Oops!

Forgot to add that the second day I went piranha fishing again and managed to catch one! Success!

Now I'm a Real Jungle Lady!

So today is the first day back on the Amazon River heading back towards the Atlantic and Brazil has left me exhausted, bug bitten, and extremely excited, because the fun I have already had on this trip can only just be beginning. I am going to try to recount all that has happened to the best of my ability so here goes my time in Brazil!

Getting into Manaus the city was nothing like I had expected. First off I pictured Brazil as this really exotic place and instead Manaus just looked dirty and industrialized. Getting off the ship there were Amazonian dancers which was pretty cool. The first thing I did when we got into port was go on an FDP to a local orphanage. I was pretty nervous going, just because I wasn’t sure how I would feel seeing parentless children but when I got there my perspective changed. The Monte Salem orphanage works more with children who have been taken from their families for various reasons but should be going back when they reach a certain age. This sparked some concern for me because some of these kids had been victims of domestic violence and I didn’t think that returning them to those sort of situations was necessarily good. Most, if not all of the children were however unadoptable. They were all really precious though and I am so glad that I had the forsight to bring toys with me. The little boys loved the planes, the girls liked the bracelets and all of the bubbles were snatched up in a matter of minutes. It also helped to clear the air of any awkwardness and I think that my fellow shipmates were also glad to have stuff to give the kids-and I didn’t mind sharing because I was not trying to win a popularity contest with the children, just wanted to make them happy. The hardest part was the language barrier I reverted to slow speaking Spanish and was fairly successful but Portuguese and Spanish are pretty different. I ended up spending most of my time with two little boys Louis and Zac. There were so precious and I played a lot of trucks with them they kept saying Chia which I didn’t learn meant auntie until I asked Becca later. Overall the visit was rewarding and I definitely respected the establishment and all the hard work the people running it put into it. They receive no compensation from the government and have to work hard to keep it up and running. When I got back I relaxed a little bit and prepared to go out. Everyone was planning on going to a place called Samba. I is basically just a street were musical groups go to practice for the upcoming carnival. Becca and I didn’t go until around 10 oclock and by the time we went to get a taxi people were already coming back. Apparently our dean had said that now it was unsafe for people to be out and that everyone should return to the ship, however this did not deter us in the slightest. I knew that a ton of people were still there and that while the dean was acting on good faith, he also had told us to wash ur hands every hour, and thus was being a bit overprotective. A boy named Max who had returned to go back to the ship didn’t want us going by orselves and we semi convinced him to return with us even though he was certain it was ending. Good thing he did because we arrived to find the party in full swing! It was so much fun we hung out with locals (all of whom are very interested in americanas lol) and a ton of people from SAS were there as well so we had a blast dancing samba and drinking caprinhas (a mixture of cashasta lime and sugar) As it got later and later more and more people started to leave but I was now hanging out with Becca, Bruno, Tom, and Max. Bruno is from Brazil and is awesome, we hang out a lot on the ship and now being in his native country it was nice to have another person around who could speak fuent portugese. It was really fun to hang out with them and hang out with local people, so we stayed out way to late!

After a whopping two hours of sleep I was up again because my trip was scheduled to leave at 8 and I had told everyone to assemble at 7:45. In the end we had 27 people going, this is with two not showing up (they were too drunk and hungover), and four joining in at the last minute, after waiting a bit for stragglers we ended up being about a half hour late. After collecting all the money from people I was walking to the Amazon backpackers office with over 3,000 in my purse and was very conscious of all the street people around me. It was a relief once we got to the office and everything started rolling smoothly. Claudio, the owner explained exactly what we would be doing, and our tour went underway. We were going to take a boat ride to see the meeting of the waters, then go see some giant lily pads, after which we would get on another boat which would take us to the jungle lodge for traditional Brazilian lunch, after that we would take canoes for over an hour to go piranha fishing and then finally arrive where we would build camp for the night. The first thing great about our tour was the main tour guide, Sami he was an Indian man from Guyana who was a straight Rastafarian and spoke a lot in Bob Marley Lyrics his favorite probably being “one love man, one love” He definitely made our trip. Going to the meeting of the waters was AMAZING it is where the Amazon River meets the Rio Negro. The Rio Negro is a lot more acidic and dense than the Amazon and appears really dark in color while the Amazon is almost a muddy consistency. Where they meet there is a clear division and you can see the line separating the black water from the brown. It was really cool to see, after we crossed into the Amazon we took a van which stopped off at a local floating house. A lot of houses here are either floating on the banks of the river, or are on stilts. This one was unique because all around it in the water were giant lilly pads. The lilly pads were huge probably double the size of my face. After that we boarded a river boat that was pretty cool, it had a few decks and we jammed out to Bob Marley and got to know our guide as we continued on. Sami is originally from Guyana and has had a very interesting life, he does not know how to read or write but his knowledge of the jungle is impeccable. Before he came to Brazil he worked in the diamond and gold mines in Guyana and had experienced extreme violence showing us multiple bullet and spear wounds he had gotten throughout his life, many from trying to protect good mining areas. It was funny to watch him dance around to Marley as he swung and sharpened his machete. After a while we arrived at the Amazon Lodge where their eco lodge is. There we had lunch of traditional Brazilian fare the lunch consisted of fresh little bananas, pineapple, rice with potatoes and onions, beans, fresh cucumber, onions, and tomatoes, chicken in a soup sauce, breaded whole piranhas and other breaded fish, this powder (that I can’t remember the name of used to aid in digestion), a salad of beans and finely chopped green peppers, and onions, bread, and another sort of chicken dish. It was really good and all of us were starving so we ate a lot. I also got introduced to guarana, a soda drink that is AMAZING! If you ever have the opportunity to order it or try it DO IT! After that we chilled at the lodge for a little bit and there was this black little monkey there that was sooooooo cute it had the most precious face! I will try and post a video of it! After that we headed out on motorized canoes to head closer to our camp as well as to go piranha fishing. It was really cool to just be cruising down the Amazon River and I really tried to take everything in that I was seeing. The water of the amazon is this really muddy color but it also appears as smooth as glass. With our boats cutting through the water it created a very interesting ripple that sort of mesmerized me. The water was also the perfect temperature not too hot or too cold, the kind you automatically want to jump into. As we started to try our luck at piranha fishing closer to the banks of the river I began to get frusterated. Firstoff we were using raw chicken skin for bait and everytime I felt a tub (which was often ) I would yank only to find that the piranha had managed to bite my bait off of the hook without getting caught. This continued for an hour and a half as I continued to fail, while watching a few others around me succeed, sooooo frusterating! I ended up not catching one which made me really sad, but by this time the sun was starting to set and we really needed to start setting up camp. I had no idea what this actually entailed but I soon found out, and man was I surprised. While my boat arrived about 30 minutes after some apparently Sami had taken the first group into the middle of the jungle had looked at a spot covered in trees and vines and proclaimed it the spot and instantly started machetying everything in sight. By the time I got there they had cleared the area and were in the process of cutting down trees to create a base from which we would hang our hammocks. The company had never had a group of our size and I think that they underestimated the time and energy that it was going to take to finish our camp. The sun continued to set and we continued to toil getting more and more agitated as we became hungry, sweaty, and kept encountering bugs of massive proportion. Never before had I seen bugs the size of the ones I kept witnessing multiple were as big as my hand and I wont even go into the tarantulas, one of which was inside of my friend Dan’s shirt. Needless to say after setting up logs and creating our shelter all of us were ready for a drink. Luckily Barbara using the machete that had done multiple things (kill a piranha, cut down a tree, etc) was now slicing limes for much needed Capirinhas. We also then went hunting for Caymen. I was searching for my flashlight when I realized that I had been left behind! I was so mad because I was the one who had kept on bugging sammi to make sure that we got to go. So I grabbed another few people who I knew wanted to go and we began to navigate our own way through the dark of night in the middle of the jungle. I don’t know what possessed me to do this other than I really wanted to hold a caymen and I was a little bit tipsy after my capirinha. Phil, me, Simi, and Micah carefully made our way as we tried to navigate the path that was barely visible in the dark. Luckily we ran into a guide who pointed us in the right direction and we made it just as the boats were about to leave us. OMG the stars were the most beautiful I have ever seen them. In the middle of the amazon with little civilization around us the sky was filled with them. The guide pointed out cinturon de orios or in other words orions belt and me and Micah sat and absorbed the sights. Because of this it came as a surprise when all of a sudden our guide Tonio was holding up a Caymen! It was pretty small but had been hypnotized by the light of the flashlight and was laying fairly motionless with Tonio only holding him by the head. He didn’t even respond as we each in turn held him. When we returned to the shore Sammi had another Caymen and gave us specifics about their nature which I video taped. After we returned back to camp we had dinner which consisted of this amazing chicken that I ate but I am pretty sure it was undercooked. Then we stayed up and talked and went to sleep, my hammock happen to be located right over a stump and so my sleep was not very restful and I only dozed off and on. The next morning I woke up feeling probably the worst/most disgusting I ever have in my whole entire life. I finally left my hammock when Sammi announced that it was breakfast which consisted of fruit covered in swarms of honey bees, and hard boiled eggs, and other fare equally covered in insects, needless to say I didn’t eat a lot of breakfast and planned to wait till lunch but first we had to trek through the jungle. There isn’t a whole lot I can explain about this, he pointed out a lot of plants and trees that had a multitude of uses like ingredients in aspirin, acai trees, malaria cures and leafs used to make houses. It was muggy and hot and everywhere you looked you saw green whether it be trees, vines, etc. There was also crazy insects like giant ants, huge bee hives, or gorgeous butterflies, beetles that lives in little tiny mud mountains, it was amazing and utterly unexplainable so for that I apologize. Sammi kept telling us that we were real jungle ladies and made us bracelets out of a bark that works as a rope. He accidentally called them slave bands forgetting the word for bracelet and we now call ourselves the slaveband brigade. On our way back to the lodge we stopped to jump off the top deck of our ship into the river. So yes I am sorry I did swim in the Amazon and after feeling disgusting it was a definite improvement on my situation and I did not catch a parasite or anything like that. We went back to the jungle lodge and enjoyed the same delicious meal we did on the way in. After about 4 hours we finally made it back to the ship and somehow found the energy to go out again I don’t know how we did it but we did.

The next day I went swimming with Dolphins. When I signed up for this trip I assumed that it would be like the dolphins you would see in places like Hawaii or Florida, boy was I mistaken, There are two different types of River Dolphins there are small blue ones, and then larger pink ones. Both have elongated snouts and a slight hump in the place of a dorsal fin. They are pretty freaky looking especially the pink ones which is what we swam with. This was not the traditional swimming where the dolphins are trained but we swam with wild dolphins who came over through plain curiosity and the enticement of a fish or two. They were fairly friendly and hung out a lot around our feet, one came in between my legs so I was straddling it. They didn’t really break the surface a whole ton and they felt really WEIRD! Sort of rubbery and squishy at the same time. The pink ones get their color because at a certain size their skin stops growing and so as it stretches it turns pink. On the way back we stopped at a local village for lunch which was very similar to the ones I had enjoyed on our tour. We also toured the traditional way of making rubber. Way back in the early 1900’s (I think) rubber was made from trees in the Amazon they would extract this white sap and volcanize it over a fire. It was pretty interesting to see but it was also sad to know how the rubber industry here pretty much failed. Englishmen brought back seeds from the Amazon to Malaysia and then totally destroyed the market for rubber in the amazon. Then we went back to the ship. I went out that night and our tour guide got us free bottles to share among shipmates for being such great clients! Thought that was pretty cool. The next day I just went shopping for souveniers and went to sleep because I was so tired and woke up to us back on the River heading towards the Atlantic. I had an Amazing experience and would not change it for the world, but I am super excited to get to Africa. If you guys want to know specifics on anything email me (amreddy@semesteratsea.net) and I can add detail!

Class, Darleen, and feet pinching crabs!

So I just realized today in Global Studies that we are traveling 1000 miles up the Amazon to reach Manaus. I had no idea that was the case and before I left I kept scouring the coast of Brazil looking for Manaus when in reality, Manaus is located 1,000 inland in the mid NorthWest Region of Brazil. Crazy!

Yesterday we had our first Ship Wide Activities Night which I helped to plan along with my other board members! I actually really like being on the activities board because we are responsible for all shipwide events so I got to chose what sort of activities we will be having like a Mr. SAS, a student made travel video film festival, a around the world theme dance, etc. We are all pretty creative so I feel like we are definitely going to make this semester awesome. I don’t think I got on sea council because they drew names out of a hat…lame but I have no idea who our representatives are so its kinda weird…I had my third day of classes today and they are all really interesting except econ. Our teacher is actually very strange and asks us ambiguous questions which spark these heated debates. For example she was asking what the biggest difference between feudalism and capitalism was. I said that in Fuedal times people were less motivated because all or most of their crop yield/money/etc went directly to their feudal lord, whereas with capitalism people are more motivated to not only work hard but to become innovative because there is competition and your hard work is compensated with personal advancement. My teacher actually sneered at me and then said “Now what sort of assumptions is she making here?” She continued to say how I was assuming that in Fuedal times people didn’t work hard. I dunno I just think she’s kind of mean and is very close minded. She wants us to follow her way of thinking and its really annoying. My answer might have had assumptions and was probably far from what you would see in a textbook but I believe that there was validity in what I said and the way she responded did not foster an atmosphere for discussion. Kids later in the class actually yelled at her so I know that I am not alone in thinking she’s ridiculous someone was like “why do you ask us questions if nothing we are going to say is what you want to hear?!” haha its entertaining at least to see people sparing with each other an her. Anyways back to the ship-wide activity, we had an open mic night and then an impromptu dance. The open mic night was a mixture of amazingness, sillyness, and then some horrifiness (horrificness should be made into a word just to describe the act I am about to talk about) So anyways there was the usual mixture of singing and guitar playing but then there was the act by Darleen. Here is some background on Darleen. The first time I ever laid eyes on her was at breakfast a few days ago, this is why I noticed her…she was wearing green plaid pajama bottoms, a HUGE fluffy bright pink terry cloth bathrobe that fell to her knees, a turbo twisty (which makes your hair look like its in a turban-for after you get out of the shower) and a fanny pack around the robe…ummmm WHAT!? Is it really that hard to at last take yur hair our of your turbo twisty and put on a shirt with your pajama pants?! Anyways tis opitimizes Darleen who is also in my econ class. On the ship I have become friends with a bunch of the different cliques that have formed. Me and Becca call ourselves jumpers because I would say we are some of the few who hang out with a wide variety of people (thus the reason that my amazon trip has 25 people all from different cliques i.e. the Chapman Kids, the deck 4 kids, the squad, Dave and the trouble makers, etc…and I made up these clique names, other than the squad which is the name of these guys intramural team…) anyways I was hanging out with a small clique to which I was recently inducted (no joke they said Alicia we have decided you can join our crew…the ship is getting a bit weird) but this specific one includes Sarena this gorgeous Indian girl from London, Nicole, a super trendy asian from New York, and Patrick and Chance to gay guys who are Hilarious! Anyways I was sitting with them after helping set up for open mic when they were like did you hear that Darlene is performing?! Apparently she had asked them to help her execute Gagas bad romance video and had wanted them to makeout while carrying her in…wtf…they obviously said no but I was still not sure what we would witness when she did come in, and this is where the word horrificness is brought into play she had two boys carry her in waering tiny little outfits and for the entire song she proceeded to belt out the worng lyrics while looking like she had taken a crazy amount of drugs and doing really disgusting dance moves. Her eyes were rolling in the back of her head and she was growling and crawling around the floor, at one point her hair extensions fell out…I think you get the picture, well I was horrified yet could not stop laughing. Darleen is now infamous on the ship but I actually think she is insane. After that we had a dance party which was sortof fun but the DJ was my constituent on the activities board who is flambouyantly gay and would nly play techno. Overall it was fun though. I lost Becca in the dance party but then went and hung out with Mandela Bryan and few other people and we proceeded to play Mafia for about two hours…soooooo much fun! I finally went to bed at two in the morning. Today is what we call a reading day where we are supposed to catch up on all the reading that we have been slacking on however I have been in meetings allll day. Members of the American Embassy came on so I went and listened to a lecture on Brazilian Economics, then I had a meeting with my global studies group where we decided we were going to do our project on the affects globalization has had on Chinese economics, after that I went to a discussion on working as a foreign ambassador for the US. I don’t think its for me first off you move every two years or so to a new country and while I do love the idea of living abroad I also do eventually want to have a family and it sounds quite hard to do in one of those positions. The rest of the day I have just been finalizing details for the Amazon Trip, which has become a huge group of us. Its crazy to look out the window and see huge amounts of lush vegetation it doesn’t even look real. I can’t believe that tomorrow we will be reaching Manaus!!! I’m supposed to be holding the first meeting for Dance Club in a few hours but I don’t know if it made it into the dean’s memo (the daily news-which has not been posted today) so not sure if anyone will come. I did however get approval to perform with Ritika and Sarena for pre port in India…we have pre port for Brazil tonight I hope it’s interesting because the last one for Dominica went on for wayyy too long. There were funny parts where the doctors sang and presented us with the only way to truly not catch a disease, a huge plastic bag with a hole for a scuba mask to breathe through that they named the full body condom (Becca was actually considering it because she is terrified of malaria), but as a whole pre port is pretty lame giving us obvious advice you know, like don’t drink, don’t hook up with anyone, make sure you take your malaria medication, etc. Speaking of malaria medication my roommate and me are doing weird things in our sleep well actually Erin is a lot worse then me. Two nights ago I woke up to her screaming and freaking out. I was so terrified that I hid under the covers haha probably not the best response to her cries for distress but I panicked I yelled at her to tell me what was wrong and she cried back that a crab had just bit her toe. Now normally this sort of announcement from someone who had been sleeping would have brought out a laugh in me HOWEVER there are some facts to take into consideration A. we had recently left Dominica where crabs would dwell anywhere even in the mountainous regions and B. Erin had started out the night at a slumber party on the deck and had not come back to the room till early morning leaving plenty of time for a crab to have crawling from the deck into her sleeping bag. We scoured our room and no crab was found but the screams had terrified me and I fell into a fitful sleep where I dreamt that I was one of the clean up personnel for natural disasters and I was called to a site to clean which was this mountain of straighners and curling irons that had been confiscated. (IF I haven’t already mentioned this I got my straightener back! It took an hour of begging but finally the security guard let me shift through the garbage bag stuffed full-like at least 100- of straighteners and curling irons-I think this sight is what elicited my dream). Apparently during this time I had this conversation with Erin in my sleep:

Me: Mom, Can I please get a dog now

Erin: No

Me: (with a sigh of resignation) Okay

Later I again woke up to Erin freaking out (no screams this time) claiming that there were bunnies all over the floor, she has no recognition of this one at all…

So needless to say we are unsure whether this is an affect of our malaria medication or craziness but we hope it stops lol. I will try and write while I am in Brazil but If not at least expect an update in the next 5 days!

Heading towards the Amazon!

So we have officially entered the Amazon River and here are my first 2 observations:

1. The river is really really wide in places! When we first entered we could not see either sides of the embankment and if it wasn’t for the muddiness of the water I would’ve thought we were still in the ocean.

2. The bugs here are ginormous! They like to come to the ship and I have seen way to many bugs who look like they are on steroids. Also a ton og little mothlike things have been hanging out around the lighting fixtures which is grossing out the girls

I started taking my doxycycline and will continue to take it until after Ghana. Doxy is my malaria medication and hopefully it works! Im a little nervous because it heightens your chances of getting sunburned but hopefully I will be fine. I’m planning a one night overnight into the jungle. At first it was just me and Becca but now a ton of our friends want to go! I think there are going to be over 20 of us, some random and some really fun people. Here are some of them:

· Mandela is this black guy in my econ class who is super nice and I’ve hung out with him a few times because me and his roommate bryan are friends.

· Taylor #1 is this kid from UVA who pretends to be this crazy partier but in reality is just funny and a complete goof.

· Krystal is Becca’s roommate who has a crush on Mandela…could get interesting. She is Persian and Mexican and thinks she looks like Kim Kardashian (she dosent but she is pretty)

· Becca is my bestie on the ship and while we jump between a bunch of cliques we have kind of become known as a pair, because we are ALWAYS together. We also share really similar taste in men, among many other things, I always have a good time when I am with her!

· Jack #1: Lives next to Becca and Krystal and is a big teddy bear and really nice he is obsessed with the Chicago Bears…he is from Chicago so I guess it makes sense.

· Bobby: Jacks roommate who is probably the most annoying drunk ever, its weird because I think he looks like a mad scientist(like complete geek glasses and all) but then he just gets super hammered and creepy, but he is who he is, he def knows my name but thinks I look like an Erica and so refuses to call me Alicia. Other people agree that I look far to exotic to be an Alicia which I think is so weird because no one has ever said that to me before but apparently Jack thinks I look like a Naomi and other people have concurred…so weird

· Eric: Don’t know him a friend of Jack and Bobby’s

· Barbara and the Chapman Kids: I don’t blame them for being the largest clique on the ship but they honestly travel like a pack, so when I invited my friend Barbara to come obvi all of Chapman had to come too lol there are quite a few but all are really nice and a lot of fun.

· Jack #2: Don’t really know him yet but he is really nice and is a D Chi at AU.

· Alexa: met her at the towne she is awesome, and super nice.

· Dave and trouble makers: These guys are always breaking the rules but they also can be serious and are always fun, they are all super metro so it should be funny seeing them in the jungle.

· Katie: One of my faves, I roomed with her and Steph at the Towne so hopefully she comes!

· Taylor #2: another person I met at the towne she is a sweetheart!

Hope that gave you a bit of an idea of how diverse my friend group has become its really all over the place, but I think that’s what makes it so tight is that we are all from all around the country yet we are all able to connect and go on amazing adventures together. I will write more soon!

Classes Rock!

So the anti-nausea patch has some crazy side effects I have had cotton mouth all day and have become far sighted and keep seeing doubles if I am too close to a textbook. I also get really confused and have been jumbling my words but honestly its better than feeling like shit all day. This morning I started class at 8 but went and ate breakfast with my friend Taylor at about 7:30. He is taking a class super early too. Its funny walking into the dining hall that early because everyone is just exhausted and looks terrible especially if they have been sea sick all night. Thankfully I was feeling fine minus the weird side effects. Class today really gave me a good perspective on why I am taking the path that I am in life. In my women and national development class we had a speaker. His name is Andrew Briggs and he works for an organization in Uganda where they try to create an outlet for children (especially ones affected by the war, AIDS, etc) through facilitating art workshops, they also have been working to provide better drinking water to the remote villages. He showed us a video clip he had taken during his time in one of the remote villages where he had a guy take him to their local water supply. The water that these people were drinking without even treating it is unbelievable. It was murky and in spots yellow from pollution or whatnot. Did I mention that Andrew is a complete hottie and I have a major school girl crush on him? Hes in his late 20’s I think but I am meeting with him to learn more about his organization. After that class we had Global Studies and had a lecture from a psychology professor on the ship named Dr. Kottler (I am actually attending one of his FDPs in Brazil). He told us an amazing story which I know I have to share. About 10 years ago he and some of his collegues traveled to Nepal to do field research. While he was there he started to notice that some of the girls were disappearing from the villages. Intrigued he began to investigate. The girls that kept disappearing were from lower castes (similar to the Indian caste system) and came from very poor families. Dr. Kottler asked many people what was happening to these girls and noone would give him a straight answer. Finally he cornered the local school’s principal and demanded an explanation the principal said this to him:

“Do you see that young girl over there? The one with the tattered school uniform? Her name is Enu. She is one of 3 children and is the youngest in her family. Her family is very poor and because schooling is only free up until a third grade level Enu will become forced to drop out of school. Because she is just a burden on her family she will be sold, taken to Mumbai and wil become a prostitute, probably being raped 15 times on her very first day. She will remain in the brothel for about 4 years until she become to sick and weak and then she will die, or be cast out on the streets.

Dr. Kottler looked at Enu and he looked at the principal and said what can I do? The principal laughed and said absolutely nothing that is these girls fate. They are girls who are low in the caste system and even if her family did not sell her she would not be able to pay her school fees. Dr. Kottler asked how much school fees were yearly. The Principal laughed again and said way to much, she would need a fall and spring uniform, books, money for food etc. Again Dr. Kottler asked how much. The principal said well for a years worth of schooling its very expensive and costs 2500 Rupees…the equivalent of 50 USD. 50 USD to save a girls life. The fate of these girls from being sold into slavery was separated by $50 USD a year. Horrific things happen to the girls of Nepal. Some Indian men believe that if they have sex with a virgin it can cure them of aids…these girls are as young as 9 years old and there first encounter within the brothel occurs with someone who has aids…Dr. Kottler reached into his wallet and pulled out 2500 Rupees and said to the principal make sure Enu goes to school. As he walked away one of his colleagues came up to him and said what are you doing? Bewildered Kottler responded by saying he was helping Enu. The colleague gave him a sad smile and said did you see where the principal put all that money? He put it right in his pocket, to make sure Enu goes to school you are going to have to go back to Nepal every year and make sure she is in school…10 years later and he is still visiting and working with the girls in Nepal now he helps to send dozens of lower caste girls to school, and Enu, his first girl is in college at one of the top universities in Thailand. I was enthralled by his story because it really shows how one little thing can completely change your life. That day 10 years ago he made a decision that has helped so many to achieve their dreams. It really goes to show that if you are passionate about something you can do it. His parting words to us were “ I hope that each of you can become haunted by an individual on this voyage, because those experiences will shape the rest of your life.” I know that I am going to see some amazing things as well as some really depressing stuff but I know that I will take his words to heart, because that is what I want to do with my life. Many people mistake what I want to do with the idea that I want to change the world and in that they are so wrong. I know that in many places I would never be able to affect entire communities, but I do know that empowerment can change lives, and that I have the willpower and tools to empower others. My grandmother gave me the most amazing gift anyone could ever give me when she helped to fund this semester, I cannot thank her enough because I know 100% that this is exactly where I am supposed to be right now. She empowered me through her generous gift and through that I hope to create a ripple effect. For the past few years I have been having fun but I never felt like I was doing what I was meant to with my time. Learning about poverty and how people can make a difference even on just a few has already changed my perspective. I hope that I can help to empower people to really reach their full potential and in turn they will continue to educate others. I hate my econ class but that should come as no surprise lol but I love my geology class. We have to pick a topic to really focus on and I am going to look at lack of drinking water in places like Ghana and India. All of my classes are super interesting (minus econ) and I know that I will really care about them which is a big improvement from last semester lol. The ships calmed down today and a lot less people were getting sick which was nice. Apparently a pod of dolphins were following the ship earlier but I missed it cause I was in class. Im starting to work on my video but its taking a bit longer than I expected. I will check in soon!

Dominica and Shipboard Life

So the past few days have been a whirlwind but AMAZING! I have been hanging out with a bunch of different people and my days on the ship consist of this:

A DAYS:

Wake up and if its still early (before 9) I go to breakfast

Around 11 I go to the gym normally with becca and a few other girls who we met and are free at that time.

Maybee do a bit of reading and then just go lay out and chill on the deck, maybee go swimming etc.

B DAYS:

7:30-wake up and rush to breakfast

8:00-Women in National Development

9:15-Global Studies

10:30-Global Capitalism and the Economy

12:00-Lunch break and also a chance for me to do reading or whatever

2:55-Natural Resources and Social Conflict

4:00 till bed-basically studying and hanging out on the deck.

Now onto better ish…We have left Dominica and are on our way to Brazil! Dominica was amazing! Never have I met friendlier people in my entire life! Before we go into any port we have a thing called pre port lecture where they go over what is expected of us/teach us about the culture. Its nice because then we don’t go completely blind into a country. The first day we were there we went on a bumping tour. We got to go to some of the prettiest places in all of Dominica we started our tour by heading up to Middleham Falls. On the ride there we saw so much vegetation it was incredible! It was a tour hour hike completely uphill (no joke felt like I was on a stair master and my butt has been hurting ever since) but it was soooo pretty the waterfall is gorgeous and is surrounded by vegetation on all sides we went inot a little cave and climbed up and did a bit of cliff diving which was really awesome but a bit scary. After that we went to Trafalgar falls which is actually two waterfalls right next to one another they call them the mama and the papa. The papa waterfall is long and skinny but slow moving and lazy while the mama is a lot fatter but has all the power haha. Then we went to the hot spring sulfur baths which are known to clear a ton of different ailments for your skin. I loved it there bit I had to move to a different pool because Patrick (one of the guys who came) found a dead lizard floating in ours ewwwwww. After that we were supposed to go snorkeling at a place called champagne reef . Its called champagne reef because of the volcanic activity which causes bubbles to rise up from the ocean making it look like your swimming in a glass of champagne. However, we didn’t end up going because they wanted us to pay extra. Then because our guides felt bad that their boss gipped us they took us to a local bar to dance we had such a good time! I dance battled a lady who was probably 45 and she could break it down! It was a really fun night then later we went out to a club called crazy coconuts which had been specially opened just for semester at sea, it was one of my friends’ Jackson’s bday so it was really fun! The next morning we woke up semi late and me, Becca and her roommate Krystal really wanted to go ziplining so we went on an adventure to find a company to take us. On our way we asked for directions from this guy who was so nice and ended up not only taking us to the company but also skipped work to take us to the zipline place and then filmed us the entire time! His name was Dexter and he was our age studying tourism at the local university. He is a prime example of how nice people are on Dominica it was no big deal for someone to go out of there way to be nice to you and really make sure you enjoyed your stay . Anyways we got to the ziplining place and I learned that we were not only ziplining but would also be doing crazy ropes course things. If you know me well you would know that I hate ropes courses and this one was gnarly with logs suspended in the air and weired things that zigzagged but guess what I did it and I only almost cried once which is quite the accomplishment. After that we didn’t have a lot of time but we did go get a local sandwich of curried cod fish. Getting back on the boat was a pretty big bummer but all of us are excited for Brazil! Today I did nothing. The waves are huge and im sick once again which sucks but we are going so fast! Where I am in the boat (the front) makes it so that I am actually getting raised out of the water and crash back down which makes my stomach drop. I put on a sea sickness patch yesterday which has been helping but its still pretty bad. Write more soon!

The voyage continues...

Last night we had our involvement fair which basically is how everyone is signing up to get involved on the ship. I didn’t want to overstretch myself so I only signed up to help plan events on the ship like talent shows and what not and then also signed up to start a dance club on the boat. If I do both of those and the sea council as well as getting on my seas, sea olympics committee I should be pretty booked! I went to bed fairly early last night and was up at 7:30 to go to breakfast with the roomie. I don’t have class today so everyone was really surprised that I was up but breakfast is my fav meal and I have also heard that it’s the best meal we get each day, which after having it, I can agree with. Food on the ship can be a bit sketchy. For breakfast we usually have fruit salad, potatoes, eggs, and an assortment of pastries as well as cereal and toast which is absolutely perfect for me. But for lunch and dinner it varies there is usually a salad bar with really weird dressing and a strange pasta salad or lentils, a fish, and chicken options, a pasta, some form of potatoes, and a few vegetarian options which always include copious amounts of celery which I found out the hard way about…. There is always the option of having a peanut butter and jelly or soup as well. I have already lost weight and have a feeling this is going to be a continuing trend because the only things I will eat are salads, chicken, fish, and veg options (celery picked out). Today I am going to use the gym with a girl I’ve met named Becca. We went to sign up after breakfast and already almost all the spots for ellipticals were full! Luckily we squeezed ourselves in at 11:00 and then we are going to go outside on the deck to use all the weight machines. Becca is super hilarious and really bubbly and knows a ton of people! Im glad I got to know her because she goes to school with a bunch of people on the voyage. The campus store also opened today which I am really happy about because I forgot to bring a water bottle and I really need a lanyard so that I don’t lose my key or card! Today is going to be a pretty chill day for me and then tomorrow I start classes bright and early! I have four classes tomorrow! Natural Resources and Social Conflict, Global Studies, Women in National Development, and Global Capitalism and the Economy. Im really excited for all of them except global studies because I hear that class is somewhat of a joke, everyone on the ship is required to take it. Well I might go back to sleep for a little bit but I will write again as soon as something interesting happens!

The last few dayssss!

Today we just went to the beach all day long. It was a bit cloudy outside but honestly the weather was actually perfect. I’m not a fan of hot hot weather and with the sun hidden it was perfect for just lying out. Me Kyle and Stephanie went on a banana boat with this hick family from North Carolina who kept swearing but it was pretty fun. We went to a beach called cabbage beach, which is on Paradise Island, which is right next to the Atlantis hotel. I wanted to walk through the resort but they wouldn’t let us! A day pass to the Atlantis costs 160 dollars so I may never see it lol. The towne hotel is pretty ghetto in the best sort of way lol. Its good for the fact that any time I see someone who is around my age I can almost guarantee that they are doing semester at sea, but it sucks because the rooms are pretty terrible. We have four of us crammed in a four-person room and yesterday our toilet overflowed and got our entire room wet. In a move to save our baggage I threw it on my bed but then I just got the mattress all wet. It was quite the ordeal but the guys across the hallway Maladin and Brian had the bathroom ceiling cave in so we could definitely have it worse. The breakfast at the hotel consists of hard-boiled eggs and toasts…a real winning combination. So needless to say we were starving by lunch however everything here is sooooo expensive and being on Paradise Island and a budget didn’t help. We went o a grocery store and the prices were crazy, I guess because they have to import everything but a jug of milk was $7 and a thing of ritz crackers was 10, if I lived here I would be hella skinny just because I don’t know how people afford to eat! We eventually settled on quiznos. We were outside talking about what deck we are on when a guy was like are u guys doing semester at sea? His name was Andy and he actually went on the Fall 2009 voyage as well. He hung out with us for the rest of the afternoon and it was really nice because he could answer all of our small mundane questions. We left the beach at around 5 and took a ferry back to Nassau. It was cool because we got a pretty good look at the MV Explorer. There are people on it now and its crazy to think that tomorrow I will be getting on it too! Last night was really fun we went to senor frogs and tons of people from semester at sea were there. Not sure what we are doing today but it is sooo hot in our room and so I was up by 8:00. I think I’m gonna try and go back to bed…we’ll see

We sort of bummed around all day but then we went and hung out with some locals. Stephanie had connected with this lady thru a company similar to couchsurfing. We went over to her house and met her son and they took us to a local restaurant and we finally tried conch. That is the animal that lives in the pretty shells everyone holds up to their ears to hear the ocean in. It was soooo good, Niko the son told us to get it with mayo and onions, which sounded weird, but I always take local advice. It was deep-fried with French fries and a roll in this spicy ketchup sauce with the mayo and onion. I felt a bit sick after lol but it was damn good. I get on the ship at 10:40 tomorrow! Finally!

Today we finally got on the ship! Me and one of my roommates Katie were supposed to board at 10:40 so we left the towne at about 10:15 and walked to the ship! It was a bit of a trek with all of our luggage but luckily we were walking with some guys that we met so they helped us out. When we got to the port there was an incredibly long line of SASers waiting to get onto the ship. At first we were stuck waiting in the sun but soon enough we made it into shade. We met a bunch of people in line and other than awkwardly having to shuffle our luggage up in line it was fun waiting. We found out what floors we would be on and I found out I was on deck 3! Going through line they kept telling us about prohibited items that we couldn’t take on and how all of our hair appliances have to be auto shut off. Some girls were freaking because there’s weren’t and they couldn’t take them on. I specifically bought an automatic shut off straightener to use because you aren’t allowed to use normal ones but they didn’t believe me so they took mine away! I have to get documentation and prove it to them before I can get it back, but at least mine made it on the ship unlike the girls who knew theres were not! I’m still trying to look up proof its auto shut off though, because I can’t find the one that I bought on my cell phones internet and I don’t want to waste my precious internet minutes looking ugh its such a pain. Once we got through customs I hit another roadblock because they couldn’t find my SAS ID. I had to get escorted onto the ship and get one at the purser’s desk and when I got it my face was stretched out super wide and I look double my weight! Then I went to find my room and it was soooooo hard to find. The ship is amazingly nice but it’s honestly like a maze. I’m living in an area of the ship that we have taken to calling the Bermudas triangle. It’s in the front of the ship and really hard to find and we are the only rooms who use keys! I’m in an economy room, which basically means my room is a bit more crowded because it is made to be for 4 people. Luckily I saw that I only had three a girl from New Jersey named Erin and another girl from Cali named Sam. Erin was work-study so she had already moved in, and Sam wasn’t there yet so I was able to move all of my stuff in fairly easily. Our room was set up with a bunk bed against the left wall and then a single on the right. Erin took the top bunk so I luckily snagged the single and got to work unpacking which took foreverrrrr. By the time I was done I was exhausted and we still had meetings and what not. Sam still had not arrived and although it sounded mean, Erin and me were secretly hoping she wouldn’t show up so we could have the room to ourselves. We got our wish and now we have a four-person room all to ourselves!!!! While our room is still small being economy and all it is really nice because we have a ton of storage space. Then we went to a bunch of orientations. At the initial orientation we just talked about expectations and found out that we were leaving Nassau at 8 PM. Leaving Nassau was crazy it was an unreal experience watching our ship pull away from port knowing that this was going to be my home for the 100 odd days. Everyone was really excited and we were all just taking pictures and cheering. Then we had another meeting to meet our small discussion groups and have a sea meeting. By this point I started to get really seasick. I felt super nauseous and my sea bands only helped a little bit so the meetings were pretty difficult, but it was nice to meet people and one of my roommates from the Bahamas and some other people I had already met ended up being in my small group which was tight! Its funny being from the west coast because so many are from the east coast or Cali and think that some of my phrases are really weird. For example no one says hella, and I keep getting made fun of. But I feel like the way other people speak is weirder for example Katie says water like “wooder” which sounds super funny and they things are “smoke” when they are cool I dunno its going to take some getting use to. Anyways I went to the sea meeting and met more people I am part of the yellow sea and we are determined to win the sea Olympics. The sea Olympics is a huge tournament against all the different seas on the ship and consists of different tournaments like basketball, a lip-sync competition, and synchronized swimming. I also signed up to try and get elected to be the representative for my sea to be on the sea council or the leadership council on the ship. By this point I was really seasick so I sort of just stumbled to bed among all the others weaving against the waves and tried to go to sleep. We were supposed to set our clocks up an hour but somehow I set mine up wrong and I ended up waking up really late! Today all we have been doing is going from meeting to meeting and learning about the expectations that we have on ship. We also have our involvement fair tonight which is where we can set up/sign up for clubs. I am planning on starting a dance club on the ship and also want to get involved with the community service club. Tomorrow we start classes. Classes are a bit weird because we have them everyday we are on sea even if it’s a Saturday or a Sunday. We rotate between classes on A or B days all of my classes are on B days so I actually won’t start classes until Saturday. We reach Dominica on Sunday and I am going on a bumping tour where we do a bunch of different activities like swimming, climbing, and zip lining it should be fun hopefully the weather is good because there are rumors it might be a bit cloudy out! I will check in soon!

Got to the Bahamas!

So I just got into the Bahamas! I was pretty nervous leaving home at first and had a short panic attack when we got to the airport. I started crying but I know that with stuff like this I need to just separate myself as quickly as possible when it comes to saying goodbye or it just makes it worse. As soon as everyone left and I was alone I bucked up and was totally fine. Wow I didn’t realize that by taking a red eye I was not going to be sleeping. My flight to Dallas left at 11:30 PM and was supposed to get in around 5ish in the morning. Well stupid me not really thinking figured that I would get around 6 hours of sleep. Oops totally forgot about the time change! This continued to happen for rest of my flights, so I got about 3 hours of sleep total but honestly I feel fine! As I sat on the plane and watched it taking off I cannot believe that I am about to do this. When I got to the airport I waited for my roommates to arrive on a flight an hour after me. As I sat I met a girl named Lauren from San Francisco and actually ran into a bunch of people I met through facebook. Even my fellow AOPi sister on the voyage, Kelly. She goes to the university of Arkansas and her chapter has over 400 girls! I have met a bunch of other people too, I think we are all going to go out together tonight. It still hasn’t sunk in for most of us that we are actually doing this. I went and walked to the dock with my roommates and got my first glimpse of the MV Explorer, it was soooooo crazy I actually can’t believe it! Even here sitting in my room it feels surreal that I am about to circumvent the globe. I have three roommates who all go to school/live in upstate New York. There are two girls Katie and Stephanie and then their friend Kyle. I have pretty much been hanging with them the entire time so far. We have mainly just been walking around with this other guy named Gavin, joking around with locals and meeting other people going on our voyage. We went to dinner at a little bus/restaurant that all the locals were eating at it has this AMAZING spicy bbq chicken. Then we just walked on the beach and talked, it’s a relief to be here and stop worrying about making friends etc. In 2 days I will be boarding the MV Explorer…wow. I cant believe that 24 hours ago I was sitting at home.