Reflections on being "from" the U.S.

I’ve never had a sense of nationality before. Now when I pass by an American Flag, I get a sense of comfort. I didn’t realize how easy it was to take our country for granted – to criticize it, to not be proud of it. I understand that we still do terrible things for power and have a lot of ugly history to recognize, but I want to appreciate The United States of America as a citizen who is proud to be from this place. In visiting other countries, flags flying around the port would let you know whose turf you were on, and give you a sense of place of the people who lived there. Flags would be a welcoming signal, a landmark, a visual for that stop on our journey. And together, with hundreds of other flags, it was a unifying symbol flying above our ship as we pulled into San Deigo on April 24^th, 2011.

As someone who doesn’t particularly identify with a political stance (I’d say more of a liberal leaning) I notice that it is easy to scoff at the progress of the United States. I had never really appreciated a soldier before, because I didn’t get the essence of war. I blamed my country for past acts without acknowledging that my freedoms are rare in this world. I was surprised when the people I’d meet in different countries would think I was enthrallingly rich, or that the U.S. is the one place they dream of visiting. Yet they’ll most likely never get a visa to visit.

What I realized even more on this trip is that it is easy to avoid appreciating all that we have. It is easy to overlook our own progress in human rights. It is easy to become disappointed with our wasting of resources, and not realize that we can breath in clean air and filter our water. Although the human and environmental issues I saw in these countries were poignant, I know that they also exist in the U.S. in some form. Unfortunately there is still a lot hidden from us that it takes visiting another country to see what it looks like. For instance, a statistic to tell you that human trafficking exists just as much in the U.S. as in that third world country. Or that right now, we have more slavery in the world than has ever existed.

Next time, I don’t want to be afraid to be proud of the USA. I will not be blind to its power and its global actions, but I want to be grateful that I have grown up in a place with so much opportunity. We’ve always heard that – from our parents, from presidential speeches, from those who visit, and history books - that the US of A is the land of opportunity. Well, from what I saw in other places, yes, it is.

Neptune Day

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Neptune Day happened a while back, but here are a few pics. The crew came through our halls banging pots and pans and blowing a whistle to wake us up, and the festivities started soon after.

Neptune Day is a maritime tradition for crossing the equator. Although we had done that a few times already on our voyage, it was still worth taking part. See the pics below!

Our captain, Captain Jeremy, was painted all green and we dressed in white robes to take part in the ceremony.

These are frozen fish awaiting to be handled and kissed by those who choose to cross over...

After going through a pool of muck, kissing a fish, and bowing to the King and Queen, you had the option to shave your head!

Sailing

Internet has been scarce on the ship the last few weeks. We were saddened to learn about Japan and have since re-routed so that we’ll be visiting Taiwan instead of Japan. We arrive in Hong Kong tomorrow – so excited to be in China and be off the ship. Although it has only been two days between Vietnam and China, the seas are very rough! Everyone is walking around like a zombie and ship is shaking a lot!!!

Will add highlights from India, Singapore and Vietnam when my stomach calms down!

Incredible India

"The Mantra to Woo Tourist"

Other SAS Bloggers

Here are some other folks to follow if you are interested in learning more about ship life and the places we are visiting:

Kelly, our IT guy
Raja, my travel buddy
Faith, another LLC

Mauritius for one day

Spent a day there between South Africa and India - here are some highlights:

Went to an SOS Children's Village. What's cool about it is that there are 8-10 children in different houses with a house mother. They cook meals together, have house chores, and all the houses are within a little "village" (the one we visited was 7 houses with a courtyard in the middle for playing). There were 97 kids there, all for many different reasons. There are a few social workers assigned to their cases, to help integrate them, and the community is set up to help them adjust to "real" life outside of the village, so they can feel ready to leave when they turn 18. The kids were a pleasure, and although we didn't speak the same language, we had fun taking pictures, playing games, and playing on the playground!

hehe - they tied thread around flies - free entertainment!

After that a few of us checked out downtown for a few minutes (it was a Sunday so there wasn't much going on) and decided to go to the beach for an hour. I was so happy to jump in the Indian Ocean that I swam in my clothes. It was warm, clear, and very salty which made it easy to float. There was a lot of coral, and soft white sand. Very beautiful beaches there!!

India - First day

India is so coooooool!! Met Raja's family, which is a serious highlight. Ate some yummy food, saw a temple, rode on a rickshaw (like being in Mario Cart) , and did some shopping. Oh, and I had a latte. That was a highlight too. Now I'm off on a service trip!

yummy food - I forget what is was called already! Veggie balls in a creamy sauce. Any comments on what this is?

View in a rick shaw

painting on the ground at a temple

Happy Feet & the Soccer Game (at a school in Cape Town)

Guess what? After 20 years, I scored another soccer goal. Well, it was in a kick off game against 6^th graders in South Africa, but still! Another highlight of Cape Town was a SAS trip I went on, called “Biking the Townships and Interactive Soccer”. We rode bikes through a few neighborhoods, visited a community center, an HIV/AIDS organization, and a poor residence where “Happy Feet” started. Happy Feet is a non-profit that our tour guide, Siviwe, started for the kids in his neighborhood. There are three signature moves: a stomp, a clap, and clapping both hands to the sides of your calves.



The kids wear goulashes, which help with the sound, and make up dances similar to “Stomp”. When we made our way to a school after learning some Xkhosa (language), we helped first graders navigate a computer game with a mouse. They greeted us with a song in English, singing “Hello, how are you? We are happy to have visitors.” We sang them Itsy Bitsy Spider, gave out some stickers, and moved on to meet the lunch ladies.

We found out that they serve 1400 students a meal. Their kitchen is smaller than the size of my cabin on the ship, and eight of them fit in it. There were two buckets – one of rice and another of sardines and lentils. Each big bucket had a mug they would use to scoop the food out. Apparently many of the kids look forward to school because it is the only place they know they will be fed that day. Then a student choir sang for us – Oh Holy Night, African songs, and Happy Feet performed! We did our best to stomp out the short dance our tour guide had taught us, and the students seemed to pity us in a cheerful way. Then we were off to play soccer!

We just saw dolphins!!

Every once in a while someone will see a whale or some dolphins jumping over our ship's wake. They're so sweet to see!! We are officially 10.5 hours ahead of east coast time and arrive in India tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cape Town #2

OK – so the most of what I’ve shared about Cape Town is that it is unbelievably, strikingly beautiful. I got to go to a few places that were simply breathtaking.

One was the southwestern most tip of the continent of Africa – the Cape of Good Hope. That’s pretty cool!!! The other was Table Mountain. Another was Boulders Beach, which is a beach full of… penguins!! I’ll tell you about Cape Point and The Cape of Good Hope first.

We went to Cape Point National Park early in the morning after spending the night in this cute beach town, Simon’s Town, at a quaint bed and breakfast. When we arrived in our blue VW van at the Cape Point park, we drove in and hiked up to the top of Cape Point – we were the only people in this whole huge place that early in the morning! It was so windy that when you stuck your head out to look over the edge it felt like you were skydiving with the wind whipping past your ears and into your hair! The view of the ocean and the landscape was striking. Then we drove to the Southwestern point, passed by ostriches just hanging out, and played around on the rocks by the ocean.

On our way back through this national park, our taxi driver stopped the van abruptly, turned it around and we thought he was lost. As he turned on to another road, we saw that there were about 30 baboons just hanging out in the road! We pulled up to see them but kept the windows mostly closed, as they’ve been known to steal wallets and food from humans! After learning about this, I turned to others in the car to ask about the possibility of baboons evolving to incorporate into our society, where they actually use our currency. I thought it was a valid point, but I have a feeling it was still too early in the morning to have this conversation. We eventually made it back to our Bed and Breakfast to have a wonderful meal, and a real tea party!

Cape Town Reflection #1

South Africa was the most amazing time. Raja and I started our first day with a service trip with Operation Hunger. We learned about this non-profit that has grown over time to serve thousands in different squatter villages (aka “Townships”) that are still recovering from Apartheid. We weighed children in one village to track cases of malnutrition, and got a chance to enjoy them singing and dancing for us. I was amazed every time a group would perform for us (spontaneously) while in Africa, as they have the most beautiful voices. I think Africa as a country chose songs that best represent their vocal range – every song, even a simple one sung by six year olds, sounded stunning. Very young children would know all of the words and would have the confidence to take turns dancing solo in front of large groups. I appreciated that this was a strong part of their culture, and on both trips I led, I asked if we could respond to them with a song or a dance. The first time we danced the “Macarena” for kindergartners and later when we visited a school, we sang “Itsy Bitsy Spider” to first graders. Simple, but really the only few choices we seem to have when trying to find a song we all remember and share as Americans…

I was very glad to have started my journey in South Africa with an unveiling of the deprived side of Cape Town. There is so much wealth, glitz and natural beauty, that it is terribly easy to forget about the other side of the spectrum – the side that can be ignored when you are wandering by the gleaming white ferris wheel on the waterfront, passing through a gargantuan upscale mall, or jumping into the vibrant city life of Cape Town. There are families who will be in poverty for many more generations before catching a break. Many townships have no running water, sewage systems, or access to clean water. Some have electric wires haphazardly hung shanty to shanty, resulting in many injuries and deaths as people try to rent and borrow lines of electricity. And the country as a whole suffers from high rates of HIV/AIDS. The country seems to be very aware of these stark contrasts, but those who have the upperhand seem comfortable living on the very edge of the other side of this spectrum – beach homes perched in cliffsides along the water; city areas with the likes of Sunset Strip with beautiful views of the ocean with a cocktail; a glitzy waterfront boasting fancy hotels and consumer culture. Of course, one trend seems to stick with us wherever we go: the issues that we notice most are the same ones we face in the United States.

These two pictures represent what I am talking about - your first view of the Cape Town waterfront when you come in by boat, and then a picture from our trip into one of the villages of the singing & dancing children!

Cape Town, South Africa

More coming soon! Here is the route we took when the high winds prevented us from entering a narrow birth (passageway at the port). We were on a very rocky ship for 30 extra hours, staring at this gorgeous view for some of it. The whole ship rejoiced when we heard that we could finally land the next day at around 11am. Here we are on our way to land. So many wonderful stories and pictures to share... will post soon!