Day 70 - Halloween at Sea

Halloween costumes have to be very creative when there are no costume stores or crafts supplies available.  My friends and I dressed up nicely and made sashes out of scrap printer painter.  We spent the night being Miss Prime Meridian (Emily), Miss Equator (me), Miss International Date Line (Abby), and Mr. Arctic Circle (Nic).  But my favorite outfit of the night was Brett dressed up as my Astronomy and Infectious Diseases professor.

Day 67 - Sea Olympics

Today was Sea Olympics day, when all the halls, split up into Seas, compete against each other for who gets off the ship first in Fort Lauderdale and for trophies that the Dependent Children fashioned out of craft supplies.  I am not one for random competition, but I must say how impressive the Synchronized Swimming competition was.  Our pool is not very large and only 5 ft at the deepest part, but it managed to fit several creatively choreographed dances set to Time of My Life, Rihanna (this was the faculty/staff dance), Thriller, and custom mixes.  All of the routines were well exercised, even though teams did not get to practice in the pool beforehand!

Day 63 - At Sea

An excitement filled evening!  It started at 1730 when several of us met up in my room to get ready for our 20s-themed Murder Mystery Dinner.  We didn’t really have anything 20s to wear, but we enjoyed this rare occasion to dress up.  Zach even surprised us by dressing up in a spiffy dark suit with a fedora and Ray Bans.  We arrived at the Speakeasy (the starboard side of the Main Dining Room) and were prompted for the password (Irish Coffee).  We sat down to dinner – even the food was better tonight! – and talked to some of the characters that were making rounds.  The Godfather welcomed us to his establishment, but his speech was soon interrupted by Jimmy the Gyp’s attempt to assassinate him.  Jimmy was taken out back and killed by Crusher Joe, the Godfather’s bodyguard, but Dapper Dan, Jimmy’s twin brother arrived to beg forgiveness.  Throughout dinner, there were many family scuffles, a stolen hooch, and a murdered bodyguard before the night was out.

After dinner, the shipboard community gathered in the Union for a performance by our artist-in-residence, Barry Lubin, who is a truly remarkable man.  He teaches Physical Comedy onboard but he is a clown by profession.  Look him up!

After the show, a group of us ran off to the Vicarious Voyage social.  We did not go to socialize, but rather to eat the cookies and ice cream cake that were a rarity on the ship, especially for free.  There was way too much cake, and we were quite rotund when we split off for bed, and we would get an extra hour of sleep for the third night in a row.

Day 61 - Cape Town

Today I met with my Infectious Diseases class for a field trip!  Our first stop was Tygerberg Children’s Hospital, where we met up with representatives for Hope Cape Town, a program for education, prevention, and treatment of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.  For those that don’t know, South Africa has more people living with HIV/AIDS than any other country, somewhere in the realm of 5.5 million people (18% prevalence).  This figure is probably understated because most people refuse to get tested.  The most striking thing for me was all the urban myths the program had to counter.  Most people simply go to an herbalist for treatment, or refuse testing and treatment entirely because they don’t look or feel sick; others believe it is only a black disease.  The former president (Thabo Mbeke) denied any link between HIV and AIDS and hindered efforts to distribute medication.  The current president (Jacob Zuma) slept with an AIDS activist without protection, but claimed immunity because he took a cold shower right after.

After a very informative presentation and intense questioning, we switched hospitals.  Our next stop was Groote Schuur Hospital, where the first heart transplant took place by Christiaan Barnard in 1967.  I could talk all day about the details of the operation and Barnard’s life, but I’ll try to stick to the main points.  We were given a tour of the original operating rooms where mannequins depicted the scene with all of the original equipment.  The operating theatres were 20 feet tall, as this was before sterile air conditioning, and all contaminant were expected to rise with the heat and escape through vents at the top.  There were even displays of the first three donor hearts and the first three diseased recipient hearts preserved in formaldehyde.

A few interesting points: Barnard was a skilled surgeon and was granted a scholarship to research at the University of Minnesota.  The Americans were ahead on cardiac research and were already transplanting hearts between dogs.  Barnard returned to South America for another 6 years of research, then gathered a team and got permission to perform a heart transplant.  They picked a terminally ill patient as a recipient, then waited around for months for a suitable donor.  The first potential donor that came along was declared brain dead, but then rejected because he was colored.  Barnard did not agree with this form of discrimination and rarely listened to authority, but he realized that if the operation using the colored man’s heart failed, his career would be over.  (Later, Barnard himself set the policy that if you want to choose the race of your heart donor, you will not get a heart at all.)  The heart was rejected, and the wait ensued for another month.  After the operation was deemed successful (the patient lived for 18 days and died due to pneumonia, not heart problems), the Americans were furious.  They accused Barnard of performing the surgery before enough research was done, among other claims.  The Americans were determined to keep up, and a heart transplant epidemic ensued in the following year with a 100% failure rate.

Day 60 - Cape Town

Today I woke up with the intention of climbing Table Mountain.  By breakfast, the plan was to go down to Cape Point.  Five of us stuffed ourselves into a taxi and took off.  We made several stops along the way, the first notable one being Boulder Beach.  Here, there were colonies with tens of thousands of penguins.  We walked down a path where we could see penguins right next to our feet.  They were so adorable!  But if you got too close they would snap at you.  What makes these penguins so special is that they never divorce.  They pick a mate for life and share all responsibilities equally.  If one is hunting for fish, the other is watching the eggs, and then they switch.  Also, if one is widowed, s/he will wait two mating seasons before finding another mate.

We moved on into Cape Point National Park, where we stopped briefly to look at the wild ostriches wandered around.  (How ridiculous are our lives?)  We carried on to the southwestern-most tip of Africa and scurried off again to Cape Point itself.  This is a large cliff where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet, but, due to differences in water temperature, do not mix.  I saw a faint line in the water that I convinced myself was this meeting point.  The colors of the two oceans were starkly different, the cold Atlantic being a dark gray-blue and the warm Indian being bright blue.

We headed back through the park, stopping again to take pictures of baboons in the middle of the road and jumping down off the cliffside.  No big deal.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the day was talking to our radical taxi driver.  He had many opinions that we don’t commonly hear voiced.  He was certainly not a fan of Nelson Mandela, who also had blood on his hands, and had a better life in the days of apartheid, when education was more affordable and houses had yards.  (He was particularly bitter because the day before, his car, which was parked on the street, was broken into.)

Day 59 - Cape Town

My day started with a 30-minute ferry away from Cape Town to Robben Island, renown for the political prisoners that spent decades there, including Nelson Mandela.  We met up with a former prisoner, Tulani Mombasa, who guided us through the visiting ward, the prison wards, the exercise yards, and left us at Nelson Mandela’s 2m x 2m cell (pictured).  It was amazing what good spirits Tulani was in, and he often joked about the giant gut he amassed since leaving prison.

Tulani was imprisoned along with Nelson Mandela, and told many stories of how Mandela would exercise rigorously as he was an avid wrestler and tennis player, how he would smuggle messages between wards via tennis balls hit over the wall, and how Mandela’s policy of “each one teach one” led to the bathrooms being used as classrooms after all other lights were shut off.  He also told us about physical and psychological torture they endured (the latter being worse), and about how they would break down guards to like them, only to have new guards rotate in every 18 months.

We reluctantly left Tulani and boarded a bus for a tour of the rest of the island.  We passed the area where Robert Sobukwe was kept in solitary confinement.  Sobukwe is a little-known historical figure, but he was such a powerful speaker that there were South African laws written specifically for him, and he was denied any communication until his speaking skills deteriorated.  We also learned that Robben Island was originally used as a leper colony.  Since officials didn’t want sick people to breed new leper babies, the men and the women were kept separately.  “But,” as our guide explained, “where there’s a man’s will, there’s a way, and there were 43 births on the island.”

Back on the mainland, we got back on the bus and drove to the Langa township for lunch.  The venue was clean, large with tall ceilings, and full of long tables packed with tourists.  The buffet, complete with ostrich and other traditional foods I don’t dare try to spell or pronounce, was delicious and filling.  The host, Sheila, gave us a warm greeting and tried to teach us some Xhosa (the X’s are clicks).

After lunch, we ridiculously drove around the township in our enormous tour bus, with three other tour buses following us.  The people on the streets waved and smiled at us warmly.  They were much more welcoming than the Ghanaians, and appreciated the economic boost that tourism brought in without the aggression.  The way people lived here was incredible.  They made houses out of any materials available, including wooden boards, cardboard, and old shipping containers.  They illegally siphoned off electricity from nearby electricity towers.  And from what I hear, the settlements now have more permanent structures than in the days when they used to be bulldozed regularly.  What was more amazing was that to the left you may see nice, new houses with garages, sometimes a Mercedes or BMW, and to the right you would see a house built out of a pile of rubbish.

We hurried out of the township to get to the District 6 museum, actually passing District 6 itself along the way.  The museum was dedicated to the destruction that began in 1966, when District 6 was declared a white neighborhood and all existing residents were driven out.  The residential areas were bulldozed for new settlements, but no company wanted to be marred by apartheid or associated with this destruction, so nothing was built on the land.  In 1997, rows of new, white houses were built, and the former residents and their descendants were invited to move back, but, of course, the damage is done.

Day 58 - Cape Town

It was a cold, miserably day in Cape Town.  We focused our efforts on grocery shopping (early this time) and finally ordered those ostrich filets we were eyeing yesterday.  (Very much like beef.)  We walked along the same streets that were dark and deserted yesterday, but they looked friendly and harmless now that it was light and we were not lost.  We spent the day in the mall and bookstores and other places where we could take shelter.

Day 57 - Cape Town

 Today started with a series of very rude awakenings.  In each country, immigration officials board the ship when we dock and check over all of our passports (and yellow fever cards, if necessary) before we are allowed to debark.  Unlike in other ports, South African officials require that they meet us face-to-face when they check over our passports.  This meant we were all called up by Sea (the halls are divided into Seas; I live in the Aegean Sea) to retrieve our passports, present them to the officials, and turn them back in.  Just my luck, the Aegean Sea was the first to be called up at 6:50 am.  I got out of bed, put on pants, and took the elevator (yes, don’t judge me) up to the 7^th floor.  By 7 am the line was so long that we took the stairs down to the 6^th floor to join the queue.  I got my passport and presented it to an immigration official, who looked neither at my face nor at my passport picture, blindly applied a sticker, and returned the passport to me without looking up.

I went back to bed at 7:30 only to be awakened two minutes later by an announcement calling up the next Sea.  And so for the next half hour.  I had a whole 7 minutes of peace before Nic and Abby came banging at my door to carry me off to breakfast against my will.  At least I still had my pants on.

When the ship was cleared, Nic and I set off with one goal: to explore Cape Town.  We walked outside the port and over to the Waterfront, an area clearly marked for tourists.  We checked it out, but were quick to get out to see the real side of the city.  Everything we saw was beautiful, new, clean, and luxurious.  Apartments had balconies with beautiful vistas, hotel lobbies were lined with marble, and yards were well-maintained with exotic flowers.

I have to make note that South Africa has the world’s highest Gini index, a rating of economic inequality.  The poor are extremely poor, and the rich are extremely rich.  So far, we were wandering among the extremely rich, and I can’t lie, it was very refreshing.

Nic and I explored Cape Town, stumbling upon skyscrapers, a mouth-watering grocery store where we eyed the ostrich filets (but luckily hadn’t exchanged any money yet), and a Kurdish restaurant where we sat down for lunch.  We figured we pretty much got the idea and decided to get out of the city and leave for Stellenbosch – wine country.

Our waiter told us it was very far to Stellenbosch, 45 minutes by car.  To us this was nothing!  We set off for the train station, which we had already found earlier.  At the station, we find out that there is a train that leaves in half an hour.  Buying tickets was a clumsy affair, but we finally figured it out and went to the platform.

The train we got into was far from what I expected.  The car was old and tattered, the windows were so yellow you couldn’t see out of them, and there were no posters, ads, maps, or any superfluities on the metal walls.  This soon became a problem beyond comfort; we didn’t know where we how many stops away Stellenbosch would be, there was no map inside the car, and we couldn’t see any station names through the window.  At each stop, one of us would stand up on the seat to look through a window that was cracked open in search of a sign.  We were exhausted, and eventually we took turns sleeping and keeping track of stations.

It was hard to sleep because each time the train stopped there was an ear-piercing screech of metal on metal.  The train also made a few extra stops in the middle of nowhere, I suppose to let an oncoming train pass by when there weren’t enough rails, though we would wait 5 or 10 minutes until that train would finally pass us.  A 45-minutes car ride and an almost 2-hour train ride later, and we finally arrived in the wine country.

We exited the station into the pleasant and deserted countryside.  There were few buildings around us, no large roads, signposts, or anything to indicate tourists ever came here.  But the crowd from the train seemed to know where they were going, so we blindly following them into the neighborhoods.  We luckily stumbled on a sign for information and followed it to a tourism office.  We booked a hop-on-hop-off winery tour, and within 10 minutes we were on a shuttle to our first vineyard.  We spent the afternoon hopping wineries and enjoying wine tastings with a backdrop of endless rows of grapes extending far beyond until they met the mountains.

At the end of the day, we reluctantly boarded the screeching train back to Cape Town.  It was getting dark when we arrived around 7:30, and our plan was to pick up groceries and go back to the ship.  We wandered the city in cold, drizzling rain, passing from one closed store to another.  The entire city was shut down.  We soon gave up and tried to get to the ship.  Across the street from the dock area, we got horribly lost.  All the streets were dead ends, and each piece of property was bordered by tall barbed wire fences.  We were given many warnings about Cape Town at night, plus we were cold and wet (Nic even buttoned up the part of his shirt that shows off his chest hair), so we had plenty of motivation to get back quickly.  We took the long way into an area we knew and ran into SAS kids who sang country songs to us all the way home.

Sometime past 9 pm, Nic and I realized we were starving.  We hadn’t eaten since the Kurdish restaurant at 11:30, and we had just been drinking all day.  We made a last venture into the Waterfront (only the tourist area was open) and picked the first restaurant we found, hiding quickly from the SAS Mass that was only a few paces behind us.  I had the dinner of my dreams, with free water, free bread, and huge portions.  For a moment I thought I was in America!  I went to bed fed and happy that night.

Day 51 - Neptune Day

Lucky for me, I woke up at 0728 for no reason.  At 0730, there was a cryptic PA announcement with a strange poem and a rude “Wake up, Pollywogs!”  Shortly after, I could hear a parade of people stomping its way down the hall blowing whistles, hitting drums, and banging on doors.

Today was Neptune Day: the day when slimy Pollywogs would cross the equator for the first time to become Shellbacks.  We were among a lucky few that would cross at the Prime Meridian, making us Emerald Shellbacks.  But it wasn’t that easy!  We first had to pay homage to Queen Minerva and King Poseidon to prove our worthiness!

I went up to breakfast, catching another sighting of the parade of existing Shellbacks.  They were dressed up in togas with elaborate sparkly makeup and flashing glasses and props and were followed by Executive Dean John dressed head to toe in green sparkles as King Poseidon.

There were rumors over breakfast about the hazing to come.  On the upper deck, the crew were mashing up fish guts.  When the parade came through again and directed us upstairs, I didn’t want to go.  Luckily, participation was voluntary.

Victims would step into the wading pool and get a pitcher of fish guts (yes) pour over their heads.  Then they would jump into the pool, and as they were climbing out of the pool, they would be forced to kiss a real fish, followed by the hands of Queen Minerva and King Poseidon.  The next stage was with the Royal Barber – no appointment necessary.  A bunch of guys and a handful of girls shaved all or part of their heads (only to get sunburnt later)

Around 2:30, we all gathered on the back deck in preparation for crossing the equator.  Everyone was excited and taking photos with their recently-made signs and shouting things like, “Look, there’s the equator!”  (No, you can’t actually see the equator.)  As we crossed, the bridge blew the whistle, and within the minute we all transformed into Emerald Shellbacks.

Day 50 - Accra

We woke up at 5:30 in the morning, basically as soon as the first rooster woke up.  We had a quick breakfast and piled into a van with all of our stuff.  We drove along the bumpy dirt road for about half an hour before reaching pavement.  We stopped in the town of Tafo, where BD and Kofi lived.  We met BD’s beautiful wife, who came out with their 1-year-old daughter.  We cooed at the baby, so his wife passed her to us through the window, just like a bag of water.  We passed the baby around, then gave her back through the window.

Next we stopped by Kofi’s house, which was a modest building like any other.  But inside, there was a large U-couch and a TV and many other electronics.  It was amazing that all of this was readily available not half an hour from the village we were staying at.

BD and Kofi took us all the way to Accra, where they took us to a tourist market.  (This was a 4-hour drive away.)  The vendors at this market were not quite as in-your-face as the ones I met on the first day, but they were still pretty aggressive.  We spent a short time here, then back in the van.  They continued to escort us all the way back to Tema.  We pooled our money and bought some finger bananas through the window along the way.  I’m really growing fond of this system!  Back at the port, we said our sad goodbyes and promised not to forget each other.

Day 49 - Oworobong

Today was not the most incredible day of my life, but it was pretty high up there.

I woke up early and indulged myself in a shower.  This consisted of a bucket of water and a cup.  I felt remarkable refreshed and clean, and I was amazed how little water it took.  I got dressed and started sweating immediately.

We got to the breakfast table and were delighted.  There was so much food, we thought we were supposed to save some for lunch.  The best part was the mysterious-looking brown balls.  We passed them around and tentatively tried a bite.  Delicious!  It was some kind of fried dough ball, still warm.  When Kofi came in, we asked him what it was.  You’ll never guess: donuts!  Sometimes in Ghana they are also called Ball Floats (I like this name better).

After a very quick breakfast, we hitched a ride to the cocoa fields.  Our ride was a flatbed truck with wooden boards set up in the back to sit on.  There was not much room, and one person sat on top of the car.  We held on tight.

Soon we got out and went on foot.  Kofi’s men cleared a path for us with machetes.  Because of this, the going was slow, but we made it to a field that you would not recognize as a farm.  But indeed, we could see the cocoa trees with the cocoa pods growing right off the trunk.  Kofi’s men picked out a few ripe cocoa pods and cracked them open with machetes.  It is a long process to go from cocoa pod to chocolate.  The cocoa seeds have to be extracted from the pods, then fermented a week and dried before they are even sold to the chocolate companies.  The whole process takes over a month.  The secret no one knows about is that the cocoa seeds are surrounded by some kind of goo, and if you put this goo in your mouth, you will make your taste buds happy.  We kept grabbing for the seeds to suck the goo off the outside, which tasted like mango-banana goodness.

We continued touring the fields and learning about the mission of the Rohde Foundation.  Their goal is to get money to buy all of the adjacent fields all the way up the hills and harvest the cocoa for sustainable profit.

We went back to the village by foot and were soon rejoined by the children.  We went to visit the school for older kids, and the children followed us the whole way.  The kids holding my arms wanted to run, so I was the first to arrive at the school.  I ended up interrupting a boys’ classroom English lesson.  They immediately crowded around and said things like “I love you” and “I will marry you.”  I learned a very important lesson today: Cultures are different all over the world, but teenage boys are the same everywhere.

Thankfully, the other arrived behind me within a few minutes and distracted the boys.  We spoke to the classroom and met the teacher.  We distributed gifts and school supplies that we brought with us.  Kofi led me to a different classroom which was mixed boys and girls.  Normally, the genders are separated, but there weren’t enough girls being sent to school in this village to have their own class.  He prompted me to distribute most of the school supplies that I brought to the few girls to encourage them more.

Before leaving, we took photos with the students and Kofi invited them all to a gathering later in the evening.  We returned to the clinic for lunch and met the nurses – there were no doctors.

The same flatbed truck came for us and we piled in. The ride must have been at least an hour, maybe an hour and a half.  The road was indescribably horrible.  The potholes were extreme, the rocks were large, and the puddles so deep that one had a tortoise swimming in it.  We might have made the trip in much less time, but we had to slow almost to a stop to get around and over some of the obstacles.  Sometimes the truck had to leaning at a 45 degree angle as it spread over the uneven road.  I stood up on the front board to look over the truck and give the people my crowded bench more room to spread out.  I had to hold on tight not to get thrown backwards, and the person on top of the truck had to hold on tighter not to get thrown off altogether.

The landscape changed toward the end of our journey.  Instead of grassy fields, there were hills covered with huge rocks.  Kofi noticed our amazement and had the driver stop so we could get out and climb a huge rock formation and take photos.  Then back in the truck.

Anytime we drove past people working in the fields or walking along the road balancing supplies on their heads, we would smile and wave, and they would wave back warmly.  We passed a few small villages, and when children would see us, they would run after us chanting, “Obroni, obroni!”  This means “white person.”

Our destination was a trading village on the bank of a huge lake.  The lake was so large, you would not believe it was man-made.  It was actually formed rather recently with the building of the new hydroelectric dam.  Before, the entire area was lush forest.  The village was filled with booths that were empty that day, but on Saturdays the place is a packed trading center.  People would come by boat from up to 2 hours away.  The main difference was that this village had electricity, and many of the homes had TV’s, radios, and satellite dishes.   We spent about half an hour wandering the village, then returned along the same road back.

We had a little time to clean up for dinner, which was to be a big occasion tonight.  Kofi had invited the regional Chief and many other guests to join us.  When the Chief arrived, we all introduced ourselves and shook hands.  The Chief was dressed in a toga-like outfit and his wife had on a long dress.  Their son had on a bright yellow soccer jersey and shorts.  The position of Chief is inherited, but matrilineal, so the heir is typically the Chief’s nephew.

The dinner table was very long; the Chief was at the head, then the 8 of us, then teachers and nurses at the end.  BD sat with us and told us about the Chief, even though he was sitting right next to us.  The Chief did not speak English, and we did not know how to talk to him or act around him.  He waited for us to start eating before he started and never tried to communicate with us.  His son sat on the corner without any table room and ate off his lap.  We kept thinking we were doing something wrong or being rude, but we didn’t know what to change.

After a delicious but slightly awkward dinner, we all moved into the courtyard to the side of the clinic and sat around in a circle.  Kofi took the opportunity to educate the community about the mission of the foundation.  The Chief also shared his welcome, then he opened the floor for questions.  We went around the circle with questions for the Chief, with BD translating for us.

At the conclusion of the discussion, we moved into the yard of the clinic, where they had brought in the village computer, hooked it up to a generator, and put on a dance party for us.  The computer was a massive machine, but had the latest version of Windows on it.  The Chief just sat and watched us, but the kids and teenagers happily danced with us late into the night.  (It wasn’t actually that late, but it felt like it because the sun set so long ago.)  We went to bed tired and happy.

Day 48 - Oworobong

Today started early!  Eight of us met up at 7 am and walked out of the port to meet BD, who was waiting for us with a “Semester at Sea” sign.  A girl from our group, Ashley, organized a trip to the Rohde Foundation in Oworobong, a 5-hour drive.  BD was very welcoming and showed us to our van, a rickety contraption that you wouldn’t guess could drive.  We piled in with our stuff, talked a little, but mostly dozed off after the first hour.  In the time that I was awake, I took in the landscape; we had passed the cities and were rising into the green, rolling hills of the Ghanaian countryside.  There were some times that it was impossible to sleep because the roads were so bumpy.

Note: In order to understand what I’m saying, you have to throw away any pre-conception of what words mean, words like “highway,” “clinic,” and “hospital bed.”

The highway we took was occasionally paved, but mostly dirt with unimaginably deep potholes that the driver had to skillful maneuver around.  Sometimes there was a relatively smooth transition from pavement to dirt, sometimes there was a large drop.  The times when the dirt road was fairly level, it was covered in rocks that violently shook the van and us with it.  Later, I learned that we had avoided the main road because they were doing construction on it, and it would have been too bumpy.

We drove past some homes that looked to be made of mud with tin roofs.  There wasn’t anything that looked cohesive enough to resemble a village.  We were a long ways from home, in more ways than one.  I couldn’t help but think that if anything were to go wrong, they would never find us, not ever.

We arrived at the Rohde Foundation at exactly noon, and we were welcomed by Kofi, whose first words after he welcomed us were “Lunch is ready.”  We entered the Emergency Ward, which had in it a few empty beds with mosquito nets and a dining table.  We were shown to our room in the Guest Ward, which looked like a hostel but with mosquito nets.   For lunch, we were served heaping portions of rice with a chicken-vegetable sauce on the side.  Kofi asked if there were any vegetarians.  When we replied no, he cried, “Oh, thank god!”  After lunch, we were passed bags of water – bags!  We quickly learned to love these 500-mL bags of water.  You bite off a corner and suck out of it.

We were given about 10 minutes to rest, during which we learned how to use the bathroom.  There was drainage in the clinic, but not running water.  All the water was brought in by buckets from a pump about 75 m away.  “Flushing” the toilet meant pouring in water from a bucket.  The sink had a bag of water hanging above it with a hose, and they brought out soap for us so we could wash our hands.  Believe it or not, we were living a life of village luxury.

Kofi was determined to show us their local waterfall, and he and other members from the clinic led us on a path partly along the road, partly through people’s yards.  There were goats and chickens roaming freely, and the continuous crow of a rooster.  If you thought roosters only crowed at sunrise, you were very wrong.  Eventually we reached a path lined with foliage and started climbing down the steep trail.  The path was wet and muddy, and we often slipped or stepped on unstable ground and fell.  At this point, I would like to note that one person from our group, Jake, was in a wheelchair, and watching how the men – both African and American – helped carry him down was a small miracle in itself.

We did not walk that far, but the journey was long.  We were slipping a lot, and I couldn’t imagine how the guys carries Jake were doing it.  Jake yelled, “It better be one hell of a waterfall!”

And it was!  We finally reached the bottom and were right in front of the waterfall.  It was magnificent.  The waterfall made a small pool before flowing off into a large river, and we were so close that we were literally soaked from the mist.  We took our time wandering around before making our way back up.

We returned to the clinic, and by this time all the local children were out of school and rushed around us.  Jake was by far the favorite; he would carry kids on his lap while a dozen more pushed him around.  The children liked to touch us; they would hold both of our hands, sometimes fighting with each other over them, and they would rub their faces along our arms.  Playing with them was a little challenging, not only because they were full of energy while we were exhausted.  The kids don’t learn English until middle school, so we couldn’t communicate well.  Also, they didn’t know any basic hand signals that we would consider common, like the finger for “one minute.”  Instead, they would also hold up a finger in imitation.  They loved getting their picture taken and then looking at them on our digital cameras.  I once tried kneeling down to take a picture from their height, but this backfired as they all copied me and knelt down, too.

We wanted to hand out toothbrushes to the kids, and with Kofi’s OK, we brought them out.  The kids grabbed handfuls, then fought with each other to get more.  It was a disaster.  It ended with Kofi confiscating all the toothbrushes and making the kids line up so he could distribute them one by one.  Later, the kids would ask us individually for more brushes, though we knew they had received them already.  The older ones would just ask for money.  One came up to me and said hi and asked my name.  I told him.  Then he asked, “So where’s my money?”

Kofi then led us around the village, introducing us to anyone who was at home.  The kids followed us everywhere, never letting go of our hands and arms.  We met a lady mashing up cassava for dinner, a man who was the priest of the river, and a woman packaging coal in small portions that everyone could afford.  One woman we lived around a communal courtyard that had a TV and a bunch of phone chargers hanging from a wall.  She had her own business of hooking up the generator and charging 1 cedi so people could charge their phones.  She also hosted movie nights.

We returned to the clinic for another wonderful meal accompanied by a bag of water.  Over dinner, we had a long talk about the mission of the Rohde Foundation.  Kofi passed around a piece of coal they had made from corn cobs.  They planned to sell it for less than wood coal, and it burned longer.  This was part of their sustainability effort.  Their other goals were to provide healthcare to as many people as possible and to make their efforts economically sustainable by profits from cocoa farming.  At the end, Kofi made a demonstration.  He had BD turn off the lights, and we sat in darkness for a few minutes.  Kofi told us that with donations, they were able to install solar-powered lights in March of this year.  Before, when a woman would go into labor in the middle of the night, the baby would be delivered by candlelight or flashlight.

After dinner, we went outside to play with the kids, who had returned after having dinner at home.  The sky was incredible; with no light pollution, we could see the stars and the Milky Way clearly.  There was also a lightning storm, even though there were no clouds in sight.  We were told it must be raining somewhere.  Slowly, we peeled away from the children to go to bed.  It was probably no later than 8 pm, but the sun sets around 6 pm at the equator, plus we were exhausted!  I made up my bed, which was a pillow and a thin mattress that fell through the wooden boards underneath when I moved.  There were no blankets, but it was so hot even at night, that we didn’t need them.  I secured the mosquito net under my mattress and fell into deep sleep.

Day 47 - Accra

Nothing could have quite prepared us for the world we dropped anchor in today.  Nonetheless, they did try.  Here is what we knew going in: Although Ghana is poor (27% living under $1.25/day), it is the shining star of hope in Africa.  Ghana gained independence from Britain in 1957 (hence the national language is English) and had military rule until 1992.  In 1992, a political party grew out of the regime, and a fledgling democracy was born.  The president served two terms and then lost the next election.  The citizens were anxious about whether the party would step down or continue to rule as a dictatorship.  It stepped down.  Ghana’s government is now ranked less corrupt than that of Greece and Italy.  Oil has just been discovered in Ghana, and the hope is that the government will not squander away the new income.  The next presidential election is coming up this year, but the former president just died this summer, and now the vice president is running in his place.  Also, Ghana is a major exporter of cocoa, and all the major chocolate companies have outposts here to purchase the cocoa beans.

When we arrived in Ghana, the locals were ready.  Right outside the ship they set up a row of booths selling all sorts of souvenirs.  The vendors are very interactive and friendly, bordering on aggressive.  The welcome you to come in and look “for free” and will sometimes just take your hand and lead you in.  One man put his arm around me and his face cheek-to-cheek with mine as he was showing me his merchandise.  Sometimes they say “I love you” or call you their wife.  I had heard that the Ghanaian people were very friendly, but this was not what I expected.

We extracted ourselves with great difficulty and caught a shuttle to Accra, only 16 miles away but an hour and a half drive.  Soon, we found out why.  The traffic in Ghana is absurd.  There is a continuous traffic jam, and the local vendors take full advantage of it; people walk along the lane lines selling anything and everything to drivers through the window.  You had your pick of beverages, foods, light bulbs, newspapers, fertilizer, and plungers, among other things.  Many of the vendors and women walking the streets were effortlessly balancing huge loads on their heads – more than I could carry in my arms!

We arrived in a parking lot in Accra, and the bus was immediately surrounded by street vendors.  Some people got away by saying they will buy on their way back to the bus, after they exchange money.  We tried to find a path around them without getting stopped, and we actually managed to get through the parking lot, but there were more waiting just around the corner.  They all make bracelets on the spot with your name or “Ghana” on it.  They carry around little notebooks and tell you to write your name.  “No thanks” doesn’t work with them, and eventually you will write some name just to get them to stop.  Then without asking whether you want one or not, they start making bracelets for you, following you wherever you go.

They finish the bracelets within a few minutes, then tell you how much they like you, make small talk, distract you, and finally name a price.  The one making my bracelet was selling one for 40 Ghana cedi – that’s $20!  I laughed at him and named my price: 1 cedi.  He got legitimately offended, and when I tried to give the bracelet back he said I should just have it for free.  It is common for them to give the first one away for free anyway so then they can name you a price for two.  I felt bad – the reaction they hope for, I think – and kept trying to give the bracelet back, but after a couple rounds of this I just walked away without paying.  He was not happy, and I had to carry around a stupid bracelet all day.

I did leave a couple vendors with toothbrushes.  An organization called Global Grins, founded by SAS alums, left us with 30,000 toothbrushes that we were to distribute before returning to Florida.  I started handing some out toothbrushes, asking about kids, nieces, nephews.  They say yes to everything, and I stopped when they got too eager, though not soon enough.  I couldn’t imagine a reason to want toothbrushes other than so you and your family could brush teeth, but they tried to sell them back to students for the same 40 cedi.  I was very disheartened that our good intentions were wasted on these vultures.

We walked around the side of the road for a while – there were no sidewalks, just road, gutter, and dirt.  The gutters were ditches by the side of the road occasionally covered by concrete or metal grates.  I don’t believe the water actually drains to anywhere, and the stench of stale water filled the air.  We hopped back and forth over the gutter, depending on where there was walking space.

Our usual method of following the biggest road didn’t work here.  There was nothingness in every direction.  There was no tourist information center to be found.  We finally gave up and took a taxi to Accra Central, the main market.  (The three of us paid 5 cedi – $2.50.)  The taxi took us along a path that we never would have figured out on our own and dropped us off at the start of the marketplace.  We got out and saw endless booths on both sides of the roads selling everything from cloth to clothes to food to outdated remote controls.  We began exploring.

The marketplace was extremely crowded, and you couldn’t get through without bumping shoulders with other people and the vendors themselves.  The vendors reach out and grab your wrist and actually hiss at you to get your attention.  I felt only a little better when I saw they do this to everyone, not just to us white people. 

We kept walking the streets, this time in search of a place to eat.  We were given numerous warnings about water safety and how to avoid diarrhea.  We of course were not supposed to drink the water.  Also, we were supposed to avoid fruits, as they may have been rinsed in the water; we were supposed to avoid drinking from straws, because they are apparently reused and washed in the water; and we were to make sure foods are hot and thoroughly cooked.  Basically, we were scared to try anything.

We finally sat down at a “café,” which was a little booth with a tin roof for shade and a few chairs and tables.  We ordered soft drinks, which came to us in bottles and were opened in front of us.  Then the waitress came back with a bag of straws and prompted us to take one.  We each took a straw, the waitress left, and we all stared at each other, straws in hand.  Without a word, we put the straws on the table and drank from the bottles.

We were still hungry, and we continued walking the streets in search.  One vendor cried, “But something!” and I was surprised that they feel downright entitled to our money.  We walk all the way out of the market area and just walk the streets.  There are mostly shanty buildings, but also a lot of new, fancy banks.  Surely there must be a place nearby for the bankers to eat lunch!  We finally stumble across one building with pictures of food on it.  We walk over and are guided to a table with a pitcher of water and a small bottle of soap on it.  (We reach for our hand sanitizers instead.)  We ordered a couple of things that had names we didn’t recognize, and ended up with chicken, rice, and a muffin.  The chicken and rice were spicy but very good (and thoroughly cooked). The muffin was not sweet, but some kind of ginger/nutmeg bread dough.  We also tried a beverage called Guinness Malta (the same company as the beer, but this was non-alcoholic).  I can only describe the taste as drinkable bread.

After lunch, we wandered the streets more, but there was nothing more to find.  We eventually caught a taxi back to the bus stop.  The vendors were still there waiting!  The students who got away in the morning were out of luck, because the vendors will actually remember your name and face and track you down.  You will argue with a vendor and say you have no more money but in the end buy something.  By this point, you really have spent all your money, but as soon as the first vendor leaves, three more swoop in to harass your empty wallet.  That shuttle could not come soon enough.

Back on the ship, I showered the day away and bought ice cream, just so something good would happen today.  I’ve been told the Ghanaians are some of the nicest people you will meet, and I am more excited than ever to explore rural Ghana, away from all the vendors, and meet the people I have been hearing about.

Day 44 - At Sea

Today was a Study Day dedicated to preparing for our first exam in Global Studies, the mandatory class we all have together.  Nobody is prepared.  Most people don’t bother to go to class, much less have good notes.  It is a boring class with opinion taught as fact, and, on top of that, it is in the Union, the rockiest part of the ship, making anyone who does bother to attend lecture either seasick or sleepy.  There is no study guide, and the only advice the staff offer us is “It’s only 15% of your grade – even if you fail, you can still get a B.”  We are doomed.

Day 43 - At Sea

Taco Day!  We were surprised to find hard shell tacos, baked bean, and guacamole for lunch today.  We were ecstatic!  It is really hard to imagine how little variety we normally have in our menu.  From the Deans’ Memo the next day:

TACO DAY STATISTICS

Below are the figures for the food consumed during Thursday’s Taco Day (which also happened to be National Taco Day in the U.S.):

Number of taco shells - 1,600 shells

Pounds of ground beef - 130 lbs

Pounds of grated cheese - 50 lbs

Pounds of guacamole - 105 lbs

Pounds of sour cream - 50 lbs

Heads of lettuce - 68 heads

Day 42 - At Sea

Today, I finally bonded with one of the children!  It was not Ryan, who I still hates me, but his older brother Luke.  Though Luke is only 9 years old, he makes the rest of us feel stupid.  He loves history, especially about war, and he has an extensive store of random facts in his head.  He is well-mannered, does what he is told, and has the attention span to sit through an entire conversation without trying to punch you or hide under the table as Ryan would do.  The two brothers could not be more different.

Luke and I played Axis & Allies, a complex strategy game based on World War II.  The instruction manual was longer than my homework for the week.  The premise is that you choose where to attack based on the size of your armies and your location, and a roll of the dice determines whether you made or missed your shot.  I felt like I was losing miserably.  Luke’s armies were knocking mine off the game board, and I was powerless to stop him.  The other thing was that as long as you kept doing well, you could continue attacking, which Luke did.  I never got a turn in the entire half-hour that we played, after which Luke’s bedtime mercifully arrived.

Day 41 - At Sea

I made a breakthrough with my student today!  It turns out Ryan, the violent, hyperactive, insulting 2^nd grader to whom I am trying to teach cursive, loves worksheets!  I made up a worksheet with blanks to practice letters.  Some we would do together, and the rest were homework.  He finished his assignment without fuss – already a new phenomenon – and then began filling in the extra blanks on his own.  There is hope yet!

In the evening, I, along with a few of the other tutors, was invited to a Special Dinner by Ryan’s parents.  (The ship offers this service for a modest $29.95 per person.)  Had I paid for the dinner, it would have been worth every penny.  There were hors d’oeuvres to start, followed by a choice of appetizer (crusted baked brie), soup (French onion), Mediterranean salad, bread (a novelty to us now!), a choice of entrée (steak, of course!), and a dessert of three different types of crème brûlée (butterscotch, chocolate, and orange), complete with a glass of champagne.

Day 40 - Santa Cruz

Today I took a jeep tour up to Mount Teide, the active volcano that originally formed the island of Tenerife.  We had to drive quite a ways and go a long ways up in altitude.  We left Santa Cruz at a balmy 22°C and made our first photo stop at 8°C.  The trip showed us forests of eucalyptus trees and multi-colored layers of hardened lava flow from multiple eruptions.  The most incredible part came even before we reached the volcano itself; we had to pass through the cloud layer to reach the bottom of Mount Teide.  We drove away from sunshine and straight into a cloud, then gloriously emerged above it.  We could see valleys of clouds framed by mountains off the side of the road.

As we approached the volcano, we drove through a cauldron, a valley surrounded by mountains formed by the sinking of land when gases and vapors escaped through the ground.  Since the cauldron was surrounded by mountains, it was protected from the wind, and we were back in a comfortable 15°C.  We passed by a dusty, rocky area that we were told is similar to the surface of the moon.  In fact, NASA tested the moon rover Curiosity here.  We enjoyed climbing over rock formations all formed from volcano eruptions and made another magnificent trip through the cloud layer on our way back down to Santa Cruz.

We sailed away from Tenerife to a beautiful sunset interrupted only by the peak of Mount Teide breaking through the clouds and the dolphins splashing along the side of the ship.