September 28 2010 / MV Explorer

NEPTUNE DAYYYY!  We woke up around 0730 (sooo much better than the expected 0500) by loud cymbals crashing, as well as drums and whistles being blown outside our cabin.  I sprinted for the door and opened it to see a procession of crew members with their faces painted in green and black, with spears and shields in hand, marching down the hallway.  One of them brandished a spear at me!  I quickly got ready, Ellie following behind.  We went upstairs to grab breakfast, where many people were already sitting out—Deck 2 must have been the last deck to have been woken up.  Desmond Tutu actually came in behind us, and we joked with him about how it would have been impossible to sleep through.  I sat with Joelle, who was nervous because she’d decided last night at the last minute that she bolster her courage before we went upstairs to Deck 7, where people were beginning to cluster around. 

It wasn’t until 0900 that festivities began, and by then the deck was completely covered with students.  From a distance, we could hear the same procession that had woken us coming up onto the deck, and they wove through the students.  Accompanying them was Neptune himself (who looked suspiciously like Dean David), followed by his court and several people who had already earned shellback status.  Neptune announced that we must prove ourselves to advance from pollywogs to shellback status, so we did so in earnest.

I beelined over to the head shaving department and started watching some of the girls get their long ponytails cut off.  All of them were smiling and laughing, and the people around them were cheering.  All of them looked so incredibly beautiful with short hair—it completely opened up their face.  And after having been in Africa, I’ve come to totally recognize it as feminine and powerful.  After a little bit of mental cajoling, I sat down and felt my hair being pulled back.  Something I’ve learned was something that Ellie said at some point: that in order to be a leader, you can’t be afraid to break the status quo.  I do not need my shoulder-length hair to be beautiful, and I am not ugly with it gone.  I will not be afraid of such a silly thing such as that.  And when else can I have such a wonderful opportunity—following an age-old tradition while sailing around the world, becoming an Emerald Shellback?  Snip snip when the scissors, and soon I was holding a tiny ponytail—not even enough for a proper handlebar mustache.  They worked cutting off larger chunks, and then I stood up to wait for a razor.  Desmond Tutu actually sat down after me to get his hair shaved as well, so I got a picture standing behind him.  He’s such a joyful individual. 

Eventually I got my hair buzzed down properly.  It feels so strange—I’m still rubbing my hands across my scalp, which is so sensitive.  Martha got her hair shaved too, as did Lander and Dan (two guys who had loooong hair), and Ellie got an adorable pixie cut.  Unlike Martha though, I didn’t Bic it—go back over it with a razor so as to be completely bald.  That would be probably too shocking for me.  You don’t need to worry, mom—it actually looks really good, especially when it grows out a little.  My head doesn’t look boxy, but I have a really strong jaw line for once and I look like a powerful woman, which is how I would like to be perceived.  My eyes are showcased and I don’t feel like I look ridiculously overweight for once.  I’m very happy with it.  :)

Neptune Day was pretty fun but it was also sad, because there was such a mob of people who wanted to shave their heads that I didn't get to go through the actual ritual where you go through the pool and kiss a fish and all that fun stuff.  I was really bummed out about that, but I guess I don't feel too bad because some of my friends also didn't go through it either.  Still, I'm sad... I was looking forward to doing everything a whole lot.  But it was still a lovely experience of seeing all these girls get their hair whacked off.  Everyone was all smiles.  There are so many mohawks and bald people running around now!  Mine looks a little patchy, but that's okay because as soon as I'm sick of it looking patchy in a week or so it'll be long enough to even out in the barber shop.  I do really like how it feels.  My whole head is a sensitive zone, feeling every brush of the wind.  I love it.  <3

Julie, Lorelei, Jared and I hung out outside for a little while, eating some delicious chocolate chip cookies and smoothies, and then I decided that I should probably go shower—I was covered in hair and it was itchy.  Showers are incredible—so good.  This is going to be so good with time efficiency, because taking a shower takes no time at all now.  Then it was off to lunch, where we admired the ocean on the outside desk.

We went then to go and study for Global Studies.  It was definitely tough to just get into groove of studying, especially since no one wanted to study in a group and it’s hard for me to focus by myself—I really need to be in a quiet group environment.  At some point I took a break by going out and being in the group picture of people who  had gotten their heads shaved.  There were like one hundred people out on deck to take the picture, most of them women!  It was pretty incredible to see.  But eventually I went down to the deck 5 main dining hall and sat with Caroline while I studied for a while, and then after dinner I quizzed Lorelei to get definitions down. 

After a while I went downstairs to the main dining hall, got my test, and finished it in like twenty minutes (though of course I went over it again and checked my answers). The questions were pretty easy—the only problem was that some of the answers were too vague, and I knew that there were different answers that had come out of poverty questions in past sociology classes I had taken.  But otherwise I felt like I had done very well. 

After that Jared, Julie, Lorelei and I hung out in my room and talked about the exam.  We read some of Julie’s creative writing, and then went out and worked out.  I tried the Elliptical again and actually did a lot better about not feeling ill due to the rocking of the ship—love that it’s low impact.  We did some more bicep work and work on the machines, and I felt like I put in a good effort. 

So overall today went pretty well.  I’m happy with my haircut, I’m happy with my friends, and I’m just really overjoyed that I’m on Semester at Sea.  Every day I’m more and more grateful. 

September 27 2010 / MV Explorer

I have this incredibly dark and thick red line between my eye and eyebrow, I’m not sure if it’s a burn or a bruise or what, but it makes me look like I came out on top in a bar fight.  Too bad I didn’t get it in an epic battle and instead got it getting my eyebrows waxed--far less dramatic. 

Women in High Courts was just kind of a debriefing day from our visit to the queen mothers in Essikado.  We talked a little bit about our papers, which she wants to be obscenely long (6 to 10 pages), but I guess I can try to eek that out—it’s just hard because we were only there for two hours.  She also wants it to revolve around a ~*~central theme~*~, and gave us traditional vs. modern if we don’t have a theme of our own.  I think I might actually use that, because there were just so many conventional roles in a royal court system that were ignored or broken, and it was really interesting.  Should probably get started on that tomorrow, if I am not studying far too much for Global Studies.

In Global Studies we talked about threats to global peace, which is things that undermine personal safety (crime, inequality, poverty, natural disasters, etc).  We did a little bit on organized crime, which made me happy because it reminded me of Media Academy documentary project in high school.  :B  We talked a lot about the drug trade, and the professor seemed to have his presentation angled a lot towards the idea of legalizing drugs, though I’m not sure how I feel about that (actually I do: marijuana, sure, drugs like cocaine or heroin, heck no). It was interesting seeing a graph for drug-related deaths—Tobacco came first, then alcohol, second hand smoke, prescription pills, and then finally ALL illegal drugs combined.  Of course, those also cause so much violence—just look at the drug trade in Mexico.  Anyway, it was a pretty interesting class.  I like Global Studies—a lot of it is stuff that I already know from sociology classes in the past, but it’s cool to look at things from a global rather than a national perspective.  The guest lecturer talked about piracy which was really neat.  :B  Apparently the reason why these tiny boats can get away with it is because they have grenades that can blow out the bridge.  Neat stuff.  There was also some stuff about how there are no jobs in Somalia and things like that, but it’s awfully hard to feel bad for a pirate.  :o 

After that I took a short nap and then went up to lunch and sat with Martha and her lecture buddy Adam.  Lunch was kind of sketchy.  I wish that I didn’t have to just feel like all there is to eat on this ship is carbohydrates—I have pasta and potatoes nearly every meal.  I try to balance it out, but it’s tough.  Guess that’ll just have to be what I do in port. 

Decided that I should probably get on this whole studying train—our first Global Studies exam is tomorrow night, a Scantron that’s 50 multiple choice questions.  Instinctually I feel like it’s going to be pretty easy, just because I feel as though I’ve been able to easily understand everything that has been presented in class, but then again the textbook is kind of a dull read so maybe things slipped by me there.  I read over all my class notes and then perhaps tomorrow I will flip through the book before the test.  I’m not too worried about it, though I know that I should definitely over prepare because I’ve never taken a test with this professor before.  Considering that virtually everyone that I’ve talked to has said that they haven’t started studying yet, I think I’m ahead of the game anyway?  The midday announcement came on and announced that we would have a time change tonight—yeah, there’s NO WAY.  Not with Neptune Day and a test tomorrow.  That would just not work.  She later said that there wouldn’t be a time change tomorrow after all, thank goodness.

Studying was pretty dull after the first hour or so, so I explored all of my built-in game options on my laptop.  There is a pinball game on here that I remember playing on my Windows 95 computer in my room at night—blast from the past.  I must have been way better at it then. 

A quick dinner and then back to my room.  I was going to study a little more, but luckily for me Steven came by.  We talked about making movies, mosquitoes, and Neptune Day, which he hadn’t researched at all.  Neptune Day is tomorrow.  I have some things that I am expecting but I have no idea for other things.  I had assumed that we would be woken up at 5AM, but Ellie said something about hearing that we would be woken up at 7 or 8.  Not sure what to think!  But I know that as soon as I hear something happening, I am going to race up there for initiation.  I want my Emerald/Royal Diamond Shellback status!  I’m really really excited.  :D :D :D :D After a while Jared came by and I went and worked out with him.  He taught me a couple of free weights exercises for my biceps, which are pitiful (triceps are enormous, biceps not so much), so that was awesome.  :D 

Now I’m just laying in bed wondering what’s in front of me for tomorrow.  I am SO EXCITED for all the rituals and traditions.  SEMESTER AT SEA!! WHOOOO!

September 26 2010 / MV Explorer

It’s always weird trying to get back into the groove of things after port.  I woke up ridiculously early with my poetry class at 10:40, so I quickly read the poems that I had forgotten to read the night before.  Poetry was interesting—there was a great poem called Civilian and Soldier that I really enjoyed.  I also got back my three poems that I submitted for review from the professor—my major problem so far is combining emotional energy and metaphorical imagery, as two poems had lots of loose leaf imagery but no emotional theme and another was just emotional energy.  So I’ll definitely have to go through and do some massive revising, but that was exactly what I needed—I feel like I understand far better now. 

Was eating lunch when all of a sudden the midday announcements came on that today we would be traveling through point 0—that when we crossed the Equator, which would happen today, we would also intersect with the Prime Meridian at the same time!!  It’s the first time this particular ship has done that, and I was really excited (when we are initiated on Neptune Day, we’ll be Emerald Shellbacks (or Royal Diamond shellbacks, if we weren't from the USA!) instead of just regular Shellbacks…you can look it up on wiki).  I heard that we were going to be at that point at 12:30, so I grabbed my cameras and ran up to deck 7, where they had a GPS.  There was a massive crowd already there, and if you looked behind at the ship’s trail, you could see the zigzagging where the captain was trying to get there just right.  When we finally hit point 0, we all cheered, and a couple people hopped in the pool.  I myself dipped my feet into the water, as when you cross the equator you’re supposed to be “baptized” into the water of the equator, and because we weren’t crossing it exactly when the Neptune ceremonies would occur, I decided to do it out of tradition.

After that I motored off to class, as I’d missed the first part of it—lots of professors had cancelled their classes, but not ours.  We started watching an interesting documentary called Not In Europe, which was about this mine that hasn’t changed since the middle ages and is incredibly dangerous, but is still being used because it brings in money because of the tourism industry.  This was continued in my Contemporary Social Issues class… he decided to ask us how we found Ghana, and everyone was saying how lovely their time was and how they had all of these meaningful experiences and deep relationships with people.  I said how I didn’t feel that way at all—I didn’t feel as though I had deep interpersonal experiences, but my time was meaningful in that I saw the face of poverty and how an entire country was coping with it, and that I was bringing that back with me.  We got into an incredibly heated argument because many people were talking about how they’d helped in little ways while other people were arguing that without change on a large scale, you’re just teaching people that they can get money from tourists and aren’t creating anything sustainable.  People at Habitat for Humanity put some Ghanaian people out of work for a day.  People who visited an unsustainable water village built on stilts gave money to them, so they have more money for the upkeep as opposed to moving to a new area that would be safer and more sustainable.  So this was a really awkward, stressful, and very heated discussion.  I definitely feel, especially after Ghana, that you have to promote change on a larger scale, both governmentally and internationally economical, and that just having grassroots organizations aren’t going to solve poverty problems by themselves, but of course they’re a good starting point as long as they look at long term effects.  Anyway, it was a good discussion, if a little stressful.

After class I went up to the Wellness Center where I’d made appointments to get my brows done, and it was the most incredibly painful process ever, because I don’t know, the lady who was doing it was just really wax happy and didn’t do any of the usual soothing methods.  I actually have a red bruise/burn thing right above my eye now.  But they do look awesome, so I’m happy with that. 

It was Martha’s birthday, so I went to her birthday dinner celebration, where I cracked lots of jokes and demanded cake from small children, as well as attempted to pilfer cake from other tables.  I had a really great time, but quickly had to motor off to go do my social RA event, making IN/OUT signs or name tags.  It was just kind of sitting down in front of the bulletin board, giving people paper and magnets AND purple armbands, which I had cut into strips earlier in the day.  Lots of people came by, some to just grab a nametag but many stayed for a long time, just hanging out, talking about Ghana and about their lives.  It was a great time.  :) 

Afterwards Julie and I bombed Jared’s room because he had said something about having Roller Coaster Tycoon, which is amazing, so we watched him build roller coasters for a while before settling on watching Fruits Basket, which is this anime Julie brought from home.  It is pretty incredibly sexist with its gender roles, but I had a good time making fun of it (as per usual).  So a pretty good day, if a little hard to get into the swing of things with classes!  :D

September 25 2010 / Takoradi, Ghana

After last night, I decided that I would sleep for however long I darn well pleased, so I missed breakfast entirely and didn’t really leave my room until lunch time, where I found Julie and Jared.  I’d forgotten I had promised Julie I would go with her to the market circle, so we went together as a gaggle, walking all the way there.  They had loud music booming out in the circle today, which was pretty neat.  It was just really fun to just kind of dance through the circle.  Everyone is so friendly there!  We also found some pretty nifty fabric, that’s kind of brownish/white/purple patterned, very African and cool, and it was only four cedis a yard, so I bought two yards of it to cut up and make armbands for Aegean Sea pride!  Sea Olympics  are like… in late October, but it never hurts to get pride started now.  In the store they ever have stuff organized by color, so people can get especially spirited, which I just love!  :)  But this will be a financially friendly way for people to get excited. 

We left the circle and walked in the same direction that I did the last time I went to the market circle, went to the same shop we had the first day (it was called “Real Life”), and had my delicious pear drink again.  Julie and I saw a lady roasting plantains on the street, and went over and bought a ridiculous amount of them for two cedis.  Then we sat by the roadside and munched on them as little girls shouted obruni at us.  It never seems to have a negative connotation, it’s just very interesting here.  Eventually we grabbed a cab back to port. 

We departed Ghana around dinnertime.  Dinner was filled with laughter—we started playing Would You Rather and then MFK, which was pretty fun, and continued when we went outside.  All the people who had been selling us stuff directly outside the boat were all singing and drumming and dancing, some of them waving Ghanaian flags, and we were clapping and waving and screaming “We love Ghana!”  We also waved to a Singapore oil tanker, which was pretty cool because they were taking pictures of us with their cameras, which I thought was kind of a funny reversal. 

Post port kind of made me feel ill at ease, because everyone was talking about how they’d made all of these “lifelong friends” with the Ghanaian people, and how they'd felt like they'd helped to change people's lives when they volunteered in hospitals or building houses.  Meanwhile, although I’d had an overall positive experience, I didn’t have anything more than fairly shallow relationships.  I’m not sure if that was because I was still on my guard from Morocco or what.  I didn't feel like I'd changed anyone's help at all--I felt like I was a dumb tourist who didn't know how to help and couldn't help with the widespread poverty.  Still, everyone seemed to come away with these incredibly amazing experiences, and although I feel like I learned immensely in Ghana about poverty especially, and the amount of joy that human beings can find in the things that they have, I can’t say that I met friends there that I will remember and who will remember me.  I came away from the country not feeling like I had a fun time, but instead feeling deeply disturbed by the country-spread poverty and astounded that there was virtually no overall governmental presence aside from the chiefs and queen mothers of certain areas that were helping people, though mostly without providing monetary assistance (at least I think they weren’t).  In that way I did enjoy Ghana because I am glad I have gotten such a clearer viewpoint, but it’s a view that has been extremely difficult to even comprehend and accept, as I’ve been born into an incredible affluent life in the United States and have never had to worry about whether I was going to have food to eat that night.  Of course, that’s not to say everything was a bummer—Kakum National Park was amazing, as was the joy you could find in the market circle.  But it was definitely the biggest impression on me.  I hope this is even mildly coherent, I've been struggling to try to put my feelings about Ghana together for days now. 

That night we really wanted to play Monopoly, because Jared and I are both highly competitive at it apparently, but by the time we got to the student activities stand, it was closed.  Curses!  So instead we went up on the observation deck (which we were quickly shooed away from, because the wind was so strong they thought someone might be blown right off the deck), and then to the empty classroom two, where Jared, Steven, Julie and I played Hangman on the white board.  I was dreadful, because Jared knew all sorts of crazy chemical names and things like that, Steven knew Russian authors, and all I could come up with was “conflict-theorism” by the time I could go up.  I think my favorite of the night was “Liam Neeson is Raz al-Ghul.”  Anyway, after we got bored of that, we played Who’s Closer, which is a game I learned how to play on Wikipedia of all things, which is where you think of something random, other people say something random, then you reveal what you were thinking of and people argue who was closest to what you were thinking of.  It was actually pretty entertaining.  We played until around midnight and then went back down to deck 2 to go to bed. 

I’ll send out my Ghana postcards that I got in South Africa, because the postal system here was pretty sketchy.  :D

September 24 2010 / Takoradi, Ghana

It was a good thing Julie and I had agreed to call each other in the morning to make sure that we were both awake, because I was exhausted when my alarm went off at 6AM and was ready to roll over and go back to sleep when my phone rang.  I got up, grabbed my backpack and ate a carb-filled breakfast (protein? surely not!) before heading down to the Habitat for Humanity bus.  Jared and Julie had already staked out a spot in the back, so Caroline and I flopped down next to them.  And then we were off—it was three hours to get there.   For some reason, travel time does not really exist in Ghana, perhaps because you’re already so enthralled by looking outside and seeing everything that’s around you.  Time goes very quickly.   We stopped at a hotel to use the bathroom that was just shocking to go inside—the building was very modern, and inside it was just, FWOOSH—instant air conditioning cancelling out the tropical humidity.  Air conditioning alone is the ultimate sign of status here.  It was definitely strange to see a building that had that. 

We kept going down the road.  Many people were sleeping, but it’s hard to do so when the road is just riddled with potholes that send you flying up and down.  We finally turned (kind of near the Kakum area… definitely central Ghana), and entered a dirt road.  We were flung this way and that as the bus fought the road for dominance—everyone sleeping was shaken awake as tree branches scraped against the sides of the bus.  We thought we were going to flip over several times, or at least get stuck in the mud.  This was the most intense time where we were literally out in the middle of nowhere—this was an unmarked road, with shacks clustered randomly around.  When we’d gotten out of the bus because it wasn’t able to go any further, we hiked through thick rainforest, every once in a while coming across a clearing with a random house, a random school, and finally, a big clearing where there were several house foundations started. There were great big piles of sand for mortar here and there, and long rows of big stones made out of sand and mud.  Because we felt like being badasses, I as well as several other girls decided that we would be the ones to carry the big 50+ pound stones over to the house foundations from where they were on the ground (whether or not this was a good idea is up for discussion).  Many were covered with vines, HUGE snails, and all of them had earthworms, spiders, or crickets hiding beneath them.  If you dropped them, they would most likely crack into unusable pieces, so you had to kind of try your best to deal with the occasional massive spider or twelve.  I was filthy and covered in dirt within seconds, as you had to support with your chest as you carried as well.  Eventually we came up with the much better idea with forming a human chain where we could just pass the bricks from person to person, which was much more effective but also created lots of opportunities for accidental boob grazes.  It was all good though.

After a while we had a soda break under the tent that had been set up for us—warm Ghanaian Fanta is so much better than American warm Fanta, because at least it’s made with real sugar instead of corn syrup.  :)  After that, Jared, Julie and I decided to relocate for a little while to a different home that had more foundation walls already in place and were going to “level” the floors.  The floors were made of dirt, rocks, and tree roots, and we had a pickax and two shovels.  It was pretty tough to do—scooping up big scoops of dirt and tossing them to the other side of the room.  Oftentimes we would scoop up huge frogs and throw them as well—the frogs had buried themselves a good amount in the dirt, and we had to chase them out much of the time.  There were also gigantic blue lizards who bobbled their orange heads in some of ritual—was just so cool.  Jared and I talked about Dungeons and Dragons while we worked a ton—we really want to get a campaign going, as he’s a DM at his school, so hopefully we can get something like that going. 

We were only there for a couple of hours, and after a while we retreated back to the shelter of our tent, especially when the rain started up.  A woman from a nearby house had made us chicken and rice, the rice covered with a delicious tomato paste—it was so good, and much appreciated after the work we’d done.

When we were walking back after lunch, there were little kids running along after us who had been watching us work.  I got pretty excited because I had beanie babies in my backpack on the bus, so I was excited to go and get it and bring it out.  I knelt down next to one of the kids, a little boy, and held out the beanie snake.  He stared at it blankly.  Another little boy grabbed it, squished it.  “Snake,” he said, and handed it back.  Two other boys were looking at me, so I gave them two more.  They looked at them and didn’t say anything.  I walked away after a while, and one of the little boys followed me.  When I noticed, he looked at me and said, “Give me a cedi?”

I felt completely shell-shocked.  I stammered something about not having anything, and got on the bus.  The children waved at us and chased us as we drove away, and I could only wave back.  When they fell into the distance, I just stared out the window blankly.  For some reason, it did not hit me until that very second that maybe many of these kids that I give beanie babies out to aren’t going to even know what to do with them.  That maybe trying to give a kid something to play with wouldn’t matter if he didn’t really play in ways that I did when I was a kid.  That maybe kids had something a little more to worry about than whether they had a toy to play with, but whether they were going to be able to eat that night.  That maybe childhood was a luxury.  If I learned anything in Ghana, I’ve stumbled upon the humanity of poverty.  I felt completely hollowed, and really couldn’t do anything but look outside and think about how the rain meant that children wouldn’t be going to school.  I slipped into an intense depression when we were driving away, seeing overturned cars in the mud by the sides of the road…

It was better when Jared and Julie woke up and we could talk a little bit more about his book and writing in general, which perked me up a little bit.  Getting back was nice—took a nice hot shower, and we found a mostly empty classroom to have dinner in.  We tried to get Jared to come out with us, but he was pretty resolved to not go, so we (Julie, Lorelei and I) prettied ourselves up and headed out.  We decided to go across the way to the Duty Free shop to get drinks first.  So we had our peach vodka, guava nectar, and because I don’t enjoy feeling horrific (nor do I particularly enjoy vodka of any kind), a gigantic jug of water.  We sat down and hung out, various people coming in and out of our circle—Nick and his girlfriend, Margret, lots of other folks.  Unfortunately, while I wasn’t watching, Lorelei drank some ridiculous amount of alcohol.  She became very stubborn about things, such as wanting to get into Ghanaian people’s cars because she “spoke their language” and other things of that nature.  Alex joined onto our group and he and I sort of mother-henned on the way to Paragon, the nightclub we’d heard lots about.

Once again, at the club I just kind of followed after Lorelei, especially after the first time that she fell over.  Normally I would make a friend go home, but she is a New Yorker and I can’t really beat that with logic.  At one point she was dancing with a guy, and while she was walking away he tried to yank up her shirt.  He started laughing with some other guys about it, which was NOT okay with me, so I marched right up to him, punched him in the chest, and said very sharply “You don’t fucking do that.”  He looked very taken aback that I had called him on his behavior, so I walked away before anything else could happen.  So that was my moment of the night, though I got zero credit for being The Reasonable One in the group… like, ever.  Which is fine I guess.  But I like when people own up to the fact that they were acting like asshats.  Just saying.  =/

We were able to get home when Lorelei became convinced that it was 5AM (it was 2), and we all said that my goodness, it was 5AM and that we should leave, because didn’t she have to get up for a trip?  So I guess that all worked out okay.  But I will not be partying with Lorelei until we talk about that particular adventure.  No one likes being the momma hen.   

The moon in Ghana looks like it belongs in Apocalypse Now. I can't remember--did that movie take place in Viet Nam or the Congo?

September 23 2010 / Takoradi, Ghana

Woke up at six this morning, feeling reasonably sleepy considering the shenanigans last night.  Threw on a tank top and my green pants I took to the Berber villages—unfortunately, the laundry hadn’t been able to get the most intense of the stains out of them, but they’re still good.  I ate a quick breakfast with our gang—there were ten of us going independently to Kakum National Park to do the canopy walk and the Hans Botel (crocodile restaurant) and then some people were going back to the ship while others were going on to Elmina castle and slave dungeons. 

We headed out around 7:15 (Julie’s alarm hadn’t gone off so we left a little later than expected) and walked through port to get outside.  It was too early for people to hassle us, it seemed, so we had an easy travel.  When we got outside the gate, however, it was an entirely different matter—people swarmed us asking for our names, so that they could stitch them into bracelets.  This was the only time I gave out my name this day—the rest of the times I used aliases.  But we flagged down three taxis, eventually.  Now this is the important part of the story—we went up to the window and said, “We want to pay 30 cedis per cab to get to Kakum forest.”  And they were all okay okay, get in.  “No, thirty cedis, in all, not per person.”  Again, they said that was fine.  Once more—“thirty cedis.”  They agreed again and we were on our way, I was with Julie, Caroline, and Jared, who was in the front seat. 

The entire time we were going, our driver was playing some sort of incredibly loud cassette tape of a Christian sermon, which was actually kind of interesting to hear.  Just traveling to Kakum was really interesting—everywhere was green green green.  We are definitely in the rainforest.  Huge leafy banana plants especially are common by roadsides, as are the Baobab trees (Rafiki trees!) and palm trees.  Our car often skittered around to avoid pot holes, which the ground was littered with, and people here are very honk-happy.  Our cab definitely frequently almost hit people on the sides of the roads, and even more often goats, who just sort of wandered around.  As there is no highway in Ghana, there are just sort of slightly better-paved roads in order to get from place to place, and there are still shack towns set up all over the roads. Children wave if they see that you are obruni (a white man) and one man shouted to us as we took off, “Obruni, aquaba Ghana!” (“White men, welcome to Ghana!”).  The shacks sell things like beauty “saloon” services (“Glory to God Beauty Saloon”), unrefrigerated soft drinks (“Jesus in my Heart Store”), dirty looking televisions, refrigerators, and stoves that were in a heap outside of someone’s shack.  Especially in populated areas, women and children have baskets on their heads filled with bags of water, palm wine, oranges and limes, cloth, anything that can be sold.  It’s really incredible how much they can balance on their heads without even holding it up or worrying about it—they must have amazing posture. 

Julie and I were dozing in and out of sleep (I kept getting confused because I thought that the preacher on the cassette tape was Julie talking to me, so I kept snapping back awake).  We were noticing it become more and more green outside and finally we approached a big gate—the entrance to Kakum national park.  We pulled into a circular dirt parking area where lots of SAS buses already were. 

We got all of our money together to pay our cab drivers and I went to go and give mine to our driver.  But one of the others had gotten into a gigantic uproar about how it was so little!  This guy refused to even take it from me.  I was like “are you serious?”  Because we had repeated it OVER and OVER again that we were paying 30 cedis there before we even got into the cab.  It was a small amount, certainly, and we had been willing to pay more than that… if it had been negotiated before hand, not sprung at the last second.  They were so unwilling to listen that finally I just walked over to the car, and put the money under the windshield wiper.  This is when the shit really hit the fan.  As I started walking away, ready to be done with the whole mess, the driver GRABS my arm and shoulder and starts shaking me angrily while yelling at me, preventing me from walking away.  I immediately fling my arm up and throw him off of me.  I was heated, and just repeated saying that I wasn’t going to pay more than what we had agreed, and walked away.  A couple of the people who had come with us stayed there and continued to argue, but at that point I was completely done and walked over to the outside sort of meeting area.  Funnily enough, when they came back after “negotiating” that we give them 80 cedis each for an entire day of driving us around (I was pretty grumpy that we had to stay with them, but I didn’t want to make a fuss for everyone else), they told me that short guy who shook me had wanted to call the police on ME.  =/  Yeah buddy, that only works if I don’t pay you, and you were refusing to take what we agreed on, so you can just… whatever.  It was definitely a big source of anger for the rest of the day, because I would have been happy to negotiate higher at the beginning of the discussion.  One thing that did occur to me later (later, when I had gotten back on the ship) was that maybe they had been expecting to drive us around all day, and when we got there and wanted to pay, it seemed like we were stranding them out there without anyone for them to drive back.  Which would have been understandable, if they had said that before hand and not when we had already fixed a price for just going there.

Anyway.  So we got there and went “inside.”  There were lots of small wooden hut-houses scattered around in a circle—one was a restaurant, one a gift shop, one a desk for visitors.  The heat was thick and close, very humid.  We really wanted to do the canopy walk, which is this walk high up over the treetops of the rainforest on a rickety wooden plank with rope barriers on either side of you, so we bought our tickets and got our badges (there were so many people with the SAS trip, we were all branded  “Non-Ghanaian child”).  They told us to go ahead and join the SAS group that had their tour guide, so we did.  We started to walk into the forest, and at some point our guide stopped us and said that we were finally going to be entering the rainforest.  I didn’t really get it but it was like, within a couple steps, all of a sudden WHOOSH—it was like we had entered an air conditioned zone.  It was still hot, but not nearly as much.  There were trees and plants and mushrooms everywhere.  We didn’t see any critters running around, or even birds, but we could hear the forest singing with all its birdcalls and insects humming.  There were lots of butterflies, which I loved.  The guide talked for a little bit about trees, but then rushed us along for the fun part—the canopy walk.  Basically, you walk over the entire rain forest spread out underneath you on various wooden planks that are connected together.  There’s rope barriers to your shoulders on either side, and it’s verrrrry wobbly—not for the faint of heart.  I had the most incredible time though—walking through, moving my legs and arms in the same motion as I “climbed” through, I felt like a giraffe looking down at the world.  Again, I didn’t see too many critters, but it was just so cool looking out at the rainforest stretched out as far as the eye could see, big baobab trees in the distance, and butterflies occasionally fluttering by.  Some of our number were terrified, but I was thriving.  (I think being so insistent on trying so many new things is allowing me to enjoy more things that I might have originally been not so keen on, or in this case terrified of.)

We crossed to about four or so tree platforms and when we finally touched down I wanted to go back up again!  But that was about it for us.  And then… it started to rain!  We were getting rained on in the rainforest of Ghana—too good to be true.  Walking through the forest towards the entrance we definitely had to be careful of slippage on the muddy trail, as that was only too easy to fall over in.  Around the foot of the trail there was a man with a machete standing at a wooden stand, coconut husks in a pile next to him, selling them for one cedi each.  There was also an extremely sketchy table with a sign that said “Palm Wine” with water bottles filled up with a murky whitish liquid.  I’ve wanted to try palm wine since I got here, and as Lander said “well, at least the alcohol will probably kill the germs anyway,” Julie and I got a bottle to split, though everyone was taking sips of it to try it.  It was definitely interesting—palm wine is made from fermented coconut, and it didn’t taste at all like coconut but like a very sour… drink.  It’s a bit hard to explain how it tasted.  It was pretty good at the beginning but more towards the bottom it was even more sour, so that kind of got bleugh.  But I got my palm wine tasting in in Africa, so I’m happy.  (Also, no, I did not get sick.  I feel as good as can be right now.)

We went to the bathroom, marveled at their insufficient post cards, and then headed back to the cabs. At first I thought they were gone, because they weren’t in the same spots and started getting really excited, but then I discovered they were standing right nearby.  I refused to go in the cab of the guy who grabbed me, so Lorelei and I switched it up for heading to our lunch spot.

Hans Brotel was about a half hour away down a little road.  It was I guess a tourist “resort,” though there aren’t really resorts in Ghana—not like the ones that we’re used to in the USA, anyway.  It was actually pretty shady.  But there was a little lake in which a restaurant was built on stilts over it, so you could sit out and watch the wildlife.  Weaver-birds had tons of nests, but we were interested in the crocodiles!  We didn’t see too many at first, but then we realized there was one hanging out right nearby us.  They weren’t too active because of the clouds and the rain, but it was incredible to be leaning out over a crocodile.  :O   On the way out I even spotted a babbycroc hanging out near shore. 

The service was terrible—for the ten of us it took them hours to get our food out.  But that was okay because I wasn’t too worried about it and was just talking politics and Bond movies with Lander, Julie, and Jared.  But when it did come  out, it was… interesting.  I got red red, which is beans and cooked plantains.  The plantains were pretty good, if kinda starchy (it’s tough to compete with Sol Food), but the beans were pretty tasteless.  I put unholy amounts of salt on them to no avail, so that was kind of a bummer, but the experience of the whole place was pretty cool, and it was a cheap meal anyway, so I didn’t really mind. 

After lunch we split up into two groups, because one group were either tired or had already seen the slave dungeons and castle that we were going to in Elmina.  I considered going with them for a second, just because I was so exhausted and worn out from being angry at the cabbies, but I realized that if I did that I would be doing the go home part of “go big or go home,” and I knew that I would regret it if I didn’t , so I stayed.  Elmina took us a while to get there, but it’s this big, incredible white castle out on the coast.  You can see the Cape Coast castle in the distance, but it was pretty neat seeing the mudbrown waves crashing with the castle.  Once we got out of the cab, we were swarmed by people wanting to sell us things and sign things and give our names.  I came up with a fake name “Adrian,” but ended up accidentally verbally spelling it Adrel because I didn’t even want to deal with it.  We quickly went into the castle after that.

We joined an English tour with a handful of Ghanaians.  It was a really weird atmosphere for the tour, actually, because we were really sober because we’ve been hearing about slavery and the effects of it for a long time, but the Ghanaians just… didn’t really care.  We would be standing in the men’s prison cell, with no ventilation and whatever, imagining what it would be like, and they would be cracking jokes and laughing about something.  It was just kind of strangely awkward.  I had learned in class that the Ghanaian people didn’t really care about that part of the history like black Americans do when they come to visit, but it was just kind of a shock.  The governor’s room had a trapdoor that led to the women’s cell so he could pull up slaves as he wanted them and someone said “I wish I could be the governor” or something like that and it was just really… awkward and wrong.  It was also strange because our tour included going into the gift shop midway through and again when you could look at art (unrelated to the Elmina castle) to buy.  It was just… awkwardly commercial. 

Being there itself though was powerful enough.  You don’t really understand how horrifying it is until you’re standing there, in the dark, with a tiny vent so that the air circulates barely, and imagining being crammed in there with other people.  I’m really glad I went and checked it out, even if it was exhausting.  Architecturally the castle was beautiful, but the history behind it was just so intensely sad and moving.  I took lots of pictures—the view from the terraces of the castle were incredible, you could see the whole city and even looking down the shore all the way to the Cape Coast castle.

Leaving the castle, we were jumped again by the gaggle.  Guy Who Wanted Our Names had written our names onto these huge spiral shells, so now I have a shell addressed “To My American Friend: Ms. Adrel.”  They were “gifts,” they insisted.  Ghanaians definitely know how to work tourists, let me tell you.  They know how to work the obligated angle.  I bought a couple of bracelets, expecting them to leave me alone if I did that, but that only seemed to make them more persistent.  =/  Still, the bracelets were cheap, so I felt okay going back.

Going back our ride was kind of neat—the other taxi got stuck in the mud so we all had to get out and push it out.  Aside from that, we just stopped at an ATM so that we could get some more cedis (we were beginning to run low, because only about half of us had cedis to start with).  ATMs are strange here because a lot of the time they will only give you 1 cedi bills.  I can’t imagine pulling out tons of $1 bills at home, but it’s definitely very different here.  I’ve never seen such widespread poverty before.  Everyone is working at these little roadside houses, selling palm wine or coconuts.  Many of the children don’t have shoes or clothes… it’s just really staggering to see it.  You don’t really see it when it’s statistics in a classroom. 

Back at port I was expecting there to be some kind of hullaballoo about how 80 cedis was too low, but on the contrary our cabbie was very thankful.  He did not really get involved when the other two guys started freaking out about money, so maybe he just was nicer?  We had a nice walk back through port, anyway, though I had to sprint for the port gate because First Guy Who Asked Me My Name spotted me and screamed “STEPHANIE” and started running over to me, undoubtedly with his customized bracelet—I didn’t stop to check.

Wasn’t hungry after my starch lunch, so I bypassed dinner and started writing this blog, though by around  2100 I started getting peckish, so I went up to deck 7 to get some noms.  I got a flatbread pizza—just craving something with cheese.  Julie and Megan, who both did the trip, joined me after a while, and we discussed laser eye surgery and the dad’s campout (and my aversion to Snickers/Milky Way/3 Musketeers bars).  After a while I went back down to my room because my body is just exhausted from doing so much today and seeing so much.  Besides, I have to wake up bright and early tomorrow morning for Habitat for Humanity!  :)

Also I’m sorry if a lot of this post sounds really arrogant, it doesn’t mean to be.  It was a pretty long day and I definitely was surprised by the economic maneuvering people do here.  I will be much more on my game tomorrow, I’m sure. 

September 22 2010 / Takoradi, Ghana

Today was an incredible day in Ghana.  I for once didn’t get up to watch the boat pull into port, because I stayed up pretty late I think the night before.  But I did get up and snack on some eats before going up and being called to go outside for my FDP I was doing, where we went as a class for my Women in High Courts class to visit the Queen Mothers of the Essikado tribe and their court.  Even around 10AM, it was getting warm, and the humidity is intense.  It’s not even that hot feeling as much as it just feels jungle wet here, wherever I go, it’s always with a bit of a perspiration layer.  Anyway, we hopped into our tour bus and headed out—port is structured so that there’s about a fifteen minute walk between the ship and the gate between port and the rest of Ghana.  So we drove out for our around forty-five minute adventure through Ghana.  EVERYONE—women, children, men—waved at us as we went by, especially schoolkids, who would leap up and down in excitement.  I’m not sure if it was because we were in a bus or because we were all white—probably being white.  Everyone here just seems so friendly, and not even in an “I’m trying to sell you something” kind of way.  Just in a friendly way. 

There are lots of little tiny one-room shanties along the roadsides, selling different things like old television sets to shirts to sodas, and ALL of them have names like Jesus Saves Laundromat.  Everyone seems to be highly religious, or maybe that’s just the common link, that everyone knows those stories.  As opposed to all the cats on the streets in Morocco, here there are lots of dogs, and LOTS of stray goats and occasionally sheep too.   Most of the women, and some of the men and children, are balancing things on their heads that they are carrying around, lots of them HUGE or incredibly heavy items—I saw a man carrying around a wooden 5x5 rack of sunglasses like it was nothing.  The roads are dirt and potholed, and the big buildings are usually banks, churches, or schools.  The schools seem to usually have dress codes of blue uniforms, and lots of kids were outside as we drove by, many of them hacking at weeds with machetes—not sure what kind of school this is.  On the outside walls they oftentimes have the alphabet painted on or common words like pig or house or things like that.  All the towns are shack towns—I have not seen a western house here yet. 

The queen mothers were in a fenced off building nearby a school, I think, and it was built on a bit of a hill.  I abruptly got really nervous—not every day you get to meet royalty, after all.  But we filled into the front room, where there were chairs in a rectangle, and on one side the eight queen mothers were sitting, and their two interpreters were on either side of them.  The queen mothers wore beautiful kente cloth, some wore lace and headscarves.  I didn’t realize the interpreters (men wearing white on either side of the queen mothers) were not royalty, so I shook their hands according to the way you’re supposed to in order to show great respect (with your left hand clasped on your right forearm).  After the greetings and we’d all sit down, we presented our gift of schnapps to the queen mothers, which they accepted.  Interestingly enough, we would have to talk during the beginning through our guide and from him to one of the interpreters, who would then talk to the queen mothers.  After a while, though, they told us they were very educated and that they would address us in English.  I feel like I learned so much about their political interests—right now they are working very hard for the education of girls in school, as they are often left behind, as well as organizing vocational and training schools.  Though many of them are also teachers or nurses, it seems that their duties as queen mother come before all else—none of them would say much about their family life.  They were incredible speakers and it was wonderful listening to them talk.  I asked them how we should better the world, and they answered again to educate girls—sounds like a plan to me.  :)

Midway through we had a bit of a break for lunch and we snacked and talked a little to the interpreters as the queen mothers went to go attend to something else.  When they returned we discussed a little of everything—microfinance, the meanings of the clothing that they all wore, and they told us that we were being very good and respectful, though they were letting some things slide because we were still learning their customs—such as to not sit with your legs crossed.  She got our professor on that one.  :D

They were gracious enough to allow us to take some pictures with them, which was amazing, and after a little bit of photo time (I purposely kept away from snapping my camera—I feel like I can get the pictures without offending the queen mothers by taking lots of pictures) we left the queen mothers.  They were so friendly, and strong speakers.  You could definitely feel the power that they have just from the way they spoke, and with such conviction.  It was really interesting seeing them all together—they had stressed discussion, and before many of our questions they would chatter and laugh among themselves as they shared ideas.  It was almost a very informal court—really interesting.

We went back and Martha went to go get one of her guy friends while I waited for her, as we were going to journey into the market circle together.  His name is Adam, and we also picked up a Laura who was also walking.  Outside the ship directly there were a bunch of people who had set up little boutiques, selling drums and African masks and little carvings and paintings, some of which are actually really cool… still trying to figure out if they would be mom and dad’s “thing.”  Everyone greeted us when we came into their shop, though some people would greet us coming out.  One guy in particular shook my hand and kept shaking it while he was talking to me and asking my name and where I was from and finally my email address, to apparently “chat with me more.”  No thanks!  We were quickly on our way after that.  It took about fifteen minutes to get out of port and probably twenty to twentyfive more to make it down to the market area.  I know The Jungle Book is supposed to be about India, but Ghana IS The Jungle Book.  It is rainforest jungle and it’s CRAZY.  All the buildings are very much crumbling and falling apart, and you can’t really tell what is abandoned and what isn’t.  The greenery of the forest is just everywhere and almost feels to be pressed against you no matter where you go. 

It took us forever to find an ATM and I still haven’t seen a single public phone.  Half of us were able to get out money, half of us weren’t—Ghanaian ATMs are a little temperamental.  But anyway, we walked down to the market which was the most incredible thing.  Inside the circle it was just jam-packed with stalls and booths, like Marrakech but on CRACK, the walkways were so tiny and small.  Mostly it was women and children doing the selling—there were LOTS of blackened fish, dead fish lying out.  There were also giant snails and live crabs, limes, toilet supplies, spices, anything you would need.  One woman asked how old we were, and when we said 20 she cheered and laughed because we were in her age group.  She didn’t even ask us to buy anything, she was just genuinely interested.  Another woman offered me some of the roast plantain she was eating (I took it and ate some, and it was delicious) and still another jokingly asked Adam if he would marry her—we were all laughing.  The people were just so friendly and didn’t seem to care if you bought anything or not, they just liked to talk and see what you had to say.  It was completely different than Marrakech, even though it was very similar in structure. 

We walked a little ways after that and found a little stop to get something to drink.  I can’t remember what I drank now, but it was a non-alcoholic beverage made from malt that tasted like pear.  It was almost like a Martinelli’s cider—was really good.  We then took a cab back because I’d told Julie I would meet her at 6:15, though that seemed to not really happen as we both got dinner and were kind of both too tired to do any more exploring.  I did, however, want to get drinks, and Dasha convinced me and Alexa, a girl from Chapman I’d been eating with, to come with her group.

Directly across from the ship was a duty-free shop where a lot of students and faculty were just hanging out and drinking on the second floor, so we climbed up the stairs (Alexa and I, I mean, we kind of ditched our group because we didn’t want to walk through port in the dark), went in and got a bottle of South African wine, and split it.  None of us knew any of the people on the patio, but we did our best to find some chairs and sit down.  The wine was okay—probably would have been better if we had suitable glasses.  We talked for a little while, but as it grew louder and louder, and finally when a student flipped his chair over and knocked all the glasses off a table and shattering onto the ground, we knew it was time to go.  I apologized to one of the Ghanaians watching nearby—students can make such asses out of themselves and their country sometimes.

Alexa and I went up on deck 7 and just chatted about alcohol laws, school drinking experiences, and responsible drinking, as well as Ghana stuff and traveling in general.  I just couldn’t remember where I knew her for the life of me—I am going to be really embarrassed if I find out she is a Phi Sig and I can’t remember her.  >.<  But anyway, around 2330 we decided to go to bed, as it was late and we would both be getting up early.   

September 21 2010 / MV Explorer

In Women in High Courts Joe Bami talked to us about the queen mothers and the proper way to show respect, which is by avoiding eye contact, not using your left hand, and bringing schnapps, so I guess that will be kind of an adventure to deal with, especially considering we don’t even know if the queen  mother will speak English or anything about what we’ll be doing. 

Class in Global Studies today was on education, and it was okay.  The guest speaker started talking about slavery, and then starting talking about “whose fault it was” in which he mentioned that African traders traded people themselves, so we started getting into a huge ragefest that was just starting to boil up in the student body.  If there is anything I hate more it is discussions about whose fault racism and slavery is , because without a mediator that knows what they’re doing it just gets out of control fast, which was what was happening.  Not a fan. 

I honestly didn’t do too much today.  I caught up on a little bit of Global Studies work is all, and took a nap to prep for Ghana, haha.  I really didn’t get too social until dinnertime, where I sat with Martha and Julie.  Martha, Julie and I hung out talking in Martha’s room until it was time for logistical pre-port, in which they taught us how to use a squat toilet, and to which I said guys, why didn’t we get this in Morocco.  :O  Squat toilets are no fun.  I will need to buy tissues this time around, for sure.  Some students also got up and talked about how embarrassing some SAS students were with their behavior in port (basically being loud obnoxious drunken Americans), which I appreciated.  I really hate being talked down to, but I mean come on. 

After that we were planning on watching The Jungle Book, but first Jared came over and told me we couldn’t work out today because he had no clean clothes.  I gave him a hard time about it until I said that I didn’t have any clean clothes either, and Steve joined into our conversation in the hall about being grumpy about laundry.  We hung out in Jared’s room for a while and Julie and Lorelei joined us.  Apparently Jared’s roommate said I was a “crazy girl” or something?  Hearing people say that kind of thing about me is really weird, especially when I don’t know them at all.  I had literally talked to him like… once.  Then again, he was hanging out with Julie’s roommate who is kind of a rude monster, so I guess I shouldn’t take it too personally. 

We all went up on deck 7 for a while and I finally had one of their famed cheeseburgers, which was pretty good but the ship has been rocking terribly today so I am regretting it a little bit.  Apparently Jared has published a novel, which I need to get.  After a while we went off to Lorelei’s room and some of us watched the Jungle Book together (I never saw Martha after dinner D:).  There is so much of that movie that I don’t remember that just came back to me eventually.  I love Bagera so much.  And I love how Ballu is “that guy.” 

I’m sorry this is kind of short, I’m just really tired for some reason and am mostly distracted away from this day from Ghana being TOMORROW. 

September 20 2010 / MV Explorer

Poetry this morning was lovely, as per usual.  We learned about synecdoche and chiasmus, which are pretty neat.  I am always impressed by the level of interpretation that we do in class that is helped on by our professor, and how whatever terminology we are learning about fits the reading perfectly.  It really is an incredible English class.  I really want to do more with poetry in later classes and in my later life, even.  I have never been able to write long stories particularly well, but with poetry you can tell a huge story and the trick is to be concise, which I love being anyway.  Mmm, delicious poetry.  A trick he told us to do for writing is to use unconventional/strangely related vocabulary for a subject matter, so I am trying that out with the poem I’ve been working on today.  I had told James I would write one for him but this just sort of turned out to be weirdly inspired by him.  It is strange but great.  I’ll post it (maybe) when I finish it. 

Off I went later to AOT, which only strengthened my desire to go to Elmina slave castle and dungeons when we get there, because it sounds like suuuuuch an interesting tourist spot and just historical site in general.  Luckily, Lorelei and I worked out later in the evening that if we left really early for Kakum park, like at 6:45 in the morning or so, we could get there for the morning, eat lunch at the crocodile restaurant, and then go over to the Elmina slave castle to explore that in the afternoon.  It will definitely be a packed day but I think we can manage it, especially if we just hit the ground running, which I am totally ready to do. 

I came back to my room and worked on my poetry for a little while, including printing out three poems I’ve done so far and dropping them in my professor’s box.  Considering some of the poetry I’ve seen from my peers, which they proclaim themselves took ten minutes, I feel pretty good about it and am looking forward to what my professor has to say to this first draft.  Contemporary Social Issues I felt waaaay more at ease with, because we were talking about wealth vs. income and inequality vs. poverty, which I am pro at, as this was more sociological stuff than political.  So I was able to contribute a lot, which was good.  South Africa has the highest Gini Coefficient of all the countries that we’re going to (.65), higher than even the USA (.48), undoubtedly due to apartheid.  We also talked about the Bush tax cuts that are expiring soon and how Obama wants to extend them for middle class only.  Neat stuff.

It’s hard to write poetry in rhymes.  I don’t know how Dr. Seuss did it.  I keep coming up with awesome lines just to change them because nothing rhymes with “bloody” that I want to use.  After a while we went off to dinner, joining Julie and later Lorelei, Jared, and a couple of people from Deck 2.  For all I said that I should stop eating beef yesterday, they had beef with sautéed onions, which I immediately was a goner for.  My bad, Planet Earth.  The seas were particularly rolling in the evening, and when someone hollered something about a whale, I almost fell over myself to get to the window.  I did not see any stinkin’ whale, and apparently neither did anyone else, as he was just blowing water occasionally up into the air.  But I didn’t see him so I went back most dejected.  We were cheered by some people at the table next to us who decided that they had far too much birthday cake and wanted to share though!  And I was made fun of for saying groovy.  I tried to counter it saying that Shaggy from Scooby Doo says groovy, but no one seemed to buy it. 

Around 2000 there was Ghana’s cultural pre-port, so I went over and sat next to Lorelei.  We saw Caroline (our Seville buddy!) and called her over, and she was interested in doing Thursday (the packed day above) with us too!  So we’ll have a pretty full group, which will be fun and I’m definitely excited for it.  Apparently I need to eat something called fufu, which I didn’t write down what it was, so we’ll see what that turns out to be, and red red, which is fried plantains and beans.  I can already tell this country and me are gonna get along just fine.  Also, my Ghanian name is Adwoa/Adjoa (you have to say the jw together) because I was born on a Monday.  There was a little bit of info about how to be respectful of royalty, which I was grateful for because I’m gonna go see the queen mothers of the Ga tribe and I don’t want to offend anyone (I’m going to have to sit on my left hand).  Apparently Archbishop Tutu is getting a reward that is like… the African Lifelong Service award and is going to meet with the king and stuff, so that’s awesome.  I think we’re going to be debriefed afterwards on how that was too, so that’s exciting.  :D  I cannot wait for Desmond Tutu to teach the Global Studies class on South Africa.

Jared and I went and worked out again today, because we’re hardcore like that.  This time I was able to be on the stairmaster for ten minutes, which was more than enough for me, as well as having some bike time in there too.  Then we lifted weights again on the deck and failed to figure out how to cool down so we just walked back.  Baby steps.  We’ve got it covered.

I took a most excellent shower and then decided to write this blog!  Tomorrow in Women in High Courts we’re going to be briefed on how to be respectful for the queen mothers, which will be a fun class, and then some Global Studies, and then… GHANA!! :)

September 19 2010 / MV Explorer

0800 WIHC—Everyone was in the same boat (ho ho ho, my puns, they are so clever) because we all had hated the reading for that, which was about indigo cloth dyeing in Ghana and how it relates to royalty and fertility. But the professor kind of went over it when she realized how dull we’d found it, and now it’s much more interesting and is stuck far better in my head.  After that I went to Global Studies, which was pretty exciting because it was about women, and educating women and how that was going to lead to the world being saved.  I am only exaggerating that a little bit—women are the world’s most underutilized resource, so as soon as countries start investing in educating their women and having jobs available for them, there will be a massive economic boom in developing countries. There was a speaker that basically covered an entire Women’s Realities class in about twenty minutes.  She said she wanted to focus on women empowerment, but she hit all the stops—female genital mutilation, bride burning, acid throwing, domestic abuse, honor killings, gendercide… after class I went up to her and introduced myself and (hopefully not in a rude way) mentioned that she should mention feminism as a beneficial way to respond to some of these injustices, as there wasn’t really a “what you can do” section of the presentation.   Hopefully I didn’t seem obnoxious or telling her how to do her presentation—I thought I was very polite, and told her I enjoyed it (wrong term, probably) a lot.

Afterwards I was pretty exhausted (what a surprise!) and took a nap before meeting up with Lorelei and Julie to plan for Ghana during and after lunch.  We have some pretty epic ideas, no lie.  We really want to go to the Kakum National Park, because they have an incredible canopy walk that stretches over the treetops, and apparently the variety of birds there is unbelievable.  The only problem is that I’m pretty sure it’s going to rain the entire time we’re in Ghana.  It’s been raining all day today, the first time it’s ever rained while we’ve been at sea, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to let up anytime soon.  At least it’s warm as well?  Another idea was to go to the Elmina castle and slave dungeons, which was used by the Dutch at first as defense from naval attacks but then as slave dungeons during the slave trades.  Elmina is right between Takoradi and Cape Coast so we don’t think it would be too tough to get over there.  We were also thinking about going to Lake/River Volta and renting a boat to go to check out regions around the river that are famed for basket weaving, rum distilleries, and sugarcane fields.  Also in this area is a restaurant built on stilts over a river, where you can throw bread to hungry crocodiles—all I can say is CRIKEY!

So lots of options for Ghana.  After looking through a Lonely Planet on the subject, I decided to go back to my room to read for tomorrow’s classes—I think AOT is going to be interesting, because we read a chapter on slave dungeons/castles and what the black American experience there is like, as some of them feel really displaced from the culture and lacking what they’d come for, which was some sort of closure.  It was a really interesting article and made me all the more wanting to go to Elmina.  I’m not going to lie—I have a ticket for a Habitat for Humanity project I’d wanted to do, but that just sounds so culturally/historically rich.  Hopefully I can move things around the way I want. 

Later it was dinner time, and I luckily found Julie and Lorelei again.  We settled into a conversation on birth control and Japanese karaoke bars, of all things, and were pretty much as happy as could be.  Around 2000 we heard that there was a Sustainability and You panel thing going on, so we decided to rush over, because the subarctic temperatures in the ship are kind of ridiculous (and I love the cold, as long as there’s no snow involved).  However, our announcement was kind of shut down in a really rude way from one of the guys on the panel, and they were being really boring and general and it was like, you guys, are you kidding?  You have a captive audience, don’t talk about worldwide economics right now, and if you are, at least splice in some factoids about things that people can do to lower their energy intake.  It was just kind of disappointing.  Once again though, whenever I go to these things, I always feel like I don’t want to eat cow meat anymore, because it takes so much energy to farm, but then I remember that steak comes from cows, and it’s hard again.  :(  Being eco-friendly is very difficult for the carnivore.  But then, I guess I haven’t had any cow meat since setting sail?  Anyway, I’ve been better about turning off my lights and unplugging stuff a lot more when I leave. 

Julie and I had to sneak out a little early to go rush off to our Sea Meeting, which was kind of unfortunate because both Donna and I had thought the other person was going to get the supplies for door dec making (we really need to communicate more) so that’ll have to be an event that I plan on a random day.  We had a delicious ice cream cake to celebrate September/October birthdays.  Turns out the secret to good ice cream cake is having far more ice cream than cake.  Unless, of course, it’s cake with ice cream, and then you would always want more cake than ice cream.  Trust me, I’m a professional. 

While we scarfed down ice cream, Jared and I got the idea of having a work out buddy system to help inspire the other person to hit the gym.  I said yes, because I definitely need a buddy to keep me on track until it’s part of my routine.  So we got ready pretty quickly and then hit the gym at 2230—prime time, because no one is there.  Bike first, and then the stairmaster—I’m not gonna lie, I’ve never done the stairmaster before and it beat the crap out of me.  I could only do it for like five minutes I think.  I’m definitely going to have to try to get used to that.  I only lasted seven minutes on the olliptical (elliptical?), too.  I don’t get seasick, but bouncing up and down on the olliptical while also rocking all over the place on the seas was hard on my stomach.  I went back to the bike pretty quickly after that. 

Then we went outside and did weight training!  The equipment is all super old compared to Chapman’s stuff, I had to move all the weights off and on the equipment, so I hope I didn’t strain my back.  It was pouring outside (all the equipment was under an overhang) so there was water everywhere, sloshing with the rock of the ship.  At some points I just lifted dramatically less than I would have just because I was sick of trying to find more weights, haha.  But it was still a really good time and I’m glad I went.  Signed up to work out tomorrow too!  :) 

Came back and took a shower and did a quick poetry write-up.  Now I’m just laying in bed, getting drowsy but starting to realize—Ghana is only two days away! 

September 18 2010 ? MV Explorer

I woke up today after a really creeptastic dream where I rescued some sort of creature that I’d loved that had been corrupted and basically sold my soul to take care of this dark demon creature that was only a shadow of whatever it had been (I think it was my baby?).  It was really freaking creepy, so I was only too happy to go up to World Poetry.  We talked about some stuff in this poem “The Woman With Whom I Share My Husband,” which was very traditional/modern black Africa/white European, when someone shouted that there were dolphins at the porthole!  So we all raced over. 

At first I didn’t see anything, but then I saw lots of dorsal fins raise slowly out of water and then back in a cluster.  They didn’t seem to be moving.  My skin crawled—I had seen dolphins several days ago, joyfully jumping alongside the ship, and these weren’t all the same.  Later, a couple people said they saw sharks around the same time that morning.  It was pretty creepy at the time, but for some reason I never made that connection (for some reason I had thought that they had died, but couldn’t figure out how that waas), but that’s what they must have been.  Their dorsal fins were really jagged and freaky.  There were also flying fish!  They were skimming the water which was really cool, I thought they were birds at first.  <3

Anthropology of Tourism was kind of dull today and I found it a bit hard to pay attention.  I took good notes, but aside from that I wasn’t too into it.  I didn’t enjoy this chapter about different kinds of authenticity too much, but oh well, it happens.  Also, the more I’m in my Contemporary Social Issues class, the more I realize how little I know  about politics.  It kind of makes me feel like a gigantic imposter and fool, for even voting in elections when I know so little about how the government really works.  Like, I can know about specific issues, but nothing at all about the political system.  Kind of felt like a doofus when we were talking about lobbyists and corporate interests and etc.  I really hope that I continue to learn more and more about politics in this class (hopefully some basic stuff too).  I emailed mom to look into sending me my absentee ballot, though I’m gonna have to use my internet minutes looking into some of the issues. 

Somewhere between AOT and CSI I filled out all my customs forms for the countries we’re going to after South Africa, so hopefully I didn’t mess up on any of them.  I definitely didn’t know whether to put my full name including middle name in some of them, as sometimes there wasn’t enough space, so hopefully that works out.  Today is FINALLY laundry day (thank goodness, I’m down to my last clean pair of underwear), so I shoved things into two bags and left them outside.  I hope my morocco dress isn’t destroyed.  We’ll see.  I also washed my bras in the sink for the first time, which was… an experience.  I hope they don’t feel as uncomfortably like hand soap as they do while they’re wet.  They are taking up the entire shower right now, as they are. 

Anyway, Yom Kippur  was today, so I decided to go to the Shabbat services.  There were ten thousand more people than there were last time, and I felt kind of awkward because I didn’t seem to get on common ground talking to anyone else there—then again, I guess I am not Jewish and therefore cannot talk about Bat Mitzvah experiences and stuff like that.  Still, trying traditional Jewish foods was cool—bagels, challah, and kugel (this sweet noodle dish, it was excellent).  BASICALLY ANYTHING WITH FOOD  AND I’M GOOD.  After that I was invited by Julie and Lorelei to go to the interport presentation on Ghana, so I went to that and snooooored through it.  It was far too long.  One of the ladies next to me, a lifelong learner who is quite older but in a couple of my classes, asked if I was as bored as she was, and when the lady in front of her gave her a disapproving look, she made a face at the back of her head.  She is kind of amazing.  The Ghana presentation wasn’t that bad, it was just a lot of information I probably could have found on Wikipedia. 

After the presentation, we (Julie, Jared, Ellie, Lorelei and myself) went down to my room.  Lorelei had acquired Aladdin, The Jungle Book, and The Lion King for our next ports to get us ready for them, and we were going to watch Aladdin to celebrate leaving Morocco.  We had a pretty great time—all clustered around the computer.  I haven’t seen Aladdin in forever so there were parts I had completely forgotten about.  I also forgot about how fierce Jasmine is.  We made lots of comments about inaccuracies about Moroccan culture and I LOVE that we can do that.  We did lots of teasing and making silly comments—felt just like home.  :) 

Now they’re all out of here and I’m just writing at the end of the night.  Still recovering from being sick but I feel like I’m getting there—gonna go to the medic ward tomorrow just to get myself checked out (I must seem like a total hypochondriac, I’ve gone in there so many times) as well as to pick up my malaria medicine.  Whoooo! 

September 17 2010 / MV Explorer

Yes, I am highly over this being sick business.  Despite going to bed early last night I could hardly get out of bed this morning, slowly chewed on my peanut butter jelly banana sandwich (for those of you who know me well you know that not inhaling anything put in front of me is feat in itself), and have this perpetual one eye closed, nostrils flared expression—as though I am always ready for a sneeze to come on.  I haven’t really checked it out in a mirror lately, but I’m sure it is highly unattractive.  Paying attention in WIHC was tough, and I decided to skip Global Studies today to just flop in bed and get another couple of hours of sleep.  Once again, these were those kinds of dreams where you’re aware that they’re dreams and they take days to go through (it was very Inception, because I had to figure out whether I was awake or not in them all the time), but by the time I woke up for lunch, I felt much better—at least my face is only screwed up in a half-grimace a lot less now.  I have been freaking everyone out by sneezing at least three times in a row, and now it’s come down a lot. 

I nommed on some lunch quickly and then went down to my room to work on homework—reading African poetry (or rather, a very long poem over several pages).  I think I analyzed this one a little more in depth than I have been—hurray for not just looking at face value?  I also had been feeling kind of inspired so I wrote some feminist poetry I had been working on yesterday, which looks pretty good in my opinion but I don’t know if it’ll make the final collection of poetry that I submit for my final.  I finished my Morocco poem yesterday, kind of.  I feel like it could be a lot better but I feel like people aren’t really tough on critiquing poetry because there’s such a personal aspect to it.  I sent an email to the professor of the class asking about maybe starting up a peer review network, because I really don’t want to send in a bunch of poems that I don’t realize are horrible and have that be my final grade.  So hopefully he gets back to me by tomorrow on that.  I also did some Anthropology of Tourism reading, which at first I was really excited for because it had Lion King mentioned in the title, but there was almost no Lion King mentioned in the chapter except for Hakuna Matata—advertising fail! 

After that I watched the end of the Planet Earth episode I started yesterday and felt horrible about contributing to global warming as I watched this polar bear die due to the ice melting faster than he was prepared for, which was :(.  I really want to go a lot more green when I get back home—no one seems to understand why I don’t want a car anymore.  It’s because I don’t need it and don’t use it, and I’d rather ride a bicycle that will be more healthy for me and for the environment.  When I have a job I’m sure it will be a different matter, but as a student I feel like it would be more responsible to not have a car.

After a while I wandered upstairs and popped into the student store to buy bugspray—I realized belatedly that the kind I bought in Halifax does not have DEET in it, and my goodness do I ever want toxic chemicals all over my body (well,  I guess it is preferable to malaria), so now I have 98.7% DEET-happy spray.  I also bought a SAS keycard lanyard because I looked myself out for the thousandth time today, and a SAS teeshirt because laundry day is still three days away and I only have a tanktop left.  I feel like it’s probably still a good investment.  I did a little bit of writing and then went to dinner… I ate alone again, and at this point I feel like I’ve probably eaten alone too often, because I felt a little depressed by this point, and hadn’t really felt too great all day, I think in conjunction to being sick and just not seeing any of my friends around (I would have sat with people that I would have known, had they been there!).  I guess everyone has points were they just need to be social and hang out with people, even though I had been pretty good about being independent and social at the same time.  So I was feeling pretty lonely today, though I told myself that around 2100 I would go up to Deck 7 and hang out with Lorelei as she was doing her beverage duty shift.

I felt infinitely better once I went up there.  I got my “Tropical Calorie Burner” (pineapple, banana, blueberry and mango smoothie… more like calorie enhancer for me) and hung out with Lorelei and later Julie on the side of the pool deck, talking boys and what we wanted to do in Ghana.  A guy came by named Lander who was really cool who was from Alaska, and we talked about feminism and music and snow and had a really great time.  I felt just so much better being up there and hung out until midnight just talking.  I really hope I talk to Lander again, he seems like a really awesome guy who I feel as though I can get along well with—just before he came by we were all talking about how it’s kind of difficult trying to strike up friendships with the guys on the ship, because a lot of them give out the impression that they just want to sleep with you and don’t want to have a deeper intellectual relationship with you (always a weird thing, because I tend to have more guy friends then women).  But it’s always nice to find people who break the mold.  :)

Anyway, I feel emotionally better after that, but we’ll have to see how I’m physically doing tomorrow.  My objective is to get better before Ghana!  Sorry about all the whining this post, I'll get much better! :D

September 16 2010 / MV Explorer

Today was a pretty good day.  The stillness of the ship woke me up, and when I looked out our porthole, we were alongside a refueling ship, and beyond that was a city.  We had apparently pulled up to Las Palmas of the Canary Isles to refuel until noonish, which is kind of weird because we just did that in Casablanca.  It’s also strange to see land without being able to go on it.  I wasn’t too tired after going to bed pretty early last night, so I decided to check my email for a while before getting up to go to poetry class.  I am really bad at not taking poetry at face value, I’ve discovered—straight up, I’m terrible at deciphering deeper meanings and crap.  I like Hemmingway, for goodness sake.  Anyway, we had the Ghanaian interm-port guy come and tell us about some of the African poets we read about for this class.  There was a great powerful womens’ piece that I really enjoyed, but interestingly enough virtually all African poetry is politically based, which is really cool to me—in the United States we can afford to not be political, as we’re so comfortable, but in Africa they really can’t so it’s prevalent in literally every aspect of their lives.  I found that really cool so I’ll definitely have to incorporate that into my Ghana poem.

Grabbed a quick lunch with Martha before racing off for Anthropology of Tourism, which we talked a little about different kinds of tourism (the traveler vs. the tourist vs. the anthropologist) which was really interesting, because I could see so many aspects of how people wanting to define themselves as a traveler (someone who prides themselves on being able to find the MOST authentic experience) was exactly what was going on in post-port reflections, while I totally saw my parents as tourists (people who are interested in the culture shifting… while staying comfortable at the same time).  I’m really enjoying that class though I wish there was a little more discussion.

In between I did a little bit of reading for my Comparative Social Issues class, which was just rereading the same passage from Nickeled and Dimed that I’ve read a thousand times at this point, and then I went on writing my poem for Morocco.  It still needs work but this one at least has a rhyming scheme (1 2 1 3 4 4, repeat) so at least I feel like I’m branching out a little bit.  I hope the professor understands that this is my first shot at poetry, haha.  I’m definitely giving it my all and participating a lot, so I feel like whatever I’ll get in the class I’ll be happy with, I’ve gotten so much out of it.

Contemporary Social Issues was a lot of the same as last class, talking about the stages of modernization and a lot of functionalist perspectives, which I think is kinda interesting because I don’t know anyone who considers themselves a functionalist who’s really into this field, but I guess it was still kind of neat. 

I had a solitary dinner, which was fine because I kind of like just looking out over the ocean and being introspective.  I like how it’s not an awkward thing to sit alone here on the ship, like it is at home in Chapman.  After that I watched like the first half hour of an episode of Planet Earth I had on my computer—SO AMAZING.  I am loving this series so far.  The narrator sounds kind of like Mufasa from Lion King, so it was basically like “THIS IS OUR WORLD, AND THE SEASONS COME AND GO WITH THE YEARS” and I’m like “MY GOD, MUFASA, YOU ARE SO RIGHT, IT’S THE CIRCLE OF LIFE.”  Turns out it’s David Attenborough, but I mean I guess that’s okay too.  I’m just pretending it’s Mufasa.

Around 2000 my CSI professor, Toscano, was giving a lecture/discussion about politics and his role in the Virginian house of delegates, so I decided to go to that before my “beverage service duty” at 2045. I actually found it really interesting, but a lot of it went over my head—I think I really need to take a politics class at some point.  I really don’t know very much about how it all works, and I really feel like I need that, especially if I want to look into law school.  But otherwise I really enjoyed it, even though I had to leave early to head up to Deck 7. 

Basically beverage service duty is when you just go up and hang out on Deck 7 while they are serving wine and beer and make sure no one is being sketchy (like taking alcohol off the deck or pouring it into a water bottle or something). I don’t even know why you would smuggle it off.  It would get disgusting.  At one point I just had to take the head security woman’s post, I sat there for a little while and when she returned we discussed her life in the Secret Service, which she has been in for 30 years.  Because I was also looking into FBI jobs I talked to her a little bit about what the Secret Service had been like and all that.  It seems like a really cool job, though I still feel like the FBI would have the things I’m looking for a little more.  But anyway, I primarily just hung out with Lorelei, Dasha, Julie, and Ryan, who I met on the Berber Villages trip who reminds me a little of Alex Rhodes (a super sweet guy who happens to smoke cigarettes).  Hopefully we’re all going to go clubbing on the first night in Ghana, as we’re all looking for things to do. 

Anyway, we talked for a little while, and they wanted me to watch The 40 Year Old Virgin with me, but it’s definitely time for beddy-bye time—0800 class tomorrow.  Night my lovelies!

September 15 2010 / MV Explorer

I’ve started abbreviating my classes now, so just be prepared. WIHC is Women In High Courts, CSI is Contemporary Social Issues, GS Global Studies, Antro is Anthropology of Tourism, and… well, World Poetry is World Poetry. 

Waking up early wasn’t too bad due to being up so early all the time at the villages, but it was still a little groggy rolling out of bed at 0715.  I really quick threw on some clothes and went up to grab a couple of bites of pancakes—I don’t really have an appetite because my nose was like “lol, I’ma gonna stuff you up” in the middle of the night apparently.  I am an icky mouthbreather.  Still I guess my throat doesn’t feel as bad, though I have a bit of a sexy rasp going on. 

We talked in great detail about eunuchs in the Byzantine Empire today, which was interesting because they were apparently the intermediaries that could go everywhere because there was a lot of gendered space in that court system, which was interesting.  It’s just that you always joke about eunuchs (well, I guess that’s not really the funniest joke of the time, but you know what I mean) but in reality they were a group of people who had massive political and spiritual power within court systems around the world.  Interesting. 

Global Studies we talked about underemployment and unemployment, most of which I knew already, but also talked about pensions and social security, which was interesting to see in charts and graphs that projected how we were all going to be screwed later on when there were tons of old people and not enough young people to support them.  Japan especially was interesting.  The guest speaker talked so inappropriately fast that at some point I think everyone gave up—I don’t know how anyone doing a lecture thinks that people will be able to follow them and take notes if they are literally whisking through powerpoint slides every five seconds.

I went downstairs and caught up on my WIHC readings, which I hadn’t done yet, and also read my Anthropology of Tourism reading for tomorrow before lunch.  Lunch was massively exciting because it was chicken fajita day and I ate far too much and it was totally worth it. 

Back downstairs I went to read some stuff about poverty and inequality for CSI, which I realized was pretty much exactly the same as Global Studies, so I didn’t feel too inclined to read it.  I started the African poems in our book though, which are actually really interesting and powerful.  I really want to get into the habit of memorizing poems again—I still know Thanks by Yusef Komonyaka, which is still my favorite poem to this day. 

I had a meeting with Donna at 1400, and we talked about Sea Olympics and floor meetings.  Our team color is going to be purple and it looks like the Sea Olympics are on the 9th of October, which will be neat.  I really want to cut up cloth and make cheap bandanas or armbands, but our budget SUCKS and can apparently only be used on ship—there are 7.50 bandanas EACH at the student store, which is like, no thanks.  I also want to make some IN/OUT door signs at our next sea meeting—I feel like that would be a fun art project to get more people to know each other.  I also learned that I have “beverage service duty” every three days while at sea, where I just hang out on deck 7 from 2000 to 2300 while drinks are being served up there and make sure no one tries to take alcohol off the deck.  The only thing that bugs me about it is that I will be working on a “reading day” which I’m pretty sure is going to be Neptune Day, and I kind of wanted to have a drink that night to celebrate.  Btu who knows, maybe it’s okay for us to drink while we’re on the job—I asked Donna about it and she had the same question, haha!

After the meeting with Donna I decided I definitely needed a larger calendar for my wall (four months packed onto one page doesn’t work) so I went to the library and spend sooo much time putting one together.  Still, it feels nice having everything planned out.  More reading happened, as well as putting up a new poster that said “What did you like best about Spain/Morocco?” with a pen (the old one had started getting lots of penises drawn on it—it was time for a new, clean version) and then I went up to dinner at 1730.  I was just finishing thinking about how I have been having lots of meals solitary lately and hadn’t minded when I saw Martha and we sat together outside.  We talked long into the evening about Twilight, Harry Potter, mozzarella sticks, Doctor Who, those KFC monstrosity sandwiches, depression, and Ghana.  We hit all the stops.  I really like talking to her.  :)  When we were finally kicked off the deck because they needed to clean it we went to my room to work on poetry, though we didn’t get very far. 

Julie ended up coming by and asking if we wanted to popcorn read Global Studies, so we agreed and went with Lorelei to hang out in front of the bulletin board.  We have decided the textbook author is extremely biased (“Which county is the worst in India?  Kerala.”)  And I was getting pissed off because he was talking about how men got soooo shafted when women began getting equal working rights in the United States because all of a sudden they were expected to start helping out with domestic duties.  No, I don’t owe you any sympathy, textbook author.  You’ve said yourself these guys desert their wives and spend all of their wives’ money on alcohol, I’m not going to feel bad about how “humiliated” they feel.  It just sort of pissed me off.  But we had a great time tearing it apart, even if we didn’t finish the chapter.   Lorelei asked if I was down “for Ghana” (“For what in Ghana?”  “Not sure!”), to which I said YES!  I’ve loved traveling with her and am only doing two things with SAS, one of which is only a half day thing, so I’m pretty excited.  I hear the nightlife is fun and we both want to do the canopy walk where you walk on rickety bridges way above the trees in the jungle.  Most awesome. 

Now I’m just about to shower and hop into bed.  I’m still operating on Berber time, though I’m sure I’ll get back to College Student time soon.  Three classes tomorrow will probably do it. 

By the way, thank you so much to all of those who have emailed me to say hello and to ask how my travels are doing.  I really appreciate it so much to hear a familiar voice from all the way across the world, even if just in text form—it brightens my day so much.  Thanks for all your support—miss you and love you all.  <3