10/11/11 Mauritius

It's been a week since we left Mauritius, but I'm just now getting around to blogging about it. 

I was on-call the one day we were in Mauritius, so I had a different experience than many others.  I spent the day walking around the port area and seeing the market where the locals shop.  That was lots of fun and I ate one of the best veggie samosas I've ever had.  Most of the population here is Indian and the food reflects that with lots of curries and naan bread readily available.

The most interesting thing that happened to me in Mauritius was that I ran into an Indian man who wants to imigrate to the USA.  He had all kinds of questions for me, many which I couldn't answer.  Before we parted ways he insisted I give him my email address so that he could send me a copy of his resume to forward to someone who would hire him.  Somehow, I don't think it will be that easy for him.  I did email him back with information on how to apply for a job with V-ships, the company that staffs Semester at Sea with it's crew.

As previously mentioned, I was on-call this day.  I got back to the ship early for the clinic we hold prior to leaving each port.  I was warned that alcohol is a problem in this port because many of the students go out on snorkeling trips that include lots of alcohol along with the lunch barbeque. It didn't take long until some of them started staggering into the clinic, having failed the sobriety test at the gangplank.  There were actually only a few very drunk students, which is a big improvement from previous journeys, I'm told.  Those that got drunk enough to need babysitting in the medical clinic will start accruing bad-boy (or girl) points that can ultimately get them kicked off the ship.  It only takes 10 points to get booted, and a couple kids came quite close to that number for behaving poorly in addition to being drunk enough to require medical attention.  We sat there with them for hours until they were able to blow a number that allowed them to leave.  Despite that experience, I must say that I haven't seen nearly as many alcohol-related issues as I had expected, and have been VERY impressed with this group of students overall.  For the most part, they seem to be a thoughtful, hard-working, friendly group of kids that hope to make a difference in the world.

9/30/11 The Piano Bar, M.V. Explorer

I'm sitting here in the piano lounge listening to the spouse of one of the professors brilliantly play the piano (he used to be a professional musician).  Other people are playing chess, writing in their journals, studying, or chatting with their friends.  It is really lovely, to quote one of my new South African friends.  I must leave in a few minutes to meet a patient in the clinic who fractured his proximal humerus and dislocated his shoulder in a bicycling accident in South Africa.  He was treated by an orthopedist at the hospital in Cape Town, but needs a little help managing the pain, as expected.  The clinic has been quite busy recently, mostly with viral upper respiratory illnesses, but a good variety of other minor stuff.  The clinic is interesting because it's small, and therefore, we are on top of each other all the time.  There is only one room with meds in it, and a different room with the strep tests, etc.  If I need something in the room that Dr. Sloane is in, I have to interrupt, and vise versa.  Somehow, we manage to make it work.  It's been a fun job so far, and I pray it stays that way.

9/29/11 South Africa

We are back on the ship after spending 6 wonderful days in South Africa.  Cape Town is a beautiful city that you can't wait to explore once you set eyes on it. 

Our first day there, we went on a sunset hike up Lion's Head, a mountain in Cape Town.  Our guide warned us that this was a true mountain climbing experience (and may not be a good idea for children under age 12), but I wasn't prepared for the ladders, foot- and hand-holds, and chains we had to use to get up the last part of the climb.  The kids scampered up like little mountain goats, making friends with all the college kids and guides on the trip, and proving that kids can not only do this hike, but can beat all the adults and college students up, no problem.  The dinner on top was simple, but nice, and the views were spectacular.  After sunset, we headed back down in the dark (with headlamps). I was certain that there must be a safer way down, since we were descending in the dark, but that was not the case. I did wonder what kind of a mother I was, exposing my children to possible dangers like falling off cliffs in the dark.  All of us made it back to the ship in one piece, I'm happy to report, my motherly reputation intact.

We had lots of memorable experiences in South Africa, including a wonderful, one-day safari, a scenic cable-car trip up to the top of Table Mountain to see the panoramic views, and a fancy dinner in a treehouse.  The most memorable day for me though, was the last.  We went on an FDP (faculty-directed practicum) to the Amy Biehl Foundation, which provides supplemental and after-school opportunities for children that would never have such opportunities.  It also provides a well-balanced meal once per day for the kids in it's program.  Amy Biehl was an activist against apartheid, who was stoned to death by 4 kids in a political rally.  Her parents, rather than looking for revenge, started a foundation to continue her work and help disadvantaged kids.  Two of the young men who killed Amy Biehl now work for her foundation.  It is a story of absolute forgiveness and generosity that can't help but amaze anyone who hears it. 

We spent a couple of hours driving through the townships that these disadvantaged children come from.  Picture hundreds and hundreds of corrugated steel and plywood shacks, all connected to each other, with narrow aisles between them and occasional concrete rectangular boxes that house the toilets.  Many of the people leave their doors open, so we could see inside some of the shacks as we drove by.  Some were tiny, with a small bed and table and not much else.  Others seemed to be bigger, with several connected shacks and a few separate rooms, and some seemed to have some modern appliances and TV's in them.  Some were in shambles, and others looked very neat inside. We were told that typically, when one person in the area gets a job and can pay for power, they let their neighbors splice into their power lines, and thus share resources.  Unemployment in some of these township is as high as 40%, and HIV rates are as high as 30%! 

I was just blown away by the mess that the founders of apartheid made of things.  They took housed black people from locations near work opportunities, and pushed them out of their housing without any compensation, away from sources of work, and made them start over with nothing -  thus the shanty-towns.  The vast consequences of this act were clearly not anticipated, and when apartheid was finally outlawed, the blacks had been reduced to poverty-sticken, uneducated populations.  Now the govenment must try to compensate the displaced blacks by providing them with proper housing, which it can only accomplish painfully slowly and with revenue from only 9.1% of the population that makes enough money to be taxed.  Public education, although provided by the government, is bare-bones, and many parents still can not pay the school and book fees required.  Therefore, many of the children still do not get educated.  Of note, I did not see one single white face in the townships we drove through.

Afterwards, our last evening in Cape Town, the staff, faculty and their families got the honor of getting to personally meet Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. If you check out my facebook "wall," you can see a picture of Tate giving a high-five to Desmond Tutu, with the rest of us looking on, behind him.  The reception for him was nice, but the speech that he gave to the entire shipboard community afterward was amazing.  He is clearly a deeply spiritual man, who recognizes the absurdity in distinctions between humans being based on physical attributes.  He made the point that you can not tell anything about a person's generosity of spirit, capacity for forgiveness, or anything else that matters at all, by looking at the color of their skin or size of their nose (yes, Phillips family, he did imply that our large noses do not necessarily make us superior beings :).  He was appalled that populations (such as the USA) have spent MILLIONS of dollars in a few seconds, testing nuclear warheads.  His words, and I paraphrase,  "Do you have ANY IDEA what we could have done with that amount of money to improve the lives of our people????"  He then spoke of how none of us (Semester at Sea participants) would come home the same people.  We would never again be able to ignore injustice, and we would fight for those less fortunate than us. He used very formative, compelling, inspiring language, and I had to fight back the tears.  You can just feel when you are in the presence of someone great.  

9/18/11 Bizarre Life on a Ship

Yesterday was Neptune Day. It is a sea traveller's tradition by where you are turned from a "poly-wog" to a "shell-back" on the day you cross the equator.  On Semester at Sea, it is an excuse for silliness and a party.  We were all awakened around 7 am with a parade of trident-holding, crown-clad people playing drums, clanging together pot and pan lids, yelling, and banging on our doors.  We were told to get up, have breakfast and then report to the pool deck where the ceremonies would begin.  King Neptune (the ship Captain) was escorted onto the deck by his Queen (the Executive Dean) and a whole bunch of other dressed up people.  The captain had been spray-painted green and was wearing only a white skirt and a crown, and holding a trident.  We were all told that if we had never before crossed the equator that we would need to be initiated, in order to please the King.  This initiation went as follows: 1) Get "fish guts" (looked like green water to me) dumped on your head, 2) jump into the swimming pool, 3) get out of the pool and kiss a dead fish (REALLY! See Jeff's blog soon for pictures), 4) bow to the Queen, 5) kiss the King's ring, and, 6) have your head shaved (only about 50 people actually did the headshaving part, but many were girls.  Apparently Semester at Sea has developed a reputation at some ports as being the cancer-survivor's ship). Reade and Tate went through this initiation 3 times, Jeff just took pictures, and I opted out, having done it in 1988, my first time over the equator.  Most of the rest of the shipboard community participated, so it turned into a huge party.  Because it was also on my birthday, I adopted it as my birthday party.  It will forever be a memorable birthday!

9/17/11 Thoughts on Ghana

OK.  The comments I made about not seeing much overt poverty in Ghana were proven absolutely wrong yesterday.  I saw one of the most poverty-stricken communities I've seen in any of my travels.  We went on a trip to visit an orphanage yesterday.  In addition to housing, feeding and schooling the orphans, this organization has taken on providing some food to the above-mentioned impoverished community.  We finished our day handing out boxes of food to this population, mostly to the children.  It's very difficult to describe the conditions in which they live, but I will try.  For about 7-8 cidi's (~ $5.00 USD) per month, these families (mostly single women with children) can rent a box of a shelter that is made out of cement blocks or plywood left-overs nailed together.  These "rooms" are about 12 feet x 12 feet. Some have an uncovered window, some don't.  There is no running water, no electricity, no garbage pick-up (it's everywhere, piling up all over the ground), and the floors are dirt.  How do they end up here, you may ask?  Often a woman will leave her community to follow a man to Tema, get pregnant, get deserted by the man, and find herself destitute, too embarrassed to return to her original community.  Many contract HIV along the way.  These women then become very vulnerable to the next man that comes into their lives, and the cycle often repeats itself.  Because they often end up with more children than they can support, they sometimes sell some of their children into slavery within the fishing industry.  The fishermen need labor, the mothers need money, and so the cycle continues.  It's terrible for the children.  They learn quickly to take care of themselves and usually sleep by themselves in the fishing boats at night.  When they grow up, they become the head fishermen (because that is all they know) and they buy more children to help them.  The orphanage we visited is trying hard to provide education to all the parties involved on what that cycle ultimately does to their communities, and why they should stop it (never mind the fact that it is illegal).  They believe that the only way they can change this practice long-term is to change the cultural perceptions of it, so the communities begin to see it as immoral.  They seem to be making progress in that direction, because people will at least try to hide the fact that they are enslaving children now, rather than openly discussing it.

Other Ghana Observations:

1)  It is a polygamous society. Many men have only one wife, because they are expected to be able to provide equally for all their wives and children.  More wives and children equals more prestige.

2)  Trash pickup is not good.  There is one garbage company that monopolizes the industry in the area. Suffice it to say that they do not take their job at all seriously. There is garbage all over the place, especially alongside the major roadways.

3)  The people are very nice.  Everybody smiles and calls you their "friend." Ghana feels safe.

On a totally different subject, I am 44 years old today!  I was served a huge birthday cake in the dining room and had 3 separate variations on happy birthday songs sung to me.  One was a beautiful serenade sung to me by one of the waiters. 

9/15/11 Ghana

It's been too long since I've updated my blog.  I've been a little busier on the medical front.  After Morocco, there were lots of cases of traveler's diarrhea.  We had to isolate some of the kids to a separate room because of concern of a viral strain spreading like wildfire throughout the shipboard community.  That never happened, and the whole traveler's diarrhea thing calmed down quickly.  It was replaced by a viral respiratory illness that is interfering with people having the most pleasant time possible.  However, it turns out that meaningful travel doesn't necessarily have much to do with pleasant conditions.  Unpleasant conditions happen.

Take Ghana for instance.  It is actually much more pleasant than I expected, with less overt poverty than I expected (although I'm told it is one of the poorest countries we will visit).  It is, however, awfully hot and humid.  At times all I can think about is sleeping, or better yet, jumping in the nearest body of water to try to cool off a little.  This behaviour is strongly discouraged due to the high prevalence of parasites found in fresh water here.  We are advised to wear long pants and sleeves to avoid attracting mosquitos or unwanted attention.  This does not help the problem of being too hot.  It seems that most of the locals wear long pants, which baffles me, given that they  basically live at the equator.

Another test for me is the food here.  Our tour guide cab driver took us to a local African food restaurant yesterday.  The place was called "Lick the Pot," and was completely empty except for us.  The cab driver recommended we try a soup made of tomatoes, spicy red peppers and onions, in which half of a fish is placed, complete with bones and skin attached. We were then given 2 bags each of "banku" which is a cooked, mushy, fermented cornmeal mixture.  We were also each given a large bowl of water.  In this country it is rude to eat with your left hand, so you must touch your food with your right hand only.  You're supposed to take a glump of the banku, dip it in the soup with your hands, and then eat it.  Then you should reach back into the bowl with your sticky fingers, grab a clump of fish, and eat it, skin and all.  You can use the spoon provided to sip the broth, if you'd like. When you're done, you're supposed to clean your glumpy, gooey hand off in the bowl of water that we're been told not to drink for fear of bacterial contamination.  Well, I couldn't quite stomach eating the skin of the fish.  I'm sure it was comical (or disgusting, depending on your perspective), watching me try to get the skin and bones off my chunks of fish with my right hand only, while it was submurged in a bowl of red, spicy liquid.  The fish was good. The banku is an aquired taste, I'm told, and I won't disagree with that observation.  The boys did surprisingly well at navigating their way through the meal and at least trying to look like they were enjoying it.  I was very proud of them.

While we're on the topic of food, we learned that the average Ghanaian local has at least 5 parasites living in their GI tract and that personal hygene habits around food are not quite what we're used to in the USA.  Therefore, despite lots of warnings against eating food that hasn't been cooked or drinking the local water, I'm expecting lots more traveler's diarrhea after this port.  Fun, fun, fun!

Yesterday we got the opportunity to visit a local elementary school where our taxi driver's wife works.  We got to speak with the principle, see all the classrooms, and do some interacting with the kids.  The conditions are very simple; open-air classrooms, wooden desks, chairs, a chalkboard, pencils, paper and some books. That's it.  The kids were all in uniform and were as cute as can be.  They seemed to be ahead of our kids in the USA as far as their education is concerned.  They were learning French (the official local language is English,which they speak well, but most also speak one of the several African languages of the four main ethnic groups present in this area), and the math seemed a little above par for where our kids are expected to perform at similiar ages.  Granted, this was a private school with small class sizes, but I was impressed, none-the-less.

Traffic jams are a real problem in this country, but some Ghanaian higher-up has decided to spare us the pain of waiting in traffic jams.  They have actually provided police escorts to make the local traffic move out of the way so that we spoiled visitors don't have to wait.  I think they want Semester at Sea to continue coming to Tema and boosting their local economy.  They appear to be afraid we'll be scared off by the traffic and choose to go elsewhere.  I must say, that although it made me more than a little uncomfortable to think of being treated in such an undeserved VIP fashion, it saved us hours of sitting in traffic.  Please read Jeff, Reade or Tate's blog for details of the police escort experience, which was FASCINATING!  In the rare times we did have to stop for a few minutes, local street vendors crowded all over the highways, hoping to sell whatever it was they were selling (which could be anything from snacks to clothes irons).  It seems there is a demand for this service and that the locals do get some of their shopping done in this way.  I would imagine it thins out the population a little too, although our tour guide told us that traffic-related deaths of street vendors are rare.

Here, as in Morocco, the locals shop in markets made up of narrow isles filled with little booths. The vendors sell food, toiletries, clothing, cloth, diapers, appliances, sporting goods, and just about everything else you can imagine. There were tailors all over the place, custom-making clothing on very old, well-used sewing machines.  There were also stalls filled with grains that were being ground and made into the piles of mush that would later become banku, or kenkey (sour cornmeal mush).  The electronics shops were full of discarded cell phones and computers that were being fixed and reused.  People were everywhere, and at this market, were much less aggressive than those in Morocco.  The art market was a totally different story though. We stepped off our tour bus into a flood of vendors, literally trying to pull us in 5 different directions to their various shops.  It was too much chaos for me and made me really uncomfortable.  We did get personal drumming lessons from one vendor and ended up buying 2 of his African drums (for far more than the locals would have spent, we later discovered).

That's all for today.  We're going to spend the day at an orphanage tomorrow, so I expect to have much more to report after that.

9/5/11 Morocco

We've been in Morocco for 3 days now and it's been great!.  The first day here we spent exploring Casablanca.  We saw the 3rd largest mosque in the world. Something like 25,000 people can pray inside at the same time, and over 100,000 if you include the huge areas outside the mosque built for that purpose. This government is a parlimentary monarchy and the mosque was built by the last king, Hassan II, who died in 1999, thereby relinquishing power to his son, Mohammed VI.  Mohammed VI's picture is everywhere including on the paper money and most buildings. People generally seem happy with the current king, who recently made some fairly substantial reforms to the government, taking some power away from himself and moving the government closer to the type of setup seen in England. 

The most interesting part of Morocco for me was the street market experience.  We went to the medinas (old town centers) of both Casablanca and Marrakesh.  In both cases there were huge areas of narrow corridors with little shops lining both sides.  The corridors weave all over the place, making you feel hopelessly lost when you're in the middle of them without a clue as to where you are.  Amazingly, about the time you feel totally lost, some man will show up insisting on taking you to where ever you would like to go. As soon as you buy anything, he will demand money from you for his services (that you never requested) and refuse to leave you alone until he feels sufficiently compensated, giving you stink-eye and following you around until you finally cave in and hand over the cash.

And then there are the monkeys.  If you get anywhere in the vicinity of the monkey men, they will immediately place a monkey on your shoulder, encourage the person with you to take a photo, and then demand money. I got the extra bonus of getting peed on by the monkey.  One would think this may translate to a free photo, but NO, greenbacks are still expected.  After that experience we steered clear of the snake charmers, henna tattoo artists and fortune-tellers. The kids were a little freaked out by all this unwanted attention, although they were equally fascinated by this crush of vendors, all interested in making some money off the unsuspecting tourists.

The Moroccan food is right up my alley; lots of veggies, couscous, fruit, fish, chicken and breads. My belly has been happy since I got here. Islam is by far the most prevalent religion in Morocco and so alcohol is much harder to come by than it is in the states.  We saw groups of men hanging out at bars all the time, but they were coffee bars, not booze bars.  The interesting thing was that the nightlife seemed every bit as active and social as it is in the USA, if not more so. There were literally thousands of people, including little children, in the center "medina" of Marrakesh at 11:00 pm when we left our dinner restaurant Sunday night. We are told (by our guide, Mohammed) that Sunday night is a "slow" night, compared to Friday and Saturday.

Today we travelled to the Ourika valley in the high Atlas Mountains and visited 2 of the homes of the indiginous "Berber" people.  In one home, there was a room especially for the family cow.  23 people also lived in that home, including toothless great-grandma, grandparents, parents and children down to the age of 2. The 2 year old boy, Mohammed (are you noticing any name-theme here?), immediately began leading Reade and Tate around the house by the hand and introduced them to the baby kittens, which delighted them.  The homes have multi-use rooms with big covered benches that are used for eating, entertaining and sleeping.  The floors are dirt and many of the rooms are open to the elements.  Those that aren't are small and dark. The wonderful thing is that the people also have trees drooping with oranges, walnuts, avacados and pomegranates.  We were served mint tea and homemade bread with butter, olive oil and honey at one of the homes. The tea is traditionally served by the person in the home that is the most respected, in this case, toothless great-grandma who can poor tea into small cups from about 18 inches above without spilling a drop. Speaking of teeth, it seems that many adults have lost many of their teeth by the time they are in their 30's or 40's. I tried to use this observation to scare my children into wanting to take care of their teeth and gums all on their own, without the constant nagging of their parents.

We have one more day in Morocco, but I need to be back on the ship before 4 pm for our post-post medical clinic.  So, we'll stay local tomorrow. Bye for now!