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!