One Year Ago

Yes today is the anniversary of my first ever boarding of the M.V. Explorer and the start of my amazing journey around the world. I can't believe it has already been a year. The time went by so fast......
Anyways, why after so long of not writing in my blog, why do I choose now to write? Well first I am writing to commemorate the anniversary of this day, but I am also writing to make a promise to myself to finish this blog. Of course I am choosing the wrong semester to do it, with 21 credits and 2 full days of working in a kindergarten classroom, but I feel that it is very important for me to think about what happened and reflect on what I witnessed at this time one year ago. I believe that this will help me remember the semester that is so important to my life. Also I think it will help me escape for a little while from the reality of my life today. So since I have already written about Spain and most of Africa I am going to take the next month and a half to get used to my life at school and will start off again October 6th where I will finish up South Africa and continue writing following the dates of my voyage last year. Hopefully I will be able to finish it off!
Okay here's to a year of amazing exploration!
See you in a couple months!

South Africa continued

OK so now I shall explain my problem with the waterfront. Basically, like I said before, it is a big fat lie! There we are safe and sound in this wonderful clean place with fancy italian and sushi restaurants, with a gigantic mall full of brand name stores, surrounded by tons and tons of shops, and yet if you go just a little ways outside the waterfront and the city you are hit with the exact opposite.  The amount of poverty I saw in South Africa was awful, but all of it was in the townships, where the blacks were pushed during the apartheid. The Africana’s were free to work good jobs and enjoy the waterfront, while the blacks were lucky if they could find any job at all. But wait I thought the apartheid had it’s great ending? I guess it has only been 16 years since Nelson Mandela won the presidential election, and yeah there is no more violence against the blacks, they don’t have to stay out of the cities, but what else has changed for them? Can’t they do anything about the poverty? Another issue now is that people are migrating from Zimbabwe (where the government is really screwed up right now) following the rumors that there are plenty of jobs in south Africa, unfortunately that is a lie and so they end up in the townships totally stuck. One good thing that is going on in the townships I learned about during my home stay.

Unfortunately my home stay didn’t start first thing in the morning I had some time to kill before. So what do you do when you are all alone, in a new city, and there is a limited area where it is actually safe to roam around? Well I don’t know about you but I go in search of free internet. Haha. Pretty lame right? I agree….but that’s how a lot of my time was spent in South Africa, everybody I would hang out with ended up going on long day trips that I couldn’t join cause I had an sas trip, and so I would be abandoned at the waterfront. So I spent a lot of time navigating the gigantic mall, finding the best place to get internet and eating yummy food.

I was soooo bored and ready to get away from the waterfront once the time came for us all to gather for the home stay. Our group was given an amazing introduction to the place where we were going to spend the night. It turned out that the township community that we were going to was not one of the original townships where people were forced to live during the apartheid. Rather it was a newer township built on the land that once separated the townships from the city. Our guide’s story was quite interesting. He was a white man who had volunteered with habitat for humanity through his church and had spent a lot of time in the townships.  As he spent more time with the people of the township he got more and more involved with helping them find ways to support themselves. It turns out that the women and their family’s that we would be spending the evening with had created their own organization to help support themselves and that was offering their homes to people like us for a small amount of money. It sounded like a pretty awesome deal and I got very excited hearing about the kindness of the mamas we would get to meet. Once we got to the township we gathered at the main mama’s house where the other mamas were to meet us. We received another brief introduction from the mama as we waited for other mamas to gather. We learned that we were going to be split in to pairs and taken in to a home. I was soooo excited to meet my mama and amazingly enough we found each other before we were even formally introduced.   My friend Maria, a nice girl who I had recently met was immediately drawn to one mama because they both had dred locks. They began talking and soon realized that they had been matched up, along with me as well. I won’t ever forget about when I met my mama, she gave me a big hug and she said “I could tell right away that you were my girls, they always give me the naughty ones.” Hahaha. She got really excited, told us that we would be cooking dinner together and then we would dance all night. When we were finally free to go our mama walked Maria and I around town a little bit and we greeted some of her friends on the way to her house.  Everyone I met was so excited to greet us. They were all smiling and laughing.

When we arrived at Mama’s house I was shocked at how beautiful it was. It wasn’t a huge house, it was simple with concrete walls and floor, it only had a small living room two bedrooms and a small kitchen, but the way she had decorated it was so colorful. None of the furniture matched, some of it was falling apart, but she had pictures and decorations hung up everywhere which made the house seem very nice. Mama led Maria and I to our room which was furnished very nicely with two tiny twin beds with giant mismatching pillows and comforters. After we had a small tour of the house we sat and began cooking dinner.

As we were cutting up sweet potatoes and carrots mama started playing music and started dancing. It was so awesome to see her being so excited and we had to join her. Soon she took over the cooking, although Maria and I offered to help more but she wouldn’t let us. Soon after we received a few gifts, one was mama’s good friends miss Lucile, another was mama’s sister’s granddaughter, and then another was a high school student who often visited mama. It was good talking to these people, Miss Lucile was very curious about where we came from, and about our studies, we talked to the high school girl about what life was like. I asked her about tall the languages she could speak and when she found out that I could only speak English she was shocked. How I wish that wasn’t the case. Mama’s grandniece was a very shy little girl who barely spoke any English. We were able to feed her some dinner which she seemed very excited about.

When we did finally sit down for dinner mama led us in a short prayer, she insisted that we take a picture of the dinner table al beautifully set. Before we ate she insisted that we eat the South African way, eating the chicken with our hands. The dinner was really good, minus the beat salad, but I was still able to eat everything on my plate, with a little help from Maria.

After dinner we went across the street to visit the neighbors. We brought food to a small family who was enjoying some tv before they went to bed. Again mama insisted that we take lots of pictures of her neighbors. We went to another neighbor’s house, two young girls with their grandmother and when mama insisted that we also take pictures of them the girls ran in to their room and changed from their pajamas to nicer clothes. This household was a little funny to me, the whole house was painted pink and the grandma and her grand daughters were also dressed in the same color pink. It definitely brought a lot of light to the house. Soon it was time to go home and leave the neighbors alone.

Maria, who is a part of a video journalism class asked to interview mama once we were comfortably, situated back at home. Immediately the atmosphere changed. Maria asked mama to talk about her life and we could tell just by the look on mama’s face that she had had a very difficult life. She told us about her two children who she had to send away to the east coast as she worked on the west coast. She told us about how she received a letter from their caretakers saying that her children had become ill and she told us that by the time she was able to make it to see them her children had already died and had been buried. She told us of her third son who was a very good man, he became a police officer. When he was thirty he was working overnight in the office with his partner and they had both fallen asleep. The windows and doors were all closed and the fumes coming from the coals which they used to heat the cold office killed both of the men in their sleep. She also told us about how her husband had left her, and how confused she was by that. Our mama had had a very painful life, and yet after hearing her story she insisted that we dance as we got ready for bed. It is amazing how horrible one’s life can be and yet how they are able to move on and live life to the fullest.

After hearing our mama’s stories we all agreed it was time for bed. Maria and were both so tired, we both easily fell asleep, but it didn’t feel like we were asleep for very long before we were woken by mama’s grand-niece, who came to say goodbye to us before she went to school. She was such a sweet heart, she gave each a big hug before she left. Mama then told us to go back to sleep and we were both happy to obey. The rest of our time spent with our mama was spent eating, we were served porridge and coke. Yum. Miss Lucile came to walk us back to where our group was waiting and we walked down the street of our township, greeting people we passed and saying goodbye to the many people we had met. Our mama was of course sad to see us go but her smile never left her face, even after we got on the bus waving goodbye to her. I was very sad to say goodbye to my new mama, she was such a strong example of what life should be: No matter what happens don’t give up hope and keep on dancing!

So I feel really terrible for not keeping up with my blog. As many of you know I will be comeing home soon. It is really important to me that I keep writing in my blog, I have so many stories I have to record, so i will continue writing even after I get home. I hope some of you will continue you reading. I learned so much on this trip and I would really like to share it all with you!
Thanks for all the support!

Jya Ne!

Part one of South Africa

Wow it has been so long since I have written! I have traveled to 2 and a half countries since my last post. I apologize to all of you who have been reading my blog. The past couple weeks have been full of tests and papers and stress. But I am now half way done with classes, I am on my last long week of classes until after Japan, and I am finding that I will soon have more time to write. So let’s see the last time I wrote……I left incredible Ghana (still my favorite so far), and now I shall talk about South Africa. Oh and I am including a couple pictures!!! :)

So what was I thinking of when I thought South Africa? This last summer my family and I watched the movie called “Invictus” which was a movie about rugby and took place in South Africa. In that movie I saw a lot of buildings and culture that looked similar to that in Europe or even in the U.S. So I saw South Africa as a regular developed country, nice houses, malls, good government system, hopefully some free internet. Haha. In some aspects I was right on, but others were totally wrong….

I can’t just talk about South Africa because the whole week of classes before South Africa was pretty incredible. We of course had Neptune Day, which was a lot of fun, but it seemed like everyone during that whole week was just so excited. It was such a big deal that our next port was South Africa, especially because Desmund Tutu was with us. The whole week was full of us learning about the apartheid. The Apartheid was a government system put in place by the white Afrikana leaders (the descendents of the dutch colonists) which basically separated whites and blacks. It looked a lot like the issues that we had with segregation and civil rights in the U.S. except that the apartheid South Africa lasted longer and ended with the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in 1991. The fact that it had ended in my lifetime made me feel that it was not very long ago. This was and still is a very big struggle for the people of South Africa.

 I was very fortunate to have Desmund Tutu be a guest speaker in three of my five classes. I guess our teachers thought that it would be good to use him as a resource…. J He came to my World Music class to help us learn about the importance of Music during the apartheid. We watched a video that gave us some background and then the Arch filled us in on some other facts, and told us some stories about how powerful the music was. It was really awesome to hear him talk about and song some of the songs. Speaking of singing, my choir director had found the national anthem for South Africa and the whole thought it would be really cool to learn it and perform it. The crazy thing about the SA national anthem is that it is sung in four different languages: Xosa, Zulu, Afrikaans, and English….crazy. So we had our SA inner-port students teach us how to sing it. Our director also surprised us by inviting Desmond Tutu and his wife, Leah, to come and talk to us about the anthem. When Nelson Mandela was elected as president it was already decided that there needed to be a new anthem. They decided to not totally get rid of the past anthem which was in Afrikaans, but to keep it and add the anthem, Nkosese Kaleli, which was what the black people had sung during the apartheid. As the rainbow nation, which includes 11 different languages, I think it is totally fit that they include all 4 main languages in the anthem. Being able to hear about it from Father Tutu and Leah was really awesome, it was such an intimate experience. The night of our Cultural Pre-Port we sand the Anthem twice for everyone, the second time we were joined by Arhbishop Tutu!

The third time I got to listen to Desmond Tutu talk that week was at our last global studies class before we got to SA. It was an amazing lecture which lasted close to 2 hours. Father talked to us about SA’s history and the major points of the Apartheid. He explained to us why the apartheid happened, which included the story about the man and the camel. The man was sleeping in a tent and a camel was outside. The camel poked his head in and asked very kindly if he could just sleep with his head there, it was so much warmer than outside. The man was very nice and so he let the camel sleep there. Gradually the camel moved farther and farther in to the tent, the man was too nice to turn him away, until finally the camel took up to whole tent, and the man was sleeping outside.

here is a terrible photo of Father sitting and talking with all 600+ students at Global Studies

He said a lot, in his lecture, that I hope people were moved by. I know I was very moved. He told us that God needs our help. That God has no one but us. He told us “Don’t be affected by the cynicism of old people, continue to be idealistic. He also told us that it is wonderful that we are concerned with the world and want to do so much to help, but we also need to look inside our own country, “think about we have done to the indigenous people of our country.” I really hope people listened to him.

OK…..enough of that….Now on to South Africa.  The beginning of my experience in South Africa was a little scary. Sometimes when we get to a port we have a Diplomatic pre-port. That is where someone from the U.S. embassy comes and talks to us about the country we are in. Our diplomat in SA did his best to scare the crap out of us all. He told a lot of stories of things that supposedly happened to people while they were in Cape Town, and they were all pretty much horror stories of people being attacked and such for their purse or phone or watch. One thing I have learned about myself on this trip is that I tend to believe anything that any person with any authority says. So I was scared to death when I thought of getting off my ship, and my first adventure was to supposedly go to church by myself…..hmmmm……

Thankfully I found two people who were going out for a walk anyways and had offered to walk me to church. And so my adventure began. Getting to church included a quiet walk and little bit of sightseeing, but not much more than that. When I got the church I was still a little freaked out….but I did it any ways.

St. Mary’s Cathedral was a small pink church on the hill. It didn’t look like any cathedral I had ever been to, but once I got inside it felt a little more like a cathedral, with stone walls and beautiful stain glass windows. The altar was pretty simple with a giant crown of thorns hanging just above it. There was a group of people dividing themselves in to seats at the front of the church. I was a little confused by this and not sure where I should sit so I just chose a place behind all of the people that were already seated. It turned out that they were dividing themselves into voice parts. And then the rehearsal began. I was completely in awe of how beautiful the singing was especially with the echoing of the church acoustics. This small community was all Zimbabwean immigrants who enjoy mass in their own language on the first Sunday of every mass. I sat near a Zimbabwean friend, named Brian, who kindly told me what some of the songs were, they sung almost every mass part, even the creed. So, the amazing rehearsal (which was basically like a concert) continued for quite a long time. According to my information the mass was supposed to start at 11:30….11:30 and 12:30 came and went. Finally around 1 pm everyone kneeled and began saying the rosary. Now when I went to mass in Nicaragua, in Mexico, and in Spain I understood the basic idea of what was going on. I didn’t expect to understand anything in this mass…..but it’s crazy how easy it was for me to catch, and quickly, to the fact that they were saying the rosary, even though close to none of the people there had a rosary. After the rosary things began to happen that looked like a mass, except there was no priest. I soon found out that the priest who usually shares mass with them was unable to attend. Instead they had someone leading readings and such, and also a deacon who brought out some already consecrated hosts. I have to admit that this was one of my favorite experiences of the trip. It was so beautiful.

The Beautiful Altar and the dance party at the end of mass.

My new friend Brian was very kind and helped me find a taxi to take me back to port. Although I was still pretty freaked from earlier that morning I made it back to the water front without any problem. The good, and bad, thing about the waterfront is that it was a complete a total tourist area. There were tons of Europeans, rich afrikanas, the people who worked there (mostly black people) and a security guard every 10 feet. I was glad that the waterfront was such a safe place. I could walk around the mall, go to the craft stores, sit and read all by myself, and I didn’t have to worry about anything. 

Desmond Tutu with Nelson Mandela and another Apartheid figure on the water front.

cool giant guy made out of coke crates on the water front

Amazing giant clouds pouring over table mountain (seen at the waterfront)

Soon the waterfront area turned in to a big fat lie. But more about that later….

 That night I went on my first field trip: The Jazz Safari. A group of us were put in to 3 buses; I was pulled in the bus with the kids who were too cool to hang out with old people, which turned out to be a good thing. We were taken to the house of a trumpet player and greeted by his family and his guitar player friend and brought in to his home. Only two of the buses were brought to his house. The other bus, which had most of the adults, including our professor, was taken to another spot. We were all taken to the simple living room of this man, and were given an amazing private concert. The trumpet player played songs we knew, like what a wonderful world, and songs that he had written himself. One girl that had come with us had brought her own trumpet and asked to play with them. You could see the delight on her face while she was playing. Soon after, she was joined by another girl, who is a Jazz singer, and a guy with his guitar. They played songs like Girl from Ipanima. It was a really fun time including a terrific meal prepared by the man’s wife. 

After we had eaten our full and enjoyed as much fantastic music as we could, we were then put back on the buses and taken to one more place. I was a little shocked at where they took us next, I thought it would be similar to the last home visited. Instead we were taken to a large shed type room which didn’t have much of a ceiling. Inside the room we found our professor and the rest o the adults listening to some gentleman playing music. There was a man on keyboards, a man on trumpet, a man on guitar, and a man playing a djembe.  The group was run by the percussionist who is also the president of a non-profit organization which offers after school activities, like music lessons, to children who live in the town ship. The organization was a brand new thing and all o the members of the band were volunteers. They all really great musicians, the trumpet player was especially amazing. They played rock, blues, jazz, a couple traditional songs, and then they had the three students which had performed at the last house join in as well. It was a fun night. At the end the only thing that got us to willingly get back in the van was the chilly weather. I really enjoyed the music and people I experienced that night.

The next day was the day I looked forward to the most, my township home stay. 

but unfortunately that will have to wait. don't worry it won't be that long!

Jya Ne!

Crazy Night and Last Day in Ghana

I hope you enjoyed the pictures I put up last time. And now the ending of my Ghana story.

On our last night in Ghana I was invited by my friend Acquah, to an outside restaurant where his band was playing. I gathered a couple of friends and we all went out, excited to see a live band. The band played mostly Highlife music, a kind of pop/reggae music that is popular in Ghana and is really fun to dance to. The band kind of played like a DJ would, there was a continuous everlasting sound which would change from one song to another. The band would play like that for about 45 minutes, and then there would be about 45 minutes of a DJ before the band would play again.

We had so much fun dancing and talking with people that we lost track of time. Some people started leaving around 11:30 but a couple of my friends and I stuck around. With it being the last night and all we were very sad to have to be leaving our new friends soon, so when the band had stopped and the DJ had stopped around 1 AM, we were not ready to leave yet. We all headed to the beautiful peaceful beach and continued talking. I learned so much about Ghana and the culture of the people from my new friends it was so awesome. We also talked a lot about music, Acquah made sure we hadn’t forgotten the drum patterns that we had learned. The moon was out and the sound of the gigantic waves were so calming, we definitely sat there in the silence for a while just admiring the beauty of it all. We then started to watch the giant crabs that were all over the place. They would climb up out of holes in the sand and walk around the beach looking for food and playing in the waves. They kind of freaked me out a little because of how big they were. One of our friends caught one and brought it to us to see. It was crazy how fast the crab was when he was chasing after it. We continued having a slight dance party while one person played some music on his phone.

It was an amazing night but before we realized it the night had turned to dawn…..woops….at about 4:30 AM we decided we should probably head back to the ship. Our friends were kind enough to show us the way back. On our way we passed a wakening that was going on for a funeral. I learned that funerals are super important in Africa, one of the most celebrated events. I also learned that if a person who had dred-locks sees a dead person they have to cut their hair off. I don’t really know why…..but they were teasing Acquah about it because he had dred-locks. We also passed people getting ready for their day, a mosque where the cry to prayer was being called, and also a swampy creek where there had to have been 100’s of frogs singing. The walk was a perfect way to end the night, and we were sad to say goodbye to our friends, but we were very grateful to them for all that they had taught us.

When we got back I immediately crashed….but only for a couple hours because at 9 I left with a group of people to go visit an orphanage. The orphanage was a perfect way to end my stay in Ghana. It took a while to get there, but once we did the kids we met were so excited. Apparently we were supposed to start our time there with a tour of the facilities and an introduction about the program…..but neither of those things happened because the children occupied all of our attention. It was such a fun time! I met a 13 year old girl, who was about half my size, named Sarah. When I told her I had the same name she got sooooo excited! She would not let go of my hand for quite some time. As we got to know some of the kids there we colored, and played games, we let some of the children use our camera’s and I got some amazing pictures out of that arrangement. A couple hours in to the visit some kids started playing the drums, then they had one of their teachers come and play with them. The teacher stated singing songs and then suddenly it turned in to a dance party, everyone was playing drums, or dancing or singing, it was incredible and kids were so talented. Then some of them took us up the hill to a town that looked a lot like Cusmapa. They showed us the church they go to every Sunday, it was small but very nice.

That day with the kids was so nice, I didn’t do anything but play with them which was soooooo much fun, but I was sooooooo sad to leave and they were sad to see us go.

That evening I hung out on the back of the ship and we left Ghana. I was really sad to be leaving because I had met such amazing people. So far if I had to choose one place to go back to, it would be Ghana. I am not so sure there will be any place that will be able to take that spot from Ghana......maybe Japan.....haha.

Next I will tell you all about my restful trip in South Africa. But until then please keep me in your thoughts and prayers, that I will be able to have a lot of energy and perseverance as I head into what looks to be a very stressful school week!

Jya Ne!

PICTURE UPDATE!!!!

Ok the long awaited picture update! only a few for now I will try to update every now and then....but I promise once i get lots of internet time they will all be going up on facebook!

A good view of the bull ring in Malaga.

Calamari.....it was incredibly delicious. Yes papa I actually ate calamari!!!!!

Drew and I chilling on the beach.

Drew and Nathalia, making a plan for dinner!

The gorgeous Hassan II mosque in Casa Blanca.

Amazing!!!!

A view of the mosque from across the ocean.

An evening in the Marrakech madina.

the open restaurant that we ate at.

Our mini Camel trek.

The group that went to the SOS Childrens home, with a couple new friends.

the drummers that greeted us at the worshop.

amazing dances

Party night with my friends Caitlin, Jennalee, and Acquah.

My family in Ghana

Beautiful Comfort, Sarah, and Hemma at the Orphange in Ghana.

What already over? I promise I will add more later!!!! but remember I am only 1/3 of the way done with my trip! I know the rest of the trip will be just as amazing as it has been so far!

Jya Ne!

Ghana!!! Finally!!!!!

“Who is asleep? Those with chains on their hands? Or those with chains on their hearts? “

People say that happiness is contagious, and if you could have seen all the smiles I witnessed, and see the smile on my face right now you would all agree.  Ghana is incredible, intense, awesome, amazing, wonderful….but none of those words can really do my experience justice.

The best place to start is at the beginning right? First I should say that although Morocco is on the continent of Africa, it is nothing like the Africa I grew up hearing about, and so, no offense to Morocco, I truly felt the amazement that I was in Africa as we arrived in to Ghana.

Day one- Drumming and Dancing

As I got off the ship and took a step on to Ghanaian land the intense humidity and heat was a lot, but not as much as I was expecting. I made my way to the tour bus which would take me to my first adventure. I gave my ticket to the tour guide who smiled brightly and told me good morning! I knew I would love Ghana the moment the bus drove in to town and faces from the streets and sidewalks greeted us with smiles and enthusiastic waves. My thought process the whole time was “ omygosh I’m in Africa, omygosh this is Africa, omygosh I can’t believe it!”

The second the bus pulled up to our destination we could hear the incredible sound of drumming. Just thinking about it now I have no words to explain how I felt. Growing up listening to this music on Cds, hearing my dad’s lectures on how most of the music we listen to now originated in Africa, and then seeing it and hearing it right then was so moving. So we got on off the bus finally and our welcoming party was sitting at the gate, drumming and singing and dancing. None of us knew what to do so we just stood there, utterly wrapped in the music, until our guide told us to keep walking to where we were supposed to sit. The music continued like that for quite a while, and the dancer kept going until finally the last call was made and the drumming ended. We were then greeted by the “MC” for the day. He introduced the plan for the day, talked about some of the different songs we will here, different dances we will see. They of course started off playing some traditional Ghanaian songs but also played songs from New Guinea, and a song from Jamaica. I wish I could write all of the patterns of the drums, all of the colors of the dances, but looking through the pictures right now I am still in awe. Each drum played was on a different pattern, but somehow each pattern fit together like a musical puzzle, the complexity of the dances blew me away as well. The dancers would be doing one dance move and then with what seemed to be no warning they would change. It was like there was an invisible conductor, telling the drums and the dancers what to do….but I think the drums were the conductors….one drum would change its rhythm ever so slightly and the rest would fall in line with it. REDICULOUS!!!! It was so COOL! The other amazing part is that besides doing all the drumming and dancing, the performers made us really laugh. Some of them would dance around, jump in front of people, tell people in the audience to play their drums, or try the dance moves, and the smiles on their faces were enormous. The other funny part about it was that they were taking pictures of us and recording videos of us just as much as we were of them.

Then it was our turn to learn. We were split in half, on half went to learn the drums and I was put in the group that learned dancing first. Amazingly we learned 5 dance steps and put them all together. I thought al the dance steps looked so complicated and impossible to master but amazingly I got all of them! Our teacher’s name was….Tidi….I think, and he was an amazing teacher and really super nice. Then after we had mastered our dance we switched with the other group and I got my chance on the drums.  These people knew how to teach drumming. They would sing us a song and then all we had to do was play it on the drum. It was so fun! And papa you would be very proud of me and how surprised my personal drum tutor was that I caught on so fast. We learned two different rhythms and then put them together, following the clave bell. My favorite part of that was actually getting to know some of the people who were teaching us, my personal tutor was a man named Kofi, and then another friend I met was named Acquah.

After our drum lesson we had to go to lunch. Sadly we were yanked from our teachers, put back on the bus and taken to a really fancy hotel where we were able to eat safe and delicious Ghanaian food. I and many other people were eager to get back to the workshop to see what we were going to do next. We were given another performance, this time the dances were led by our teacher Tidi, he showed us a dance and song from his own tribe of people who are from northern Ghana. It was really cool! Probably my favorite dance they did. After the performance ended we were then given a chance to show our skills. My group danced first while the other group played drums for us. Our dance was over quickly and then it was time for us to free style. Now….my dear friend Arielle gave me a challenge for this month, to do something that I would never normally do, I think I could have shaved my head and that would be pretty incredible right….or skydiving….or bungee jumping….unfortunately I am a tad too chicken to do any of that…..so I decided that this was my time to shine and complete the challenge given to me. Everyone in our dancing circle was given an opportunity to dance in the middle….almost everyone went with 1 or 2 other people…..I went by myself……let me just tell you how completely embarrassed I feel now that I think about it. I don’t really remember what I did….or the reaction other people had…for all I know I could have done something really amazing and people were cheering for me….but…..yeah….I cannot believe I did that and I will never do it again, dancing on my own in front of at least 80+ people…..never again.

Soon after we were able to switch and I felt so much more comfortable sitting in front of a drum than I ever have before in my life. Playing with the drums was so fun. After a little while of getting the hang of the rhythm our teachers left us to play on our own while they danced and sang songs. It was great! After the other group had finished their dance and free style we were all very pleased with our selves. Our teacher told us “You have played African music, you have danced barefoot in the African sun, you can now say you know Africa.” WOW!

The day ended with a Q&A from both sides and then we all mingled and talked to each other for a long time. I continued talking to my friend Acquah, asking questions about how he joined the group, what else he does, and a little more about the drums that we played. It turned out that all the Djembes we got to play were hand made by the people there. They were all such beautiful drums and I would have loved to bring one home, but unfortunately I couldn’t.

Unfortunately our time with our teachers and new friends ended and we had to go, but we were able to make a promise to see some of them that night at one of the local bars to hang out some more and continue our conversations. The rest of the day I looked forward to going to The Ocean Bar, so that I could continue learning about Ghanaian music, but that evening was not what I expected it to be. About half of the students from the ship went to the ocean bar and I got a good chance to see some of my classmates at their worst.

The amount of people getting completely wasted, and the things that they were doing to embarrass themselves was a little too much for me. Don’t get me wrong, I had a lot of fun, the night basically turned in to a big dance party, but I couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed at the behavior of my classmates. Not all of our teachers were able to make it, but Kofi and Acquah came and the thress of us plus some of my other sober friends had a great time dancing in a big group. I found that I really enjoyed the “popular” music of Ghana, and asked Acquah made a list of some of the big bands so that I could later purchase their CD’s. While at the bar we met three Scottish men who were enjoying an eveing off of the tanker that they worked on. They were very nice, bought us all drinks and then made sure I and my three other friends found a taxi to get us back home safely. Like I said in my last post, I went to bed that night at about 2 or 230 in the morning…..which gave me about three and a half hours of sleep.

The next morning I got up at the crack of dawn and joined a small group of students (35) to go and have our cultural experience. I was really excited for this….before the drumming and dancing workshop. As I got on the bus I wasn’t so sure of my expectations. It was a long ride to our destination so I was able to get another hour of sleep before we arrived to a small village and welcomed by more drumming.

I was super excited getting off the bus to see more drumming and dancing. We were ushered under a tent to sit, to the left of us was another tent with seats, the tent to the left of us was facing in, like a band on the side of the stage, and that was where the drummers were. Across from them was yet another tent and under that tent sat the chief, his right hand man, and all of the elders of the village. Most of them were dressed in the authentic kenta cloth. After some drumming we were told what the order of the welcoming ceremony would be, and then it all began. We began by each greeting the Chief and all the elders, the most important thing about greeting them, and one of the most important things to remember about Ghana was not to use the left hand for anything, so as we each went around greeting all of the elders and the chief we had to keep our left hands behind our back. Then we greeted some people of the village who would be taking us into their homes for the night.

After greeting some important people and the important people greeting us as well, the elders did a little ceremony to call on the ancestors and then we began our naming ceremonies. Traditionally when a baby is born the whole village gathers for the naming ceremony. The baby is placed on the lap of an elder, the elder says the baby 3 times the crowd acknowledges the name and a drop of water is poured from a leaf in to the baby’s mouth, then the elder again says the baby’s new name 3 times, the crowd acknowledges and then a drop of alcohol is poured in to the baby’s mouth, then the parents say the baby’s name and the village cheers. Another important thing about names in Ghana is that the first name depends on the day of the week which the baby was born. There are 7 choices for girls and 7 choices for boys, basically I met a thousand Kofi’s (boys born on Tuesdays) and a million Essi’s (girls born on Sundays).  The second name which the baby is given is the choice of the elder or parent, depending on how conservative they are. Obviously we aren’t babies, and they didn’t want us to be worried about bacteria from a leaf, so our naming ceremony was a little different. We went up, poured a little bit of water in to a cup, the elder said our name three times, the crowd acknowledged, we drank the water, we poured a little coke (for some reason it wasn’t alcohol….) into our cup, the chief said our name 3 times the crowd acknowledged, we drank the coke, then we had to say our name to the crowd and they cheered. Even though we didn’t drink from a leaf we still received one as a souvenir. I was super nervous as I went up, our guide hyped up the crowd so that I wouldn’t be so nervous, and I received my name: Essi Esuan. It was such a cool experience!

Once all 35 of us were named, including an intermission of drumming, we were about to be introduced to our host families when it started pouring rain. That stopped everything, people ran home or under trees to get covered, kids used the rain as an excuse to come and join us in our tent, children jumped on our laps and began talking to us animatedly, wanted to learn our names, look at our cameras and just practice their English. It was great. So eventually we were ushered in door to the community center, holding hands of little ones, some people carrying tiny ones out of the rain, and in the community center, with children still clinging to us, we were introduced to our host families. I was put in to a group with four other girls, the largest home stay group, and we were introduced to our new dad. Once everyone had met their parents we were told to get back on the bus. Huh? Back on the bus? We ended up going to another hotel for lunch. This hotel was much fancier than the one from the previous day. The whole room was buzzing with conversation about the naming ceremony, the new host families, and the amazing plantains (they really were amazing). After lunch we all eagerly got back on the bus and headed back to our village.

My group was taken with our new dad to our home for the night. As we walked a short distance through town I expected to soon see a little concrete or adobe like house, with a wooden roof, our mother and some kids standing in front of it, maybe a few goats or chickens….but no that was far from what I saw. I was astonished to walk through a very fancy black gate and see a really nice house. Of course it wasn’t like a normal house in the U.S. but it was easy to tell that it was a lot fancier than any other house in town. We were led to our rooms, mine I shared with one of the other girls, it had two large bed waiting for us. After putting our things down we were ushered into a living room with beautiful matching furniture, a nice dinning room table, and a giant TV. The tv had an antenna which did not get very good reception so there was a lot of static but for the next 2 hours we were told to relax and watch TV. That wasn’t really what any of us wanted to do…..but we decided to do as we were asked. After those two hours of trying not to fall asleep while watching horribly made African dramas, and one telenovela dubbed in English (yes we watched a Mexican soap opera in Ghana), we were then told to follow our father outside to take a tour of the town. That is when the whole experience got a little more exciting. Our tour of the town included meeting family who lived nearby, our dad’s senior brother and sister, and some cousins. We also got to see the Mosque which was pretty close to St. Anthony of Padua Catholic church. We then walked out of town and then the short distance, crossing the bridge of the “Sweet” river, to the next town where we saw an elementary school. The school looked pretty nice; it had murals painted on the walls. When we asked him he said his kids don’t go to that school but a private school on cape coast. Fancy. We walked back to our house and sat outside the gate just watching the town, asking questions and learning as much as we could. Our dad got us a special treat which we were all very excited about: sugar cane. If you haven’t ever seen one before, basically it is a branch that kinda looks like bamboo, when you peel of the grean layer it is white underneath. To eat it you bite off a chunk, chew on it, and the enjoy the sweet juices that come from it. The sugar cane was really delicious. Our dad taught us that normally sugar cane is turned in to an alcoholic drink that doesn’t taste sweet, but will make you go crazy. We all laughed hearing him describe going crazy from the sugar cane liquor. After another half hour we were called for dinner and went back to the community center for our meal. We were also, once again, entertained by some drumming and dancing. This event, being mere entertainment, was not as thrilling to me as the day before, it was still cool, and maybe a little more crude than I would have enjoyed….but I didn’t get as much out of it. Another thing that bugged me about our dinner was that we didn’t eat it with our family, the hotel brought “safe” food for us to eat while people stood outside watching us…..I was eager to be done with dinner and go back to learning about Ghanaian life. After dinner we headed to our gated in house and were once again shown to the TV room where we watched a news show and then found a channel that showed American tv shows. We were enjoying our time but unfortunately realized that our new family members were all falling asleep, we decided that it would be best to head to bed…..and just as we were all ready to lay down and doze off the house woke up……interesting…..that night the noises I heard from outside reminded me a lot of what nights in Cusmapa are like. I am going to include an excerpt from my music journal which I wrote about that night:

“A song I am very familiar with, the song of a small town. Sitting in my new family’s house, the blue room that is mine for the night, my “sister” lying on the bed next to mine scratching in her own journal. The fan above us rocking and turning to its own beat. Outside the closed door I can hear members of my host family shuffling around talking to each other, people outside the gate talking and walking, but, loudest of all- music from a party that is still going on at the community center two blocks away from the house. It’s music entertaining not only the party goers but the rest of the town as well. Then, suddenly silence…..except for the music coming from the crickets and the frogs near the ‘sweet’ river….”

We were told the next morning to be up sometime between 6:30 and 7 for breakfast. We were a little frightened that we would sleep through that time so I set my alarm for us. My alarm didn’t go off when it was supposed to….but fortunately it was ok because we gotten woken up by the call to prayer at 4 in the morning…..and though we were able to fall back asleep before that it wasn’t long before we were woken by roosters crowing, and our family once again shuffling around the house. For breakfast we were given oatmeal, mini omelets, and the most delicious bananas I have ever tasted in my whole life (which came straight from our family’s backyard) After a somewhat confusing breakfast of trying to figure out how we were supposed to serve the oatmeal (it was quite hilarious) we offered a couple gifts to our family and then headed outside the gate for a family picture. We stayed sitting outside the gate talking again to our dad, until we were told it was time to say our farewells. The whole group took pictures, with the elders and also with all of the host families. Then we for real said goodbye. It was really sad for some people, they had fallen in love with their families in one night, had adorable kids who had played with them and wonderful parents that took care of them. It was of course sad for our group too, our parents had taken really good care of us, but I don’t think we had quite the experience that some other people had. All in all, the whole experience was great, not exactly what I wanted from it, but still really good. However I do have to admit…….this experience had no chance beating the drumming and dancing workshop.

When we finally got back to the ship I freshened up a bit, ate some food, and then headed out to explore the market circle. The market circle is the biggest round-about in the whole city and it is the biggest market in the whole city. I can’t tell you dimensions or anything but that place was huge! Around the exterior of the circle there were people selling things and then there were little shops inside the circle. It was big and crowded and crazy, full of smiling faces, laughter, and food. At the time I was on a quest for music and I was able to find a Mr. B who was kinda enough to show my friends and I around and take me to the best CD store in town. Mr. B was such a kind guy and walked around with us until he got us a taxi back to the ship. It is crazy how great people were, how willing they were to help us find our way around, even taxi drivers were friendly, telling us about their families and lives.

OK two more big stories about Ghana in my next entry and then I will catch you all up on my trip here in South Africa! Also if anyone has any questions about anything....or if you want more details about a story or anything feel free so email me! sccontreras@semesteratsea.net. Also I apologize if there are any grammatical errors or misspellings.....I kinda just check as I go, so it's possible that I miss stuff. 

Jya Ne! 

Sorry!!!! Ship update!

OK so I know that I promised to write every night and keep up with my blog in Ghana…..but that obviously didn’t happen. Honestly I didn’t have one spare moment. The first night I was out until…..2 am? And then I had to leave super early in the morning. That night, even though I had plenty of time to write, I didn’t have my computer with me. The next night I was out until……hahaha5amhahaha…..and then the following night I had to get serious about my homework and studying for a test….. But I really am working right now, well not right NOW, on putting my whole Ghana experience down on paper. It will be coming very soon and I promise it is worth the wait! I am having a hard time putting in to words my experience, which is why you will have to wait a little bit longer.

Right now I am going to go out of order and tell you about Neptune day. The day after we left Ghana was the day that we crossed the equator. Because we have a very kind Captain he decided to take us a little bit off course so that we could experience something that hardly anyone ever gets to experience in their lives. He took us to the exact point where we crossed the equator AND the prime meridian at exactly 0 degrees and 0 degrees. It was a pretty exciting moment for the whole ship. Besides that, every time the MV explorer crosses the equator it is basically like a holiday. We enjoyed that holiday, called Neptune day, yesterday.   The whole ship was woken up by whistles and drums and cymbals parading through the hall ways and we were all told to go to the top deck. Once we got to the top deck we were introduced to King Neptune, his queen, and all of their court. Unfortunately the equator is where King Neptune lives and we have to ask his permission to cross over it. He said that we had to take an oath, and become….blue diamond shellbacks, in order to cross over. Also there had to be a sacrifice of hair from many people. We were all eager to do his will and while some of us were washed in fish guts, before we were able to kiss THE FISH and pay our respects to the King and queen, others were getting their heads shaved. The atmosphere of the whole place was soooooo fun, especially watching people, including girls, chop off their beautiful long hair and people supporting them sooo much….it was just so overwhelming and I couldn’t help myself…..so I stepped forward and offered my hair to be sacrificed!!!!

Just Kidding! Hehehe. But seriously it was an amazing sight. All together 100 people shaved their heads that morning and most of them were girls cutting off their long gorgeous hair. I know I would not be able to do that, but I think that for those who did it gave them a sense of liberation and independence. Later I saw other boys who had shaved their heads themselves, several with Mohawks, some had the St. Francis hair style which was really very ridiculous, and there is one guy whose hair looked like a yamacha…..silly boys. It was a long morning and a ton of fun!

Ok I just wanted to share that with you all. Now I am going to get to work on my real blog, hopefully I will be able to include some juicy details about wonderful Ghana! So look forward to it!

Jya Ne!