India: The Adventure Begins

Pulling into India was quite an adventure! We were all pretty exhausted from seven straight days at sea of classes and of course the Sea Olympics, which I will write about eventually! I want to remember the stuff from the countries first! I woke up around 6:30 to see us arrive in Chennai. Unlike the other ports, there was no real grace or beauty about pulling into Chennai, formerly known as Madras. It was incredibly humid and muggy and my camera lens would not defog up on seventh deck. There is an incredible difference between the frigid interior of the ship and the humidity outside! I stood next to Jane Wisner, the woman who ran our shipboard dependent children’s group and someone whom I confided in on the voyage and was a great woman with whom to spend time. She told me some about her experience on her previous voyage that traveled to India and she said it was one of those countries that you will never forget because of all of the vibrant sights, sounds and smells. There was a different feeling up on deck 7 as we pulled into Chennai, however, Because of the actions of some students in Mauritius who trashed the villas they stayed in and did not represent the ship, or the United States well, they gave us a little talking to during pre-port. Beth Hellwig-Olsen, our student life director pleaded with us to continue to be careful, Dean Larry asked to continue to be lifesavers and Dean Mike took on the major role of being the one to say that we all were hurt because of part of the student body’s actions. And…we were warned that India is often the turning point in the voyage. In some ways, it was all fun and games up until India and we had no idea what lay before us in Asia.

Preport the night before also starred our wonderful interport lecturers Sherad and Prujval. Dean Mike did his PhD research with Sherad with California and so they are old friends and can harass each other the way that only old friends can do. They are from Bangalore and along with their two children Ahbimanyu and Ashutosha has thick accents, but even the children can speak four languages. I put on a spelling bee on the way to India as well fo the children and Ahbimanyu decided he wanted to participate and he spelled all of the words correctly! Okay: back track to the spelling bee. It was awesome. Almost all of the parents showed up, and Jeff came to be my sticker man. I took the words for the kids to spell from their own vocab or spelling books and so Sage and Mischa Zimmerman, Maddie and Michael Milner, Sopahn, Hannah Maniates and Ahbimanyu spelled their wy to greatness. There was always an awkward pause as one of the children incorrectly spelled a word while Tela, Sarah, Jeff and I would wait for one of the parents to say: Nice Try or something to that effect. I ended up with 4 kids who spelled every word right which meant that I was buying frozen yogurt or a snack on 7^th deck for all four of them. Maddie and Michael regularly got treats from their shipsister who spoiled them anyways, but the other two were pretty excited. I got keychains for those who missed one word and then everyone got a Semester at Sea temporary tattoo. If you can’t tell already, I really like the kids I had.

Anyways, back to preport. The admin team and some of the faculty and lifelong earners participated in skits for us to teach us about India. Ohhhh Dr. Matt and his preport skits. At one point Sherad played the part of a rickshaw driver and as Dean Mike said: that is the best performance of a rickshaw driver I have ever seen a man with a PhD do! Haha It was pretty great. Dr. Dan, our global studies coordinator, also played a starring role in trying to get to the Taj Hotel. Haha It was good.

So back to pulling in happenings…Brianne, Ashley and I went to eat breakfast around 7:00 and then at 7:20 I headed up to deck 7 again for the Eucharist in Dean Larry’s cabin. This time it was Brenda the nurse and us students. There were only seven of us plus the Singells and the Tutus at the Eucharist. I definitely got teary-eyed again. It was wonderful and Mama Tutu has a wonderful singing voice. I went to my room and relaxed after that until the first round of Indian immigration. I went up when they called the trip CHE01 and had my face to face meeting with them, and we had our passports stamped. T one Chinese student on our ship, Zhimin, was not allowed to get off the boat at all in India. How sad. We were never given an exact reason, but it clearly has to do with the tensions in Asia.

I went to my yoga demonstration for my Mysticism course and began watching the students perform their asanas, which are the positions used in this form of yoga. However, we had to return to the faculty staff lounge to receive our Indian landing cards and customs forms. After about ten minutes we returned to the Union and finished watching them contort themselves into various positions. There was a chance at the end to try it out, and perhaps I should have, but I quickly stepped out. I grabbed lunch with Caitlin, Christina, Liz, Katie, Jen and some others which was nice.

I then went to the Union at my appointed time. As it turned out, Wes, my Internatioal Relations prof and shipdad was the trip leader, which meant quality time with Maddie and Michael too. Wes and Susan kept saying if I didn’t want them to sit with me it was okay and all of that, but I really enjoyed the company of those two kids. Maddie sat with me on the way there and we folded lots of different origami things, took a lot of crazy pictures and played hangman and the square dot game. Before we knew it we were pulling into the driveway of the farm.

We exited the bus and boy was it HOT. We had to walk a little way into the farm because the bus could not pull up far enough to drop us off exactly where we needed to be. We walked past two pretty big bulls with big horns and trying to keep Michael back from them was interesting. Haha We went to the backyard of the house and sat down while the owner of the farm told us all about his operation. I wish I could remember off of the top of my head what it was about, but at one point Maddie shot me the dirtiest look in the world and if looks could kill, it would have. It was some fact that one of us was right about and the other said was wrong, and I was right. I am really going to have to think to remember what it was because it was funny.

We began by eating a lunch prepared by him and his family. It was quite spicy and there were a lot of fried doughy kind of things, but boy oh boy was it good! Liz was on the trip which was nice and then after we ate, there was a demonstration by one of the workers as to how they harvest the coconuts from the trees. He scaled up the tree similar to the way in which our Amazon guide shimmied up the tree. He climbed up with his feet bound together by rope so they could hug the tree more easily and he shimmied up and then cut the coconuts down. Another man on the ground began to cut them open and give us straws with which to drink the coconut milk. I was really excited…this was my first taste of coconut milk and I had heard such fantastic things about the sweetness of it. And I was disappointed. It was warm water consistency nastiness. If I never drink another drop of that stuff, it will be just fine. However, I did get a wonderful picture of me taking a sip of it, so I guess that’s okay haha. We also had Coke and Pepsi in the old fashioned glass bottles which was a nice little throwback.

Then we began our tour of the farm. We started off by going to the coconut tree area of the farn. He described the process he has gone through to make this part of the farm successful. He used to irrigate the area and he had more trees with more fruit, but he has stopped irrigating it and has less trees with less fruit, but he still makes more money because the irrigation system was costly in its upkeep and in the water bills. We all took pictures by the trees and I got an amazing picture of Michael trying to break a coconut open on one of the trees. His face was just so intense and he was trying so hard with no luck. We then visited the eucalyptus area of the farm which smelled pretty good! Michael asked us what eucalyptus was used for and we all paused for a second and responded with “oil.” Haha The owner of the farm set us straight and told us it was used for just about everything, including paper and cooking.

We walked around the farm some more and then loaded the bullock cart to go to the village. We were all looking forward to the village part of the visit, but because we spent so much time on the farm that we did not have as much time to see people in the village. However, one of the highlights of this part of the visit was once again the children. Some people had brought things to pass out and one girl brought little containers of bubbles. She handed one to a boy of around 8 or 9 and he didn’t know how to use it. So, I took it from him and pulled out the wand and blew the bubbles and he was so excited! I then got a great picture of him blowing bubbles at me which was priceless.

I had walked this far into the village and then I hopped onto the bullock cart for the rest of the ride. The bullocks were long horned, big and scary looking and I was glad to be riding on the cart now and not walking in front of them praying they didn’t suddenly get some energy spurt. Plus, it was pretty hot and I enjoyed being a little lazy. Michael sat next to me and so I took it as my own personal duty to make sure he didn’t fall off the cart. One of the best moments of the cart ride was when we made the turn onto a very busy and fast road. We were still a slow slow bullock cart. We had to hurry, as fast as we could, to get all the way over to the left side of the road! Luckily, some of the vehicles slowed down for us to get across, but not many! What a spectacle we were! A bunch of mostly white people riding on the back of a cart in the middle of rural Chennai! Our next destination was the rice field of the farm which was across town. I mean, it was nice to see it and all, but most of us would have rather spent more time in the village than going to the rice field.

We boarded the bullock cart back to the farm and had one final coca-cola in a glass bottle and then began to leave. There was a Hindu temple on the property and so I snuck away from the group for a minute to check it out and take a few pictures. It was very ornate for being on private property and I became more convinced that this farmer was not one who was just trying to make it, but was doing pretty darn well! I got some great pictures of the Shiva linga out front and of the temple exterior. There was a locked fence around the temple, so I was not able to get a glimpse of what the inside was like. I went back to the group and they had already gone off, so I ran to catch up with the group and made it while they were making sure everyone was there.

One of the most heartbreaking moments of my trip until then happened on the bus ride back to the ship. We were stopped in traffic and an elderly women stepped off the sidewalk and came up to our bus and held her hands up to us, just pleading. She would alternate holding her hands up to us an bringing one hand to her mouth indicating she needed food. She was clearly emaciated and simply looked exhausted. It was heart wrenching that I did not have anything to give her and there would have been no way for me to get it to her short of demanding that the bus stop and pull over. What struck me even more is that she had her hands outstretched in the same way we do in church when we receive the bread at the Eucharist: right hand over left. And it just left me sitting there wondering what the hell was going on. When I approach God at the Eucharist I receive spiritual nourishment in the body and blood of Jesus Christ, but here was this woman, just pleading for physical nourishment, and she was not receiving. The image of her is burned into my head and it haunts me. She was the turning point in me realizing that the notion of being out in the world and helping people was not just something I wanted to do, but something I NEED to do.

It was a long day out on this trip, and even though I had a ticket to the Welcome Reception, I decided not to go. I had never skipped a SAS trip before this, but I was exhausted, and running into this woman on the way was something that needed some time for myself before leaving on my marathon Taj and Varanasi trip. I ate dinner with my ship family which was great. They did not adopt any students through the actual shipboard family program, but I got lucky and they adopted me anyways J Susan and Wes are great for conversation and it actually feels like someone gives a damn about me on the trip when I am with them. They ask how I am, what is going on and I feel lucky to be a part of their ship family Even though I originally stayed back from the Welcome Reception to have alone LeeAnne time, Michael and Maddie asked if they could come back to my room for awhile to hang out and I agreed. Along the way we went past the Piano Bar and I immediately gave in to their requests for a little snack. I’m seriously a sucker for them. We went to my room and watched a little bit of Remember the Titans, but Michael got bored and so he played Snood while Maddie and I talked, and then we had this brilliant idea to have a pillow fight…and videotape it. Well, if you have ever spent time with an 11 and 7 year old, you will know that this is a bad idea. So we pillow fought and I ended up with two small children on my back and at that point, it was time for them to go home! I packed for my trip and then went to bed around 10:30. My roommate came back and kept clicking lights on and off and packing and was pretty noisy. At one point when she was in the bathroom for a long time I just got up and turned her light off because I needed to sleep!

Day Two: Travel in India…

Now, our trip left really early in the morning. I woke up at 3:15, packed my last minute stuff and then called home right before I left home at 4. I called down to Gram because I thought Bob and Collene were going to be over and I wanted to talk to Isaac. However, they were there the previous night so no such luck. So…it is a bit hard to get to the Union by 3:30. I really understand. Leaving at 2 am for the Amazon was better than this because there really wasn’t a point to going to bed. So..there we were. Our trip leader was Bob McGowan and our bus leader was Lesley the RD. So, Lesley shows up at 3:30 like the rest of us punctual people to get everything ready and she starts calling roll. Finally, everyone was there, except some guy named Bob. So, she keeps calling and calling his name, until we all finally realized that the person who was not in attendance was the trip leader. Bob finally showed up and it was quite an interesting start to the trip.

We boarded our buses, and I was not really close to a lot of people on this trip, but my friend John from international relations was and so we became bus buddies for the trip. There were actually a ton of us from Wes’s IR class which was fun. We drove to the airport in Chennai and experienced some new things. We had to turn in all of our batteries into our trip leader to put in a checked bag because the Indian airport guidelines are so strict. I could not pry the battery out of my alarm clock, so I just chucked the whole thing in the bag. Haha. We arrived at the airport at the same time as three other Taj trips and so it was a little confusing to try to stay with the correct group while weaving through the airport. I mostly just looked for John because he was so tall. We were all huddled outside looking crazy and they began calling our names to give us our passports and plane tickets. We made our way inside of the airport and almost all of the signs were in Tamil and Hindi so we would have had no clue without our guides.

Workers began to give us tags for our carry on luggage, but they never said whether they were mandatory to have on our bags or not, so a lot of people who already had nametags on their luggage did not grab these. Logically, they weren’t necessary. I grabbed some for my scrapbook, and then I saw one of my friends get all the way to the security people and then have to go all the way to the end of the line to get tags to put on their bags. When I got to the front of the line I became aware of how it worked…Security guards with large rifles would stand at the entrance to the security area and would check to make sure all carry ons had the appropriate tags. Then, men and women would send their bags down the same 4 or 5 xray machines.

Men were permitted to go right through the metal detectors, but women were pulled aside to one single separate line. Not only did this separate us from our bags for an inordinate amount of time, we were taken behind a screen to be wanded and felt up by female security officers. Then, the tickets of females had to be stamped saying we cleared security. During this first time through the wanding, I left relatively unviolated, but more was to come… We would then go retrieve our bags, and luckily some of our guys friends were nice enough to watch our bags as we went through our screening and we would watch bags for the other girls who were still going through. When we finally received our carry on bags, the tags that we were required to attach were not also stamped with something that declared our bags had indeed been through security.

WHEW. It was intense. We had to wait at the gate for a little bit and we bought out the cookie and soda stand. We were then allowed to proceed through the gate. Here at the gate, they once again checked to make sure we had the appropriate tags affixed to our bags. One person’s bag was not stamped through security and so he had to go back to security and have the appropriate tag affixed to his carry on. Our flight to Delhi was uneventful…we ate breakfast on the plane which was a little sketchy, but we all ate it because we were hungry. I slept for a little while, but not very long or well. We had a short wait before our next plane took off for Varanasi. That flight was also uneventful but we had an excellent lunch! It was spicy, but definitely spiced down!

Now…the Varanasi airport is almost beyond words. It was not too bad from the outside, but obviously small. There was a sign on the exterior of the airport saying “Holy City Welcomes You.” We proceeded inside from the tarmac and we saw one baggage claim and an incredibly small space! We boarded our buses which took us to our hotel, the Radisson. Varanasi itself is not a wealthy place and it was incredibly awkward to see this fabulous hotel rising up out of the small buildings around it. However, the hotel lobby had a fountain in the shape of a quatrefoil which was incredibly exciting! It is my sorority’s symbol and it reminded me of how much I missed my sisters at home. We could not go to our rooms immediately because they were not all ready so we proceeded to the restaurant on the pool deck. We all made sure to take our Pepto Bismol, and the meal was once again excellent! Plus we had lots of naan, which was exciting beyond belief. When they announced roommates my name was never called, which may not be a good sign. As it turns out, my assigned roommate had a friend going on the trip and switched, so I ended up with Molly from International Relations and she is fun.

We had a little bit of time to relax and then met in the lobby to depart for Sarnath. As we pulled out on the bus we saw a man with a monkey on a leash and the monkey was playing with a gun. The whole bus laughed and wanted to see it, because it was just such an incredibly odd sight that we couldn’t help but be absolutely curious. Sarnath is where the Buddha gave his first sermon. As soon as we got off of the bus we were swarmed by people trying to sell us things. We made it into the gate but then some of them followed us in, which put a little damper on the fun we had. It was amazing to see the excavation work that has been done and one of the originals stupas had been entirely uncovered. There was also an old Buddhist monastery on the grounds and I got a picture in front of it holding my religion department sign.

While we were there a group of monks, nuns and other practitioners were also there chanting in front of the stupa. I took a few pictures and felt really bad for doing so, until one of the monks reached into his bag mid prayer and slid one of the Malotte boys his video camera to document the occasion! On the way out of this particular location, an older Indian woman saw the people selling goods inside the gate and began chasing after them to get out. We walked just down the road to an archaeological museum. We were not allowed to take any bags or cameras in, so we had to leave them on the bus which was a little unnerving. The museum was full of artifacts found in Sarnath, which was mostly Buddha figures and other symbols. The swastika is prominent in the artwork and one of the Jewish members of our group became indignant and almost a little rude about it. People kept telling Josh that this symbol was around before the Nazis used it, that this one is the other way, but he just didn’t get it. We kind of breezed through the place because there were not many explanations next to the artifacts and many of the exhibits had been sent to China. I could only appreciate so much without more knowledge!

After leaving the museum we visited a Buddhist temple. It had gorgeous paintings on the walls and a beautiful Buddha up front. I died a little on the inside when a girl leaned over and asked me if that was Shiva. Four words: “THANK YOU ELLEN POSMAN.” I just told this girl no. As we left the temple there was the usual crowd of beggars, and we were actually starting to become accustomed to them, which was unsettling. Before we left any building, there was a collective groan about having to go out and maneuver past the people. I never ever want to become complacent about such poverty and have to remind myself every time to not just look past them, but to at least in some way acknowledge our shared humanity. Seeing the children is what breaks my heart. I don’t care if it is just their parents sending them out – it is a horrible situation to be in.

I think this specific experience with the beggars affected me more than any other because a woman actually reached out and touched my arm. While I had that moment of panic before I saw who had lightly grabbed my arm, I turned around and saw a woman who I’m sure looked older than her years. Touch is that direct connection between two people and when you are touched, everything changed. I could no longer ignore or try to push out the suffering of all of them, and specifically her. I still don’t know what I should have done. I didn’t do anything. I smiled at her and squeezed her hand back but then got on the bus. Maybe I should have given her some rupees, maybe I was right in not doing…its all a game of second guessing myself.

We got on the bus and they announced that we would be going directly to the optional shopping trip which was okay with me because I was going to go anyways. After a long and too difficult process, I ended up buying a tie for Ken, a mail holder for Mom and Chris, a wall hanging and pillow case for me and then at the last minute I added this awesome bag. It is patchwork with different colored asterisks and its pretty cool if I do say so myself. The shopping trip lasted much longer than it should have, but we made it back to the hotel in time for dinner. Afterwards a lot of people were going out to the bar, but I just decided to go to bed and so did Molly. We watched Friends and Seinfeld before dinner and then part of Ocean’s Twelve before we went to bed. Hooray for a little familiar television!

Day Three: The reason I came on this voyage

Our wake up call came way too early at 4:30 am! We quickly prepared for our day and were in the lobby for tea at 5:00. The lobby was quite crowded and so many of us were on the floor and just sucking in as much sugar in our tea as possible! Our buses departed at 5:15 and I could not contain my excitement! It was a 30-40 minute drive and the bus let us off about a kilometer from the river, because the roads from there on out could not accommodate the weight and width of the buses. We were dropped off right at the middle of a busy intersection without a stoplight and crazy driving, so that was scary in and of itself.

We walked down the narrow streets past the crowds of people and cows. There were stalls for vendors to sell items, people praying before the altars for gods and everything in between. We were huddled together walking down the street and then suddenly the group split into two on either side of the street because a lovely cow was sauntering down the street, daring someone to try to get in its way. There were once again many homeless people just sleeping on the side of these small dirt streets. I was disgusted with the actions of a few SASers on my trip who were just taking a ton of pictures of these people. On one hand, I don’t think that I took the perfect route. It was just too hard to look at for more than a couple seconds for me, and I think I should have looked just a little longer to really let it sink in. I can’t always shy away from things because they are “just too hard.” On the other hand, these people took it to an absolute extreme of paying too much attention and mocking.

Right down by the river there were people lined up and down the stairs begging for money and food. There were children sleeping right there on the ground and those images are burned into my brain. When people ask me now what affected me the most on the trip, I recall these images in my mind. We navigated around the hawkers and reached the banks of the Ganges River!! This is what I wrote my SAS essay on this was the point of my voyage around the world! Each bus had a boat, so we were packed in pretty tightly at 35 people in each boat. A boy came on board selling little bowls with flowers and a lit candle for a dollar for us to make an offering on the river. It was especially awesome until the muffin cup the wax was in caught on fire! At about that time I blew my fire out and placed by offering on the Ganges River. One girl asked our tour guide the specific reason for placing these in the river, and he replied that it was a way of honoring the holiness of the Ganged. Even amidst the hullabaloo of starting out on the Ganges, it felt great to be participating in something that has gone on for centuries.

We first went to the right when looking at the river and we saw people washing at the banks and many more scattered up and down the ghats. There was a married couple holding hands as they walked in and there were children just swimming about. Sumit, the tour guide, told us that if people are in the river before 10 am it means they are there for the cleansing and if it is after 10 am it means they are just there for a bath. We also saw several illegal acts against the Ganges! You are not supposed to lather up with soap before you get into the river, because it affects the balance of the river…however…the river is the dirtiest one in the world, so the rule makes me laugh a little. Also, you are not supposed to wash your clothes in the river, and we saw that as well.

A “Ganga supermarket came up to us and we bought postcards and beads and he had everything imaginable. Another boat pulled up to us with a TV and a DVD player and a child was selling DVDs of Varanasi. It seemed like a cool souvenir and I can’t resist children, so I purchased one for 200 rupees. Upon returning home, I now know that it does not work in any DVD player, so I was duped for 200 rupees, but in the scheme of things, oh well. We began to go down the river towards the crematorium.

On the way down we saw something rather large bobbing up and down the river. Well, our tour guide told us that it was a body that had risen to the surface from below. This is because some people cannot be cremated. People of the untouchable class may not be cremated, despite the fact that they are one who are responsible for the cremation of others. Prostitutes, Pregnant women and children under the age of 12 must also be sunk to the bottom of the Ganges. They are wrapped in a shroud and then rocks are put into the bottom so that they sink. However, the problem is that the stones often escape and the bodies float to the surface.

We came to the cremation area and it was not what we expected, mostly because no bodies were being cremated. There was a pile of burned ash, which was once a body, and then we saw bodies wrapped in the shrouds and lying on sticks waiting to be cremated. They ask that pictures not be taken at this site, but I will admit to not adhering to this. I only took one picture and was discreet, not that it makes it right, but there you have it. It doesn’t smell bad at all down by the cremation because they use sandalwood. Women are also not allowed to be present down by the cremation mounds. There is a fear that women will commit sati, which is burning themselves on their husband’s fire. It has been outlawed for some time, but the fear of it happening is still there.

We paddled back to shore and they let each of us row who wanted to. I was the first person to ask and it was a little cool because I had my Baldwin-Wallace Rowing shirt on. We saw three white guys at the bank of the river and they jumped in…I’m not sure I would have done that! We also learned that getting three drops of water on you from the Ganges means that you have been cleansed, so I stuck my finger in the Ganges and placed three drops on my hand. See, I’m still alive! As we pulled up to the shore there was a big groan once again because no one wanted to face the hawkers or the poverty again.

Walking to the bus was the one time I actually cried on the streets. These babies were horribly emaciated and tiny. They were smaller than baby dolls and certainly much thinner. There was just no question about the fact that they are not getting enough to eat. These mothers and older siblings followed us the whole way from the river. One person tried to get me to take the baby from her. I reached the bus and took my seat, but then they stood outside of our bus windows. I didn’t want to look, but I didn’t want to be a jerky American and close the window blinds on them. These hawkers kept telling our trip leader, Bob, that he looked like Michael Jackson and then called him pops. Haha It was the one funny part about the hawkers at this point. For the rest of the trip, we would call him Michael and pops.

We departed from there to visit the Mother India Temple, which wasn’t really temple like. It was a map of India on the ground and a large picture of Gandhi, but other than that, fairly unimpressive or worth the stop. We returned the hotel immediately after that which was a very good thing because I had to use the restroom and I was really trying to avoid using the squatty potty. We had an excellent breakfast that included real egg omelets!! The other was decent, but having real eggs was a treat for us, because the ship has fake eggs. After the meal there was another optional shopping trip, but most people just went out into Varanasi on their own. I, however, just chose to sleep, because I was going to be miserable the rest of the day if I didn’t. I slept until Molly came back to the room with her purchases. We finished packing all of our stuff and headed down to the lobby. I bought some stamps and then we boarded the buses to the airport.

Once we arrived at the airport two girls on our trip remembered that they left their passports in the safe deposit box at the hotel. Seriously? They tell you over and over again before we leave any location to make sure you have that stuff, so it was just a poor mistake. People from our tour guide company went back to the hotel to get them, but luckily we had a long time before our flight. The other group doing the same trip we were doing, but in reverse order, were arriving at the airport when we were leaving, so we got to say hi to them which was fun.

We proceeded to enter the airport and then walked up a flight of stairs to a restaurant. Well, I should use the word restaurant loosely. Haha It was like a diner in the states, but take away air conditioning and add in a lot of small flies and bugs. The food was excellent though, albeit quite spicy and hot. We had to pay for our cokes, which once again came in old glass bottles, and cost way too much, but it was hot. We were up there for quite a while, but then it came time to head through security for our flight. Once again the women had to go through a separate line to be searched, and this women was a little more thorough that the security officer in Chennai. I really don’t like being felt up by strangers. Haha Then we had to wait for a pretty long time to board our plane, during which time I wrote in my journal and slept…Delhi was next!

early morning on the Ganges River...

more soon Auntie Anna!

Mauritius continued...

Once again we boarded our buses to head to the Chinese pagoda. At this point we were simply exhausted already and quite hungry. However, we had two more stops to go before lunch. The Chinese pagoda was rather small and was decorated on the exterior with Chinese characters and red paint. The interior was overwhelmingly filled with gold products and gold leaf. One woman was inside doing her devotions and we created quite a commotion. I felt bad because this woman did not know that a group of 40 SAS people were going to be tromping through during her prayers. HOWEVER, the side of me that loves to see religion in action was incredibly excited to watch the woman and observe her as she moved from altar to altar.

The main altar was set up with a table up front on which candles and incense holders were set and behind the table was an area for statues. This entire pagoda was not very big, so there was not much room from the table to the area with the statues. At one point during the woman’s prayers she circled around the table 3 times while talking quietly, so at some point I would like to find out more about why she circled the table. On the left side was another altar which was a miniature version of the central altar with different figured behind the candle and incense table. Near the entrance on this same left side were what looked like mini tombstones with Chinese writing on them. I have no idea what they actually represent, so there’s something else I should look into! Near the right side entrance there was a bright red gong which the woman rang before she left the pagoda. This right side altar was much more vibrant than the other two. There was bright yellow and green paint and an altar which had more bright gold Chinese characters. As we exited the pagoda, there was the cutest little dog on the front steps and so of course most of us avoided the warnings of Dr. Matt and we petted it a little bit. Rabies here we come.

Our final stop before lunch was on the top of a mountain that looked down over all of Port Louis. From up top we could view the pagoda, the mosque and just the beautiful sights of Mauritius. The water was bright cerulean, the sky was the clearest baby blue and there was another mountain across the city from where we were. That mountain was lush and green and had these great natural terraced rock steps up to the peak that we could see with our zoom lenses!

I do not remember the name of the restaurant at which we dined for lunch, but it was this great open air restaurant with a rustic feeling. It was set back in the woods and we had this great rice and chicken meal. Jon, the editor for our voyage DVD, was with us and was the lone vegetarian at our table and got the same meal we received, just without the chicken and less rice! It was a little spicy, but boy oh boy was it good! We quickly finished our meal and then we headed to the river we had heard running during our meal. There was a little waterfall, and we had to cross a little wooden bridge to get to the prettiest part. HOWEVER, we quickly remembered the downfall of natural beauty when we were absolutely covered in mosquito bites that began to itch immediately!

We visited an enormous home quite near this restaurant that was home to some rich Europeans. It was beautiful and it was old and contained many antiques, but I was slightly bored. I know this was something important to the history of Mauritius, but I just didn’t care much. Call me cultureless. Haha We then drove to our final stop of the official tour which was an Indian Cultural Center. We first walked through a museum which described the first Indian settlers to Mauritius and the second floor contained a photo gallery of Hindu religious festivals and I became incredibly excited when I saw a picture of Holi, which is a festival where lots of powders of colors are thrown in the air and all over! To be honest, I do not remember what the festival is for, but it just seems so exciting and festive!

After walking through the museum we sat outside at some picnic tables because we were just tired! It had been a long day of simply walking around a lot of places, and anyone who has been on a bus tour before can attest to how tiring it can be! Another little animal graced our presence at the picnic tables: a little cat! One again, we ignored Dr. Matt and enjoyed playing before we were shipped over to the performance center to view some Indian dances. We were shown three different varieties of dances by instructors and students of the cultural center. Afterwards several of us were interested in going to the Eucharist that Desmond Tutu was preaching and celebrating back in downtown Port Louis at St. James Cathedral. There were 5 students and 5 adults who wanted to go, so we commandeered one of the three minibuses that had provided our transportation throughout the day!

Kate and Giles Wayland-Smith, Lois and Mark Helland and Arnie the ship shrink and five of us headed back into town and just made it to have seats in the back of the cathedral! There was massive media coverage and people were quite dressed up for this affair! I sat next to two girls from Mauritius named Zohra and Azraa. They were 13 year twins from Port Louis. They were born in India, lives in England and now reside in Mauritius. They are actually Muslim, but their father wanted them to hear from Desmond Tutu, and so he brought them. Zohra and Azraa and I talked the whole time before the service and then before they left, we exchanged email addresses! I never thought I would meet a pair of cool teenagers when I wanted to go to Desmond’s service!

The Archbishop of the Province of the Indian Ocean was there as well as several other bishops of the region and other religious leaders from the Island. The Archbishop of the Indian Ocean was awesome and he was really funny. He made a joke about when he goes to Lambeth Conference in England with all of the other bishops of the Anglican Communion, he gets to say that he has a whole ocean to himself, which no other bishop can say! While everyone else wondered what Lambeth was, I giggled quite a bit. Haha The only downfall about having Desmond Tutu on our ship is that we have heard all of his stories 3 times over and I heard many of the same ones again at the service. Nonetheless, it was an amazing experience! He danced out during the processional which was fun, and it reminded me of back in the day when Bishop Grew would dance out of convention Eucharists.

After the service we all decided to go out for dinner since we had not yet eaten after the craziness of our day and it was approaching 9 o’clock. I had missed meeting up with my friends to go out to dinner, so I was glad to be able to still go out and eat some food. We finally settled on an Indian restaurant called Namaste. I had the same dish we had had earlier in the day for lunch, but I still can’t remember the name of it for the life of me! It was good company and good conversation and enjoyable. Halfway through the meal, some of my friends appeared from the next room to use the restroom and it turns out they had come to the same restaurant to eat dinner! How funny. They finished before we did, so I decided to stay with my dinner party and eat my wonderful naan! After we finished our meal, we walked back to the ship through the mall area and saw our crazy crew and students drinking at the bars. I almost stayed out when I saw my friends, but I was just tired and decided to be a party pooper! I relaxed, got some froyo and went to sleep! Oh and I contacted Elise and Jen and decided to spend the next day with them!

Day Three: Seeing the Island with a Random Taxi Driver!

Bryan, Jen, Elise and I were scheduled to go around the island with this taxi driver that the three of them had met the first day in port and had arranged for him to meet them again on our last day. Bryan ultimately decided not to go, but we still had quite the day full of random adventures! Our first stop was a scenic overlook of a volcanic crater site that was now a lake and of the beautiful view all over. There were a ton of SAS kids with personal drivers too who we would continue to see the whole day through. After this we continued our drive to the waterfall, but we stopped at the biggest statue of Shiva that I have ever seen. It was simply enormous. I have a picture of me standing beneath it which truly shows its height.

Our next stop was a Hindu temple on the shore of a lake on the island. There was a series of steps leading down to the lake where there were several altars in the water, where people hiked up their clothing in order to wade in and present their offerings and prayers. There were also a lot of monkeys simply roaming free around the area which was both and scary when they were bare their teeth. At the entrance to the interior of the temple was a Shiva linga which was a popular altar that had people lining up to pray. We began to walk inside and forgot to remove our shoes so someone promptly reminded us. There were people performing pujas all over the interior, even though it was quite small. One man was placing the dot on everyone’s forehead and Jen and Elise went and got one. I went back and forth and I ultimately decided to not receive one. Most of the tourists were not doing it and I did not know if it was disrespectful or not to do so, so I just opted not to. We also saw some of the cutest little kitty cats as we walked back up the steps to our cab and we resisted the temptation of playing with them, for once heeding Dr. Matt’s advice.

We then went to this amazing waterfall site, Alexandra Falls, which people on the ship had been raving about. We had to walk along this long path and we first found a little waterfall-ish area, and almost stopped, but we decided that there was no way people were in love with this little waterfall, no matter how beautiful it was! We continued down this path, and we passed a bunch of native Mauritians who were dressed 80s style and carried this great boombox with them. Haha it was like the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air or something! We finally found the waterfall and my oh my was it pretty! It was a fairly long drop even though the volume did not seem to be enormous. It was just surrounded by forest. We were on the opposite side of the valley, and so it gave us this great overlook to the forested valley below and the entire length of the waterfall. This cute couple speaking French took pictures of us on the overlook and we took pictures of them….they looked pretty touristy, so I don’t think they were from Mauritius, and we spoke in broken English and broken French to each other trying to be gracious and friendly. Haha

Our driver then took us to the over side of the valley which was the side the waterfall was on. It was much more touristy, but still pretty fabulous. There a lot more monkeys and people would give the monkeys what was left of their pineapples. The monkeys became pretty fierce and we stepped back quite a few times when they started growling. Monkeys are not nice animals…don’t trust the curious george writer!

To end the day we stopped at a bank to get money to pay our drive, who did not give us a set price. He just said, pay me whatever you think the day was worth. He really was a wonderful driver and took us to all of the places we want to see, so we each gave him about twenty dollars worth of rupees. And Jen says I must not forget to say that I fell asleep on the way home in the cab. Haha I got one final picture of the Mauritius Molasses Company drum that was by our ship and made the air smell so sweet. After that I stayed on the ship and caught up with friends and then we departed the wonderful world of Mauritius after locating several of our shipmates! Au revoir, Mauritius!

So Mauritius, So Delicious

Day One: What the hell is there to do here?

I did not wake up early in the morning to view arrival into this port because….we didn’t pull into the port until later in the day! We were scheduled to arrive at our usual 0800, but the previous night we were warned that we might not pull into port until close to 1600. However, we arrived at a happy medium of 1200 but all of the field office activities for the day were cancelled and refunded. When we disembarked the ship, our first task was to find where the water taxis were located to take us over to the main part of Port Louis. We were told at pre-port that it was a fairly long walk into town from where we were ported, so the water taxi was the way to go.

We headed to the right off of the gangway and walked for a few minutes and thought it was going no where, so we headed back toward the ship, only to be herded again in the direction we were originally headed! The water taxis were the ricketiest little motor boats ever…you had to jump over about a foot and a half of open water in order to get to the steps that led you down to the dock where the water taxis were waiting. We had to pay $1 each to make the 5 minute trip across the water and we were let off right at the front of this shopping mall. There was everything from restaurants to Burberry stores and other designer labels. It was as if we stepped off into a designer outlet mall. I started off the day with Jen, Elise and Bryan and we just started wandering around. The goal of most people staying in Port Louis the first day was to find some markets! We saw the post office when we first came out of the mall and then it was just a wide expanse of city! We did not have a map so we just started walking! We found a market that was all food and vegetables on the first floor…it was really exciting because the part we were in was mostly where local people were buying their produce and hanging out and talking. We wanted to find a travel agency to see about a villa or just hiring a driver for the day, and we ran into Jeff, Brianne, Ashley, Cristie, Janet, Jika, Brad and Brandon. (haha or I think Brandon was there now that I am looking back!)

I split off with the bigger group and we wandered our way through the back streets of Port Louis. We found some other really great small little markets and they were all little local ones for the neighborhoods we were in. We stopped by a travel agency again so Brad could try to arrange travel, but it ended up not working out. We walked back toward the ship and stopped at a restaurant right by the mall to get some drinks. I was going to try one of the local beers, but I decided to get a chocolate milkshake instead. Haha typical me. I tried some of the beers my friends ordered and they were okay…I mean, I hate beer, so they were palatable. We took the water taxi back to the ship and ate dinner on the ship. I decided not to go out on the town because I didn’t want to be exhausted after Mauritius. I stayed on the ship and went to the 7^th deck with Bryan and we talked a little bit about life on the ship and then I just went back to my room to read and to sleep.

Day Two: It’s a good thing I like learning about religion…

This day was spent on a Semester at Sea Field Program called “Rainbow Culture and Religion.” Mauritius is one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse countries in the world. We began our day at a Tamil temple. The tour guide just simply kept saying Tamil temple and not mentioning that Tamil was Hindu. I was lucky and saw several of the statues and knew we were at a Hindu temple, but many people were confused as to what sort of religious place we were visiting. It is called a Tamil temple because the people who began and still worship at the temple were from the Tamil Nadu region of India. The port city of Chennai is in Tamil Nadu. Tamil is also a language. In many ways, it seems as thought Tamil is really a distinct culture among Indian traditions.

The temple from our vantage point at the entrance consisted of a long red walkway with golden poles on either side down the aisle. There was an entryhouse type of building which was decorated with many circular paintings and a few statues of gods and the same red aisle in the middle. Before we entered into this building we were required to remove our shoes, and we left them outside of the gate that guarded the building. There was an absolute life giving force that was exuded from the paintings and decorations and we were not even looking at the main temple yet! The top of this initial structure was covered with carvings of the different Hindu deities They love Ganesh in Mauritius, and Ganesh is the elephant headed god. He’s pretty fabulous looking.

We circumnavigated the temple and took the opportunity to stop at the shrines to the various gods around the temple structure. I recognized many of my American Religious Pluralism course with Ellen at BW and so that was nice. Our tour guide was friendly enough but not very informative. It felt nice that I could explain the very little that I knew. I was very excited to point out Lakshmi and I don’t really remember why. Haha There was a school group there and they were being shown around the grounds by their teachers, but they were speaking Creole, so I couldn’t gain any extra information from listening into them. One must be a Hindu to enter the main temple, so we could only peer in from the outside. Like the first building we saw, it was colorful and out side posted on the wall, I found what I think might be the name of the temple, but the rest of the writing was in Tamil, so this is what I think the name is: Hindu Maha Jana Sangam. We walked around a little more, but then boarded the bus to head to our next location.

We arrived at a Roman Catholic Church. We were not told the name of the church and I could not find the name anywhere. I am still hunting through other blogs to see if anyone else found the name. There was a service in progress while we were there, so that made it slightly awkward to be the Americans in the back gawking and taking photographs. They were singing some hymns in French and I believe another was in Creole so I took some video hoping that would be better than the flash on my camera and I really wanted to get some of the chanting! It was a beautiful church. I am not an expert on religious structures, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t gothic. Haha And then before we knew it, out buses were leaving and that was it. Haha

Our next stop was a Muslim Cultural Center. We were told we were going to be visiting a mosque and many of us were a little disappointed when the only spaces for prayer in the whole place were a room for men and a room for women. These rooms were just off of the main lobby and had green carpets and prayer rugs in the corners. The room for men was much larger than the room for women and the room for the men had a fan. It’s so bad, but one of the girls on the trip kept saying she was going to move the fan into the room for women!

After waiting for half an hour for our tour, we were taken up to this incredible air conditioned room. Yes, that is what I remember first, because we were sweating our butts off! We viewed a short film about the history of Muslims in Mauritius and of the center we were currently visiting. After the film he took a few questions. A lot of the questions were about Islam in general because we had not discussed it much on the ship yet. Once again American Religious Pluralism had given me enough background to know what the heck I was seeing and hearing. After the film our guide took us to the library on the top level of the cultural center. There was an amazing view overlooking Port Louis. There were many beautiful copies of the Koran and several volumes of other books that created beautiful golden phrases in Arabic when placed together in order. There was also a section with modern magazines for Muslim teenagers. It was interesting to go through and read some of the Muslim “Dear Abby” sections and see what this organization was recommending to the readers. There were three different magazines that fell into this category if I remember correctly and they were three distinct viewpoints. One was very hardline and would probably fall into Islamic fundamentalism, one was middle of road, and one seemed nearly secular. We were led back downstairs and given juice boxes before we left. Guava juice boxes are not so hot. Just trust me on this. Okay…I’ll finish Mauritius soon, so this should tide my family over so they leave me the hell alone! I am working 40 hour weeks, taking 9 credits and babysitting 10 hours a week, so I am a little busy to update!!

It's my 21st birthday!!! I began celebrating at 5 pm on ship time on the 4th because that is when it became the 5th at home, and I am celebrating until it it midnight on the ship! I am maximizing my birthday potential!

People have been wonderful - My ship granny bought me an ice cream cake, and a teddy bear and my granny family signed a card and then I got cards from other people and then the Milner's bought me lots of cookies for our family dinner.

I am so lucky to have my two families on ship and the friends who decorated my door and gave me cards...I probably would have gone crazy without the Milners and the friends this semester...Mom - basically Susan Milner is the woman to thank for my sanity this semester :) haha

We have our last global studies test tomorrow, and I am done studying. I have my 60% attendance, and I know the map, so that gives me an 84% automatically and I am just DONE! Two tests and my academic portion of SAS is done.

Talk to you all soon!
I can't wait to meet you Blog Mom! Sorry I have not been the best poster on the trip! Hopefully I'll get you reading after I start posting from home!!

hey from tokyo...I have been keeping great notes at the end of the every day since I last updated the blog, so I will begin the massive updates after arriving home AND visiting my little in Chicago.

Tokyo has been great, but expensive...gram - I saw some baseball games!

I'm getting my flight info from mom (aka mom, send it to me) ad Ill post it before Hawaii so you know...if you want to see me asap at the airport you can ;) haha

love and OHAYO gosaimas! I loved hearing my state all over japan!

sugarshoez (08:51:28 pm): or what about updating at least to say, there is so much to say and i'll have to do it when i get home

so thats the scoop...I admire those who have continued to update, but I can't right now.

So hello from a beijing internet cafe!

Day Four: Departure from Kruger

I didn’t sleep very well last night and neither did anyone else. At one point Matt just got up and went outside. Everytime he opened and closed the door the cigar smoke from his cigar earlier wafted in. At one point I sat up and I couldn’t really see out of my right eye. I could see the light from the window with my left eye, but only a grey haze with my right. I put my glasses on to see if it would make a difference and I still couldn’t see well with my right. I turned on the lights and could see, but as soon as the lights were off again, the right eye went hazy again. It is weird and freaking me out just a little. I fell asleep pretty soon after though, but it wasn’t a fitful sleep.

We again woke up at 5:00 am for our morning safari. We were a little late getting down to the camp from our bungalows, so we rushed through tea and biscuits, and everyone else was already gone in their safari vehicles. We went with Sibongylie and Elton again and it was just the four of us late bungalow arrivals. One of the very first things we saw this morning was a lion! It was pretty far back in the bushes and could really only see it when it moved, but for a few minutes it walked straight out in a clearing and it was beautiful. I was simply stunned and just watched it and watched it walk back into the bushes. It had the mane around its face and the hair was the color of caramel. The fur kind of blew back as it walked and it is just so hard to describe the awe I felt at seeing it. To put my awe in perspective for those of you that know me…I didn’t even take a picture. It was kind of nice though…I know I certainly judge many things on this trip based on how nice of a picture it would be, and for once, I wasn’t worried at all about how a photograph would turn out.

We sat around for awhile talking and writing as we waited for our transport to the airport. Our van didn’t come until 12:30 and our flight was leaving at 6 from the JoBurg airport. We had to drop an Australian woman off at the airport and then we went to the Siyabona offices once again for lunch. We were rejoined by Blake, Victor, Jayme and Catie and the couple from Boston. After we filled out evaluation forms and ate, we were on our way to JoBurg.

The ride was long and boring…we stopped at a store and all got loads of food for the rest of the way, and at that point it became incredibly obvious that we were going to miss our flight. It was just too late and there was no way we were going to make it. Everyone else in my little group was fine with if we missed our flight, because if they charged extra, they could afford to pay for a flight change, but I am kind of doing this trip on a budget and couldn’t.

A really scarring part of the trip came when we happened upon an accident. There were ambulances all over and police cars and when we went by we saw a lot of blood. I am incredibly sensitive to violence…I can’t watch movies with violence, and I have good friends that tell me when to look away in most movies. It just gives me nightmares. There was one body on a gurney being lifted into the ambulance, and then another body laying on the ground. They were pulling up a sheet on that body and I was on the opposite side of the van from where the accident was and so I asked if he was dead. I guess I knew the answer, because my eyes were prickling with tears as I asked, but one of the guys in the back of my van answered yes. I’ve never been around a dying person at the time of death or a recently perished body, so this was a crazy thing.

We arrived at the JoBurg airport 15 minutes after our plane took off…I was so nervous so Regina handled talking to the airport agents, and we were able to get on the 1900 flight. We just made it to the tram before it left for the plane and we got on our plane! Another SAS group was on the plane to Cape Town including Elise, Bryan, Ashley and Cristie. I went and sat with Elise and Bryan, and then Cristie told us that liquor was free on the plane. So, we each got a drink and then a glass of wine with dinner. Part of it is nice because it’s just socially acceptable. We can get a drink and not have it be completely taboo just because we are 2 months under 21 or whatever nonsense.

When we arrived back in Cape Town we all piled into taxis and then headed back to the ship. I was in a taxi of about 15 people and at one point “A Whole New World” from Aladdin came on, and we all burst into song…it was great. I captured the impromptu sing a long on video. The poor taxi driver kept yelling at us to shut up…maybe we should have listened but we were all so excited to get back to the ship!

A bunch of people were heading out, but as soon as I got back to my room and saw my mail, my initial idea of staying in seemed even better! And…I had a note saying I had a package!!! I ran upstairs to the Purser’s Desk and claimed my package: it was from St. Luke’s!!! I had letters from Addie and Helen, Heather, Lori and many of the youth group kids!!! They were all asking me questions, so I soon have to respond to them. I also had things from all the people mentioned in the two previous posts…Lyss and Kristen sent me articles from the campus newspaper, pictures, and crazy letters…Gayle sent me her sermon..oy vey! Basically…all of my mail is on my wall…I feel kind of bad because my roommate doesn’t get much mail and mine is all over, but it just reminds me of home. In any case..that was the end of the return to Cape Town!

Day Five: Khayelitsha and Camps Bay

We gathered at 8:15 in the morning and headed out to Khayelitsha Township. It is one of the newer townships, being created in the 1970s because they were running out of space in the other townships. The first place we went to was the Information Center which also doubles as a national athletic center. It was built when Cape Town was vying for the 2004 Olympic games. There is a quote above the entrance from Danny Glover that reads in part, “ [Khayelitsha] helps us understand and appreciate our collective humanity.” And I would find that to be true as I went through my day in Khayelitsha.

Our next stop was Vicky’s B & B…Vicky got sick of people always coming through the townships but never spending time there so she converted part of her home into a bed and breakfast. It is beautiful and quite remarkable. One of her neighbors was selling things he and is community had made and they had this beautiful table-like thing. The base looks like three pieces of wood interwoven, but in truth it is carved from one piece of wood to receive the desired effect. Then, a bowl rests in the grooves on top and will make an awesome little decoration in my room next year.
For awhile we went to Masakhenifox EduCare Centre, where the motto on the sign is, “We will build and brighten this nation!” This was my first interaction with the children of the township. We taught them how to do high-fives and then they sang and danced for us. I have a lot of it on video, but then I just put the damn camera down and sang and danced along with them, and that is so much more rewarding. I did tape one particular song called, “Telephone to Jesus Every Day” and I want to teach it to the little kids back home. I taught them how to make the monkey face too..ahaha spreading it around the world. At one point I was taking a picture and trying to get one girl to smile and so then I put two of my fingers at the corners of my mouth as an example…well they thought this was how I wanted the picture so I have some of them smiling with their fingers in the picture too!!

The next place we went was the Philani Centre. It is a place that distributes information about nutrition to families and also employs women to do weaving. They make beautiful tapestries and bags and I bought one of their smaller bags. I shouldn’t have spent more money, but I look around me at the township, and if I was going to buy one more souvenir in South Africa, I would rather it be from them than one of the touristy markets. We wandered into another school and they sang for us, and then Jenna and I taught them the hokey pokey! Dr. Steffel kept getting so mad at us, as our trip leader, because we would never leave the kids.

Finally, we went to the Khayletisha Market..I only had ten rand left, which made not buying anything easy, but there was a great marimba band playing and I gave them my last rand because they were excellent. There was also a school and church across the street and we were allowed to go over there for their recess time. At all of these places, these kids just want to see what they look like on the camera…at this particular school, they were obsessed with my sunglasses too, so they all got pictures wearing my sunglasses! There was one girl who just curled up in my lap for most of the time too…it is simply incredible to hang out with these kids. When it came time to leave, one kid tried to grab my camera and the tour guide came over and strictly reprimanded him, but that was the only encounter I have had this far, and I could have taken the little 4th grder down ;)

To end the day we went to Kopanong B and B and met a women with a very similar story to Vicky from the other B and B. I cannot for the life of me remember this woman’s name. She was given a grant to study entrepreneurship at Pitt back in the 90s and then came home, turned her home into a B and B, and then has helped other women do the same and employs women from her community. It was wonderful. We had great food too! Fried dough balls and little meat pockets…we all chowed down! One of her workers showed up around the neighborhood…we saw sheep’s being cooked and cleaned, which is a South African delicacy apparently. We were invited into a man’s house where he had homemade township liquor and some of the brave guys drank some. I chose to sit in the corner and play with a little boy who couldn’t have been older than about 18 months. So cute.

We came back to the ship and the goal at that point was a picnic on Table Mountain…well, it was way too windy to go up the mountain, so Aja, Elise and I took a cab to Camps Bay which is in the resort area of Cape Town, but the beach is beautiful. We brought some food with us to eat on the beach, but didn’t get very far because the wind was blowing so hard that the sand was hurting us. We ended up going to a restaurant and getting an appetizer of fried camembert and some drinks and watched the sun set. The camembert was amazing and we had some champagne cocktails that were delightful. It was absolutely amazing to see the sun go down over the ocean! Stunning is one of the only words that would do Camp’s Bay justice. I ended up staying in and sleeping the rest of the night because I had another FDP the next morning.

Day Six: Amy Biehl and Out on the Town!

Amy Biehl was a young American who went to work against apartheid in South Africa after she graduated from college. In 1994 she went to a township with some of her friends and they were caught up in a rally. She ended up dying because she was stoned to death by the people who were protesting the oppressive government. Her family was the first to go through the Truth And Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, led by Desmond Tutu, and her parents ended up forgiving the people who were accused of murdering her. As a result, they began the Amy Biehl Foundation which provides in school and after school programs in township schools. Two of the men who took part in Amy’s death now work for the foundation, and one of them, Tobeko, was our tour guide for the day. Talk about a unique perspective to have from a tour guide. Our trip leader for the day was Jane Wisney. Jane is the wife of the Assistant Dean and runs the dependent student program, where I work with the children of the faculty and staff. I always get in trouble when helping the students because I laugh so much and sometimes get the kids in trouble, and before we even left on the bus she said to me, “I have my eyes on you LeeAnne! I am going to turn around and see you getting the township children in trouble!”

The first place we went was John Pama Primary School. We first saw the garden that they have in the back of the school. Parents without jobs will come and tend the garden and the kids, during free time, go to the garden and pick up the trash. We arrived just before lunch time, so when we went into the classrooms they were preparing to go to the shed in front of the school, where lunch is prepared by neighborhood women, and sponsored by the Amy Biehl Foundation. In our first classroom they sang us a song in English, and then we had a few minutes to play with the children, and then we were herded to the next classroom. When they began to sing the same song, I snuck outside where other children were eating their lunch. They had rice with a chicken stew over top and they were all eating it up, so it must have been good. All the kids wanted to do was share their lunch. We would point to their bowl and make a thumbs up or thumbs down with a questioning face, and they would smile and give a thumbs up and try to give us some. It was simply awesome, that they wanted to share their food, when Tobeko said it was probably the best meal they would have all day.

We left that school and headed for the next school which none us can remember the name of. We have a ton of pictures of the kids from there and none of know the name! We all keep saying, “Yeah, the school with the red uniforms…” I am going to talk to Jane, the trip leader, and see if she has it. There was a vendor on school grounds selling chicken feet, which is something the kids like. At first we were kind of surprised to see someone there selling them, but we have vending machines all over schools and our college campuses, so it is just another vendor in a sense. One of the girls on our trip, Jenny, told the vendor she would buy as many chicken feet as the kids wanted, so they lined up and each got a chicken foot. Even after 35 kids got them, she still only paid ten rand, which is just over a dollar.

Our next stop was another bed and breakfast. This one was at the outskirts of a township, and pretty darn close to being a suburb. It was an amazing meal and it only cost us 85 rand, which is just over ten dollars. We had this amazing beef stew, rice, a bean and apple salad (which we expected to be gross, but was actually pretty good!), chicken, rice…It was everything wonderful! This B & B was close to the township, Gugulethu, and we drove by the Gugulethu Seven memorial after we left lunch. There were a series of incidents in the 80s and 90s which resulted in the particularly violent deaths of seven people in the township. I believe they were all men, but I could be wrong. We also stopped by the site of Amy Biehl’s murder. It is just outside of a gas station now. There is still the steel gate standing in the air that was there when she died, and there is a cross in front of it as a memorial. If it had not been pointed out to us, it was something we simply would have just driven by.

After this stop we went to Qinqa Mntwana school. Those Q’s are some of the clicks of the Xhosa language, and so it was impossible for us Americans to say the name of the school properly. We sure did try in vain! At this school our entire time was spent watching the after school programs put on by the Amy Biehl Foundation. The first classroom we entered was where students were learning how to play recorder. The first song they played for us was “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic! I mean, I barely got past Hot Cross Buns in 3rd grade! These kids were incredible! We also saw kids learning how to play trumpet from an older man wearing a beret, and others learning how to sing opera music properly…you music ed kids at BW would have simply been in your own personal heaven watching these kids!

We saw a modern dance class practicing and a realistic moment came when suddenly the music turned off because the power went out at the school. Apparently this is a pretty frequent thing, and it didn’t faze any of the people from the school. The kids just kept on dancing and moving. Some of these kids were good, and would give some American reality show contestants a run for their money! A different group also performed a series of native African dances and were again simply spectacular. I have so many pictures and videos and you are all just going to have to see it to believe it!

The final school we visited for the day was Nomlinganiselo Primary School. This school has a putting green in the front and side yards for the children to learn how to play golf and these kids love it! We had a girl in our group who plays golf for her college team, so she had a lot of fun playing with them for the short time we had. The first classroom we visited was full of high school students learning about HIV/AIDS. The SAS students sat down next to the high school students and we began to talk with them. This was one of their first meetings and they were writing letters about why they were there are at the program. I sat next to an 18 year old named Bulelwa. I asked if I could read his letter, and from there on out, Bulelwa’s name and face will always be in my mind. Both of his birth parents died from AIDS when he was in primary school, and now his adopted parents and adopted sister have all been diagnosed with HIV. Bulelwa said he was at the program because he wanted to learn how to take care of them. My heart cracked as I read that. I looked up at him after I read the letter, and he said, “It’s okay. I’m going to change the world.” He broke my heart and then mended it a little in a period of 20 minutes. We also sat in on more recorder and dance classes and I have plenty of those pictures too!

We arrived back at around 5:30, and then Elise, Jeff, Jen, Bryan, Anna and I went to dinner. We tried to go to the African Café, but they were booked, so we walked across a few streets to Marco’s African Café. It was amazing! I had a plate of fries (or CHIPS!) and filets of kudu, ostrich, and springbok. It was in a great sauce and was simply awesome! I think kudu was my favorite.

After dinner we went out to a bar at the mall and we had a great South African beer called Savanna Dry. On our way back to the boat around ten we had to go past the tequila restaurant where all of the SAS kids were getting fishbowls. Fishbowls are enormous bowls filled with juice and liquor, and between 6 and 10 people share them. Some people were only sharing them between two people, and I don’t know how they lasted the night. Sharing with about 10 people still gave me a little buzz, but nothing bad. I went back to the ship pretty early because I had an FDP the next day, and it was to the winelands!

Day Seven: Winelands

Well, this was quite the day in the winelands! I woke up, had breakfast, and then we climbed into our busses outside of the ship! Our first stop was the factory of J.C. Le Roux and they make sparkling wine. They cannot call it champagne because only sparkling wine made in France can be called champagne. We had a tour of the factory and then we sat down to sample some of the wine. It was good for the most part. I enjoyed the first ones we had much better than the fruitier sweeter ones at the end. After the first two, we went outside and our guide did the thing with the sword where you run it up the seam and then it pops the top off…it was awesome! The champagne started bubbling out and we all put our cups underneath. The lifelong learners with us were simply hilarious!

We next went to lunch at the Goatshed Restaurant. We had this absolutely amazing quiche. It was so incredibly cheesy and had mushrooms and some vegetables. This same stop had Fairview wine and cheese, so we had wine tasting, and I wasn’t really a huge fan. I had 4 glasses, when we had the opportunity for 6, but since I dumped out most of the first three, I decided to simply move on to the cheese. Alyssa: you would have been in heaven here! We had some amazing Camembert and this great goat cheese with peppadew, whatever that is. I ended up buying some of the goat cheese stuff because it was so excellent.

Our final stop was at a brandy factory, and I am now fully aware that I hate brandy. However, I did eat the chocolates that came with the brandy. Haaha we headed back to the ship and then I went grocery shopping and that was it. We did not pull out of port that night because of the wind: it was not safe for the pilot to get us out of there. We had to bunker over night for fuel anyways, so it was okay.

Day Eight: Bunkered

This entire day of classes was spent bunkered while taking on fuel. It was ridiculous. Good food was just in the wharf a second away!

Boat to Mauritius: I don’t have a lot to say except I hate Global Studies with a passion, I was putting together the spelling bee for my study buddy kids and the seas were so incredibly rough. I have never been so seasick. BLAH.

Mauritius was great, update coming soon. Classes till India..my spelling bee for the kids is on Tuesday!

Mauritius update coming soon!! LOVE YOU ALL!!