SOUTH AFRICA

DAY # 1

My first day in South Africa was one I had been anticipating for a while and one that I will never forget. I got to spend the entire day in a South African township at an orphanage called Home from Home. Unlike most orphanages that uproot children from their communities and place them in large institutions in the city, Home from Home builds homes within the local communities, hires a house mom, and places only six kids in her care. This allows the children to remain in their same environment where their native language is spoken and lets them feel like they are part of a real family. These networks of “families” all have the help of the day care facility set up by Home from Home and it was here that we spent most of the day playing with the children.

When we walked in all the kids got so excited and were waving and smiling at us. We tried at first to give them high-fives (the American hello) but this confused them. So one little girl came up to me, shaped my hand so it look like I was giving a thumbs up, turned it sideways and then snapped her thumb against mine (apparently the South African hello). The kids thought this was so funny that we had no idea how to snap. We had come right about lunchtime so we sat down with the kids while they ate a bowl of rice and fish (it was pretty gross) but not one kid left their bowl unfinished, something I had never seen American children do. After lunch the kids laid down for a short nap and we took a walk to visit some of their homes. The first home we went into was ran by housemom Nikki, a sweet enthusiastic black woman who had no children of her own and enjoyed being a mom to her six orphans so much. The home was small but it had a living room, kitchen, one bathroom, and two rooms for the children (one for the boys and one for the girls). Like a mom, Nikki had pictures of her kids up on the refrigerator and large calendar hung on the wall of the children’s schedule. There were a few of the older kids there and they introduced themselves as brother and sister, it was so sweet.

Back at the day care center the children were rested and ready to go. We had brought with us lots of toys and school supplies that we had been collecting along the way for them. So we began building and coloring and putting together puzzles. When that got boring we moved outside and had an Easter egg hunt in the yard for them. We played tag, swung on the swings, sang children’s songs, and just ran around. I forgot how exhausting it can be to keep 4-8 years olds entertained for 4 hours. But we had so much fun with the kids. They loved when we took pictures with them. They almost never see images of themselves so they love taking a picture and then getting to see the image on the screen after. It kept them busy for hours. For the most part they knew English, but they also spoke in their African language as well.

Sadly we were informed that over 2/3 of the children we had been playing with had HIV/AIDS and that many of them were placed here because the disease had killed their parents. It made me angry to watch these young innocent children playing and enjoying life but knowing theirs would be all too short because of the ignorance of their parents. HIV/AIDS is 100% preventable but still too much of South Africa is in denial about how to stop spreading this deadly disease. At the end of the day we gave the children some tearful good-byes and watched their sad faces as we drove away. On the drive back our bus driver told us he was going to take us through some of the more underdeveloped townships.

When you arrive in Cape Town you will see this big beautiful colonial city with lavish beach houses built into the coast and high-rises that fill the city, but as we drove only 5 minutes outside of the city all we could see were never ending sprawls of shacks. Square huts made out of tin all compacted together. The roads switched from pavement to dirt and there were no restaurants, stores, or industries anywhere. We had learned a lot about the apartheid that happened in South Africa and while so much has changed since then, seeing these townships made it all seem too recent. The discrimination and isolation that the white South Africans imposed on the blacks has lasting effects well past the new legislation brought in my Mandela. Overall though it was enriching to get to expierence this side of Cape Town to and understand the healing that is still taking place post apartheid.

Day # 2

I didn’t have much planned on this day so when my friends and I saw this big red double decked open toped bus driving around we thought it looked like fun so we boarded it. Basically it made a bunch of stops all around the city and you could get on and off and explore at all the different places. It was kind of touristy but we had so much fun and I got to see almost every inch of Cape Town.

Stop #1: The V&A Waterfront. This is where our ship was docked and it was one of my favorite places in Cape Town. It was a large port filled with boats and line with amazing restaurants and shops. It was colonial looking and had some of the best food ever. We ate almost all of our meals on the waterfront. I’ll have to put up pictures to show you all how pretty it was.

Stop #2: St. George’s Cathedral. This was a big beautiful church that was built by the British who colonized South Africa and brought with them Christianity. It was Easter weekend and the church looked so beautiful. We went inside and said a few Easter prayers and walked through the garden out back.

Stop #3: District Six Museum. It showed the area where 60,000 blacks were forced out of their homes during the apartheid. It was so sad and upsetting to think this kind of cruelty occurred so recent in our world’s history. District Six is the famous example of this isolation but it happened all throughout the city. It was all really interesting to see and hear the stories of the families.

Stop #4 Castle of Good Hope. The oldest building in Cape town and beautiful historic castle set right on the hill of Cape Town Coast. We walked all around it and got to take great pictures from its high walls. Though a little startling we got to see them shoot off a cannon which they do every day at noon.

Stop #5: TABLE MOUTAIN. The most beautiful place in all of Africa! It is a big flat top mountain set in the background of the city and coast. To get to the top we took a gondola that spun in a circle so we could get a 360 view of the whole area. The view at the top was incredible and you could see the ocean for miles. We took pictures and hung out at the top for almost 3 hours. We ate at a little restaurant and I got to just sip champagne while sitting on a bench enjoying the spectacular view.

Stop #6 Sea Point. This is the lavish and expensive beach area that has endless houses built into the coast like Malibu. Also there is a huge beach where tons of people were laying out, playing volleyball, and swimming. There were tons of restaurants and hotels along the beach and we learned that it was the “it” place to be seen or live. If I come back to Cape Town this is definitely the area I would love to stay in.

Stop #7 The World Cup Stadium. Though it was still a month away, buzz about the world cup was everywhere. Endless merchandise being sold, space and area being cleared to accommodate for all the people, ship docked early to keep their prime spot. The stadium its self was very cool. We didn’t get to go inside but outside it was very modern looking and actually slightly isolated out on a huge piece of land left of the city. But it made me so excited to watch the world cup this summer.

Stop #8 The Aquarium. Cape Town is known for its incredible marine life, especially it’s great white sharks. So despite not getting to go shark cage diving like most of my friends I still got to see a lot of what the beautiful ocean has to offer.

ONLY ON SEMESTER AT SEA.....

Just wanted to give all of you an idea of what life is like on the ship. When you live in a small community out in the middle of the ocean, we tend to create our own quirky way of life.

Only on Semester at Sea………

1. ONLY ON SAS COULD YOU BE ASKED TO TEACH CLASS – I was sitting outside my sociology class one day when the teacher came over and sat down across from me. She informed me she had been asked last minute to speak at Global Studies, which met during our class time, and asked if I wouldn’t mind teaching class that day. She handed me her lesson plan and took off to the lecture hall. Though a little stunned, I ended up getting to give a pop quiz, lead a class assignment, collect papers that were due, and oversee a guest speaker invited to class that day. I had so much fun being in charge, but I have to say teaching is harder than it looks. It’s like advanced babysitting.
2. ONLY ON SAS IS YOUR ROOM CLEANED FOR YOU EVERYDAY – my roommate and I have a little morning routine. We wake up at 7:30; get ready, then go to the dinning hall for breakfast at 8:00 a.m. When we arrive back at the room at about 8:30, our floors are vacuumed, our beds made, our clothes folded, our tables tidy up, our bathroom cleaned, and a set of fresh towels laid out for us. Our cabin steward is named Ray and he takes very good care of us. Ray is from the Philippines and is away from his family for months at a time : ( But he says he loves working on the ship and knows every kid on the hall by name.
3. ONLY ON SAS COULD BALDNESS BE AN ACCEPTABLE TREND - There is an age-old tradition that when you cross the equator for the first time on a ship you must go through the Neptune ceremony. This is typically a big tradition for new marines, but basically you have to do things like get fish guts dumped on you, get crowned by the king Neptune (Dean White), and kiss a fish. However, one of the traditions of the ceremony is to get your head shaved. While the majority of us skipped this part, many of the students on the ship chose to participate. Of course a ton of boys did it, but the more surprisingly about a dozen girls ended up shaving off all their hair. I considered it for a second because I pictured how funny it would be to see all your faces when I arrived back home, but then quickly remembered I was the girl who got hair extensions when I accidently cut my hair to my chin. Still it was so weird the next day walking around; we looked slightly like a cancer ward. As usual, only on semester at sea could this all be so normal.
4. ONLY ON SAS CAN YOU ASK YOUR TEACHER FOR HELP THE NIGHT BEFORE AN EXAM – I had an anthropology mid-term between India and Mauritius. The night before, I was studying in the lounge with a friend from my class. We were stuck on a chapter that just didn’t make sense. So we grabbed our textbooks and went to knock on our teacher’s door. It was 10 o’clock at night, but she welcomed us in and spent an hour basically reviewing the whole lesson with us. As we left, we laughed as we wondered what our CU professors would do if we just dropped by their houses at 10 p.m. the night before a test and asked to review some of the material.
5. ONLY ON SAS COULD COLLEGE STUDENTS LEARN TO FUNCTION WITHOUT THE INTERNET - Up until this voyage I didn’t really think this was possible but now I know for sure, life still does go on without Facebook. Some people on the ship might still disagree, but it has been kind of nice not to be constantly “logged in” to the world. In fact, it is amazing how much more time I have when I am not parked in front of my computer chatting or writing on people’s walls or stalking my crush. Without the internet no one sits in their rooms, we all get out and do stuff, spend time with each other. Crazy concept huh? Information travels the old fashion way through word of mouth and when we want to know something we have to go directly to the source. For I think the first time in my life, I wrote an entire research paper using only BOOKS!!
6. ONLY ON SAS COULD COLLEGE STUDENTS LIVE IN A CELL PHONE FREE WORLD– Another blast to the past has been learning how our parents existed without cell phones. And for you young people, if you have ever lost your cell phone for a day you know what I am talking about. On the ship when you want to get a hold of someone you just go knock on his or her door. Or if you are too lazy to walk the 50 feet to their cabin, you can call them from the cord telephone in your room. Which has its own issues like no caller ID so no screening calls and no answering machine so you have no idea if someone called while you were out. In our room, Katy and I have put a little message pad by our phone so if someone calls for one us while we are gone the other person has to write down the message and leave it by the phone. We also keep a little phone book, which basically consists of all of our friends’ room numbers and all the service desks on the ship. However, the biggest adjustment has been no text messaging. This means no passive aggressive messaging because you are too scared to call the person and no making plans to meet by sending mass texts out. You learn quickly without cell phones that when you say you will be somewhere, you better be there and if the person isn’t there you sit and wait. There is no changing plans last minute and no calling to say you are on your way. Some people on the ship have gotten creative though. On most of the doors people put up signs that have various places on the ship – library, dining hall, pool – and a magnet that they put over the place they are. So the top usually reads: Alex is….. and the magnet would be placed in the little square next to the words “dining hall”. It is actually quite helpful so you don’t have to circle the boat a hundred times looking for someone.
7. ONLY ON SAS ARE YOU TREATED LIKE A TERRORIST – for any of you that hate going through airport security imagine doing that almost everyday for 10 trips straight. Typically the drill is this, when you come back to the boat after having been out in the port you first have to go through the country’s security to even get into the docks then you continue on to where your ID is checked at the entrance to the SAS jetty. Next you walked up the rickety narrow stairs to the fifth deck where there is a medal detector machine and about five security crewmembers. Once you make it through the medal detector you have to place your bags on the table where they are ripped through and searched for alcohol, drugs, and any other items we can’t bring on board. Usually while this is happening you are being frisked by another security person and thanks to some students who decided to put alcohol and drugs in some interesting places, these pat downs are a little less than gentle. Lastly you have to swipe your card that lets the machine know you are accounted for and on the ship. This process can sometimes take up to 15 minutes and you sometimes do it 4-5 times in one day. I guess it is nice to feel safe on the boat, but I can’t say I will miss having to be searched every time I walk in the door.
8. ONLY ON SAS IS TIME A FLEXIBLE CONCEPT – Ever wish there was 25 hours in a day? Well on semester at sea there is. We cross into a new time zone every few days and because of the direction we are moving, we gain an hour each time. For those of you who have trouble changing your clocks on just day light savings then imagine doing it almost every other day. For the most part it is pretty great getting an extra hour of sleep most nights but it definitely throws you off a little. Also, because we go to school when the ship is sailing and enjoy travel time when the ship is docked, we follow a unique schedule. For classes we alternate between A days and B days so we have no idea if it is a Monday or a Saturday. Also we sometimes have classes for 10 days straight and other times we only have two days of classes in between ports. Time is also pretty precious on Semester at Sea because we have such limited amounts of it in port. Typically in port I only get 8 hours of sleep for the entire week because there is so much to see and do. In fact, I have pulled more all nighters here than any other time in my life.
9. ONLY ON SAS ARE THERE NO EXCUSES– I am happy to say, for the first time in my entire student life, I have perfect attendance. It is funny how easy it is to make it to all your classes when it only take 2 minutes to walk there, when the weather is never an issue, when you are never hung over from the night before, and when there is really nothing else better to do than go to class. Also teachers have been known to come and knock on your doors if you don’t show up for class and if they don’t then there is a good chance you will have to pass by them in the halls or at lunch anyways. So you can’t use excuses like a family emergency or a doctor’s appointment or a vacation. Things like work and family never get in the way of school and there is never really anything really great to do that would make skipping your homework or class worthwhile. Worst of all there is no excuse for why you are late on a 400-foot ship.
10. ONLY ON SAS COULD YOU WAKE UP TO AN OCEAN VIEW EVERYDAY – Besides the people, I think the one thing I will miss most about the boat is the beautiful view. Everyday I get to raise my shades and see the incredible ocean out my window. I get to curl up on a lounge chair out on the deck and enjoy the nice sea breeze. When no one is looking I can sneak out to the front of the boat and lean out over the bow like Kate Winslet on Titanic and sing. Ok not really but you get the picture it is so incredible. We gather and watch the sunset every night and on ports we get to watch the boat sail into the various cities. Once you are over the whole seasickness thing, living on a boat is an experience everyone should have.