicking on and it was amazing. I am not someone who is very enthralled by flowers and trees and nature in general (which my friends soon found out when the bugs were all over us) but it was really beautiful. We ended up just finding a quiet bench in the middle of one of the small gardens and sitting there relaxing for a while. It was a lovely afternoon. Yes, I said lovely. I could have spent hours there but I was meeting up with some friends to go hike a mountain so we had to leave.

We hiked Lion’s Head that evening, which is right next to Table Mountain and as you walk around it you get a 360 degree view of the whole city because the path circles around the mountain. We made sure to get there for sunset and found a good spot off the path to watch the sun go down with a fantastic view of Table Mountain on the side. It’s funny, we watched the sun go down over the ocean (ATLANTIC OCEAN already) and while it was beautiful, I realized that sunsets over the water is not as much of a novelty now that it’s what we see as we eat dinner every night. But it was still truly beautiful and peaceful and we had a great time just relaxing up there and enjoying the view. As soon as the sun was no longer visible, we started our descent down so that we would still be able to see where we were walking. We sat for a while waiting for a cab looking over the harbor area where our ship was docked and it was pretty to see the city all lit up. Then we went to dinner at a place called Dizzy’s. On the menu they had some rules of life that were absolutely amazing: (here are a few of them…)

1. Men are from earth. Women are from earth. Deal with it.

2. Thou shalt not weight more than thy refrigerator.

3. You should not confuse your career with your life.

4. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.

5. Never lick a steak knife.

6. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she’s pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

7. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that deep down inside we ALL believe we are good drivers.

8. Your friends love you anyway.

These were just 8 out of the 20 on the menu… absolutely amazing. After a long dinner with my friends and 3 of one of my friends South African friends (well, one American who has lived here for a few years and her South African friends), we headed back to the ship for the night.

The next morning, we had an early start as we were going to Cape Point/Cape of Good Hope. First, we were stopping at Boulder Beach, known for its penguins and so I was ridiculously excited the whole drive there. It took us about an hour and a half to get there, partially due to a large marathon that was taking place that day and so we had to detour a few times. Unfortunately, it was a foggy day so the drive down that is known for its beauty wasn’t as amazing as it could have been, but definitely still nice. When we arrived at Boulder Beach, it was drizzling and cold but SO WORTH IT. There were a ton of penguins all over this one area, some of them nesting, some of them hopping around, some “mating”, some swimming, etc. It was incredible. We were able to get really close to them too and we spent a lot of time taking pictures. The only problem that morning was that the area that the penguins were in were filled with these large boulders (hence Boulder Beach) and we were climbing all over them to see all the penguins. Since it was drizzling the rocks were slippery and I was wearing flip flops that were also slippery and so I slammed into a rock at one point clumsily and sadly my camera which was around my neck did too. I had awful bruises on my leg and elbow and so did my camera. I think I am sadder about my camera’s dent. Needless to say, I changed into sneakers right then and there and was much more careful the rest of the time there. We left the beach to head down to Cape Point National Park. It is this huge area filled with just green and it was amazing. We had the Indian Ocean on one side, the Atlantic Ocean on the other (still so crazy) and we hiked up to the lighthouse on top of Cape Point so that we could see where the oceans meet. It was a beautiful view from up there and really amazing. Around the lighthouse, people had left their names all over the area. We had fun walking around trying to find SAS people because that’s always cool. I do not have nearly as much of a problem as other people on this ship with the strict rules, but someone I know was turned in by a staff member for leaving her name in this area and “defiling private property.” There were THOUSANDS of names up there and it just seems a little bit ridiculous to me. Anyway, we spent some time up there, and then drove a little bit farther to Cape of Good Hope, took a picture at the sign that said that it’s the most southwestern place in Africa and then continued on our way. On our drive down to Cape Point, we saw a ton of signs that said “BABOONS are dangerous WILD animals. DO NOT FEED” and it wasn’t until driving down to Cape of Good Hope that we saw a huge one on top of someone’s car. We also saw a ton of wild ostriches, which are a strange looking but huge animal. So, on our way back we were keeping our eyes peeled for them. We saw a few off the side of the road so stopped to take some pictures. As we were sitting there, I watched as a mother baboon with a baby on her back snuck over to a car, whose passenger door was open and whose passengers weren’t paying any attention, and grab a bag of chips before running away. The people’s faces were amazing. You just saw the driver look over, notice the baboon grabbing the food at the door, and he screamed shut the door! As she shut the door with a terrified look on her face and the baboon left with the chips. They then laughed about it for a few minutes, as did we. Next we went to Simon’s Town, which was a cute little beach town that we had lunch and ice cream in and did a little shopping. It was great.

When we got back to the ship we went to an internet café to waste a little bit of time before going out at night. I got to Skype my ENTIRE family for the first time in a long time so that was really nice. When I say my entire family I mean my mom, Jason, my grandma, grandpa AND aunt all squeezed into my mom’s office. It was hilarious. Then I went to the supermarket right there to buy some matzo since it was Passover and I really wanted it mostly because the majority of the food on the ship that I eat is bread and pasta. That night I went out with a few of my friends and one of my friends friend’s from South Africa again. We didn’t really have a plan as to where we wanted to go so we drove around stopping at different restaurants that one of the girls likes but we kept getting turned away. Apparently part of it was that we were there on a Saturday and it was busy but according to my friend racism is still a very large issue and since the boy that kept going in to see if they had a table for us was black, it played a large part in us continually getting turned down. It was extremely unfortunate and sad. Eventually we went to the casino nearby where they had a ton of restaurants and that was perfect. We had an amazing buffet of Chinese food and the casino was incredible and reminded me a lot of one of the places that I have been in Vegas before. After dinner we went to do some gambling, something that I have never really done by myself or legally. I spent most of my time at a roulette table and found that they played it much different than they do in the US but I really liked the way that they played. Our odds were much better. I don’t really know gambling speak but I ended up with three times the amount that I started with which was extremely exciting. It was definitely a success.

The next morning I got to sleep in since all my friends were in church for Easter. So, I woke up, ate some breakfast and then went off shopping. It was an amazing morning. It has been so long since I have been able to be completely by myself, outside, wandering safely. I was in heaven because the port was safe enough to be able to do so. I went to the mall, bought some world cup stuff because when will I ever be able to do that again? And then went back to the ship to meet my friends for another township tour. We were being toured around by the two people who took us out the night before (one who is from America, volunteered in a township three years ago and decided to stay here since, and then one who is from South Africa). First, we went to Sabrina’s (the girl from America) apartment where we got to see her really nice apartment that overlooks table mountain (amazing), and then headed out to the first township. We got to get out and walk around this township and stopped at a shop of one of the lady’s living there and talked to her and got some cool stuff. Then we continued to walk around throughout the whole township. The first township that I had been to a few days before was heavenly compared to this one. People lived in shacks that were barely standing and that we learned caught on fire often and because they are all on top of each other, hundreds catch on fire at a time—we had actually seen a fire in this township the night before and wanted to help out but no one knew where the fire had been that we spoke to. People were walking around all over the township saying hi or just staring. We were told beforehand that people would be very wary of us at first until they heard us speak because there are still a lot of hard feelings towards white South Africans, but then they would get really friendly because they love Americans. One thing that we noticed was that a lot of people had cell phones and cars and couldn’t understand why that instead of homes. We were told that the government will provide them with homes but with that comes the responsibility of utilities and such and they cannot handle all of that because they don’t know how. On our walk we came across a bar so decided to go check it out. It was AWESOME. The bar was a shack with a small room with a couch on it but there was music and we danced and talked to the guys in there for a little. At some point some women came in and were dancing with us to and it was definitely a unique experience as we picked up quite the crowd. This was after just a little bit of our day and I was already loving seeing the townships more this day than the other because we were getting to interact with people who were really living in awful conditions but were still smiling and happy.

Next, we drove around for a while through a few other townships just seeing what they were like. Some of them were more crowded and dangerous than others; some of them had large bustling markets and lots of shops for hair braiding and food. We got to pass by the restaurant that I had eaten at two days before and it was hopping. The traffic was awful blocks away from it, people were parked all over the street and it was just packed because it was a Sunday. We then got to another township where we got to stop at the organization where Sabrina volunteered her first year. It is called Home from Home and provides “supported and supervised foster care for orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children in small family homes in the child’s community.” There were about 10 kids and they ran up to the car when we pulled up. We got to spend a good amount of time there playing around with them. My camera had been taken out of my hand the second that we arrived and they were all really enjoying taking pictures of each other and I ended up with some amazing pictures actually. It was a great time and I wish that we had more time there. After we left, we stopped a little further away to get snoek, a type of fish that one of my dad’s friends told me to make sure I get. The portion was HUGE, came with fries and everything, and I only wanted a little bit so after a few bites I was done as was everyone else in the car. Luckily, we had entered another township and were trying to find some African beer and someone who was home so that we could see what the shacks looked like inside. We stopped outside a pretty large bar and there were a few kids playing outside the car so I got to give them the rest of my food. They were so happy and excited and about 5 of them were just crowded around with these huge smiles and it was just so rewarding and amazing. We went inside the bar which was crazy and busy and sat down at a table. This bar was much bigger than the last and we got to talk to a bunch of people. One man came over and was shaking all of our hands and was so excited that we were there. He toldus that he never thought that there would be a point where white people would come into the townships and sit with black people and he was just so happy that is was now possible. After we left that bar, we went to Malobungwe’s brothers home. In terms of space it was very roomy but there were also only two people living there whereas in some of the shacks there could be anywhere from 1 to 10+. So, as I said his home was nice and roomy with electricity and a tv, but the roof was collapsing and there was a ton of water damage. Then we finally went to get African beer in someone’s home. It was interesting. We drank it out of a bucket right after it was brewed and it was like a pink seedy substance. It wasn’t strong but there was definitely the aftertaste of beer. My friend referred to it as a beer smoothie and I concur. My other friend referred to it as milk and gasoline and that’s an opinion I do not share but can understand. Sadly following that visit, we had to head back to the ship so that we weren’t left behind but it was one of my favorite days of the trip so far without a doubt.

Even though we were supposed to leave a few hours after that, we didn’t leave until the next afternoon which was such a tease. It’s not easy waking up to Cape Town out your window and being unable to explore!

Sorry this post took so long, I have been crazy busy with homework and birthday dinners and it’s just getting to that crazy point in the semester where everything piles up at once.

Cape Town, South Africa: Day 1 and 2

South Africa was yet another port where I awoke knowing that it was beautiful outside since my roommate excitedly screamed and ran out of the room at 6:30am with her camera in hand. I proceeded to pull myself out of bed so that I could watch the sunrise over Cape Town in the distance, which was absolutely beautiful. There was Table Mountain, a very distinctive landmark in Cape Town on one side and Robben Island (the prison where Mandela was held) on the other side. Cape Town was definitely one of my most anticipated ports so I was pretty excited to finally see it there in front of us. It took us some time to finally get in to the port, and a few hours later we were docked and outside my window was the pier! The first thing that we did though, before getting off the ship (or even being cleared to get off the ship), was hear from a woman by the name of Linda Biehl. One of my largest trips for my service class was to the Amy Biehl Foundation in Cape Town, which is a foundation that supports programs in the townships for children. So, I had done a lot of research on the organization and we had found out the night before that Linda Biehl (who started the foundation with her husband) was coming on the ship to speak and I was incredibly excited for it. We had talked about Amy Biehl’s story in our Global Studies class (which everyone is supposed to attend) and so a lot of people showed up to hear her story from her mother’s perspective. [Mothers reading this: see if you could see yourself doing the same.]

Amy was a 26 year old American that was visiting South Africa and helping the black people fight for equal rights. She had previously spent a lot of time in Africa working for woman’s rights and was an extremely well-known and admired person by people all over the continent and by large governmental organizations in the US. Three days before she was supposed to fly back home to California, she was driving her friends who had no ride home back to their township. At the time, there was a large activist group chanting their motto “One bullet, one settler,” and they pulled her from her vehicle, and stoned and stabbed her to death. Her shirt had so many holes in it that her mother immediately burned it. The four men who had killed her were convicted and sentenced to prison for many years. Five years into their sentence, they were given a chance to redeem themselves due to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission- trials went on that allowed all political prisoners this chance. Linda and Peter Biehl (Amy’s parents) went to South Africa during this time and met the killers family (the video they got of this shows Amy’s parents telling the killer’s parents not to cry) and then proceeded to testify about how they believed that Amy’s killers should be forgiven and released. So they were, and years went by and now, over 15 years after Amy’s death, two of her four killers work for the foundation, one of their kids call Linda Biehl grandma (in Xhosa)  and they have reached the unbelievable point of an amazing relationship. The Foundation was created in honor of Amy because her parents knew that she would want her work to be continued. Right now, the Foundation reaches out to over 3000 children every week and makes an incredible difference in the townships.

Shortly after hearing Linda Biehl speak, the ship was cleared and I proceeded to leave and explore the incredibly nice port area. Some of my friends wanted to shop, but the mall was incredibly expensive and since I was not going to be busy on a safari for three days I was hoping to get to a market or somewhere that would have cheaper merchandise. (An example of how expensive things were- $20 for a snowglobe).  So I walked around until lunchtime with some friends and got to see how beautiful and great the waterfront was. However, I was shocked by just how similar it was to many beach towns back in the States and that was a little disappointing. I got to stop at a grocery store in the mall which was just like home and amazing (had matzos too!) and then we went to lunch at a diner-esque place where I had a burger and milkshake that was delicious! Next, we went to meet the ferry at the waterfront to take us to Robben Island. There was a video showing on the ride over that gave us a brief history of who was held in the prison and why it is so important to South African history today. When we arrived at the island, everyone was put on buses for a bus tour around the island. Our tour guide was hilarious and extremely interesting and knowledgeable. The people on our bus were from about 5 or 6 different countries and no matter which country it was he was able to relate it to South Africa’s history and how people of all these countries helped to shape the people of South Africa today. I thought that that was really interesting to hear because I feel like we are always hearing about how other countries shaped the States, and especially Africa’s effect on the States, but very rarely do I hear it the other way around. The bus tour showed us the grounds and our tour guide told us about how all the political prisoners were there and how it has been vacant since the 90’s after waves of release due to the TRC. The most interesting and in many ways disturbing part is that it is currently being used for conferences and there are guest houses for those people participating in the conference as well as people living on the island (our second tour guide does). Mandela has actually gone back a few times and stayed there during a conference which must be really difficult. We saw a field where Mandela had done some work- there was limestone in this area and due to a lack of eye protection when working there the suns reflection on the limestone created such an awful eye problem that no one was able to take pictures with a flash of Mandela. After our bus tour, we got to walk around the prisons and see the way that people lived in there. The cells were tiny with a bucket as a bathroom and bed as five blankets on the floor. Some of the cells were different depending on the building- that was one of Mandela’s three cells while he was at Robben Island. We also saw a cell that was much larger and would hold around 30 people. While in that one we learned about the way that the prisoners were treated- blacks and colored were treated differently. It is amazing that even in a prison setting the lines were so clearly drawn between skin color and treatment. Blacks received significantly less food per meal than the colored prisoners, for instance. Our second tour guide that showed us around the prison had actually be a prisoner himself for six years. We had been told earlier that a lot of the tour guides are and the reason is that there are so few good job opportunities for black people in South Africa that they take what they can get, even though it is difficult. We took the ferry back to the mainland after that. On the ferry there were a group of students and they were so amused by the boat rocking (the waves were huge) and they were laughing and jumping around and my friends and I were like, clearly they don’t live on a boat. It was funny.

That night I went out to dinner with some fellow Jews to a kosher for Passover restaurant in Cape Town. It was one of the most delicious meals that I have had in a while. Then I went out to one of the big bar streets where a few hundred SASers were and that was my night!

The next morning I woke up for my service trip to the Amy Biehl Foundation. The bus that we used was like a plane- three and two across, very strange. We filled in all the seats and had some people double up because so many people wanted to go. We started off the day going to the foundation office, watching a video that gave us some background on Amy’s story, met and talked with the managing director who gave some interesting insight as to how he keeps the organization functioning financially, and then were given an opportunity to purchase some items in support of the foundation. The managing director was actually really, really interesting to hear from because he runs this non-profit organization as a normal business. He has managed to get the office space that they use for free, they have many different businesses supporting them by producing and selling products (Amy’s Bread and Amy’s Wine) that will have a percentage of the profit given to the foundation, and there are a few hotels in the area that add a fee a little less than 1 USD to the bill per night. All together, these few things create approximately 2000 USD per month. He says that it’s because he stresses the importance of social responsibility with other businesses that he works with and doesn’t want to rely strictly on direct donations. It was interesting. Next we drove into the townships and stopped at a school. The children are currently in the middle of school break so we knew going into the day that we would be seeing just some children doing activities that they don’t normally do when school is in session. So, at this school we walked up as the kids were in the middle of this interesting circle game and so we joined in and were dancing and chanting some word. One of the men in the middle kept stopping at certain points and grabbed two or so people from the outside and gave them some sort of fortune. We asked one of the South African inter-port students that was with us about it afterwards and he told us that they were calling on the ancestors and giving some sort of fortune from what they knew about the person. We figured as much. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay there for too long as the kids were about to go eat lunch so a half hour later we left to get our own lunch. We ate at a place in the townships called Mizoli’s (don’t know how to spell it) that is a really well-known township eatery and a popular hangout. It was an amazing meal with some great meat that I have no idea what animals they were exactly. But excellent. There was a fan bus there to pump people up for the World Cup which would be in South Africa over the summer and some of the people on our trip were taking part in dancing and singing competitions and it was really fun.

Finally, we went to another site in the township area where we would be spending the remainder of our day with the kids helping them prepare for a mini world cup tournament that they will be having soon. So we met them and spent just a little bit of time by these storage buildings before walking through the township over to a big field. The kids were really excited to play soccer and a lot of them immediately went over to play when we got to the field. Others were much more amazed by our cameras and video cameras and spent the next hour or so playing with them. Then there was a group of kids that were playing with the crayons and painting their skin which was really cool. I spent a lot of time playing with kids that were taking pictures and it always amazes me how smart kids can be at figuring out how the camera works so quickly. I got some great pictures from the kids taking them and spent some time with some really, really adorable and happy kids. After some time doing that I went over to where some people were drawing on their skin and there I met my new friend for the afternoon. I was sitting on the ground and he came up behind me and started hanging on my back. For the rest of the afternoon we played some games and took a lot of pictures with him hanging on my back. He became very possessive of me and every time that we would get separated he would come running back. We were playing these circle games with the entire group at the end and my friend got an amazing video of him smiling and laughing while I was jumping up and down in the game with him on my back. It was amazing. It was really hard to leave all of the kids that we met, especially because a bunch of them chased after our bus as it drove away. It was a really amazing afternoon. On the bus back to the ship, one of the men that killed Amy Biehl and that works for the foundation now came on our bus to talk about it. It was really interesting to hear from him and see how he has changed his whole life and now has a family and has truly reconciled with his past.

That night, I joined some of my friends who are big salsa dancers back home at a salsa club in Cape Town. We started out the night taking lessons- so I went to beginner lessons on how to move your feet with a friend while they all went to more advanced lessons on how to actually do some sweet moves. Afterwards we all met up for “social salsa-ing” and they showed off all their skills while I showed that I can now move forward and backwards, attempt to spin, and count in salsa numbers (1,2,3..5,6,7..). It was an awesome night though. After we were done there it was about midnight and since we were on a big bar street we went to walk down it and see if we could find some good bar for a little while. On our way, we passed a big group of men that were clearly in some sort of conflict gathered on the sidewalk so I used my common sense and street smarts and kept walking but my friend stopped to see what was going on because as it turned out there was a girl at the center that it seemed like they were trying to mug but she was being stood up for by a few people who were telling everyone else to get away from her so we grabbed our friend who was our token boy that night (or as the administration likes to say, at least the illusion of a tough man, kind of like having Jason there for scare factor) and kept walking. It was definitely hard to decide whether or not to walk away though- at least at home you can call 911 but the police in SA don’t uphold the same safety standards. We ended up stopping at a food place and I spent some time talking with a friend to a local about how even with Mandela’s efforts, there is still so much to be done in the country to change the racial segregation issues. It was really interesting to hear him talk because he was really frustrated and passionate about it. At that point I was starting to fall asleep at the restaurant and so I headed back to the ship with some friends who were going back.

So, that was day 1 and 2 of Cape Town adventures! More to come later…

South Africa Rundown

Well, as of yesterday there is exactly one month left of the semester. It is crazy that in the past two and a half months I have traveled around Asia and have spent my last two weeks in Africa. Eight countries down, two to go. It is really, really difficult to process.

So, South Africa… not what I expected. We were docked in the waterfront area which is an extremely touristy section of Cape Town with expensive restaurants and shops and basically only tourists walking around. If I took a picture of the mall that was in the center and asked you if it was a mall in Africa or the United States, I can guarantee that you would say the United States. Maybe it would be because there was a Martha’s Vineyard store, maybe not. I think that I had this expectation of arriving in Africa and being hit head on with poverty and remnants of apartheid and a strong African culture, but all of that is subtly evident on the surface of Cape Town. As the five days went on and I interacted with more people and traveled around the area, I discovered where to find what in my head is Africa. South Africa is a complicated country, with a lot of issues still being worked out following the abolishment of apartheid. What I discovered quickly, is that the abolishment of apartheid and the policies the country had in place that segregated blacks, coloreds (some white blood and Muslims), and whites were politically abolished, but not in the minds of the people in South Africa and the way that people still lived their lives. One easy way to tell that there are still segregation issues is by driving around and noticing the housing that people live in. For the most part, whites live in nice housing, many times in gated neighborhoods. Black people tend to live in townships, most of which consists of thousands of shacks on top of one another made out of tin and cloth and cardboard. Colored people live in housing that is somewhere in between the two. Their houses tend to be more structurally intact and stable. Anyway, that’s just a little taste of what I noticed and found interesting and I will definitely be expanding on all of that when I talk about my time there.

Before I spend some time writing out all that I did in Cape Town, here is a summary:

Day 1: Walked around the V & A Waterfront, toured Robben Island, went out to a kosher for Passover restaurant for dinner

Day 2: Amy Biehl Foundation- supports township programs for children, got to eat lunch at a famous township restaurant and help children prepare for a soccer tournament, went to a salsa club at night

Day 3: Table Mountain, Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, hiked Lion’s Head

Day 4: Saw PENGUINS at Boulder Beach, Cape Point/Cape of Good Hope, Simon’s Town, casino

Day 5: Toured some townships with a South African and an American who has lived here for three years (AMAZING)

Surprise! Day 6: Finally left Cape Town, after sitting with it outside the window unable to get off the ship for 20 extra hours due to high winds

More to come soonish…