Here today, Ghana Manana =)

Saturday February 5^th, 2011

“The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes”

~Marcel Proust

It has been nine days since we left Brazil, and everyone is itching to get off the ship tomorrow in Ghana! I’m not going to lie, though, it’s been a very fun nine days! It was my friend’s 21^st birthday a couple of days after we left Brazil, so we surprised her with a nice dinner. The ship offers these specialty dining nights that you can pay extra for. It was so worth the money! We had a five course meal complete with champagne, paté, and some amazing soufflé (makes you wonder where they’ve been hiding all this gourmet food)! I have been taking a lot of time to reflect on everything I have experienced so far, and what I am about to see as we travel further and further around the world. I have had some amazing discussions with professors, staff, even Captain Jeremy, about everything I’ve seen and the fire it has sparked in me. Sailing down the Amazon was definitely amazing! There was so much to see, and it was pretty cool waving at people in their tiny little fishing canoes. After 2 days of smooth sailing up the Amazon, we were all a little bit nervous about crossing the big, bad Atlantic. It really hasn’t been bad at all. The Atlantic Ocean was good to us. Even through some storms the water stayed calm! It has definitely been a pleasant surprise, since we were all bracing ourselves for some major rocking. Some people got bit by monkeys in Brazil, so I’m sure they haven’t been having the best time, considering the long series of rabies shots they are going through right now. And a few other people were on IVs (lets just say they had a bad case of “Brazil Belly” and they were all dehydrated). But so far no serious disasters!

            I have had some very thought provoking classes the past few days. In my environmental science class we talked about wealth and quality of life. My eyes are really opening to how extremely stressed we are as Americans. When most of the rest of the world is just happy if they get dinner that night, we are worried about the next car we want to buy and what the latest fashion trend is. We always want bigger and better and faster, the thought of starving or extreme thirst would never even cross any of our minds. But for so many people that's all they know. Here we are preaching to other countries how they should live and how they should protect the environment…they are probably thinking “yeah when I can live like Americans maybe I will have energy to think about conserving resources”. Its really scary how wasteful we are, and we don’t even realize it, because that's just the norm in the US. In Dominica if you don’t have food one night, you can walk right over to your neighbor’s house and they will gladly share with you, not as a favor, just as a way of life. If I walked over to my neighbor’s house in Colorado Springs and asked if I could eat dinner with them tonight they would think I was crazy. We are so absorbed with this every man for himself, constant competition lifestyle that helping out a neighbor without getting something in return in just out of the question. It made me think of swimming class in 9^th grade. I remember getting in the pool and complaining about how cold it was. The teacher told us that if we just relaxed our muscles, our bodies would warm up faster, because when you tense up you are just making it worse. Maybe that's what we need to do. Just relax our lives. We are so tense and competitive, maybe if we just relaxed, helping out anyone in need wouldn't seem like such a burden. If we weren’t so obsessed with being the richest or the skinniest or the smartest, we could step back and realize that while I’m eating a dinner that could feed a family of five, some little girl in Nepal is waking up and praying that today is not the day that she gets sold into sex slavery. Those are real things. They aren’t just scary stories. Every day 30,000 children die of completely preventable causes, starvation, malaria, thirst…these are all things that we could prevent. Yet when 3,000 Americans die in one day, wars are waged, millions upon millions of dollars are poured into funds that go to the affected families….millions of dollars that could have easily saved 30,000 children every day for months. These children also lost loved ones, usually their entire families. Only these kids don’t have the state of New York to provide grief therapy and compensation, in fact they don't even have a meal for the day, or shoes to wear. I’m not being insensitive towards Americans affected by 9/11, but the fact of the matter is even without all of the donations, each family involved would have received more in compensation than most people in the world will ever see in their lifetimes. The UN calculated that if the wealthiest countries of the world donated 0.7% of their GNP, we could end poverty the world over, The United States, the great and benevolent world power….yeah we managed to scrape together 0.1% of our GNP. I honestly don’t even think that people would notice that 0.7% went to starving children in Africa. We would still be waking up and getting our Starbucks, driving our SUVs, and coming home to a fridge full of food and prime time TV. These are things that I have been thinking about a lot lately, and yes, its been a very frustrating few days of realizations. Luckily there are some amazing and inspirational people on board to help me work through the confusion and frustration.

One in particular is Andrew Briggs, who is an SAS alumni who saw his calling in Uganda. He started a non-profit called Freedom in Creation. They set up schools in refugee villages for escaped child soldiers and slaves. There are actually more slaves today than there were during the Atlantic Slave Trade! He helps them recover through art therapy. He then takes their artwork and displays it around the world in galleries and cafés. The money he raises at these benefits goes directly towards the school and the village, and they use it to install fresh water wells for the village. Many of these children escape horrific wars and terrible conditions only to contract cholera or hepatitis from unclean drinking water. Meeting these amazing people helps me to breathe a little bit easier, and reminds me that there is so much hope and opportunity out there. Anyways there was my rant that has been running through my head the past nine days.

We were able to get a tour of the bridge (where the boat is operated), which was very cool. It was great to be right in front of the ship and see how everything works. The Captain even came up to talk to us and answer some questions. He is very nice and very funny. My favorite thing he said (when asked if he ever gets bored, and if he ever gets off the ship in port) was “well I’m the boss so I can do whatever I want….they say that absolute power corrupts, but I think absolute power is rather neat” (in a British accent). He is very funny and a firm supporter of the Semester at Sea program. I was also adopted! We have a program called extended families, where lifelong learners adopt students. I have a single mother. Her name is Evelyn, shes from Austria and has all sorts of interesting stories. My sister’s name in Emma and she just graduated high school, so this is her first college experience! Evelyn is so sweet she always calls my room to wish me luck on tests and we all get dinner together every now and then. It's a lot of fun!

And then there was Sea Olympics…. Each hall is considered a different “sea”. I am a part of the Mediterranean Sea, and every year since the very beginning of SAS, Sea Olympics has been held. It was incredibly fun. We had an opening ceremony, and every sea had to come up with a cheer or two and present their banner. The next day was all events. I don’t think I have ever laughed so hard. The events included synchronized swimming, hula hoop, crab soccer, wheelbarrow race, card stacking, and so so many more. Everyone was very spirited and EVERYONE was wearing their sea’s colors (GO GREEN!). All of the students represented seas around the world (i.e Red Sea, Yellow Sea, Baltic Sea, Bering Sea, etc), and then the lifelong learners (the older group on our voyage) were the Sea Salts, and the faculty and dependants were the Luna Sea (pun totally intended). Let me tell you, the Sea Salts’ synchronized swimming team was absolutely hilarious. Imagine four older guys in speedos, doing a very graceful routine to the Star Wars theme song. In fact there wasn't a single routine that didn’t have me on the floor laughing. I was very impressed. It was such a fun day, and at the end they announced the winners. The grand prize was getting off the ship first when we arrived in San Diego. We didn’t win, but you can be sure I had the time of my life.

Dean Dan was so impressed with how spirited we were (AKA extremely loud and competitive), he is having the Super Bowl streamed to the ship tomorrow night! Everyone is very excited, it should be a fun night! I’ll be watching the game with all of you…only I’ll be watching it from Africa! And just to put the cherry on top, he also told us last night at the “State of the Ship Address” that he wrote a letter to Bono, who will be in South Africa when we get there (yes I already have tickets to the U2 concert in Cape Town), asking him to come sail with us for a few days. When I asked about it he said….”yeah how do you write a letter like that? It took me forever! But I came up with…’Dear Bono, I am writing to you from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean’…that way he will have to keep reading!” Cross your fingers for us! We may be fortunate enough to have Desmond Tutu and Bono on the ship with us….talk about a double whammy! Work is going really well, we are planning out a really cool ball for the end of the voyage. I am slowly getting used to being in class on weekends, and then having a whole week off to, ya know, explore AFRICA! We also lose an hour about every other day…I am 10 hours ahead of Hawaii right now! So weird! Its mid afternoon here and no one Hawaii is even thinking about waking up yet! I also have a special Valentine this year…Hershey’s chocolate. The shipboard community is getting together to send “hate mail in a heart”. Not as mean as it sounds, but basically a couple of girls came up with the idea to send valentines to the big wigs of Hersheys to ask them to join the movement against child labor in cocoa plantations. A lot of us participated and Hersheys is definitely getting a lot of valentines this year!

I am very, very excited for Ghana, and everything to come, my friends are beyond amazing and my classes are eye opening! Still happy, still learning a lot, still missing you all…but WOW I love it here! =) More to come! Thank you all for reading! It means the world to me!

Short slideshow below =)

Some pictures from the boat