Singapore

I just scanned through the blog posts I sent thus far, and noticed I had been sending way more in September, and have slowed down a lot!  But time on the ship is pretty slim these days, and all my classwork is adding up (papers and projects).  Things on the ship have just been hectic and really off since we left Viet Nam.  But this post is just covering Singapore, I'll write about Viet Nam in the next few days before we pull into Hong Kong.

 

Singapore was a place I knew very little about.  I think I knew it was a city-state, but I can't say for sure.  It is that, I think it's only about 24 miles long and not much wider.  About 5 million residence, and basically just like a big city in the United States.  About 40-50 years ago it was a developing country, now its basically the gateway for the rest of the world into Southeast Asia.  It has tried over the years to position itself diplomatically and economically as a country that can act as a middle-man for the world.  It's been pretty successful.  Don't make more than $75,000 a year?  The government puts you in a nice apartment, furnished, resembling a highrise flat in Manhattan or something like that.  Nothing like US government housing.  Their education system is fantastic, crime is virtually non-existant, and it's a shopping mecca.  Literally you leave one mall and fall right into another one.  Everything about the city is crystal clean.  The highways are lined with neatly trimmed bushes and palm trees and flower beds everywhere.  I'm not just talking about one bush lining the road either, I'm talking about a carefully landscaped display that makes you feel like you're driving up to a casino in Las Vegas or a mansion in Beverly Hills.

 

But this all comes at a price.  While voting does take place, Singapore has had one ruling politcal party ever since it's independence.  The US diplomat did say it was strange picking up the newspaper and finding out everything was "perfect".  You do not talk ill about the government, and it a few of Singapore students on the ship have said it can feel incredibly oppressive, and thats why many of its citizens work abroad.  The laws are incredibly strict, you may recall the US citizen who was caned in the 90s for disturbing the peace or something along those lines.  Selling gum is illegal, as is eating or drinking on public transit.  Cameras are everywhere, and the drug laws are incredibly severe.  Most cases it's the death penalty.  One of the Life-Long Learners on the ship worked here in the 80s when 3 kids were caught with marajuana.  Despite one being a member of some countries royal family, the three were all executed three days after they were caught.  So yea, you obey the laws in Singapore.

 

But I still had a fantastic time.

 

Day 1

 

On the first day a group of us headed out to explore the city.  Our ship pulled in and we could see the skyscrapers dotting all over the city, and we made our way into the cruise terminal.  From here we walked through immigration and right into mall 1 of 10,000 on this tiny island.  The subway system was beautiful, and could get you everywhere in the city, so we hopped on this to first go to Singapore's Chinatown and Little India.  These areas really weren't any different from ethnic neighborhoods in the US, and I quickly realized that Singapore's culture was very much a Western culture for the most part.  We were in Little India for maybe 10 minutes despite the fact that a huge festival was going on in that area.  We all just realized that we were just in India, and we didn't quite have enough of a break to be so quickly dropped back into all of those smells and crowds...haha.

 

So we headed up to Orchard Road, the big shopping strip in the area.  It had all the huge name brands, 5 story tall Gucci stores and the like.  We were looking for restaurants and ending up finding one some time later since we didn't want to want to eat at a place that we had back home (all the name brand restaurants were in Singapore).  After lunch we headed over to the Raffles Hotel, and went to the bar in the hotel that invented the Singapore Sling.  So maybe I didn't know of that drink before I got here, but I know now that it's a famous drink.  Unfortunately, Singapore also has huge sin taxes, so this one drink cost me $29!!  An average drink on the island cost about $10-15...not cool!!

 

Anyways we also walked around the downtown area that day, which really was beautiful.  There was a rowing competition in the harbor which was fun to watch, each boat had a drummer on it keeping the rythm.  The architecture and the planning of the city really was stunning.  I had some cool pictures taken of me in front of the Merlion Statue, and behind that the downtown skyline.  The Merlion is the mythical animal that is the symbol of Singapore.  It's a lion's head and mermaid's bottom.  You could see from here the Marina Bay - Sands Hotel, which I really wished I looked more into staying at.  It has three skyscrapers next to each other in a line, and on top is connected by what looks like the bottom of a boat, and up there is bars and some beautiful pools, including an infinite pool that goes right to the edge!  A picture of this beauty will come at some point.  Another cool thing on the harbor was the soccer stadium.  At first I though it was some kind of huge watershow stands.  You know the boat shows with skiers and everything the have on lakes?  It looked like that but with stands on the water that probably hold 15-20,000.  Eventually we realized this was a soccer stadium, with the soccer pitch literally floating in the water a little ways out into the harbor!  How cool is that??  Like I said, its a crazy modern city.

 

That night I was able to do the Night Safari at the Singapore Zoo (number one in the world) with some friends (thanks Marilyn and Steve!).  We took buses up to the zoo, and had some amazing food at this huge buffet.  On the buffet was Chinese foods, Indian foods, and Malaysian foods, all delicious.  Those three ethnicities also make up Singapore's population as well.  But after dinner we hopped on the trams and did the Night Safari.  It was great, the animals are in any kind of cage, rather their environments are designed with natural barriers, but a number of non violent animals are free to roam.  And since it is night out, the were very active animals!  The hyeinas pacing back along with our tram was awesome, as was the elephant getting ready to charge us it seemed and the tigers sleeping 10 feet from us!  The other great thing about the night was that this was Halloween night!  The entire zoo was decked out, and along the pathway of the tram was a haunted tram ride basically, with people dressed up and popping out of the trees to scare you and such.  Some of us dealed with the scary aspect of this tram ride better than others, but I'll just that I could of made that tram ride way more scary than it was ha.

 

That night we had a fun night out in the city, despite uttering this terrible phrase as we went in one bar.  "Nine dollar beers?  That's not bad at all!"

 

Day 2

 

I got up early this day to go get some breakfast off the ship since I had an FDP with SAS to do in the afternoon all the way up to on-ship time.  We went over to the Sentosa Island, which is basically a huge new development in Singapore with resorts, Universal Studios, and every touristy thing you can imagine (wind tunnels, luge racing tracks, Segway rentals, just a few of the things I saw).  We didn't know much about the island, but it was very pretty, and we ended up eating at a restaurant that the New York Times rated as one of the 100 best in the world.  While it was only breakfast, I can say that Sweet and Sour Chicken I had was very good, probably the best I ever had!  I ran out of time quickly there, and had to head back to the ship for my trip.

 

My trip was an amazing visit to the National University of Singapore, probably one of the few universities in the world which enjoys huge government support in the terms of funding.  The facilities are unbeileveable, the are committed to globalizing and supporting there students, and they basically borrow the best parts of university systems from around the world.  It's currently ranked #30 in the world, but I promise you it will move up, they just have some unbelievable things happening there.  If I could get in, I'm totally going to do graduate school there (and if they have my degrees). 

 

That was a short and sweet description of that University and that day, but its late on the ship, I have to get up early, and there's just not enough time for everything!

 

Email me: cmgallagher@semesteratsea.net

 

I'm home in almost a month!  Bittersweet...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

India

Sorry it took so long to get this up.  I've been writing it over the past week, Singapore got in the way (new post later on that).  Right now it's 120am, and soon we'll be going up the river into Ho Chi Minh City.  I seem to say this for every country, but in all honestly, since we have fought (and lost) a war here, I can say that I really felt like I was never going to be in Vietnam.  But enjoy my story of India!

 

 

 

I scratched a tiny tiny surface of India.  With 1.1 billion people, its impossible to think that I could find out more than just a tiny part of the country.  It's diverse as can be with 22 different languages and multiple religions, it is probably just as if not more diverse than Europe is.  The caste system (though outlawed) can still be seen throughout the country, especialy outside of the big cities.  We had two interport students this time, both who were very talented and introduced us to the culture of India (I love the music now, very relaxing). 

 

A majority of my time was spent on an SAS trip, so I was in a kind of protected bubble but did manage to escape that at times.  Six days here in India just made me realize how little Westeners know about India, even though it's been around for 5,000 years.  I don't even know if writing about it will convey much of what it was like to be there.

 

It was humid and hot in Chennai, southern India whereas up north it wasn't as humid.  The crowds are EVERYWHERE though.  You truly do just have to get use to seeing more people than your use to no matter where you are at.  Hinduism is the dominant religion in India with about 1 billion followers.  We visited several Hindu temples, as well as Buddhist stuppas and such, more on each later in this, including the Hindu wedding that left me sick for 2 days :), but I was at a hindu wedding, which was totally worth being sick after.  Hindu temples come across at first as quite tacky, at least to me, but once you learn more about the religion you find out that all the statues and colors are used to convey the hindu story.  Some people see hinduism as a crazy religion with millions of gods, and while there are many different interpretations of it, our guide put it in one light that I liked.  He mentioned how it started with one supreme god, but seeing that a large majority of Indians at the time were illiterate, the many different gods were created in order to tell different stories and pass on the lessons of Hinduism.  Others think of it as the many gods being different aspects of the one god.  I could be partial to these just to because of my ideas of religion and such.  ANYWHO.....lot of stuff to talk about in one blog post, let's try it though....

 

Day One

The first day we rolled into Chennai where we were docked.  I counted 15 ships outside of the port waiting for the pilot boat to bring them in!  Tons of little boats around us as well, but we were definitely the only passenger ship pulling in.  Oh and as we headed outside onto the 7th deck to get some views of India, who do we bump into doing his morning walk, shirtless I dare say?  The Arch of course.  Fistbump for Kaeleigh, and just moved on with my day acting like I didn't just nonchalantly fist bump the Chairmen of the Council of Elders.

 

Once we got off the ship (which took forever here) a group of us rounded up some rickshaws to head out and get lunch.  RICKSHAWS ARE THE GREATEST FORM OF TRANSPORT ON EARTH.  Why these don't exist in the US is beyond me, besides the obvious safety problems.  I can remember many times when I thought I was going to die on one of these.  They're three wheels, and while they are designed to hold 2 passengers in back with the driver in front, we could get usually 4 passengers total, but we definitely saw some Indians who seemed to have 15 people in one rickshaw, it's quite the art.  So we were zooming our way to lunch and realized traffic laws do not exist in India.  We'd go down the wrong side of the road for awhile, then have 6 rickshaws abreast in the same lane, etc etc.  We finally got to some area for lunch.  As soon as we kind of walked into the place, which was an open air cafe type of place, our whiteness gave us away and we were quickly ushered into an air conditioned room in the back for lunch.  It turned out to be really good, nothing too spicy, so a good start to Indian food.  I really cannot remember any of the names of the foods that I ate, so I won't be able to say much about them on here.  All I know is during the whole trip I never had anything I didn't like. 

 

After lunch we just wanted to walk around and experience the city, which was very difficult to explain to our rickshaw drivers.  They had waited for us to eat lunch and were trying to get us in the rickshaw to take us shopping (they get commission wherever they take us, make our lives just dandy).  Literally the followed us for a several blocks but oh well.  So we went through a train station to lose them.  This was where for myself  I saw some of the first poverty of India.  A little girl was taking a bath in the sink that said drinking water on top of it, and next to the tracks were tons of trash and some tents set up down along the path where people would sleep.  More on all the poverty later. 

 

We mainly just walked around and took in the sights and the smells of the city that day.  People were overall quite friendly, asking where we were from and welcoming us to India.  English is the language used in school so a lot of people, especially in the cities, speak it.

 

For dinner that night we went to a restaraunt called Kabul.  It was really good, everyone ended up sharing our dishes with eachother.  Nan is the bread used in India and Indian food, its delicious.  I used it to soak up the sauces, or get really creative and make some sort of wrap with it, putting the meat and sauce on the nan and wrapping it up.  So good.

 

We headed back and I started getting ready to pack for my SAS trip, called Taj Majal and Varanasi.  The trip was divided into three groups, A, B, and C.  I had thought for the entire trip I was in B, leaving at 930am the next day.  I did a last minute check at about 11pm that night, to find out I was group A, leaving at 4am!  I was that close to missing the biggest SAS trip on my itinerary! 

 

Day Two

Started so so early.  We were on our bus by about 430am, heading to the Chennai airport.  When we got into there and got my boarding pass I realized that the beer I was drinking at dinner the night before was the airline I was now about to fly on.  Can't say I felt to comfortable about that, think of it as hopping on to the Fly Budweiser Airline.  But it turned out to be really nice, tvs in every headrest, the works, etc.  Another different thing in the airports is that whether in Varanasi or New Delhi or Chennai, the airplane doesn't park at the gate.  When you board at the get, you get on a bus that takes you out to the plane.  It was a different experience, especially to see it at the big airports.

 

So we landed in New Delhi and boarded our buses.  As we got onto the bus the driver gave us huge leis, which apparently are not just Hawaiin things.  We headed from the airport through New Delhi, and went up the street that has a lot of Embassies along it.  We saw the American embassy and a bunch of other embassies scattered about along the street, on our way to Ghandi's Ghat.  A ghat is a place where someone is cremated, so this was a memorial on the place where Ghandi was cremated a day after he was assasinated.  There was a lot of Indian's there visiting the place, he is called the Father of India after all.  The trees that line the walkway heading up to the memorial have all been planted by different visiting heads of state to pay their respects to Ghandi.  Our guide, V.K., actually showed us the spot where Obama will be planting his tree when he visits India in the next few weeks! 

 

After being at Ghandi's Ghat, we went to a type of banquet hall to have lunch.  This was of course delicious sauces and such, which was perfect for being soaked up with the nan bread.  After lunch, we went to go check into our hotel, Le Merdian.  By far, the nicest hotel I have ever stayed at in my life.  Hardwood floors in the rooms, modern decor, a 20 story atrium, restaurants and bars, including a chocolate bar.  It was five stars all the way, it in no way gave any credit to the fact that we were in India.  It was great to stay at a place like that, but we all were a little flustered by the fact that we obviously were not in the real India, but oh well. 

 

After checking in and dropping off our bags, we moved to a few more sites in New Delhi.  Our first stop was the Indian Gateway, a giant arch that was recently constructed to commemorate all the Indians killed in war.  It sat on a large area where the national capitol rested on one end, and museums and such were scattered all along it, basically it was just like our National Mall in Washington, D.C.  A lot of people liked to take pictures with us, usually with their own cameras but sometimes with ours, I guess the just like to have a picture with a white person.  (Sidenote, it's going to be very weird being in the US again and not being a minority, I think I'm going to miss it quite a bit). 

 

After the India Gateway we moved to Hyumen's Tomb, which we knew nothing about except that it inspired the Taj Majal.  It turned out to be a very beauitful building, and you could easily see the resemblence.  It was set back in a huge garden area, and you could really climb all around it and explore all its spaces.  It was made out of red sandstone so it was great to see it at sundown.  We explored the area for awhile, trying to get as many different views of it as possible.  Some other tombs around the area let us climb up on walls and get some pretty cool views of the sunset over the city of New Delhi.

 

Dinner was back at the hotel, which was kind of dissappointing that there was actually no Indian food on the buffet!  It was all western food!  But that was okay, we later found out another one of the groups actually had Domino's pizza delivered to their hotel for them haha.  But like I said, the hotel was rediculously nice and we had a few drinks at the bar (expensive drinks) and tried to crash pretty early since we had an early morning the next day.

 

Day 3 (Taj!)

Up just as early to grab a few bites of food at what turned out be a delicious continental buffet, we headed off in our bus towards the rail station in Delhi.  The railstations are definitely not modern or anything compared to the airports, and they are full of a variety of people.  Unfortunately you did see a lot of children begging for food around these areas which was hard to see.  We were taking an express train to Agra, luckily it was first class, which meant air conditioning.  It really didn't seem like first class at all, it was pretty basic, but air conditioning means a lot in India.  It was a two hour train ride into the city of Agra, where the Taj Mahal is located.  It was for some time the capitol of India, and is part of the Golden Triange of New Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur.  We got into the city right around 8am and we got on buses that took us to a hotel where we were served breakfast (again, mainly a western breakfast...boo).  On the way to this hotel our guide told us to look left, and to get ready to look down the small kind of narrow valley that was coming up.  So we did, and that was our first glimpse of the Taj Mahal, from a far difference, but I was pumped at that point.

 

We were to see all three of the UNESCO World Heritage sights that day, so we headed to Fatehpur Sikri, which was about a 30 minute drive outside of Agra.  It was a fort built with all red sand stone, so it was really cool looking, and had a lot of palaces in the complex.  It was from the 16th century, and the fort was built as the capitol of India.  It took about 8 years to construct, and the capitol was only there for 15 years!  They had to move out due to water shortages I think is what our guide said.  It was a cool place to explore, but it was hard totally focus on these places knowing that the Taj Mahal was later in the day!  Seriously, I never expected to be at the Taj Mahal, and it still feels totally surreal that I was there.  So after Fatehpur Sikri we stopped at the marble art shop, where they showed us how the marble in the Taj had been decorated.  It's basically them cutting away parts of the marble and putting carved colored marble into the cuts to make designs and writings.  One tabletop of these costs around $8,000!  After this we went back to the same hotel for a lunch, full of delicious Indian food and even more delicious ice cream.

 

The next stop was to Agra Fort.  Another 16th century fort, it was also built with red sand stone (sometimes its called Red Fort), but is much more like a fort than Fatehpur Sikri with huge walls, defensive structures, and even a moat around it.  It was another cool place to explore and look around, and part of it is closed to visitors because that is where the Indian army's barracks are located, so the fort is actually still used by the Indian army!  Just like the other place, too, it was where some of the Mughal emperors lived, so it was the capitol of India.  You could get some incredible views of the back of the Taj Mahal, where you could see the river the Taj rests on and the fields all around it.  Finally after what seemed like forever, we got ready to go to the Taj.

 

The Taj is thought to be one of the top targets for terrorist in the world, so the security was kind of high.  We had to walk for part of the way because most cars are not allowed anywhere near it (probably a pollution thing).  We made it to the Taj around 5pm, and had an hour (only one damn hour!  why did we have to stop at the stupid marble place??!!?).  So we got to see sunset on it.  After you get through security your in a red sandstone building area, so your walking through it, lots of high walls.  Then you come to a giant old gate structure, and you walk through this to see the Taj.  It was amazing to walk through this and suddenly see the famous view of the Taj Mahal, right in front of you, with the pools of water and the Taj Mahal just seeminly floating right there in front of you.  I took a good amount of pictures, no worries.  It was very crowded since it was Sunday night, but I just tried soaking in the experience as much as I could.  We slowly made out way up to it, and walked are way around it.  Unfortunately the line was too long to go inside of it, but I heard the inside is nothing special (I'll be back there someday anyway).  But I made sure to actually go up and touch it several times.  There's two buildings on either side of it, on the left is a mosque, and on the right is just the answer to the mosque, an identical buildin built just to keep everything in symmetry.  It was a great time there, sunset gave an orange glow to the whole building, and I definitely was not ready to leave when we had to.  It really was a beautiful building and grounds area, you can't help but just be in a state of wonder looking at it.  Disney totally used the Taj for the palace in Aladdin, and we realized the city in Aladdin was called Agrabad, so they're not really trying to hide it.

 

We headed back towards the train station then.  We had to eat dinner on the train so we were given boxed dinners, big boxes packed full of food for each one of us.  I can't believe they thought to do it this way, as we all walked up to the station with tons of kids begging for food.  Just about everyone opened their boxes and started handing out most of their food to the kids, but it killed me to see these kids living like that.  Most were not older the 8 years old.  I lose my voice anytime I try to describe what it was like to see the kids violently rip apart a box and start fighting with each other over the contents.  You just felt totally helpless and overwhelmed, it was one of the worst things I've ever had to see in my life.  I didn't open my box to give anything out, I remembered when we got off the train earlier a couple of kids squeezed there was on and grabbed any food trash people left, so I wanted to leave my box there.  I just ate the banana out of it, and felt better about the world when I saw the a kid snatch up the box after we got off the train in New Delhi.

 

Day 4 (Varanasi)

 

"Benares (Varanasi) is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of

them put together"  - Mark Twain

 

Up even earlier this day to catch our flight to Varanasi (again aboard Kingfisher Airlines, aka Budlight Express).  We checked out of the hotel, and the flight took about an hour and a half.  Varanasi was immediately unlike Delhi and Chennai, as it wasn't nearly as developed.  We went our hotel, The Taj Gateway, which was rediculous.  In the middle of this ancient city, another 5 star hotel, this one was in the middle of its own Garden, so there was huge lawns spread out around it, you just didn't feel like you were in India, let alone Varanasi, whatsoever.  Any Indian I had spoke to previous before going to Varanasi said that Indians themselves experienced culture shock at Varanasi.  It's been continually occupied for over 5,000 years!

 

So after checking in and grabbing lunch, we headed to Sarnath, one of the holiest sites in Buddhism.  The ruins of the very first Buddhist temple and monastery are here, and the Buddhist stupa contains relics of Buddha and marks the site where Buddha gave his very first sermon to the five discpiles.  A lot of Asian tour groups were here, making the pilgrammage stop.  It was cool to see the Buddhist monks as well moving around and about.  The museum near by here was neat as well, it contains the original sculputre of four lions creating a pedastal, and this is what is used as the official symbol of India, and you see it everywhere, associated with anything official or governmental.

 

We left and made a quick stop at a silk factory, and saw the weavers making the final products, which were pretty elaborate.  Outside of the factory we all hopped into rickshaws, two to one, to make the trip down to the Ganges River to see the evening Aarti, or prayer, on the ghats.  These were not auto rickshaws like from before, but bicycle rickshaws.  We whizzed our way through the heart of Varanasi, dodging traffic and people alike.  Now this time I truly thought death was right around the corner.  But these rides on the rickshaw down towards the river was the best part might have been the best part of trip.  It felt like I was a part of the culture, and I could see the life of the people happening all around me.  So MANY people everywhere.  Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians (though you can't immediately tell these) everywhere.  The city itself truly had this ancient feel to it.  But it wasn't the "old" feeling I'm use to.  I can easily go to Rome or somewhere else in Europe and be like, oh, this is old.  It's hard to describe, but old in India just has a different feeling to it.  I mean, its freakin India!  But anyways, this amazing ride ended and we had to walk down to the ghats.  The ghats in Varansi are large steps that go down into the river, and basically take up the whole bank, as there are tons of temples lining the river, and each has a ghat going down into the river.  The river is considered holy, it stems from the Himalayas where the Hindu gods live.  The river itself is thought to be an extension of the god Shiva's long crazy hair.  For this reason, bathing or drinking the water of the Varansi is done extensively, and since there's no prescribed ritual, everyone does there own thing here.  But we would see all of this the next morning.

 

The Aarti was beautiful to see.  There was a huge crowd gathered on the ghats to watch it, and a lot of boats full of tourists/pilgrims in the river up close to watch it as well.  There was 6 platforms set up, and each had men on the platforms doing identical rituals, such as burning insense, and eventually having this large christmas tree shaped candle holders with lots of candles on them.  Music was played as well.  We went up to the roof of a nearby building to get the best view, and it really was enchanting to sit and watch this thousands of years prayer happen right in front of us.  We all kind of sat there mystified by the whole ceremony.  Hard to write about it.

 

After these ended we walked back up towards the street to take another awesome and stunning rickshaw ride back to the buses, where on the way our driver decided to go down the wrong side of the street at one moment, play chicken with an auto rickshaw, which ended up actually tipping towards as it veered out of our way at the very last possible second..  We finally got back to our hotel for dinner.  We walked out of the hotel and across the grounds to this random building in the gardens for a delicious dinner in this beautiful dining room just sitting out in the middle of the gardens.  Just to give you an idea, President Obama will be staying at this hotel when he is Varanasi soon.  I think it's crazy and awesome that he's even coming to Varanasi, I'm sure the secret service cried a little when the started researching this city, or India itself for that matter.  I had some fun later that night chatting with a German tour guide at the hotel bar whose career is taking Germans around India....sounds like something I could get into...hm...

 

Day 5

Earliest wake-up thus of the whole trip, and longest day.  We got up and immediately headed back towards the river.  The buses took us further than the last time but we had to walk out way towards the ghats.  The evening/night was so much more livelier than the deserted streets were at that moment.  We got down towards the river and immediately saw the people bathing themselves in the river everywhere (not naked).  Everyone had their own rituals, most though just dunked themselves in the water over and over.  We took about an hour and half ride in a row boat up the river and then back down, close to the banks to see the pilgrims and their rituals.  Two old men were our paddlers, and I felt a little bad for all the effort it took them to get us upstream especially.  But it was great to watch the sunrise over the river and see the rituals.  Then we got towards the other end of the river, where the death ghats were located.  Basically some older hindus come here to die, be cremated, and have their ashes put into the river.  The pyres our set up right next to the river, and we could see bodies wrapped with shiny and colorful wrappings waiting to be put on the burning pyres.  At one point, we saw a body actually unwrapped and put onto a pyre.  All of this happening with kids playing in the water and pilgrims praying just a little ways down river.  To have your ashes put into the river is a way for a hindu to transcend out of the cyle of reincarnation.  It was very intense to see this happening right in front of you.

 

We headed back up to our buses through some narrow alleys and crazy turns that showed again just how old Varanasi was.  At one point some of us had to run back into another alleyway and others hid in door frames as two cows came walking through.  Everyone knows that cows are considered holy in India, so their purpose is unknown to me still.  If one dies on your land or near your home, its considered extremely bad luck.  The cows basically wander where ever, even our bus had to go around a cow or two plenty of times, and walking down the street a cow would just be sitting right in the middle, blocking everything.  No one moves them, no one bother thems.  The don't eat them or drink the milk.  I usually saw them either sitting and starting, or moving between piles of trash and eating all the trash straight from dumpsters or the street.  Weird.

 

After a quick shower and breakfast at the hotel we headed back to the airport and took the flight back to New Delhi.  In New Delhi we stopped at a Hindu temple where Ghandi laid the cornerstone brick, and was the first temple to let anyone of any caste into it.  It was pretty and huge, still different for me though to see a religion that has all the statues and gods everywhere in the temple.  After this temple we went to a market for shopping, and I actually HAD to go to McDonalds.  It's part of my Anthropology class, comparing the way McDonalds adapts to different cultures.  It was a bummer though when I got yelled at for taking pictures, for some reason they did not allow that inside the restaurant.  The only thing I could think of was the possiblity that was a response to back in the day when McDonalds would get heavily vandalized from anti-globalization groups.  Towards evening we had tea at restaurant with some delicous ice cream, then headed to the airport for flight number two of the day, back to Chennai.

 

Finally at about 2 in the morning, we were back on to the ship, exhausted.  But I still had one more day in India, so I knew sleeping in was not going to be an option, so I set my alarm for 8am, which turned out to be.....

 

Day 6

....the best idea ever.  I grabbed breakfast on the ship, and a group of friends decided we wanted to head out and go to the Hindu temple dedicated to Shiva.  It was different than the one in New Delhi, as southern temples are different from the temples in the north of India.  Going on right in front of us there was three weddings however!  We continued watching one, and the guests kept trying to push us closer and closer and giving us the best of views.  It was crazy since eventually we were clearly being told to take the place of family, which we wouldn't do, shaking our heads and saying no with a smile, then trying to put the family members back in their rightful places!  Some people helped us understand what was happening, and a few of us befriended the bride's brother. 

 

The bride and groom were fully decked out with many flowers, and we could catch onto some of the rituals and the jokes and games the priest was playing with the two of them.  They actually changed outfits halfway through the ceremony as well.  One of my friends asked the grandma of the groom to dress her with Sarri she had just bought, which is the traditional clothes Indian women wear.  So a group of about 10 girls it seemed all took her back behind a part of the temple and dressed in the Sarri, one lady even gave, and refused to accept back, a pearl necklace for her to wear with it!  Honestly everyone in the wedding kept welcoming us, so glad to have us there and watching.  My friend took photos with her huge SLR camera, basically becoming the wedding photographer (she's sending the photos she took to them).  Many of them had their own cameras and someone was videotaping the whole ceremony (he kept pointing the camera at us, we'd point towards the bride and groom ha).  We even found out that this was an arranged marriage, and this was the first time the bride and groom had ever seen each other.  The girls found this particularly crazy, but on the ship we had been talking about this for awhile.  Outside of western culture, marraige is an economic and sexual union, love is not a part of the factor, it's expected to develop over time.  While arranged marriages are fading in India, it's still not uncommon.

 

Finally at the end the brother invited all 9 of us to the wedding reception for lunch!  We quickly accepted, and ended up walking (still barefoot since shoes are not allowed in the temple and we didn't want to lose this opportunity) towards a nearby hotel.  Once at the hotel, we hung out with the family a little more (the bride and groom were still at the temple) and then went in to eat.  The room wasn't big enough for everyone to eat at once, so rotations were made.  We sat down, and a giant palm leaf was put down and the food started getting put onto it.  The food was delicious!  I tried taking my cues from the guy sitting next to me, who tried helping me and show me how to eat with my hands, but ended up laughing mostly at my attempts, and then again at my watering eyes due to the spices.    He was cool though, and like I said, the food was delicious!  One minute the brother of the bride would tell me I was eating too fast, the next he'd say I'm eating too slow!  Finally we finished, folded up our palm leaf, and headed out to wash our hands.  We took a few last minute pictures with the family, who refused to take any payment for the lunch, and seemed to be truly honored to have us join them.  I'm now thoroughly convinced hospitality does not exist in Western culture! 

 

We left the hotel to ge tour shoes completely stuffed and ready for the rest of the day.  We did some shopping here and there, I picked up some pirated DVDs for a few bucks (movies that I didn't even know existed yet in theaters are already here for 2 bucks).  Little did I know that was my last meal for a few days, that I was going to have an awesome fever, and that nothing solid would be coming out of me for the next two days.  But I will say without a doubt it was totally worth getting TD for that experience :)

 

So that was India.  Like I said, I feel like going there for six days just exposed me to how completely ignorant I am of life on that subcontinent.  I feel like I now just know there is more that I do not know, if that makes any sense ha.  I think my next great adventure could be backpacking through India (no more 5 star hotels).  Who knows.  I can say that I had 6 full days, and I think that it will take me a lot longer than the few days I've had to digest what I saw their.  Stay tuned for Singapore!

 

cmgallagher@semesteratsea.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mauritius....India

Mauritius was a wonderful break, and while I can't say I had a cultural experience, I had quite a blast.  We got in and took a water taxi from the boat to the exit of the port, and could already see the amazingly blue water.  We eventually took a taxi to Grand Baia (Bay) and our jaws all dropped as soon as we saw through a thicket of pine like trees, the bay.  I cannot describe how crystal clear blue it was.  So we went right in and went swimming, then got lunch.  We then headed up to our villa which was different than we were expecting, but still beautiful.  It had it's own private beach, so we just swam out there and had a great night.  Next day we had a private catamaran for about 30 of us, and it took us out to a private island where about 7 or 8 other catamarans all showed up.  I can say that our catamaran, the Top Cat, was the best.  It was the boat everyone eventually tried to get on or stop by.  The two days in Mauritius were a great way to spend my birthday, one that I'll never forget. 

 

Right before India we have a reading day, which means no classes.  Not so much a reading day since tomorrow is the Sea Olympics, which every sea on the ship competes in.  The sea's are different cabin areas, think like a dorm, and my sea is the Red Sea.  There's a bunch of crazy games that we compete in, and two nights ago we had the pep rally for it, which each sea put on a skit, some funny, some lame (Red Sea's was pretty good, our own take of Backstreet Boy's I Want It That Way with some different lyrics).  The prize for which sea wins the sea Olympics is a private dance party w/ beverages in the Glazer Lounge, and they will be the very first sea to disembark from the ship in San Diego.  It should be a fun day, I'm hoping for a BBQ on the top deck to end the day.

 

 

But what I'm really excited for now is India.  I think India will be the most exotic and foreign country that I'll ever have been to.  I think it's going to attack all 5 senses: sight (crazy temples, colors, poverty), sound (Indian music sounds awesome from what we've heard), smell (manure is the main AC in rural areas, trash everywhere, exotic things everywhere), taste (spices spices spices!), and touch (massive crowding, people everywhere!).  I'll be going with SAS to the Taj Majal and then to Varanasi, hindu's holiest city, and also to the temple north of Varnasi where Buddha gave his first sermon.  I'll be visiting a college and it's students who will then take us to our homes, and on the first day in Chennai I'm either going to be doing some sort of service project, or I'm going to higher a driver to just take me around to the sites of the city, hopefully his own home if he's cool.

 

I like emails

 

cmgallagher@semesteratsea.net

 

Randoms

Wanted to get up to speed before I hit up Mauritius in 8 hours on just some random things, mainly just so I'll have them written down before I forget.  If you haven't read my South Africa post on my time spent there, I'd read that before you read this. 

 

First, happy birthday to me!, 23 now, which seems pointless.  Oh well, two more years before my car insurance drops.

 

Neptune day was pretty fun (way back to after Ghana).  Not many people have been to that exact spot, where the Prime Meridian and the Equator meet each other.  No shipping channels or flight paths cross it, so it's pretty safe to say I'll never be there again.  We were woken up pretty early with some of the crew banging drums, tambourines, pots, and anything else to wake everyone up.  Everyone gathered up on deck 7 by the pool, and Dean David and the other deans came out dressed as various sea gods and such.  So you stepped into the pools overflow, had some sort of fish guts poured on you, jump into the pool to rinse off, get out and kiss a fish, then kiss Dean David's ring, and then have Adam (Registrar and my boss) knight you with the sword.  That took care of that, and then of course I shaved off all my hair.  I actually "BICed" it, which apparently everyone but myself has heard of, and it just means shaving everything off with like the razor so there's nothing.  The best part of the day though was that we had our first BBQ.  Usually dinner is on decks 5 and 6, but for BBQs they fire up the grills on deck 7 and have burgers, sausage, ribs, corn on the cob, etc.  It was great, and I'm excited for our 2nd day in Mauritius, when we reboard the boat we have another BBQ right after on ship time. 

 

Desmond Tutu's lecture was great, he has plenty of stories to tell and is incredibly insightful.  But what else would you expect from a Nobel Prize winner?  It was also amazing while in South Africa if you just brought up that Desmond Tutu was sailing on our voyage with us as well.  First response would always be a hearty laugh and an "oh sure he is".  But then when you told them it was true, it was the best conversation starter!  You suddenly weren't a tourist but had a bond with the person, and it seems everyone knows about his infectious laugh and humble personality.  In the Waterfront area there was a statue of him and Nelson Mandela!  I can't think of many people I know who have statues.

 

I was also pretty impressed with how long Semester at Sea has been traveling to South Africa.  Louis Patler, who was our interport lecturer for South Africa, was on a voyage as a student in the early 70s.  They had 6 black students on board the ship, and when South Africa's immigration came on, they were originally not allowed off. Louis actually got on the PA system, announced this, and he organized the entire shipboard community to come and sit in the union and not leave the ship until they can.  Six hours later, they were allowed into South Africa. 

 

It's crazy to hear some of the stories about past voyages, never being sure what is true or what is rumor.  Louis cleared up rumors that were going around on the ship about that same voyage, and he told us about four SAS students that had rented a car to go to the top of Table Mountain.  Three white students picked up another student by the ship who happened to be one of the 6 black students.  Two guys, two girls, which wouldn't have sit well with many people in the 70s.  On there way up the mountain, another car intentionally ran them off the road, killing one of the students and severely injuring the other three.  I think that's when it hit me just how horrible the situation was in South Africa only a few decades ago, but I'm kind of proud that SAS has such a long tradition of anti-apartheid ways.  My post-port reflection group leader (post-ports are an hour long discussion after each port of everyone's experiences, usually 6 or 7 students, same group every time) had an incredible experience of being on the SAS voyage in 1994, just a few weeks before the election that put Nelson Mandela in power.  In a last minute gesture, the African National Congress (Mandela's political party) invited any SAS students who to go to come to a rally outside of Cape Town where Nelson Mandela was speaking.  Only 26 SASers signed up to go!  Kind of understandable since the Amy Biehl tragedy happened only a few weeks before their arrival.  They were given heavy security, and put at the very front, just in front of a giant stage where Mandela spoke to the crowd of about 150,000.  They realized that they were being "used" in order to get some white people at the front of the crowd, but Joel's favorite memory of that was when they were quickly escorted out after the rally, and found that their buses still had not come back to get them.  From across some sort of field, all the people at the rally started running right at them, making the SAS crowd fear the worse.  Just before they collided, many of them stopped and just started dancing for joy, and all of a sudden the SAS crowd was dancing with all of them as well!  Humanity is an amazing thing at its best.

 

But on a lighter note, I'll be celebrating my birthday with my extended family here on the ship on Oct. 17.  They invited to dinner someone who shares my birthday with me and also invited her husband.  Guess who it is?....Yep, it's Leah Tutu, and Desmond Tutu will be joining us as well :)  The Tutu's and Mauritius?? Can't get much better.

 

I do have to say once again, the networking opportunities on this ship are amazing.  I'm not going to say anything on here, but its creating some exciting avenues for me to explore, especially since I have the luxury of being a graduate come December on my return!

 

Life on the ship is about to get crazy, since once we hit India we have 31 total days where there's only 6 days of class.  Which means tons of time in port!  Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with this blog but there could be some long stretches of nothing.  Plans for Mauritius:  do not get burnt, enjoy my birthday with many new friends in a private villa, and then get up on the 15th to go enjoy snorkeling and the private bar on the catamaran with even more friends.  Life's good!

 

cmgallagher@semesteratsea.net

 

 

 

Some of kids who sang us South Africa's National Anthem at a school in Luga Township

Top of Table Mountain

South Africa is....

thoroughly exhausting.  I have not had a good night's rest since two nights before we got in.  But the city itself is quite a trip.  It was great to be in the Waterfront, a huge development that puts our Jetty (pier) right next to a huge hotel and the Victoria and Alfred Mall, which is huge in itself.  There's a ton of restaurants inside of it, and lots of street performers, and a couple of bars, and by a couple I really mean just one, which was Mitchell's.  But where to begin about this country?  I awoke at 430am the day we arrived to catch us being pulled into the port.  Slowly as the sun rose, Table Mountain came into view as the sun got brighter, and what an incredible sight it is.  The "downtown" of Cape Town goes right up to the base of the Mountain, and then it just dominates the background of the city.   

 

Later that morning, the diplomat briefing became quite interesting.  Some diplomat in charge of security or something at the US Consulate in Cape Town came on board to brief us about the country, and specifically the security threat in it.  Basically he almost succeeded in convincing every single person to stay on the boat for the entire time.  I suppose it was somewhat necessary since Cape Town has the second highest crime rate in the world, but this was quite ridiculous.  Luckily nothing too serious happened around me, but I'm sure over the next few days stories will surface of what happened to some people and such.  The touristy areas are pretty safe, and in the downtown they have security people scattered every few blocks.  In the Waterfront, they literally have a security officer every 30 feet, so it's as safe as can be.  Definitely felt some sketch situations out and about in the city though, especially at night, which was hard to avoid since it gets dark here by 7.  But the diplomat was really over the top.  Later in the week I talked with our interport student for South Africa, Candice, and she had got up and left while he was talking since she was so offended.  I was basically offended but also embarrassed that this guy was representing our country, hopefully he's buried somewhere in the bottom of the consulate here in Cape Town.  But I do suppose if you're here long enough, you will be affected by the crime at some point.

 

A lot of the ship loves South Africa, but I personally don't think it was my favorite.  I did have a great time here, but I just can't help but feel unsettled by the fact that there's such a huge degree of inequality here.  It would be hard to live here in the city and the really nice areas knowing that such a huge chunk of the country is living in the townships (which in all fairness are very lively places).  But I'll explain my time in the townships later in this.  Let's start with day one.

 

Day One ~ Table Mountain

 

The weather was amazing when the ship was cleared, so about 10 of us decided to head up to Table Mountain right away.  I myself had been outside at 430am, so I still had my jeans and a long sleeve shirt on, not thinking about the fact that I was going on a hike, which gave some problems later on.  But we took some taxis up to the bottom station of the cable car, and started walking along the road to find a trail up to the top.  It took about a half mile or so, and we immediately started climbing up at that trail (Platteklip Gorge).  It was basically a natural staircase that went up about 1,000 meters.  But the views were great, and you could always turn and look back and see the path and just how far up you had come.  The path zig zagged all the way up through a ridge that is kind of hidden in some views, and it was intense.  At one point a friend of mine brushed death (this is an often occurrence for him) when some SASholes (SAS people who do anything stupid) went off the path to take a picture.  They stepped on a boulder that ended up loosening and falling down the path, and if he hadn't jumped into a crack in the cliffside, that boulder would of taken him out.  Luckily the pathway wasn't as crowded as it was at other times, or the SASholes would probably be in jail.  I also hadn't brought any water either, so that combined with all my heavy clothes forced me to sit down at one point thinking I was about to pass out.  I can't believe it's been 5 years since my days of cross country and running 3.2 miles in under 18 mins!  Chugging some water and resting for several minutes changed that but ah!....the days of my youth.

 

Anyways, we got to top as the clouds were beginning to settle in (the clouds are called the tablecloth).  Being up in and above the clouds was really cool, but we still had some amazing views of the city itself, the beaches, and Lion's Head (another peak near Table Mountain).  We went over to grab some burgers at the restaurant on top of Table Mountain, and basically ate in the clouds.  The burger was pretty good, either because I haven't had one in forever or because it was covered in BBQ sauce and mushroom sauce.  Writing, however, cannot give the views we had from Table Mountain any kind of justice, so you'll just have to wait until I can afford to put some pictures up.  Wanting to save time and our knee's, we decided to take the cable car down the mountain.  The car spins as you head down so you end up getting 360 degree views, but you end up appreciating the car getting you down in 5 minutes compared to the 2 hours it took to get up the mountain!

 

So after our trip down, a good sized group of us grabbed a taxi van and headed to Greenmarket Square, which is in the center of downtown and home to market stalls selling goods.  I'm glad I spent money on so many African items back in Ghana, because I never really had any desire to buy too much in the markets or stores here in South Africa, since I had most of the stuff already.  It was Sunday so the market was pretty dull.  However, I had forgot to put any sun screen on my bald head, which after hiking table mountain was burning up pretty bad.  So I bought a big safari/sun hat that with South Africa's flag on it and basically makes me look like a tool.  But it blocked the sun, and luckily we bumped into Dr Chris (ship's doctor) in the market who gave me some sunscreen for my bald head.  We walked our way from Greenmarket Square back up to the Waterfront and the mv Explorer, having some fun with how much of a tourist I looked now with my hat. 

 

We showered and such, then a large group of us had dinner at a restaurant called Karuba (or something like that) inside of the Waterfront area.  WOW.  I think dinner cost me just over 30 dollars, and it was a dinner that in the states would easily have cost me around $100.  I tried a friend's delicious calamari, which was easily the best we had ever tasted.  I had 3 different kinds of venison: Antelope, Impala, and Springbok (the last two are close to antelope).  It was so good.  That topped off with desserts and plenty of wine flowing around the table made for a great start to the night.  As usual, SAS took over the closest bar that night, which was called Mitchell's, and all I'll say is that any girl with a South African accent is so much more attractive because of that alone.

 

Day 2 ~Cape Town & Aquarium

 

Originally I had hoped to go to Robben Island this day, but it wasn't meant to happen.  One of the jet ferry's used to take people to the island had broken down, so the amount of people the could take over was very limited.  So instead I ended up with an entire day to just soak up the city.  There were four of us that decided to head out of the Waterfront and start looking for a beach.  We first went into the mall next to our ship, and I found a cafe called Melissa's which was recommended to me, and it was amazing.  I had hot chocolate with nutella lining the cup, and toasted banana bread with butter and honey on top.  It was the best breakfast to date, others had eggs benedict and other great looking things.  So we started walking towards where we though the beach would be, which ended up being a lot further than we though it would be.  On the way we walked by an area that just had waves hitting the wall and splashing up to the wall where the walkway was.  For me it was a blast since I have no beaches in Ohio (Lake Erie doesn't count) but the water was freeezing.  We ended up deciding just to go to this rocky beach area since the actual beach was way too far (it looked close on the top of Table Mountain??? ha) and I got thoroughly soaked trying to walk on the rocks further and further out into the water.  We grabbed some great gelato with this awesome passion fruit like flavor, and headed to the Two Oceans Aquarium in the Waterfront.  Even though I don't get too into aquarium's, this one was pretty cool and big, and it only cost like $13 to get in.  Spend the afternoon there and then headed back to the ship.

 

At the ship we collected a group of us that were ready to go get dinner later in the night.  We went to a place called Cafe Africa, which I recommend to anyone in the future, it was the best dinner I had in Cape Town and one of the best of my life (close to chicken tangier in Marrakech and mojo in Seville).  It was African tapas style, and Ross and I were the only ones to eat everything with our hands, proudly holding up the African tradition of no utensils.  The restaurant was in a historic building with a bunch of different rooms in it, and was decorated with a lot of recycled material.  Our server Cynthia was awesome, and ended up putting face paint on all of us.  The girls got lots of dots and colors, and she promised the guys we would get warrior paint.  For some reason she felt I was quite all evening (I was tired dammit!) so she explained that because of this my warrior paint consisted of the three paws across my forehead!  It was not warrior like at all!  Later that night at the bar I accidentally scratched off part of the paint, so that the paw at the top of the forehead looked like it was flipping off everyone, which I thought was a perfect response ha.

 

Day 3 ~ Bike N' Wine Tour

 

This day was a continuation of my African vacation, seeing that I still had not done too many cultural things yet in South Africa, except maybe hit on the occasional bartender here and there.  But this day was my Bike N' Wine tour through the Stellenbosch wine lands.  About 10 of us met our tour guides on Long Street in Cape Town, and took the metro train for about an hour (lots of stops) out to the Stellenbosch area.  The shed they use to store their bikes out there was broken into the night before, but luckily there were still enough bikes for all of us to use.  The wine lands area was very beautiful, with rocky mountain ranges all around us, and the vineyards kind of just snake right up the mountains all the way until it turns into straight rock. 

 

I'm not that big on wine, but luckily they taught us how to taste wine properly, so I guess I have that going for me now.  Our first winery was Spier, which is apparently one of the more famous wineries in the area, on the grounds of Spier is Mayo, a crazy restaurant with tree houses and crazy club style dining atmosphere.  Too bad it was so far out of Cape Town.  We tasted five different wines, they were good, but then we got to go to their cheetah conservatory!  And yes, I did pet a cheetah inside of its enclosure.  The place raises cheetahs that have been domesticated, and uses the cheetahs to kind of help train dogs that they give to farmers throughout Africa to use to scare cheetahs away.  By using dogs to scare cheetahs away from the farmer's herds, the farmer doesn't end up shooting and killing the cheetahs, a major reason why the cheetahs are endangered species today.  I had to sanitize my hands and feet and stuff in order to not give the cheetah any germs (though no one gave me anything to sanitize myself after petting the cheetah?ha) and then went in.  We had to approach from behind and let the trainer stay in front of the cheetah, so when it looked up it would see the trainer first and not be alerted by seeing me.  So I got to pet it's side and back for awhile, it was pretty cool.  However, it just sat there farting the entire time I was next to it, so I couldn't really deal with more than a minute of being around it.

 

We rode for a total of only like 5km through the wine lands and hit up one other winery after we had lunch. My lunch was a popular pizza here in South Africa, thin crust kind of style with feta, avocado, and bacon as the toppings.  It's probably one of the better pizzas I've ever had.  To end the tour we stopped at Van Ryan winery to taste their brandy's.  They said they've received numerous international awards for there brandy, and it actually was pretty good.  We tried 10 and 12 year old selections, and since only a few of us could stand the strong taste of the brandy, I had my fair share of it.

 

That fact added to the fact that at the end of the tour we were given complimentary bottles of wine each from one of the wineries meant that I was in for a rowdy night.  Thanks to Semester at Sea policies, we had to finish those bottles of wine before we could get back on the ship, so we had a good time talking with our tour guides and a local on the train ride back to Cape Town.  That night was Amanda's (from THE Ohio State Univ...now THE #1 TEAM IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL!!!!!!!!) birthday dinner, and she wanted to go to a Japanese sushi restaurant (why not wait until Japan I do not know) but we went and it was great.  The sushi was delicious since we were right in Cape Town, no surprise there.  I think it was the first time ever drinking sake, which turned out great (mind you, I had been drinking wine all day as well, so everything was bound to taste great anyways).

 

But that night I headed home from the bars earlier than usual, seeing as I had some important things to do the next day.

 

Day Four ~ Amy Biehl Trust Foundation

 

I had been excited for this day since I had found out I had got a spot on this trip.  Before I can start telling about this day though, it's important to know about Amy's story and what the foundation means (totally worth hearing this story).

 

Amy Biehl was a graduate of Stanford University and was a Fulbright Scholar working in South Africa as an anti-apartheid activist.  One day in 1993, she had just finished dropping off two friends in a township where the friends lived.  Unknowingly to her, a peaceful protest in the township she was driving through was brutally broken up by the police (this was before the democratic elections of 1994 and blacks were still not allowed to congregate).  This caused the protest to quickly descend into a mob, and when Amy accidentally drove by it, she was pulled from her car and violently murdered.  Four men were sent to prison for the murder.

 

Three years later, South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (lead by Desmond Tutu!) was established to provide healing for post-Apartheid South Africa, and the four killers applied for amnesty through the commission.  Amazingly, Amy's parents Linda and Peter supported amnesty for the killers and forgave all of them.  After that, the parents set up the Amy Biehl Trust Foundation, which works in the townships around Cape Town mainly through after-school programs with activities like music, dance, drama, sports, crafts and HIV/AIDS peer education. These programs are running at several township-schools every afternoon, and in addition the foundation runs weekly activities outside the townships (simple things such as taking kids into the city of Cape Town who could never afford it) for some of the children, and they also have Saturday and Holiday programs.  Today, two of the men who were given amnesty now work for the Amy Biehl Trust Foundation with over 70 other workers.

 

Knowing that story gives a little background into how incredible this place was.  We were told that this would be a service trip, but unfortunately it was more of a trip where we saw the foundation's activities in the townships, which was still very cool.  So we started by stopping at the foundation's headquarter in downtown Cape Town, and got to see the operations.  We were met by the director of the foundation (I forget his name) who really was an incredible guy.  He came from the banking industry in South Africa, and after spending years of building corporate social responsibility at his company Linda Biehl needed him to run the foundation.  He helped the foundation make the transition from being supported by the USAID development grant to being supported by private donations (the Biehl's are middle class, they could never afford to put much money into the foundation).  So he actually had a lot of brilliant ideas and you could tell that it was because of this guy's energy that the foundation was thriving.  Currently they just opened an after school program at there 5th school, but plan on being in 10 schools in by 2011.  They have Amy wine, Amy bread, and a bunch of other stuff that the sales are all partly contributed to the foundation.  As we left the foundation, there was a US map of where all the interns were from, and one was from Bowling Green!!  Didn't find out who it was though at all :(

 

So I bought some artwork made by the kids for sale there and some postcards, and then we left the foundation on our bus with the two guides from the foundation.  We headed to Luga township, one of the oldest, and headed to a school there where the after school program was just getting started.  We hung out there with kids for awhile, and actually sang and danced some crazy dances with them, it was so fun, and they were so lively.  Too short of a time later we went on to grab lunch at a restaurant in the middle of the township, which just a pile of meat and potatoes, but the meat was cooked brai'i style, so it was very good.  After lunch we went to another after school program, and this time the kids put on a show for us since they're preparing for a big fundraiser in Cape Town in the next few days.  The had musical acts, dance, poetry reading, all things that showed off their talents.  One kid was hilarious, he was so into the dances it was ridiculous.  He made his eyes so big, you could easily tell he was the class clown.  When they first started dancing, they started with running towards the crowd of us, and he just got right into one of the girl's face in our crowd and flung his hands up, like some crazy Southern Baptist holy spirit taken over type like thing.  But anyways, it was a lot of fun to be there, but then we had to head out again.  This time we were finally heading our back to home, and we actually drove by a large cross dedicated to Amy in the spot where she was killed, and sure enough, just down the road from there, was another monument with the outline of 7 kids, all who were for no reason at all executed one day by police in the late 80s. 

 

Then as we were driving home we find out that one of the guides that had been with us all day named Easy was in fact one the two guys who killed Amy and was now working for the foundation.  I've never been in a same room as a killer, let alone had shaken one's hand, but that's what I'd been doing all day with Easy.  He was very nice and nothing would have said anything earlier.  He actually opened the floor for questions, saying to be blunt and not to beat around the bush at all.  The most direct question he had was "do you feel guilty for killing Amy".  He said that when he thinks about Amy as a person and her family, he does feel guilty.  But this isn't how he thinks about it.  He reminds himself he was a freedom fighter, fighting for his freedom and that this was a political act.  So it was a pretty surreal time just being there, but I will say he is doing so much more now and doing so much good than if he was still sitting in jail.  That was a big message that Linda Biehl wanted to send, in that the power of reconciliation is a great thing compared to just forgiving someone.  She was very proud and happy to have Easy in her life.

 

That night the group of us headed out to find some pizza.  We ended up finding a local chain up near Long Street, and Ross and I split this amazing triple layer pizza.  Had tons of cheese, chicken, sauces, it was crazy.  Others had crazy pizzas as well, some with guacamole and other crazy toppings.  That night we went to a jazz club in the Waterfront, got some drinks, and then of course ended the night again at Mitchell's.  It was an eye opening day.  All day I was debating whether I should give Ross my trip to the township with interactive soccer that I had the next day since I felt that I had already seen the township, and even more so since I felt that I would just be riding my bike through this township gawking at everyone, which isn't something I wanted to do.  In the end I decided I would do it the next day, which is one of the best decisions I've made on this trip...

 

Day 5 ~ Township tour & Soccer 

 

....Ross was also able to make the trip, so no worries there.  We met our two guides at the ship and took a bus out to Luga township, same township we were in for the first part of the Amy Biehl tour.  Luga was designed to hold 5,000 men, today it's home to 50,000 men, women, and children.  We picked up our bikes in the township at a local community center and our guides really were excellent, especially Siweve.  He was great at explaining the life of the township and pointing different things out.  One of our first stops was outside of what the call hostels, and he explained how hostels were the first of three stages of living inside the townships.  Originally the townships were only allowed to be all men, the women could visit once a year from the villages.  Each room inside the hostel (thing of a large apartment building in the ghettos) would hold 3 or 4 men.  Well at some point in the 70s I think women were allowed to live in townships, so these rooms instantly started holding 3 or 4 families, so the conditions were incredibly crowded.  When apartheid fell in 1994, the government began focusing on improving living conditions in the townships.  So they began to construct temporary homes (2nd stage) to hold families while they waited on their permanent apartment (3rd stage) to be built.  While larger, these temporary homes for one family are maybe the size of two average sized bedrooms in the US, but it was an improvement.  The wait inside the temporary houses is about 5-6 years, but a big problem is that these are more and more becoming permanent housing for the residents.  We did get to see all of these areas, including the shanty town areas, which are just tiny makeshift shelters that are worse than the hostels.  Today, many do have electricity from the government, and running water outside in communal areas.

 

But anyway, outside of the hostel our guide Siweve took us to a little shed where he started to talk about an after school program he himself runs with another friend.  He grew up in the hostel right next to the shed, and actually moved out of the township only about a year and a half ago.  But his after school program is called Happy Feet Dance Studio, where he teaches about 36 students a dance that originated in the mines in Southern Africa.  Since the many different tribe members couldn't communicate with each other through language, they developed this style of dance in the mines to help them communicate.  So these kids put on the shoes and have make music with the dance (think Stomp or something like that).  So he taught a group of us how to do the dance so we could impress people his kids when we see them later in the school we were going to!  It was really cool though to see this guy already giving back to the community he grew up in, it seemed the peoples connections with the townships is a very strong part of their culture.

 

So we then rode our bikes to one of the primary schools in the Luga township, and had a preschool class sing to us the national anthem and a couple of other songs!  We donated some school supplies which the teacher loved us for.  Then the schools choir sang us some more songs, including some dances. Then our tour guide Siweve got together his kids (only about 7 of them at this school) and they did the dances he taught us plus a lot more, they were actually really good.  We found out they actually won a dance competition at one of the big theaters in downtown Cape Town recently.  So then he called us out to show them what we learned, and while we did get it done, we did not look nearly as good as them, so everyone enjoyed a laugh on our expense.  We would get them back though, since it was time for soccer!

 

I'll be the first to admit that this was a game between a bunch of college students and 11-12 year old girls on the schools soccer team.  But whatever, it was time to show what us Americans were bringing.  We went out on the field and had a great, though short, game.  I'm proud to say that not only did I score the only goal for the USA in regulation, but I went on to score the winning penalty shot at the end of regulation to give us the win. And yes, I will brag about beating the primary school's girls team for many years!  It was cool to play with them and we were all good sports about the whole game, so we had a lot of fun, and so did the girl's team.

 

After the school we headed out to see the central business area of the township, and where a majority of the vans will wait for a full load before taking people into the downtown of Cape Town to work.  We visited the township's traditional healer, and our guide explained how he himself and many men of the township at age 18 still go into the bush for a month with nothing but medicine provided by the traditional healer in order to make the right of passage to manhood.  He pointed out a large fenced area, which is the bush they stay in and considered sacred ground, and its literally right next to the entrance of the township.  Outside of the healer I bought a guys African mask that he had made, not so much because I wanted to, but because he made the really good point that I needed something to help me remember Luga for and help give back to the township in a little way.  Good salesmen ha.  We cruised by the new private apartments that were actually pretty nice looking.  Problem is, the government tore down shacks in order to build them, promising the residents of the shacks that they were being built for them.  However, what the government built is too expensive for the people in the shacks to afford them!  So now the apartments (more like town homes) sit empty while the residents and the government negotiate what to do.

 

Then we biked through the "Beverly Hills" section of the township, named because it has the best looking houses of the township.  It was surprising to see such levels of hierarchy within the townships.  Our guide Siweve explained that people who do end up becoming successful stay in the townships.  Township life is lived in the streets, that is where people socialize and live.  They find it weird and depressing to stay inside of a large private home, only with a little interaction with ones neighbors.  He also explained that people all treat each other equally in the townships, and I believed it considering how many shanty's were built right up against the "Beverly Hills" area.  We stopped at bed and breakfast inside the township that was very popular for World Cup visitors to stay at in order to get the local experience.  We had tea and some sort of local bread which was a little sweet and very delicious.  After that we biked a ways back to the bus to head back to the ship.

 

I was very glad I ended up choosing to see the township this way.  Many of the people were very friendly and happy to see us, and there was a sense of community pride and of a strong sense of culture that I'm glad I was able to be a part of.  I know there are many many issues confronting those in the townships, and I know there are far worse townships than Luga, but I really do believe they will continue to improve and South Africa is going to be a tremendous place in the future.  Only 16 years ago all of these townships were surrounded by electric fences and watchtowers, literally concentration camps to keep the blacks and coloreds inside of them.  Progress has definitely been made since then, and no one is saying the issues are too big to tackle.

 

So this night ended up being the last night we were in Cape Town, and also Ross's birthday at midnight (there's two Ross's by the way, haven't tried to differentiate them in this at all ha).  So about 20 of us made reservations at a restaurant called Cubano, a Cuban lounge.  Dinner was delicious, some people at the table had the best steaks I ever tasted.  Unfortunately I convinced myself to try something other than steak, and will live with that regret the rest of this voyage (though Kobe beef in Japan should make up for it!).  All of us had a great time getting drinks and having dinner, then we headed out for the night, blowing way too much money but all for a great time!

 

Day 6

 

Amazingly I was up, showered, had breakfast, and ready to go for my morning visit to the University of Cape Town, an FDP.  FDP are trips required for classes, so this was the first of three required for my Higher Education in the Global Economy class.  Only about 4 students went on this one, along with our Professor and his wife, and we had a great time.  It honestly made me so excited for doing graduate work in Higher Education and Student Affairs, and the trip especially convinced me that I need to work within the international field of higher ed.  For about three hours we discussed the issues facing South African higher education, which is facing the results of a rapidly globalizing world while at the same time continuing to address and make amends for the apartheid era.  Only about 5 percent of students who begin preschool in South Africa will ever be eligible for higher education, and that's only eligible.  We meant two student leaders, Jessica and Marvin, who were great resources and had lots to share.  We had lunch there and I enjoyed being able to talk to Jessica for awhile about random similarities and differences (the South African accent made it particularly enjoyable as well).  But hey, tuition for Americans studying there is only $5,100, and they help you find a job on campus!  Maybe I'll stay in college to pick up another semester hm?  They actually have about 4,800 international students that our part of the 24,000 students that make up there campus, and the campus itself is beautifully set right up against part of the mountains that Table Mountain is a part of.

 

After I got back the Ross's, Megan, Kelly, Tam and I all grabbed a taxi and headed to the Malay district inside of Cape Town to check out the area.  It's where Indonesians settled after they became freed slaves (they were brought to South Africa as slaves).  It's known for a lot of bright colored housing, so lime green, yellow, red, pink, light blue, etc. and it was cool to see something so different.  I noticed several mosques in the area as well.  We eventually headed towards the Greenmarket Square area, where we got some hookah, and then headed to the waterfront where I was lucky to be able to call home for a bit and then get some last minute shopping done before the ship headed out.  Right next to our ship they were filming a Johnnie Walker commercial, they had a couple of yachts all decked out and some fancy cars, so if in the future you see these, look to see if the bow of our ship is in it, because it definitely dominated the scene if the cameras were pointed at it!

 

 

But yea so South Africa was pretty awesome.  At times it felt the most like home, since everyone spoke English and it was very modern and touristy in many parts.  There are many issues in South Africa that have to be addressed, and it's crazy to think with all that I saw there was SO much I did not see, especially since South Africa is still considered a developing country.  I'm so excited to go back in 20 or 30 years and see how much progress is made in that time.  I talked to a Professor who was last here in 1993, and he was amazed at how much progress had been made since then, so I do feel a lot of hope for the country. 

 

But this is by far my longest blog post, it was just a jammed full of week that I really did enjoy.  I'll be the crazy one though and say that I think Ghana is still my favorite country so far, but it's starting to get really difficult choosing favorites!  Thanks for reading it all, and if it's any consolidation, its taken me over three days to write about all of this.  And my actual had written journal has just gotten up to Ghana, so that's even more behind.

 

Keep the emails coming, love hearing from home and any other comments.  Mauritius will be beautiful, but I'll probably post before then about a few random going ons here on the ship.  Oh and guess whose turning 23 on the most insanely beautiful island on the planet?? That's right. This guy.

 

cmgallagher@semesteratsea.net