PCV: Paid Caribbean Vacation

I kept looking at India through the eyes of a tourist or a traveler. For the first time it was hard to distinguish a difference for me. India made you something different from the time you stepped onto the soil. Everything I saw I thought it was strange. Everything in this country was just so weird and foreign to me. This is the first country where I was like whoa… these people are different.
Their customs and traditions are completely different than anything we are used to. I learned this by staying in hotels without bathrooms, bathrooms without water or toilet paper, and waking up at 5:15am every morning I was there. It was nonstop India. I couldn’t get enough of it. It was so disturbing to the eye. It was watching the most disgusting thing I could have ever imagined and I couldn’t look away. From the kids playing cricket in the streets to the women carrying maimed babies begging for money, I couldn’t stop to sleep. I knew that if I slept, I was missing something and I didn’t know if I would ever get the chance to experience anything so foreign to me again.
India was different. India was strange, but the strangest thing about India wasn’t the lack of beef or booze, it wasn’t the Ganges River or Varanassi, it wasn’t silk shops, rickshaws drivers, or the horrible smells either. The strangest thing about India was me. It was Semester at Sea. We didn’t fit in at all. As we pulled up in our extravagant ship waiting to hit the streets and shop for useless things we didn’t need, we didn’t realize that India is something that we will be able to change during our stay. We can look and judge everything we experienced in India but we can’t change India. We can’t ignore India. It smacks you in the face with breathtaking poverty and makes your day with the smile of a child that hasn’t showered in weeks. Everyone there was in harmony. It was chaos but it was harmony. We were the beat that didn’t fit the rhythm. Therefore, instead of us being progressive and trying to change India, I hope everyone realize how much India changed them because you can’t walk the streets and not be affected. In other places or even at home where you might have to look for the poverty or bad conditions, all you had to do in India was open your eyes. Some people couldn’t handle it. I loved it. It’s not a place I’m dying to go back to, but it’s probably the place I’m the most grateful to have experienced.

Something strange and at this time unique to India is its system of kickbacks. Everyone gets a kickback on everything. Trust no one that is taking you anywhere. They are making money off you as you travel. Beware of them taking you to places you didn’t ask to be taken to silk shops and emporiums of all sorts in the hope that you will buy something. The crazy thing is they don’t even care if you buy anything. They make money just by bringing you there. It’s a terrible waste of time for us since no one ever buys anything and they make us more frustrated along the way and lose money from people that may tip them later.
There are so many people in India that in order to make sure everyone is doing something productive they are extremely inefficient. They get the job done faster perhaps but the job can always be done with less people. For example, it was not uncommon to walk into a restaurant (not top of the line by any means either) and have 1 man outside the door greeting you as you walk in. Another person would hold the door open for you. Another person would seat you. Another would bring you drinks. Another would get the order. Another would bring the food. Someone else gave you the check and then you had to take it to someone else to pay. In some instances, there was even an extra person giving out mints as you left. A restaurant that would take 5 people to run in American would easily be manned with 10-15 people. Most of them were standing around doing nothing most of the time, but they all had work. They had no shame in this as long as their fellow man made a living. They were selfless in the sense they would do anything to look out for one another. It was common for rickshaw drivers to stop on the side of the road and split a large group up for less costs because they were trying to help their friend make a small bit of money. Once again, frustrating, but admirable on how little they seemed to care about themselves.
All in all, India is a country of kickbacks. They look out for each other and have no problem making an inconvenience to the foreigner they are trying to make money from. I can’t blame them; they are trying to make a living just like the rest of us. The only difference is they seem to look out for their fellow friend before themselves, something we need to stop getting frustrated by and give them a hand because unless us, they care about more than the money they are making that day.

Now there is something to mention about this great country of India and possibly a reason not to go there. If you are a Beer drinking meat eater… this place is not your best friend. It’s strange! Beer is hard to find in most places and expensive. I did however find a beer called Royal Challenge that was enjoyable but the price wasn’t worth another. Most places are hole in the wall bars because most people in India do not drink due to religious practices.

If that wasn’t bad enough, you can’t even get a piece of meat in this country. Well, let me correct myself, meat can be found, just not beef. You see, the cow is sacred in India. They run the country and can be found on the road everywhere. If you kill a cow… you are in some deep cow shit, as in the gods might hate you forever. Bottom line is people don’t eat beef. Its not there. I looked. Part of the asshole in me really wanted to find some sort of beef in the country just to be rebellious, but I failed. It was no where to be found. I even degraded myself to walking into a McDonald’s but they too had nothing. They had burgers but when I ordered one, it was pork and the other was chicken. I felt trick and cheated. I guess that’s what I get for trying to mess up their customs. I just feel sorry for people that don’t know how good their sacred cow is. Yummy.

I saw some crazy things in my time in India but the strangest of them all was the holiest river in the world. The Ganges River (Ganges is English, Ganga is Hindi) both are the same depending what language is being used. We got there at night to see a few ceremonies of people praying but since our taxi driver screwed us over and took us to pointless silk shops out of the way, we missed sunset. We were none too pleased. We went anyway though and were happy we went. I didn’t get too much out of it besides the general smell of the River. We had to park the car pretty far away from the river because all the alley ways leading to the river were small and I guess the drivers thought it would be easier if we just walked though. Some of the smells were hard to handle and I don’t know if I have ever seen so many cows in all my life, but when we opened up from the small alley way of rabid dogs and homeless people begging on the street, we saw the river.
Black as night, mosquitoes everywhere and small children laughing and playing. It was a land of contrasts. It was past dark and the kids were out with no parents anywhere in sight in some of what I would call one of the dirtiest places I have ever seen. It was dirty and the entire area was full of steps. These are called Ghats. The river is full of them. They are basically steps leading down to the river.
The next morning we were up bright and early to see the river at sunrise. We rented a small boat with this little old man and he rowed us up and down the river. When the sun came up, it was something out of the movies. The pictures we took aren’t real. If someone is in them, they look superimposed and fake. It’s too beautiful for words. Ironic because the word beautiful was one of the last things I expected to think of when I thought of this horribly disgusting river.
I call it all comes down to how disgusting and beautiful are completely relative terms. What I thought was filth and dirt, these people saw as the most sacred and clean place on the earth. A little different than what I expected at first.
Moving on down the river a little further with the sun still rising, we went down the river to the bathing ghats. It was only 6:20am and there were hundreds of people bathing in the river. Now something needs to be explained here. In India, the toilets are far from what we would call sanitary. In most places, toilet paper is a foreign thing. Basically you go in the ground and then use your left hand to wipe. We call it disgusting, they call it culture. For this reason, it is not polite to use your left hand for much of anything. You do not touch people with your left hand or eat with it.
Back to business, we are just going on down the river watching people bathe when right next to them you see little boys pooping in the river at the same time. Just in front of them other boys are learning how to swim. All this is happening simultaneously. It was life. Ganges is the life of the people. Without it they were nothing. It was the beginning of everything and the end of everything at the same time.
The end was probably one of the hardest things to stomach. For Hindus, the only way to die is at the Ganges. It is the most honorable and the only chance of reaching “nirvana.”
The way this is done is cremation. Hundreds of people each day are brought to the river by their families to be given to the gods. People that are impure are cremated. The only people that are not cremated are those that are considered pure. These are children under the age of 12 and pregnant women. Everyone else is impure. While being cremated, it is thought that these people reach nirvana and they can be reborn again. This cremation takes place on the banks of the river right in front of your eyes.
All of those that do not need to be cremated have a different way of going out. They are tied to stones and put in the river to sink. After about 2 weeks, usually the ties let free and the body floats down the river in the way of ultimate cleansing. I was fortunate (if you want to call it that) to see a few bodies floating in the river. Our boat guy didn’t even seem to notice. It was normalized to see a dead body floating down the river.
Right up from the body are people cleaning themselves, swimming, going to the bathroom, and just praying. Everyday people come to the river for a daily cleansing. Life then ends and if you are lucky enough then you get the ultimate cleansing of dying in the Ganges.
What was the Ganges? It was the circle of life. Everything happened here and everything ended here. I may be wrong but I would bet there is no other place on the earth where you can take a breath of fresh air and no that it is far from fresh because it is full of dirt and smoke from human remains, then look down to see a the most beautiful sunrise of your life. At the same time there are children playing, people dying, people praying, people cleaning their clothes, people bathing, children learning to swim, and tourists watching them wandering what they are all doing. In one glance, you could see the entire span of a lifetime at one place. Life and Death. Fun and Despair. It was all there. It was beautiful and disgusting at the same time. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to look at and I could not turn away. It was a drug that kept me coming back because I knew that so many people never lived this way. They had everything they needed on the side of a river. We have everything and it’s never enough.
In water most people wouldn’t be caught dead touching, they were drinking it and bathing in it. There was nothing more holy or clean for them. A land of contrasts.
If there is one regret I have about this trip so far, it’s that I didn’t get in the water. If I ever get back to Varanasi, I am bathing in that river. I touched the water, I looked at it in a bottle, but I never really got in. I was the only person in our group to touch the water but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to be like the people. By thinking the water was disgusting it was like calling their way of life disgusting. They were people too and a hell of a lot happier than we were. Therefore, next time… I’m getting in. I want to be like them. They have something we don’t. I don’t know what it is, but in a place where everything happens, nothing happens. It’s the same cycle over and over. Whether that be coming everyday to bathe, or praying multiple times a day, or coming when you die, it all is a cycle. One big circle continually repeating itself. It’s the circle of life in a place we would have trouble calling a good life. They have been doing the same thing for thousands of years and it hasn’t really changed. They have something figured out that we don’t.
If you go to the Ganges, I recommend getting in the water. It’s the cleanest place on earth.

The strangest thing about India was the small completely congested city of Varanasi. Chennai was more of an industrial kind of pollution where Varanasi was just absolute filth. It was the dirtiest place I have ever been to in my entire life and it was one of the best places I have been as well. The overpopulation of this city can’t be explained or comprehended. People everywhere with what looked like nowhere to go.
Most of the streets were unpaved and just had packed dirt. The problem with this is it hardly ever rains besides the rainy season so the dirt turns to dust and the dust then enters your lungs. I don’t have too bad of allergies but Varanasi was out of control in terms of dust and the amount I sneezed. While this isn’t just Varanasi but more of India as a whole, but the color I think of most is black. Not black because of skin color or darkness, but black because that was the color of the ear wax that would come out when you cleaned your ears. Black was the color of the snot you would blow out. Everything on your body was black. Dirty. Filthy. Varanasi was something different from the rest of India. Being the capital of the Hindu world, it just had something special about it. This was the center due to one thing: The River Ganges.

The strangest thing about India might be silk shops and how they are on every corner and every one of them offered a special price just for us. These silk emporiums were out of control. The usual routine was to parade all of us into a room of pillows and served us tea. Then they start with saris and scarves and usually finish with bed sets. The walls are covered in nicely folded silk and by the time they are finished there are things everywhere. They just unfold it all and 99% of it we don’t want so someone has to fold it back up. Me, being the extremely cheap person that I am, didn’t have any interest in their silk in the first place because I don’t know what nice cloth is, so I have no reason to start with the world’s finest. Don’t be disappointed, I wouldn’t have bought you anything anyway.
The first silk shop we ever went to was in Varanasi which is pretty much the capital of silk. We got taken there by our shady taxi driver who was trying to profit off our naivety. The first guy was not nice and would not show us all the tricks of the trade that luckily someone knew. Here is the class, listen up.
When going to a silk emporium, make sure they show you the quality of the silk not by looking at it or feeling it but by burning it. When you burn silk, it should burn like hair and smell like hair. It should leave nothing behind and no residue. Other fabrics will smell like plastic and leave residue behind. Just a quick little lesson incase you ever wind up in the middle of India and might be buying silk. Keep that in mind.
So the 2nd shop we went into was a little different and on the next morning. I felt like it was a set up on top of a set up because we went from silk dealer #1 who was a complete asshole to silk dealer #2 who treated us like kings and seemed to not lie to us at all where asshole #1 did nothing but lie to us the entire time. I didn’t buy anything there either. Don’t get your hopes up. The people that I was with spent close to $1,000 on tons of things but paid prices that I thought were a little steep even though apparently if you try to buy fake stuff in the US you cant get it for that cheap with intricate designs such as the ones they had, but I don’t know any better so I didn’t buy anything haha. Silk shops were strange because I was in them for so long and had nothing to do but look and laugh at my American friends get hustled by Indians who didn’t care about the quality of the cloth and knew that any price they demanded, these kids would agree to. My final analysis: silk shops are overrated. Go to a flea market instead. Then end.

The strangest thing about India is the Taj Mahal. Now you may be thinking to yourself that this is not true because India is not India without the Taj. This might be true but it’s a building that almost doesn’t belong. All around the Taj and the city of Agra is poverty. There are beggars on every corner. People sleeping on the street are not uncommon. Then as you walk along a dirt road you find pure paradise. From extreme filth to a posh you can’t comprehend. The symbolism of the buildings and the balance that the building has is a spectacle that architects today should be jealous of. 350 years ago, they did it right the first time, there was no need to go on and make renovations or anything to come close. The Taj Mahal is in a word perfection. And the coolest thing is that it was created by a king who made a vow to his dead wife that he would build her the most beautiful tomb the world has ever seen for birthing him 14 children. The building took 22 years to make and it was made entirely of white marble. It’s a sacred ground and although a tourist attraction, something they still take very seriously. I found it interesting that it costs locals 20 rupees (50 cents) to get in and it costs “foreign nationals” 750 rupees (about $18). Call it redistributing the wealth and get over it. There we were at the Taj, we had traveled for about 10 hours to get there and we stayed for 2 hours only to turn around and prepare ourselves for another 8 hours of traveling before getting to our next destination.
While the Taj was something to see and I’m glad I saw it, I don’t think I ever need to go back. It’s not that great. It’s a building and more than anything it just paints the picture that we are somehow better than the rest. Upon leaving the fort that protects the Taj, you are surrounded by hawkers. The saddest part is most of them only speak enough English to sell you something. When a friend asked them who they were selling for, the only thing that they understood was how to lower the price of the album they were selling. It was hard to think that for the most part, we would never come learn anything about each other and for the most part, he didn’t care. I wasn’t a person to him, just another white person there to spend money. It was interesting to see that on the other side because so often we look at poor people and only think of them as another bum on the street. To be discredited the same way is something I may never forget. The Taj was beautiful but it was the heart wrenching things going on outside the ruined it and took the beauty away from it. I don’t blame the kids; I just wish we could have learned more about each other instead of making brash judgments on me being the rich white kid and him being the Indian kid trying to sell a measly book.

The strangest thing about India is the 150 mile stretch of road from Delhi to Agra and the van driver that we had along the way. Ryan, Erika, Dustin, Jenny, Claire, Dannie, Erik, and myself got a large van that could fit all of us inside. They charged us about $25 to go to Agra and back. Agra is where the beautiful Taj Mahal is located. I figured this was overpriced for India but cheap considering it was about a 4 ½ hour ride each way and the driver waited for us the entire time. Even if it was a rip off, I felt it was a good price compared to what we would have paid at home (Shamrock shuttle is like $30 just to get to the airport… wtf mate).
The first thing you notice about India when you get on the road is how much they use their horn. We use it only to tell someone they suck after cutting us off or to warn someone before getting in an accident. Well, in India, they have a contest with themselves that if you don’t beep your horn more than your heart beats then you lose. You might think I am exaggerating, but to put this more seriously… it goes something like this. You come up on a car, and you literally beep a few times before just laying it on and leave the horn on until they finally decide to move over and let you pass.
The saddest part of it all is that when you are beeping the horn so much, it becomes completely irrelevant and people stop paying attention to it. The people of India are completely numb to the sound of a car’s horn.
As if the horns weren’t bad enough, different enough, but the other laws of driving also don’t even apply. If there is any rule of driving in India, it’s that there are no laws. If someone were to drive in the US like they do in India, it wouldn’t take 5 minutes before they get a speeding ticket, reckless driving, kill 10 children, run over 4 cows, and probably total their car.
Now India is rich country, but also a poor country. I feel they are wasting some of their valuable money. The put these things on the road called lines. Some of them are yellow, most are white and others are even dotted. They usually make up what we call lanes on the road. Something to learn is that these lanes are completely ambiguous. They mean nothing. Therefore, do not be alarmed if the driver crosses into the other direction of traffic and cruises along and comes within 6 inches of another car while going 50mph.

The strangest thing about India is how the country has a distinct odor to it. You get off the ship in Chennai (where we docked) and it burns your nose. At times, it’s so strong you don’t even breathe because breathing even through your mouth allows you to taste the air. It has been a few days since we have sailed away from this country and if I open up any bag that contains anything from that country, I know exactly what came from India. I can pick up any clothes, and I know immediately if I wore them in India. I can take a breath right now and know exactly what it used to smell like just a few days ago. I can’t really put into words what exactly it smells like but it’s different in every city. Chennai, New Delhi, Agra, Varanasi, and Sarnath all have their own unique smells. I’m sure the other cities that I didn’t get the chance to visit have their own as well. It sets them apart from the rest. Some cities have skylines, some have famous attractions, and India has the smell.
While it is not the most pleasant thing, don’t write off India as bad just because of the scent. It’s part of the culture and by keeping an open mind and just experiencing it for what it is, then you truly get the chance to live like they do. The smells of coal, smog, feces, burnt human flesh, soap, grease, exhaust, people, dogs, and cows all mix together to form what they call India. It’s utterly disgusting and fragrant at the same time. It’s something you don’t want to ever smell again but something you can’t get enough of. And this is something pictures or stories will never do justice.

The strangest thing about India was the rickshaws that acted as taxis to get us from place to place. They are these scooters on 3 wheels and they have a canopy on them so they become something like a car. It’s nothing close to a car. The idea is to get as many people in them as you possibly can. The people outside of the gate will tell you that you can only fit about 3 people in them but this is far from the truth. On the first night, including the driver, we fit 11 people in one rickshaw. To get a better understanding of just how small of a space this is, it’s about the size of a Smart Car for any of you that know the size of those things. They are far from luxurious and are apparently rumored as the world’s most dangerous form of transportation. You better believe I got in one many times throughout my days in India.
As if just thinking to yourself about the size of them is not bad enough, the way they are driven is even worse. These things are like bumper cars on the street and the drivers are some of the most fearless people I have ever encountered. In the United States, we usually stay a long way from other people on the road, here it is not uncommon to be able at anytime to reach out no more than 5 inches and touch the car next to you. I have video of a city bus being about 2 inches from my arm as I hold on and try to stay in the car and not fall to my death. Upon leaving the states, I was given one mission: don’t die. I knew I couldn’t let too many people down so I decided to hold on for the mean time.
The spectacle of riding in a rickshaw is fun in itself but perhaps the best part of getting a rickshaw is actually scoring the rickshaw in the first place. It may seem like it is easy to get a taxi but this is far from a taxi, not to mention based on the color of my skin, I am immediately loaded with oodles of money. The going rate in India is about 6 rupees per km. There are about 44 rupees to 1 US Dollar. Needless to say, it is very cheap to ride around in these 3-wheeled scooters. The process starts at the gate when get you off the ship. You step out of the gate and in front of you are about 50 rickshaw drivers coming up to you and pining for your attention and hopefully your business. No matter where you tell them you want to go, they will have somewhere better for you to go to. Turn them down. You don’t have time for bullshit. When you find someone that “says” they will take you where you want to go be prepared to be charged 10x the going rate.
This is where the fun begins. We wanted to go to the post office the first day we were there just to check it out and buy some stamps for later in the week. The post office is about ½ mile away down the road and we actually walked there before it was over but that is not the point. When asking the drivers about the post office, almost all of us told us the one down the road was closed and they would take us to the other one downtown. If it wasn’t closed then it was about 10km (6 miles) away and it was too far to walk. We insisted to walk and just tried to ignore them. They don’t respond to this very well, aka they don’t get the hint. When you walk away, they will follow you. They just walk beside you, leaving their cars behind, until you find somewhere else to go. Getting rid of people is sometimes the hardest thing to do in India. A simple ‘no thank you’ doesn’t really do anything for you here.
If you do decide to get into the rickshaw, make sure you agree on a price before getting in. Anywhere in town should be less than 50 rupees for the entire ride. There is no per person fee, which is why you pack as many people as possible into these things.
The price never starts out that low so bargaining is crucial. In the end, we usually tipped but the bargaining is part of the culture and if you don’t participate you are missing out. I argued to the death with some drivers over 10 rupees (about 25 cents) and when I got my way and if he took us there we usually tipped him 100 rupees. Its not about the price, it’s about winning the game.
Now as if that’s not fun enough, once again the fun has only begun. Rickshaw drivers hardly ever take you where you want to go. They are going to take you somewhere they want to take you because of the commission they make off that place. The popular shopping market is Spencer’s (very good by the way, highly recommended) but it’s not so easy to get to because no one wants to take you there. On the way to the market, it will not be uncommon for the car to stop numerous times at silk emporiums, random shops, restaurants, and anything else under the sun because the driver knows someone that will give us a “special price.” Don’t believe them. All special price means is 10 times more than what they would usually charge. It’s crazy I tell you. You will constantly feel lied to but the important thing is not to get frustrated. It is how the country works. This is fun and the second you get mad, the fun stops. The strangest thing about India may have been these tiny 3-wheeled carts that took us for an adventure that no roller coaster can and nothing is more unsafe, adrenaline pumping and fun than a ride in an auto rickshaw in the middle of rush hour in a major city in India.

I have no real words to even attempt how to explain what has happened to me the past week. The contrasts of good and bad, beauty and filth are too much for one to take in. I could honestly write a blog called India and simply leave it blank or just leave it at ‘wow’ and that would be all I need to say. Despite my lack of words, I will try to muster up something to attempt to give to you what India has given to me…

so some of you may be wondering what the hell happened to me or why I stopped writing. Well... I am in perfect health and I fully plan on getting to all the blogs but I realized that this trip starting going about 500 miles an hour not too long ago.
After India, we have been in a different country every 2 or 3 days and I get no time to write my blogs. I am trying to keep up but I refuse to write the blog while I am in another country (like I am now). I would write them after the country but trying to fit an entire semester's work into 21 class periods is not an easy task so when I get back from a country, it is time to get to work between writing the endless papers and multiple tests. Its not too bad but you really have to be structured when on the ship because we dont have 9 days at sea to do all our work and mess around.
I may be about 4 countries behind but India is almost finished and it was one of the hardest things I have ever done. India is not a place you can really put into words but Im trying my hardest. Malaysia, Vietnam and China will follow.
Without a computer, anytime I get one, I have to do school work so as soon as I find time. mostly after Japan (in 1 week) I will start catching up. I think Im going to skip Mauritius... it was just an island and nothing really amazing happened compared to the rest of the places around the world. Great place for vacation but I am not here to go on vacation.
Currently I am in Hong Kong and will be in Beijing tomorrow to see the Great Wall and Forbidden City. My camera is ready and my mind is open. Sorry for the lack in writing, but I refuse to stop seeing the world to let you read about it. I will catch up soon enough.

This is the most amazing, life changing experience of my entire life

There is no better educator than traveling and no matter what you read in a book or see on a tv... it will never do it justice. I have pictures to prove I was there but you still wont understand half of it.

Much love... stateside in a time too short and one that I'd rather not talk about

Sean, Claire, Sami, Tiff, Anna, Dyllon, and Jenny

South Africa Sunset as we left

The townships

Me and the kids chilling out

Some kids giving the thumbs

Bonga and Vooya in front of Bonga's House

Anna and her posse

Just 2 guys having a good time

Township from the lookout

Me at Cape Point

Cape Point... pretty cool

enough said

I could have ran him down

us with the boys at the concert

one of the posters at Robben Island Museum

The food court of the mall... out of control

Sunrise of Table Mountain, pulling into South Africa

KY... you know, Brian... you will find out

2nd highest waterfall in the world

Bennett, Dave, and Tina passed out in the van

right before I jumped off the cliff

While it’s hard to put into words all that happened to me here, I can truly say that South Africa is one of the most vibrant and enriching places I have ever been. I loved Brasil, but this was entirely different. I liked Brasil because it was something completely different and a unique experience that was due to the generosity of Daniel. South Africa was amazing because of the people and how amazing everyone is. They were so nice and I realized that we had so much to learn from them.
From the kids in the township, they have nothing. They live on nothing and they live in what we would call filth. They barely have enough money to clothe themselves. Yet, they are the happiest people I have ever met. They live in conditions we would look at pictures of and pity, but they do not want your pity. They want you to realize how good you have it. In a place where they have everything in the world to complain about, they do not complain about nothing. This is extremely hard to go from this to the ship where people are complaining about how the peanut butter tastes. We are so spoiled that even the things we think of as our rights to have, they know that they can’t take them for granted. Electricity is rare there. Drinking water? Good luck. New house? Not a chance. Bed to sleep on? If they are lucky. They are the most grateful people I the world and the saddest thing is how often they all thanked us for coming. This was more than the money that we were paying to come there that would help them see some of their own country or allow for opportunities that usually wouldn’t be possible, but they were thanking us for coming so that we can see how they live and so that we can go and tell their story to other people. While this sounds like a pity party, it wasn’t. They weren’t complaining, they just wanted someone to understand where they were coming from. They were thanking us, but in the end, we are the ones that should have been thanking them. It was an eye opener of what happiness really is. While I don’t know what it is yet, I think those kids in the townships have an idea. They don’t want anything. All they want is the friends and family around them. They are not distracted by iPods or computers or the internet. They only know love and each other. Both of which are not guaranteed due to the malnutrition/disease/and the risk of HIV. All of which we take for granted. It makes me think twice when I start complaining about how bad the food is for lunch or how bad the dining hall food used to be at CSU, because after all… I don’t have to worry about if I’m going to eat today or tomorrow. I take this for granted. Food is food. They know this more than any other.
Another thing to take away from South Africa is the way they have coped from the Apartheid. Apartheid is one of the most gruesome forms of institutionalized racism we have ever known. It ended a mere 12 years ago. In the United States, slavery ended over 150 years ago. The civil rights era was over 40 years ago. In something that didn’t necessarily happen to anyone alive today, we are still fighting about this problem in America. It’s not equal, there is a reason to fight, but there is no reason to complain. I can see how black people in America had no choice and were taken from their homes in Africa so long ago and the difference between us and South Africa where people came into their home land and took over their native land. The closest thing to a black person in South Africa is a Native America in America because they know what it is like. The difference is, in South Africa, they do not have a problem with it. There is still blatant inequality that exists (made evident by the townships) but there is no anger from those oppressed the most. The crazy thing is Apartheid happened to them. 12 years ago. That is in their life time! They know what its like to be beaten just for the color of their skin where the majority of people in America are lucky enough to no longer have to worry about this or ever had to experience it. South Africans lived this and have no malice in their hearts toward white people. It was the system, not the person that was holding them down. Whites and blacks alike, they have forgotten about it and moved on. Things aren’t perfect but I feel they have made more progress in 12 years in their country than we have in 150 years in ours. We have a lot to learn.
I would like to see more of Africa and not just South Africa because of all the lessons that can be taught from the culture here.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, I do not know how another country will have more of an impact on me than South Africa did. The rest of this voyage has a lot to live up to. I think it will take longer for me to come to terms with all that I really learned in South Africa but it was something that pictures won’t show, that stories won’t illustrate, and that only by experiencing it through your own eyes can you know how great it is.

You do not know beauty until you see South Africa
You do not know poverty until you see South Africa
You have know idea how good you have it until you see South Africa
I love South Africa

Well as you would expect I didn’t sleep and just went out all night long for the last night on Long St. I knew Andrea had gotten back sometime throughout the night and figured she would be down there and went looking for her. I never found her but found plenty of trouble anyway. I had plenty of drinks and before I knew it I was on a sail boat with some random guys named Cory and Antony that were from the UK down here learning how to sail. We sat around and talked about the sail boat. I think it’s weird that in 5 ports, I have managed to get on 2 private sail boats for an after hours party. I hadn’t seen Anna or Tina since much earlier and they happened to be standing by the ship with Cory and Antony (whom I had met at a bar earlier that night). The guys were trying to persuade the girls to come back with them and since I was there, now it was ok for us all to go. It sounded like a good idea so Wendy, Jessie, Anna, Tina, and I went for the adventure. Mind you this is 4am. I had to leave about 5am so I didn’t stay long and Anna and Tina came back with me. Wendy and Jess stayed with them and apparently had much more fun including getting pulled up the mast for a sunrise later which I obviously missed out on. They were genuinely nice guys that just wanted someone to chill with. They had no intentions which were nice and not like what I would expect from someone in America.
So there I was, getting back on the ship, grabbing my swim suit and getting ready to go off in a bus to jump in the Indian Ocean and going fishing for Great White Sharks! The guy told us about rough waters and to make sure we ate before we went on the water. Breakfast and Lunch were included and being that we left at 5:30am, they had better fed me. I never realized that going out the night before and not sleeping would be the biggest mistake of my life.
We get on this shark diving boat about 2 hours later and set out to see. It wasn’t long before we shut off the engines and starting “chumming” the water for sharks. Basically we just dump a shit ton of tuna in the water and wait for them to come up to us. It didn’t take long, within 30 minutes there were Great Whites all around. It was cool when they would grab onto the bait and make a big scene crashing into the cage. They were quite the large animal and I can understand why they can kill people haha. If I had teeth like that, I think I’d do the same.
Well, as cool as this was, I had to add some of my own entertainment to the day. The captain told us that vomit would only help the sharks, so I felt I had to do my part. It didn’t take long to get sick rocking back and forth on a small boat in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I figured I was just getting the party started and before long everyone would have their head over the side throwing up. This was not the case. I threw up 9 times… and yes, I threw up on a shark as well. I showed him who was boss. The thing that I have to point out is that although I was losing anything in my body for the remainder of the day, I didn’t let it ruin my day. I took it on like a pro (or so I thought) and got in the cage anyway. I gave those sharks hell. I think I could have jumped on a few and rode one for awhile if they would have let me.
While it was extremely fun, I was bored not long after. It was just another animal after 10 minutes of looking at them that I needed more than just a shark in the water to look at. I’m a people person, and although I’m glad I went shark diving, it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I turned out to be the only person to throw up, I was disappointed in the British lady that kept trying to throw up but couldn’t. There was something cool about someone from England vomiting all over the place considering my stereotype of them is that they are all stuck up and proper. I guess, in the end, she is still as classy as ever.
I will admit I have never been more happy to step foot on land in my entire life. I actually hugged it when I stepped off the shark boat. It was that great. South Africa was coming to a close and I knew I would be sad to see it end. I sent some postcards and then sadly watched the boat pull away (or so we thought, damn fuel bunker) from a place I was close to calling my home.

I had originally planned on going to the townships with Victor the next day because I felt that if I came to South Africa and didn’t go to see a township that I would be doing a disservice to the country. Semester at Sea (yes, I said it… Google Alert) told us not to go into the townships independently but I was running out of opportunities to go and hearing that some of the trips simply drove through the townships wasn’t going to cut it for me. Semester at Sea is so concerned with the safety of the students that we never get to experience all there is to see and learn from these people. For this reason, I was going to go alone.
Fortunately, I got a call around 11am from Jenny and she wanted to know if I wanted to do Africa Jam. I wanted to do it all along but it was booked and this was the big fundraiser day as well so I jumped all over it. It might have been expensive but the money went to an after school program for kids that lived off less than $1 a day. I figure they need it more than I do. We all packed into a 2 vans and there were about 20 of us total on the way to Kayelitscha Township. This had about 2 million people living in it and this was comprised of nothing but black people. Coloureds have their own township across the street and it is strictly segregated by culture not by law, at least not anymore.
The tour guides were both from the townships. My driver, Winston, was from a coloured township and had been working with Africa Jam since it started 6 years ago. He was extremely knowledgeable and only about 25 so he could interact and fit in with us well. He was full of stories and things about the program but someone that was constantly smiling and telling us what life was like in the townships.
We pulled up to the lookout that is built so that everyone can see the townships and how large they are. We had to walk up all these steps to get a look and to take pictures. The government is busy trying to build nicer houses so that people can move into them and give them better living conditions than living in rickety shacks. The interesting thing was where they were building these newer, nicer houses. They seemed to only build alongside the road and around the lookout. While the answer to the location of these houses is not known, it seemed like the government was trying to cover up how bad it was. Since most of the trips simply drove through and went to the lookout point, these nicer houses would be most of what people saw. The government seemed to be trying to hide what was really going on here. So instead of helping out all over the townships, they were helping out in areas that tourists came and trying to keep them away from the actual bad parts. If you only drive on the road and look from the lookout point, then it looks as if the townships aren’t that bad. Yes, it is poor. Yes, the houses are small. But they are much nicer than what it really is. They try their best to cover it up. I guess if no one sees the inequality then people might think it doesn’t exist.
Luckily, we went into the township. We went into the heart of it. We pulled up to this shack that was held up by one 4x4 piece of wood in the middle and the walls were pieces of metal all around. There were small children all around kicking balls and playing games. When all these white people jumped out, it was like they didn’t know what to do. Most of them flocked to us and just started talking our ears off. I met many of them but couldn’t remember most of their names due to the pronunciation and the number of people I met.
This was Africa Jam. It was an after school program that was designed to give kids another chance and to show them they can do things for themselves. In the townships, many of the children are not allowed to speak to elders unless asked. They are just obedient until they get older. This program tells these children that they can be someone and they have a voice. The idea for us being there was to raise money for them. We got split up in groups of 4 (Me, Dan, Anna, and Tiffany) and each group got 2 kids. Bonga and Vooya were our chosen tour leaders. From there we got a personal tour of their lives. They showed us where their school was, where they lived, let us meet their mother and all the places they shop and play. I have never met happier people in all my life.
Bonga was 16 even though he looked like he was about 13 (my guess is due to malnutrition) he was a happy guy but fairly quiet. I feel that he is one of the smarter guys because when he did speak, it was evident that he knew what he was talking about. He showed us his house which was very small and said that 8 people live in there. I asked him to take a picture in front of it and he seemed very proud of where he was from. No one was home and he said the doors were locked until his dad got home. So basically after school, he had to go to Africa Jam and hang out until his father got home.
Vooya was out of control. This kid was the epitome of ADD. He had so much energy and talked a mile a minute. He was very talented in his acrobatics that he had obviously practiced. He was constantly running and doing back flips and twisting off anything he could find. We got to see more of his life than Bonga because he ran around so much finding people for us to meet. We went to his house, met his uncle, a local rapper, his mother, and his brother. His brother was about 6 months old and his mother was just hanging outside the house as we walked by. She was an extremely nice woman but didn’t seem to want to talk to us much. They were also waiting for the father to get home to let them into the house. I though this was weird that everyone waited for the father to get home to be allowed into the house considering it seemed that women were the caretakers of the children and the keeps of the house, but they didn’t have a key to it. The funny thing about Vooya was that he could never finish a sentence, he would get started then run off mid sentence to find something for us to look at and usually Bonga would finish for him. They were a great pair and complimented each other very well. Vooya was 14 and they said they had been best friends for almost 10 years.
After our hour was up and I had successfully beat them in 2 foot races to the park, we had to go back to the conference center (which was the shack stated before). We asked them where they liked to play and the shack was the place to be. We realized how true this was when we got back and realized that the primary school had also gotten out while we were out in the township and there were children everywhere out and about playing. Whether it be playing soccer, just running around screaming, or playing games that required singing, they were all there and having a good time. Then I made the mistake of pulling my camera out. They swarmed like flies and couldn’t believe it took their picture. Our tour guide told us that some of them had never seen a digital picture of themselves before so it was not uncommon for them to swarm to a camera and get in so they can see themselves. I enjoyed it and they made my day more than they know it even though I guess I made their day too bay taking their pictures.
Finally, we had to go into the shack and most of the kids had to stay outside. We sang songs, danced, and told stories about what life was like in the townships. We played silly games similar to Simon says but they were fun to laugh at one another and break down the comfort zones. We were then told to get together in our group and we had to act out our tour guides. So the 4 of us had to act out Bonga and Vooya as a way to show appreciation for what they just did for us. We were excited but didn’t want them to know how bad of actors we were. We came back in and they all had a choreographed dance prepared for us that was planned by an 11 year old girl. Then they had poetry read that they wrote which was extremely powerful. This was reinforcing how Africa Jam was extremely interested in making sure the kids know they have a voice when they are there and that they can do anything they put their minds to. It didn’t matter how old they were, they could do something and they had a say.
The day was finished with Anthony having a dance off with a guy that called himself Biance. It was hilarious because both are your flamboyant gay personalities and they were flaunting every bit of style they had to show the other one up. I would say the victor was Biance but Anthony put up one hell of a fight. It was fun to watch more than anything and I don’t think it really mattered who won. The videos are something I will laugh at every time I see them.
Leaving the township, there was a general feeling that we could have done so much more. We drove away to see the swarms of men coming over the bridge and back home after a day of work. Most of them were walking home from who knows how far away. It really put things into perspective.
We left the poorest conditions that I have ever been in and went to Camp’s Bay to one of the most luxurious places I had ever been. It was the full 180 from where we were but we were going to someone’s house for Africa Jam Dinner. This was unique to the one day that we went and every other Africa Jam would have stopped after the township but our purpose there was to help raise money for the program. Ellen, the director of the program, had the house that was roughly $3 million dollars. It was on the ocean with a view of Table Mountain in the background. It would not have been a tough place to live. It wasn’t Ellen’s house but someone she knew and they were just using the house for the dinner. There was a live band there (get it Africa JAM) composed of all people that are from or grew up in the township. Ellen’s husband was from there and Quentin was very talented on the piano and vocals. Ellen was just the regular well off kid from the United States that decided to come here about 9 years ago and live in the townships. Coming from Minnesota, she was hit with culture shock and realized that something had to be done. They started Africa Jam as an after school non-profit organization to help children learn how to grow into adults and think for themselves. She was truly an extraordinary woman.
There was wine, cheese, and fantastic food all around. I thought that I would somehow like wine, being in South Africa, but I still think it tastes horrible and stuck to the orange juice. On a side note, to all those that thought I might be able to send wine home for later purposes, a good bottle of wine was about $20 (something you would pay $300 for at home) but to send it to the united states, it was going to be about $100 per bottle. Not worth it if you ask me, especially considering I don’t even like wine.
Something I took away more than anything from Africa Jam was how empowering and humbling it was to see all that I did. These people had nothing, and to them they weren’t missing out on a thing. Africa Jam was over, we had 1 day left in South Africa, and I had a decision to make: to sleep or to go out?

Originally the idea behind going out with the boys was for the girls and not for us, go figure. Dan and I were used to getting the shaft based on the fact that we weren’t South African, we didn’t sing, we didn’t play instruments, we didn’t have a car, and we didn’t have accents. We had everything going against us but we went along for the ride anyway.
The original plan was to go to the beach and light some candles and jam out on harmonicas and guitars. Basically just to woo the girls one more time, as if they needed to. The winds were too harsh so we decided to just go back to their house and order pizza. I was excited because they even made us a homemade chocolate cake. So cake and pizza… sign me up.
The pizza was good, the cider was better. Dan and I had a 6 pack race and I won because that’s what I do but the cider is like drinking 3.2 beer so it was more for the sake of needing something to do as the girls ignored us and the boys weren’t worth competing over for their attention. I had a great time just listening to the music and chilling with Dan. Once Sean gave me a drum and told me to sing a little. I was all for it. Why not make an ass of myself? Now any of you that know me know about my rhythm problems and well the singing voice isn’t up to par either. But the question remained… could I drum and sing? Yes I can. This didn’t last long because I annoyed some of the girls because apparently I wasn’t up to their standards. The boys loved it, which to me was all that mattered. They didn’t care about how good you were as much as they wanted you to feel the music and have a good time. They knew we were being thrown aside and I respected them more for trying constantly to pull Dan and me in and not letting the girls completely control their attention. We were their friends too, damn it.
The girls were falling way too fast and for the most part, I just sat back and laughed because we all knew it would be ending shortly and they would be sad and I could give them the “I told you so” speech all over again. The race back to the ship was fun as always. I was with Dylan and while he may be the better driver, he never seems to know where he is going so we got lost a lot, which is fun. I can’t blame him, he just moved here from Durbin. We lost but gave the effort anyway. 4 days down… 2 to go.

When looking at pictures of Nick Thomas’s from last year, I realized that one of the places I wanted to go here was Cape Point. Pictures look amazing and there are penguins too so I figured it was a must see. The problem was most people were still on Safari, so I felt like I had no friends and the others had already been there. I found Victor, Katie, Bri, Blake, Brandon, and Brian to go with me. I really only knew Victor and Brian before going but it was fun none the less. This wasn’t about going with other people; it was more about seeing the sights and working on getting a better understanding of the world.
We took a train, which was a hassle in the first place, to Simonstown. Getting to the train was hard because we had to go on a scavenger hunt all over the city to find the train station but considering a round trip ticket was about $3.50 for riding on a train for 2 hours, we couldn’t turn it down. The cool thing was we got to see the country more as we trucked along the coast of the Indian Ocean. This was the first view of the Indian Ocean and it was almost a different color altogether. Bigger waves than I had ever seen and more little villages on mountain sides than I thought were imaginable.
We pulled up to Simonstown and had no idea where to go. We just knew we were hungry and found a small shop that sold sandwiches and drinks. I got a chicken, cheese, and pineapple sandwich, fries, with a huge water for about $3 total. We found out that pretty much the only place to get to the point was by taxi called Rikis. All 7 of us piled into a van that was smaller than most American cars and we started winding up and down towards the Cape of Good Hope.
On the way there, I saw something that was priceless. Now its not that I see too many monkeys on my average day, but I got to see my first baboon and I saw him in finest style. There we were just hanging out, packed in like sardines into a van when the van driver slams on the brakes and jerks off the road. We thought it was all over, but it was just a baboon chilling out on the side of the road. He was sitting there on the white line and as you might not expect, he was masturbating. It would have been one thing had it just been touching himself but it seemed like he was getting more pleasure in knowing that people were watching him. As soon as someone stopped, he went faster and faster until he got the money shot that he wanted. And just like humans, the end result was the same! Lucky me, I got a picture of him dripping, and then even better, I got a picture of him eating it not long after. It was one of the coolest and funniest things I had ever seen. Victor got a video of the entire thing. It’s amazing. We came to the realization that there is a fine line between hilarious and disgusting… and this was hilarious.
Now before we got to the Cape of Good Hope, there was still more fun to be had. While the taxi driver wasn’t really up for much conversation but he did certainly know where to stop and what to make us look at. But he said he goes there 5 times a day so there aren’t too many things that change probably.
What was that fun you may ask? Well we saw ostriches! I wanted to ride one and tried to chase it but those little bastards are fast. We were about 40 meters from the water seeing huge waves of the Atlantic crashing down on the rocks and then ostriches right in front of us. Tough life. These were cool; but once again, just animals and I had some other stuff to see.
The Cape of Good Hope is the most South-Western point of the African Continent. I have a picture by the sign that says so and its latitude and longitude of the site. It’s beautiful and the waves are pretty big with even bigger rocks for the water to crash down on. Lots of kelp on the shore with bugs galore all over it. The water was freezing so I didn’t even plan on getting in. It was just one of those spots that you had to see to believe its beauty. This was short lived though because our taxi driver only gave us 10 minutes at this spot because we still had to go further into the park to Cape Point. The reason we came here for in the first place.
Cape Point is higher than the Cape of Good Hope but slight more east. While driving up to Cape Point, you can see the Cape of Good Hope and the beaches get whiter and whiter the higher up you go. We pull up to Cape Point and we realize we actually have to get out on hike to the top of the hill. On the hill, there is a huge light house that serves as the tip of the Cape. The view from here was breathtaking. It took about 25 minutes to walk up to the top of the light house and at the top there was a sign that showed how far away the world’s major cities were and the direction they were from where I was in the world. It’s crazy to think I was over 7,000 miles away from New York City.
So there I was, a world away at the point where the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean comes together. Known as one of the windiest places in the entire world due to all the currents coming together at the same time, I was taken back. The water was so blue all around. It’s a shame that some people didn’t get to see this due to Safari or other useless things they found to do while in South Africa.
We had to rush back to the van not too long after going up but we didn’t feel rushed up there, just rushed as we ran down the trail to the van. We had to catch the train to make it back to Cape Town so I could meet back up with Sean and Dylan for another night of fun.
On the way back, the fun never ended. I fell asleep for a little while but still got to laugh at Victor and Brandon making fools of themselves. The spectacle of the ride back happened to Katie. We stop about ever 30 seconds for another train stop or so it seems, and we stop so much you almost forget people are getting on or off. We get on at the last stop and get off at the first one so it’s not that hard to ride the train. I figure this is a good thing because us stupid Americans would probably screw it up otherwise. But to get back to the point. We were at a stop, when this guy sticks his head in the door as it opened, looks right at Katie and asks her quite politely, “would you like to have sex with me? I would like to have sex with you.” Then the door shut and we were on our way. That was it. Random: yes. Awkward: yes. Hilarious: you damn right.

After getting back from Robben Island, I just really wanted to sit around and do nothing. I didn’t want to go out and get crazy but instead I was kind of content with myself and just needed some time to reflect on what I had seen at the prison. However, there was no time for this. I got back on the ship and sure enough there was Team Dance. I hadn’t seen her for a few days and she said we were going to watch some live music and some drum circle.
What we got was much more than music. We met these cool guys that were from South Africa and were struggling musicians just finishing up with college. Sean and Dylan were musicians and Sean and Mike were sound engineers. They all lived together and were just chill guys that liked to make fun of our accents and tell us about South Africa. They drove us all over the city and never once asked for any money. We refused to let them pay for food anywhere we stopped, but considering how much we drove around, I think we got the better end of the deal. The music at the River Club was amazing. We paid about $2 to get into the concert and it was 5 sets that we got to hear. The best was the headliner, Tait. They remind me somewhat of Mae and I liked them a lot. They were really cool and gave away free CDs at the end of their show. The guy that played third was from the UK and he was a solo pianist. Jo Robbins had a soft voice and could play piano like it was his job.
From the River Club we decided to go to another bar to play pool and close down the place. As expected, upon arrival, I went straight to the locals and found some really cool guys that I cant pronounce their names but we talked about pool and the differences between the US and South Africa. They were really interesting because they were black but extremely educated which is rarer than you would think in this country. The night finished with us making fun of all the girls clinging to one of the South African guys while Dan and I just tried to keep Anna from biting everyone in the bar. You know how she gets sometimes. Learned some new trick shots in pool and left “The Shack” sometime around 3am. It was a good night and South Africa was barely half way over.

Robben Island is an island off the coast of Cape Town that was originally a place to send Lepers back in the day. Starting in 1960, they made it into a prison for political prisoners of the Apartheid. Basically anyone that was black or coloured that disagreed with the political system in place was sent here with no trial and no warning. Most people had no idea where they were going or how long they would be there. Nelson Mandela was sent there in 1963 on a life sentence for being the leader of the African National Conference. He spent 27 years in prison before being released in 1990. He later became the first president of the new democracy. He went from prisoner to president in a matter of 4 years.
Most people when they think of Robben Island or hear of it think that it will be something like Alcatraz. I may have never been there but I don’t think its anything like that. I was surprised to see that the Island had a large amount of wildlife just prancing around. We got into a bus after the 40 minute fairy ride and went around the island and got to hear a little bit about the history of the island. It was hard to believe a place so beautiful with so many animals, houses, and lighthouses were also the place of a prison that held people for no good reason besides disagreeing with politics.
When we finally got into the prison, I was surprised to see how small it was compared to the size of the island.
We were taken to cell B5 which was Nelson Mandela’s cell for the 18 years that he spent on Robben Island. The neat thing is that your tour guide on the island is always an ex-prisoner, so it’s nice to have that side of the story. The time flew by inside this place and it was weird to be there for a tour when just less than 20 years ago it was the place of torture and dehumanization that many of us cant comprehend.
One of the most interesting things about this was how the museum was not set up to be a remembrance of the suffering of the cause. Instead it was set up to show the struggle of the black people and how this museum symbolized the human spirit and courage to fight for what was right. Bad things may have happened, but no one there was bitter at any white person for the harm done.
Our tour guide’s name was Sparks and he was in the F section. We sat in his cell that was about 60 feet by 25 feet that had 1 toilet, 1 shower, and it held 80 men. He was there for 7 years. Kind of hard to believe considering how hard it must have been to come back to the place that stole your life away for 7 years every day. He was as happy as ever to tell his story despite how hard it must have been.
I was supposed to be asking questions for a class of mine but I felt the need to just stay quiet and take all of it in. It was a somber place and I wish I could have spent more time going into the cells and reading about the individual prisoners that inhabited those cells.
If Robben Island did anything to me, it helped me better understand that I had to go to a township even more. I had to see how things still were. I was sick and tired of living the privileged life in Cape Town where black people were hard to find and white people were the majority. I was in Africa, and I was having trouble finding what I would consider Africans. I saw this as a problem.

Being that I didn’t get to sleep until very late the night before, I didn’t really get up until lunch time the next day. I had lunch with Roberto and we realized that no one was really left on the ship. Everyone was gone on safari. I didn’t want to pay all that money to go off and see a bunch of animals. I’m sure that the animals were cool and all but I didn’t see the reason to pay so much money to see animals for so many days. I would prefer people 100 times over before animals.
Roberto and I finally got moving a little after 1 and we decided to walk back to Long St. and find some trouble. We walked around and just chatted it up for awhile on how he was missing Puerto Rico and how he went to the township the day before. The townships were something I knew I had to do but didn’t want to pay Semester at Sea to go. I am pretty adamant about not paying for a trip through Semester at Sea because I’m all about not putting money onto my student account. Erin… the last account balance was $4 after a month on the ship. Most people’s were in the hundreds of dollars. I don’t know how they do it but I suppose that their parents are paying for it and they don’t have to worry about small fees like a few hundred dollars of account balances.
Roberto and I stumbled across the Cape Town Museum and we decided to check it out for a small fee of R10 (about $1.40). While most of the museum was about animals and the history of dinosaurs and water animals and such, there was one display of the history of South Africa in pictures. This was cool because it showed pictures of many of the world leaders that had come to South Africa and things that had happened in the past. South Africa has history but the fascinating thing is it is so new. The Apartheid Regime of segregation only ended in 1994. We have been a free country for so long but for over half of the people in South Africa (all coloured and black people), they just got to vote for the first time in 94. Just another one of those things we take for granted.
The cool thing was we got to see pictures of what they call the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). This was a big thing that got people together to tell all about the wrongdoings of the Apartheid. Instead of pretending to forget about it all, the South Africans decided to put it all out there in the open and get the truth on the table. It was nice to learn about this in pictures because we had learned a little about it in classes, but it never really does do it justice more than when you are actually there and you can learn from it in person from people that actually experienced it. Archbishop Desmond Tutu talked to us the day before about the Apartheid and what life was like before and after. He was the Chair for the TRC, so it was interesting to see all that he had to sit through and listen despite being such a happy go lucky kind of guy. You would never think that someone of his character would have experienced so much hardship and been happy to tell about it.
Roberto was to go to Robben Island that day so we had to go back but we made sure to walk through the community gardens on the way back. The rose gardens were in full bloom and the roses were of every color. It was something I said I wanted to come back to and take more pictures but I never seemed to get around to it. I had no idea how busy the next few days would become.
I went back to the ship for dinner after dropping off Roberto to go to Robben Island and I bought a ticket for myself and Hanaan to go the next morning. I wasn’t sure what I was going to be doing that night because I was extremely tired and didn’t want to go out and get crazy all over again.
I met up with Sara and some others from the first day and we decided to go see a movie. We saw the Last King of Scotland. This was a movie that was extremely good and I highly recommend it for anyone who hasn’t seen it. It was far from what I expected but I had never seen a preview for it so I just went with it. It’s another one of those stories that Americans never hear about because when it happened we were too busy worrying about something else that could benefit us in the long term. The lonely country of Uganda was not something we could profit from, so as expected, we didn’t do anything to help the 500,000 people that were killed.
After the movie, I was all for going back to the ship but was talked into going into a local bar called Mitchell’s. I had heard from 2 different locals (a taxi driver and a waiter at a different restaurant) to go there and try the cider. Now I have had cider in the States and thought it was more disgusting than beer but the cider at this place was amazing. It was brewed right there in the store. It reminded me of a place like CB & Potts where it was just a good time to hang out and have a few drinks before going home. It was far from a place that you go to get trashed. I enjoyed the conversation with people I really didn’t know all too well and went back to the ship for an early bedtime. I had Robben Island the next day and I had to be ready to see what was in store for me.

Second day we decided to try to go to a mall and do some shopping. A taxi driver told us of a place called Century City that had cheap prices and wasn’t too far away. We dediced to take him up on it since it was a short drive and we didn’t have too much else to do being that it was a shitty day and it was raining and very windy.
I thought I had been to some malls in my day, but none of them compared to this place. It was bar none the biggest mall I have ever seen in my entire life. We walked around for about 4 hours and I don’t think we saw half of it.
Now I may have never been to Times Square or anything but this place’s food court gave Times Square a run for its money. It was 3 stories high and full of restaurants including flat screen TVs for as far as the eye can see. It just happened to be the time for us to see what soccer meant to South African people. It was the Liverpool against Manchester United. Now people in the States can sometimes enjoy soccer but this was a new extreme. Like I said it was 3 stories full of hangovers for everyone to be able to see the probably 150 foot wide jumbotron in the middle of the food court. I would guess that at least 2,000 people were there just to watch this game. I don’t mean that there just happened to be 2,000 people sitting there, I mean there were 2,000 people there just to watch that game. People had their faces painted, hair dyed and flags of their team hanging from every level. Most people were Man. United fans and anytime the ball got close to a shot on goal you could feel everyone in that place hold their breathe in anticipation of a goal.
I found this fascinating that on a Saturday afternoon that so many people found it to be the thing to do was to go to a mall and watch a soccer game in the middle of the food court. I’m not someone that gets into soccer all too much but watching them and their passion for the game was something that was admirable either way.
I think one of the most noticeable things about Cape Town was how I felt at home the entire time I was there. Anything that happened was very similar to what I would have imagined it would be like in another city of America. Nick once told me that Cape Town was just like San Francisco and I didn’t believe him, but after 2 days, it was evident that Cape Town seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary from what I was used to.
That night was spent out at the bars again at a place called Cool Runnings with Roberto and Andrea. It was Andrea’s last night before leaving for a safari so we had to paint the town our favorite color before leaving. She didn’t leave until 6am so that meant we had all night to go out, get crazy, and dance until the sun came up.

Ok well as I have heard far too many complaints about the brasil blog and how long it was, I have decided to break the ports up from now on so that you can read them in increments instead of having to read a 10 page novel about what I did in every country.
So much happened in South Africa that it is almost impossible to remember all that went on.
The first day was spent doing the most random things from shopping to going out but for the most part it was just a chill day that we used to prepare ourselves for how busy we were going to be. More than anything we used it as a way to hang out with all our friends before most of them left for safaris.
I spent most of the afternoon on Long St. which is the place to be during the day and the night. It’s the place where lots of shops and restaurants are as well as more bars than I could count. The Rand (their currency) is seven times weaker than the dollar. This means that for every dollar I would have spent, my dollar got me about 7 times further. This didn’t mean that things that were 1 rand here would cost 1 dollar in the US but it usually meant that most things were cheaper. For example: a beer in the states would be about $3 or so in a bar. That is about 21 Rand. You could get most beers here for about R11. So it was about half the cost. Food in most places was very cheap as well. At most places, you could have drinks, appetizer, and a meal for under $10 (USD). The hard part with this was while it was very cheap, there was so much to do that it added up quickly and before you knew it, you had spent a lot of money. So all in all, I spent a lot of money in South Africa, but I would do it all over again in a heart beat and might even spend more if I had the chance. The first thing that is extremely noticeable about South Africa is how nice the people are. This is probably universal but it could have also been the fact that we just showed up in a big blue ship that had a big fat flashing dollar sign that can be seen from the Northern coast of Africa. Everyone knows we are coming, everyone knows where the ship docks and they know more about the ship and things we will want to do than we do. Every cab driver waits for us to come and the sense of anticipation for the arrival of the ship is noticeable from every person you talk to that is trying to make money off of people.

After walking around South Africa today I have come to a realization that we have a problem that people need to discuss. In America, we always walk on the right side of the road and we also drive on the right side of the road. Anytime we are coming from opposite directions from another person, each person yields to the right to let the other person pass. This is how things work...

Here is the problem: in other countries, some people walk on the left, and some walk on the right. The right way to walk is not always the "right" of way. Bahamas and South Africa have both driven on the left side of the road and the people seem to be just as confused as I am. There needs to be international law.

I dont know if everyone should walk on the right side, the left side, or with however the accepted side of the way you drive on but we need some resolution here. I'm tired of dancing back and forth with people in awkward situations that no one seems to know the answer to which side we should yield to.

I think Im gonna stick with the right way. I just wish I knew which way the right way was?

We had waited for so long to see what the great Neptune Day would share with us. I had heard all about it from friends about how it was and what happened but it is one of those things that experience is the only way to understand.
When crossing the equator, it is customary to pay homage to King Neptune (the God of the seas). When you are a regular land dweller as all of us were, you are considered by most to be a tadpole. Just a small creature that is not worthy of open waters. However, when you cross the equator, it is the way of the sea to be introduced to the King of the Seas and grow as a person to be more accepted by the sea.
The best thing about Neptune Day was there was no class. This might have meant that we got to sleep in, but we could not be this lucky. Instead we were awoken at 8am to the beating of drums and the crew screaming and chanting in the halls as they traversed the ship waking everyone up. I heard them, rolled over, looked at Zander and said, “It has begun.”
I then got up to get some breakfast before the festivities began at 9am. Now you will notice that we are a bit late when it comes to celebrating crossing the equator since we did it before Brazil but we are actually attending class after all and the administration couldn’t let on right away that we have some fun on this ship. I think it was important for us to go to Brazil first so that we understood what kind of things were expected of us in the classroom before they started giving us days off.
Once on deck 7, at 9am, the fun really began. People were everywhere around the pool and we were waiting for instruction. Then we heard the drums again. They were followed by a procession of faculty and finally King Neptune, who happened to be Captain Jeremy. King Neptune was painted green and sat in his royal chair by the pool. In order to go from tadpole to hard-shell, you had to pass the test. This test including getting in the line to have fish guts/rotten milk/oatmeal or something that was disgusting poured on your head. It smelled horrible but then we were instructed to jump into the pool. I had never been in the pool and had no idea that it was actually sea water so the salt hit me and made the nastiness of the fish guts stuff even worse. I was lucky enough to be one of the first 10 people or so to jump in. Not long after the water became close to milk and the longer people waited the worse off it became.
Upon getting out of the pool, we all got to make out. And by make out, I mean kiss a horrid smelling fish. One kiss for each of the two fish, and it wasn’t pleasant. Then you are in front of King Neptune and you have to make the decision to kiss his ring or not. If you do not kiss the ring, you get pushed back into the pool and the voyage starts anew. I felt the need to kiss a little more ass so I actually got on my hands and knees and bowed to him, then kissed his ring. Dean Mike was standing there to turn me from my inferior tadpole status into something that granted some respect as a hard-shell.
This seems like a great day already, but it had really just begun. The next tradition of Neptune Day is people shaving their heads. This was no big deal for me and I had been waiting for the day to lose my hair a long time because it was so long. The big challenge was to find out how many women were going to do it. I was surprised to find out that 37 women shaved their heads to supposedly set some kind of record for Semester at Sea. I feel that the number is actually higher but some only Mohawk their hair 2 days before and didn’t partake in the festivities of Neptune Day. Needless to say, our shipboard community looks like a bunch of skin heads walking around the ship rubbing each other’s heads all the time.
I decided that shaving it wasn’t enough and that I should do something different since I have shaved my head so many times in the past. I decided to go a bit further and actually shaved it with a razor. I bic-ed it as some were saying. It felt great and was a lot of fun although it was gone the next day and back to stubble. I find it awkward that my hair on my head still grows faster than my face. Someday I’ll go through puberty and become a big boy. That day was not today, and tomorrow isn’t looking good either.
The rest of the day was spent catching up in reading and homework and just trying to relax as much as possible. It was amazing to actually be able to do nothing for once. Not having weekends on the ship make relaxation hard because there never ever seems to be a break. Technically, our breaks are in port. However, anyone that knows anything about semester at sea realizes that we sleep as little as possible while in port so that we can eat up the country and soak in as much as possible. I look forward to more days with no classes, even though I do not know for certain if there will ever be another. If I have any suggestion it is to give us a day off and if there is anything planned that they make it after lunch so we can all enjoy a day to just sleep in. Everyone can do it; there will be no demands from anyone on the ship. This means you too Dean Mike, you too Captain Jeremy, and even you Archbishop Tutu. We might not deserve a break, but 23 days are hard on the body and a day to sleep the day away sounds like a fascinating day.

All hail King Neptune