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!

Ship Life

I’ve gotten some requests about life on the ship. Here goes...

My Living Quarters

I’m on the 4^th deck, starboard side (right side of the ship if facing forward), near the aft (back of the ship). Although I don’t get internet in my cabin, it is a decent trade off because the back is less rocky than the front of the ship, where there is more of an internet signal. Here’s a picture – adequate storage space, decently comfy bed, great view of the ocean! A small TV with a few ship channels on it (a few movies and announcements). Each day at 9:15am and 5:30pm, our Assistant Exec Dean Marti, otherwise known as “The Voice,” comes on over the loud speaker to announce the day’s events. This is broadcasted in all of our cabins, in the hallways, and outside on the decks for all to hear.

Seasickness

I’ve spent a lot of days on the ship feeling somewhat queasy, nauseous, or sleepy. The constant rocking of the ship has made many people sleepy, and so a lot of people take naps more often than they usually would. Naps and laying down also help with feeling seasick! But, some days are calmer and you feel like you have a brand new outlook on life because you feel somewhat normal again. Or, you hit land at port and forget completely about it, realizing how great this trip is.

The General Day

Truth be told, the food has been quite good. This is a picture of some of us eating lunch on the deck - most of my meals take place there. They even clear your dishes for you! There is a constant PB & J bar, which is always a hit. The crew is super friendly and extremely efficient. There’s about 200 of them who deal with all aspects of the ship – security, engineering, facilities, dining, etc. There are only 20 women crew members out of that 200, and most crew members are Indian, Filipino or Jamaican. It’s a challenge to be alone outside of your cabin, as there are always random conversations to have, folks to run into, or new things to do. For instance, I decided to take a nap on the 5^th deck today, and after about 20 minutes I woke up, rolled to my side and saw Julianna and Carolyn, who had yoga mats. They were coming outside to do some yoga and I joined them in doing it. Things like that happen a lot. You’ll be doing one thing, and then hop on to the next. I’ve been facilitating Laughter Yoga, which seems to be a hit so far, and I arrange all of the fitness classes – so far we have students and staff teaching Zumba, Belly Dancing, Yoga, and Tai Chi for the shipboard community. We also have a P90X group and Insanity group that meet every day at sea.

Each day breakfast is served 7am-8:30am. I usually get up there around 8:26am, before the food goes away. Sometimes I’ll sleep through breakfast, wake up to the Voice at 9:15am and snack in my room instead. Every day I have a staff meeting at 12:15pm, and before and after that are student or planning meetings, or the class I am auditing, “Stress Management” with Jeffrey Cottler – look him up, he is pretty cool and a well established academic, psychologist and writer! I supervise two students who help me with programming and also advise a Peer Health Education group. Other than that, I help students who have an interest in wellness get their ideas up and running, or facilitate other programs that interest people. It’s pretty fun!

Things I miss:

Eating breakfast in my pajamas, at my leisure, on a Saturday morning

Making a meal and eating it on my back porch

Opening a window to air out a room

Getting a phone call or picking up my phone to call someone on a whim

Kale and quinoa

Things I appreciate on the ship:

Having your bed made every day

Having a safe place to come back to when traveling at port

Sitting on the deck watching the water go by at any time of day

The small community feel and many opportunities to learn and think about new things!

Slave Castles/Dungeons

In Ghana many people go to visit what is called the Slave Castles & Dungeons. We visited Cape Coast, which has one such castle. It looks out to a bright blue ocean and I can imagine it was once a beautiful looking place. It still is ridiculously beautiful, and could almost be peaceful, except that it is haunted by a very sad and unjust history.

Serving as a fort, it was taken over many times and finally run by the British in the 1600s as a holding place for African men, women and children who would be sold into the slave trade. We went on a tour of this place and learned even more about the atrocious conditions Africans had to withstand, and how there was an actual community and church functioning around and above the dungeons. Literally, a torture chamber is right next to the church, or the dungeons are right below administrative spaces. Our guide shared with us some very difficult truths as we went through the tour of these spaces, and entering into the actual dungeon made it both real and incomprehensible that people once survived there in this way.

First our tour guide took us to the suffocation cell, where they would lock people if they tried to escape. Here there would be absolutely no light, ventilation, food or water, so they would stay until they died. In the men’s dungeon, there were 1,000 men stuffed into a small space, divided in five compartments - strongest to weakest. There were small ditches in the ground to insufficiently carry human waste out to the ocean. As much as two feet of human waste would be lingering in the dungeon amongst these people – dead and living. I am still trying to comprehend how one even tries to sit or to sleep, or even breathe in such circumstances. 300 women stayed in another dungeon and were often pulled out to be washed and raped by soldiers and dealers. It is hard to imagine two months of this, with about 50 percent of the slaves surviving overall. When the slave ships came, they were walked through the dungeons and finally saw daylight after so long. There is a wonderful view of the ocean, with a sandy shoreline and waves crashing white spray against black rocks. I wonder if at this point the slaves had a glimpse of hope for something better, or a small moment to appreciate fresh ocean air… but I assume that they had lost much of their integrity, strength, hope, and especially their trust in the men leading them to their fate. These Africans walked through the “Door of No Return” to enter canoes that took them to the slave ships. The Door of No Return signifies that no African leaving through that door would ever return back to their continent of Africa, or their country. In the slave ships were even worse conditions. There they were shackled to each other and forced to lay two by two by two for months on their way to be traded and even more degraded in health and humanity. Forced to lay in their own waste and disease. Be hungry, seasick and motionless. Be witness to death and smells that no human should ever know. Sometimes all of the slave passengers would be thrown overboard alive, if the ship was in trouble of getting caught carrying slaves.

I just can’t comprehend or even begin to imagine how humans would get to a point of thinking that any of this was OK. To treat any living creature this way, especially human beings – I can’t imagine how it was reasoned or rationalized or taught; how anything on this earth would be treated that way without critical thought… and yet I see in our history how deeply impenetrable many forms of oppression are. Or how critical thought somehow floats away slowly without us realizing.

A bit more on Brazil

So far the MV Explorer has sailed from Nassau, Bahamas, to Roseau, Dominica, to Macapa, Brazil and sailed the Amazon River into Manaus, Brazil. After sailing back out the same path, we entered the Atlantic Ocean and sailed straight across for nine days to Takoradi, Ghana. The capital of Ghana is Accra, but we were about four hours away in a smaller city. Now we are sailing along the African coast, on our way to Cape Town, South Africa.

The ship was very rocky on our way to Brazil, and many people got seasick! We were happy to sail on the Amazon River, as it was much calmer water and we weren’t swaying from side to side all day. We sailed on the Amazon River for three days and crossed a point called “The Meeting of the Rivers”. This is where the Rio Negro and the Amazon River meet. The Rio Negro (“Black River”) is actually very dark – almost black – in color, and the other river is brown. You can see this difference distinctly as you pass it. In Brazil, I slept in the jungle on an army hammock during a trip called “Jungle Survival Skills”. Men who retired from the Brazilian army took us on a hike around the jungle. We learned about various plants and how they can cure malaria or help heal a wound. We also learned how to set animal traps and learned more about tribes who continue to live in the Amazon Jungle.

Here is one of my favorite pictures so far - the River Boat we took across the Rio Negro to go "survive" in the jungle. It's very popular to take river boats, and you can take one for a few days, sleeping in a hammock along the perimeter, fishing and stopping in villages.

The middle of the earth?

0 degrees latitude, 0 degrees longitude.
Today we crossed the point where the Prime Meridian and the Equator meet. The captain announced to go to the "starboard side" (right side) of the ship and then blew the horn as we passsed that point. We were told we would feel a "bump" or see a sign, but to our demise, there was no such thing. Just ocean! We thought, with all of the world knowing this is the center of the globe geographically, isn't there at least a bouy?

Here it is!

Dominica (Doh min ee kah)

!

Dominica is a beautiful place! Many people often confuse it with the DR, but in fact, it is its own Caribbean Island. Here I went on a trip into a village to learn about the traditions of the native people – there are only about 3,000 left on the island who uphold the same way of life. As people (i.e. Christopher Columbus) came in to try to enslave the island’s inhabitants, this island is the only place that native people survived. They knew how to hide and survive in the mountainous rain forest. We learned about their traditions, food, living situation, and how they co-exist within an otherwise “developed” country.

This picture is of a bay leaf - I had never never seen nor smelled an actual bay leaf in fresh form! It smells delicious.

The Haus Cottage "Botel"

We decided it would be good to get a night away from the ship. I admit, I feel totally spoiled living on a cruise ship and having my own room. But there is something about "getting away" from the port, and the ship, and having a window to open, or a taxi to ride in, or actual ground to sleep on that is just plain refreshing. The place we stayed was like a Ghana version of the resort from "Dirty Dancing" - except this one had crocodiles! I pet a crocodile. Willingly. I will have to post that picture soon! We stayed at this place for a night after visiting Cape Coast, then went to Kakum National Forest the next morning. We were almost the only folks staying there, which was a bit odd, but I could see how it would be a hoppin' place at peak season.

In Africa...

Never thought I would go to Africa. I realized this trip that there is so much more to say than what would fit into a mass email. We just left Ghana (Takoradi) tonight, and so many of us are still processing what we experienced, learned, smelled, danced to, and saw. I want to share with you, in a somewhat candid way, my thoughts on a few highlights.