India Part 1 - It's Finally Here!

It’s been a while since I’ve written; I hope you didn’t forget about me!  I just finished my trip in India and it was absolutely eye opening!  For those who don’t know, there are over 20 official languages in India and that’s just a small sample of the diversity there.  The fact that Indian democracy still thrives is amazing.  India is every bit as diverse (ethnically, culturally, politically, and economically) as Europe is, except that India is one country and doesn’t have as much money to meet the needs of more people.

Once I left the MV Explorer, I travelled with a Semester at Sea trip to the cities of Delhi, Agra, and Varanasi.  Off the ship, we were hit by a wave of heat and humidity.  Southern India, which is where our dock was in the city of Kochi, is just above the equator.  It felt like the end of July in Kentucky.  My group rode buses to the airport in Kochi and then we flew north to the capital of India which is called New Delhi. 

The city of Delhi has been added to multiple times because it’s been the capital of many Indian Empires over the centuries.  There are a lot of large government buildings in India now that were either constructed by the Indians since independence in 1947, or by the British while India was a colony.  Some of the architecture is truly stunning.  The presidential palace is somehow a mix of the Taj Mahal and the US Capitol Building.  Plus, there is the India Gate celebrating independence, which basically looks like the Arc de Triomph, but without the traffic.  India certainly has a flair for the monumental, but in a country of 1.2 billion people I’m not too surprised.

The first night in Delhi I walked with one of my friends to an ATM so she could withdraw some money for our sightseeing the next day.  On the way to the ATM we saw one homeless man with a cane, and he was the first of many homeless that we saw in India.  In the public areas where tourists go there were usually several children who came up to us asking for money or trying to sell us things, but according to one of my guides, the children usually don’t need much help (partially because some kids have caretakers who take money from them after the day anyway).  If you haven’t seen Slumdog Millionaire, then give it a try because as dramatic as it is, the conditions and experiences of the kids in that movie are all based in facts.

The real poor in many cases are the people who sit on the side of walkways with a container set out for money or those who were disabled.  From what I could tell, a lot of those people had disabilities that prevented them from working (including one man with swollen feet who wheeled around on a tricycle asking for money), which is a problem in India because the national government doesn’t provide a very large safety net (one state, Kerala, does have a comprehensive safety net).  After taking some time to think about India, the poverty is overwhelming. It literally makes my stomach turn when I think of the physical deformities some people had, or the obvious lack of nutrition some of the beggars showed on their bodies.  That first man in Delhi was just one of millions…

The next day, I woke up bright and early at 4:30 AM.  We all ate a quick breakfast and left with the group to catch a train to the city of Agra.  While I was on the train, instead of serving coffee to passengers, they served tea.  Call me simple, but that was the first time I’ve made decent tasting tea on my own (could’ve had something to do with the amount of sugar I used).  Agra is south of Delhi and is home to several monuments because it also served as the ancient capital of the Mughal Dynasty in India.  First, we visited a palace complex called Fatephur Sikri about 20 miles out of Agra.  The palace was separated into different courtyards and it had several gardens.  One building was really cool because the ruler of the Mughals would sit on a throne in the middle of the room.  Then, four advisers with differing opinions would approach on four walkways and defend their ideas.

The next monument we visited in Agra was the Agra Fort.  It’s made out of red sandstone which is common in north India; another fort in Delhi is made from the same stone.  The fort is gigantic, and even after exploring for over an hour I still hadn’t seen every part of it.  There were also lots monkeys running around the fort, and a baby monkey tried to steal my camera.  If you’re ever near wild monkeys…make sure you don’t get too close!  You’ll either lose something or get chased like Stephen and I were at the Taj Mahal (especially don’t get close to a male monkey while it’s watching its mate and infant, might not have been the best idea).

After Agra Fort, our SAS trip visited the Taj.  Pictures don’t really do the complex justice. I for one always thought the Taj Mahal was in the country side by the pictures I’ve seen, but you’re still in the middle of Agra, just completely walled off from the city.  It is built by the Mughal leader Shah Jahan as a burial place for his wife Mumtaz Mahal for those who didn’t know.  There are a couple mosques flanking the Taj Mahal, and a courtyard the size of a football field that you walk through before you even reach the main courtyard.  The place is really huge!  All the other buildings are built with red sandstone and marble, only the Taj Mahal is made entirely of marble and inlay.

            After we visited the Taj Mahal (and were mobbed by girls trying to sell us snow globes) we rode the train back to Delhi and headed to our hotel rooms for some much needed sleep. I met one of the voyagers named Anna, who actually lives right down the hall from me.  We talked about some things we missed from home, her big issue being the lack of sushi in the world (luckily we’re headed to Japan).  Leaving the train station, our tour guide had told us we could save the dinner they served on the train and give it away to someone who asked (we had already eaten).  I’m not sure why our tour guide was different, but every other SAS trip had been told not to give away anything.  That was fine by me though because I know how a child will use food, I couldn’t know how the money I’d give to a kid would really be used.

Luckily, we got to sleep in until 7:30 AM the next morning and we took a driving tour through Delhi.  One of the stops we made was at Mahatma Gandhi’s tomb.  I’m still amazed by Gandhi’s example. Did you all know he also fought for rights in South Africa for descendants of Indian laborers before returning home to India’s independence movement?  The tomb was a simple courtyard dug into a gently sloped hill.  When you compare it to the Taj Mahal and some of the other Indian burial monuments we saw, it was a great statement about Gandhi’s belief in simplicity.

I may or may not have gotten a little homesick at that point.  You’d be surprised how rare rolling green hills with flowers are in the world.  Gandhi’s tomb reminded me a little bit of Kentucky.  Of course, it could’ve just been the weather, in northern India it was actually spring time!  I got cold one morning because I didn’t pack long sleeves for the trip.

After visiting Ghandi’s tomb we stopped at the Gateway of India, which was built after India gained independence.  From there we headed to the new terminal of the Delhi airport, which was built when India hosted the Commonwealth Games a couple years.  I asked our tour guide if that was a stepping stone to Delhi hosting the Olympics, and he literally laughed.  Apparently the government of India had such a hard time with corruption before the Commonwealth Games that few people want to host an international sporting event again.

Oh, really quick, while we were in India, there were two big things in the news.  First was debate over the sacking of the Minister in charge of Indian Railways.  The entire country’s rail lines are state run, and the company absorbs 20% of the national budget each year.  Unfortunately, with a profit margin that puts them dangerously close to financial trouble and a resulting controversial hike (the only one in 5 years though) India could have some trouble with the company in the future.  That’d be pretty bad considering it carries over 30 million passengers daily and employs 1.36 million people.  The other news is slightly more positive.  The 2011 Indian Census numbers were in and a bunch of good indicators like mobile phone ownership, electricity, and adequate sanitation were way up.  That of course means that India still has dozens of millions of people to bring out of poverty, but things are looking up. 

I’ll post about Varanasi and my last two days in India tomorrow.  The next day I’ll try to post about Singapore before we leave the ship for Vietnam!  I’m a little behind, but I’m trying to make time to get caught up (and slow time down, I’m officially getting closer to home now).  That’s why it’s an adventure, things are happening too quickly…

P.S. The hotels that SAS likes to put us up in are beyond swanky.  They’re downright posh, which is a word that you will see more of when I describe Singapore in a couple days.

P.P.S. Anna had the best quote of this part of the trip.  I’m not sure what we were talking about, but she said, “Most girls cry, but I eat raw fish! I can’t cry!”

India Preview!!!

I'll talk about Mauritius and India once we set sail again, but I thought it'd be nice to give you all a sneak peek of what's coming up!

Alright, I've got to go to bed before I wash some baby elephants tomorrow morning! I get to some fun things on the side, that's why it's an adventure...

P.S. Mr. Stevens would be beyond jealous right about now...

'Cause this Africa!

Someone told me that I haven’t posted recently enough, and you know they might be right…so, here’s an update which is really long!

First, I want to give you a quick thought on Ghana because I just ran through the laundry list of all the things I did there in my last post.  Ghana has all of the elements necessary to improve its economic status quickly over the next decade.  The people I talked to in Accra seemed hopeful, but at the same time they were cautious in saying that things would inevitably improve.  Ghana’s democracy is only 20 years old and inequality could grow between the coastal, urban south and the landlocked, more rural north.  The general feeling was that with a little luck and decent government actions over next ten years Ghana will be safely on its way to prosperity!

Okay, now onto Cape Town and South Africa!  If you ever thought about vacationing in Africa then you need to put Cape Town at the top of your list (right next to Egypt and the pyramids actually).  The city is absolutely gorgeous because the scenery is some of the best in the world.  Table Mountain overlooks downtown and is part of a larger chain of peaks that extend several miles to Cape Point (aka The Cape of Good Hope), the most south westerly part of the African continent.  There’s also the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens and about a thousand other nature involved or extreme sports related activities at hand.  That doesn’t even count any of the attractions that a big historical city like Cape Town has or the estates of the nearby wine lands (which I didn’t get to see).  So yeah, that’s my marketing pitch for Cape Town!

Okay, so about things I actually did…the first day I walked through downtown for one of my classes and learned a little about the history of Cape Town.  My favorite stops included the Fort of Good Hope, City Hall (which is an arts center now), the Company Gardens, and St. George’s Cathedral.   Our guide made it pretty clear that Cape Town is a little different from most of South Africa.  There’s more mixed history, which includes a different ethnic makeup (a huge majority are colored, which is politically correct to say in South Africa) than the rest of the country.  Cape Town’s province, Western Cape, is also the only region of the country governed by a party other than the dominant African National Congress (from the little I learned I’d be a member of the opposition party, the Democratic Alliance).  The first day was good introduction to Cape Town.

The next morning I woke up and headed to Robben Island with an SAS trip.  Robben Island was the location of the prison that housed anti-apartheid leaders like Nelson Mandela or (can’t remember his first name) Sobukwe.  During the day we toured the island, the prison facility, saw penguins (oh yeah!), and talked to an ex-politcal prisoner who works at the museum now.  It was really cool to hear his perspective on South Africa today and what progress has or hasn’t been made since apartheid’s end.  Interestingly enough, even though freedoms have increased since the end of apartheid (and let me be clear, no one would go back), I was told several times during the week that the apartheid government was better at implementing its policies, better governed (at least for now), and better at keeping unemployment low.  It’s shocking to think that an inhumane system like apartheid had benefits.  Which is why the ex-political prisoner we talked to, Zozo, says thanks to all the foreigners he leads on tours through the prison.  I wasn’t alive, so, I never realized how influential foreign pressure and divestment was in ending apartheid until I talked to Zozo.  I’d always assumed apartheid was dysfunctional mess, but it partially worked when the international community turned a blind eye (which is sobering food for thought).

Okay, so, aside from those thoughtful comments I had a great time on Robben Island.  While we there, had meals cooked for us by a woman named Josey (which involved Malay and Indian food, a barbecue, and a solid breakfast), and we slept in the guesthouse of the house used by the warden when the island was still a prison.  I had hoped we might sleep in a prison cell or something cool like that, but I won’t complain.  That bed is probably the softest thing I’ll sleep on this entire voyage…ahh.

After I got back from Robben Island, I headed to Table Mountain with one of the girls from our group named Tommie.  Unfortunately, we were pressed for time and had to take the cable car up instead of hiking (which is the right way to do it according to the shipboard community).  The views from the top were still amazing!  Table Mountain is 1000 meters above the city and the ocean, and there were canyons and trails all across the top that you could explore (it really is like a table, a small city could fit up there).  Sometimes a cloud hangs over Table Mountain and locals call it the tablecloth.  The plants were also nifty and different.  Little known fact, Cape Town has a unique floral region that only extends 50 kilometers inland from the coast.  For those of us who aren’t botanists…there are only 6 floral regions in the world.  Cool, huh?  Oh, this from Table Mountain.

From the cable car station below Table Mountain, Tommie and I headed to Kistenbosch Botanical Gardens to attend the last day of Cape Town’s summer concert series.  Since they had just hosted an international music festival, we heard the Cape Philharmonic play underneath solos by several classically trained singers with European sounding names.  It was beautiful and romantic; too bad I don’t have a girlfriend…Tommie and I were joined by Jira, her boyfriend Nat (who flew to Cape Town for her birthday), Nat’s friend Antonio, and Sophia (who is another friend on the ship I might not have mentioned).  If you ever get the chance to hear the Cape Philharmonic or see Kirstenbosch then do it, preferably together.

Later that night we headed to dinner and met up with Stephen and some other friends to eat Thai for Jira’s birthday.  Stephen told us about his experiences bungee jumping and shark diving from the two days before, which sounded pretty awesome (to Stephen’s parents: the video of him jumping is pretty cool, you should watch it when we get back).

Okay, fast-forward one day and most of us who had been at dinner the night before headed out with a local tour company to see the highlights of the cape area.  We drove through the Clifton beach area, which I was told multiple times by different people is, “The place to see and be seen.”  Anyway, our first real stop was Hout’s Bay (I got a cool video of guys forming a fish passing relay J) and from there Chapman Road.  Chapman Road was built along the cliffs around the peninsula heading towards the Cape of Good Hope (it was an engineering marvel at the time it was built).  Most of the drive has sheer cliff face on one side and sheer drops on the other side.  It’s an extremely safe road, but every view is definitely movie worthy.

From there we visited Cape Point Park where we visited the Cape of Good Hope and got some cool pictures standing on the edge of the world.  No big deal.  We had to hike and then bike from there to reach our lunch stop on the tour.  The bike ride was exciting, but I wish it was a little longer just to take in more scenery.  Lunch was at the Park Visitor’s Center where we were joined by three hungry baboons.  It was interesting because you weren’t sure whether you should hide or stand five feet away and take pictures (I chose the latter before one baboon tried to chase me).  The baboons had me seriously nervous the whole time because apparently they have a nasty habit of attacking people with food.  You can imagine the feeling you have when you’re staring at a baboon on the roof above you that only seems to have eyes for your food…

Next we dealt with some more amicable animals: African penguins!  They were kind of cute, no doubt about it.  There might have been a couple hundred penguins on the beach, which was really cool. It was definitely not your normal day at a zoo, especially since one penguin was sitting under the stairs on the boardwalk waiting to bite anyone who walked down.  After fighting traffic heading back to Cape Town, we ended our tour and showered.  Our group headed to an Indian restaurant called Masala Dosa on Long Street (which is like Bourbon Street, only not quite as exciting I’ll bet).  It was fun to walk around and then I headed back to the ship for some shut eye before my class field trip the next day.

For my Politics of Development class we visited an NGO, Operation Hunger, which works to improve child nutrition in the outlying townships around Cape Town.  We visited Capricorn Township, which has had an influx of foreign refugees over the past ten years.  This has caused tensions with the local residents who have made money by renting out their backyards to let newcomers build shacks for shelter.  Capricorn is a relatively new project for Operation Hunger, so, I helped make plots for the new community garden they’re growing (in soil that is mostly sand, which I don’t quite understand, but apparently it works).  Another group helped local women cook that day’s lunch. In the afternoon we helped weigh kids and measure their arm circumferences and heights as reference points to see if Operation Hunger is having success.  Overall the experience was everything I had hoped it would be, and I’d love to go back and volunteer with them or work in a similar organization at some point.  Other than a visit to the V&A Waterfront (a really swanky mall near our ship that we had been going to in the evenings for dinner or groceries), that was it for the fifth day.

Finally, on our last day in Cape Town I went with a group to Mfuleni Township where we spent the day working with Habitat for Humanity.  The groups before working before us that week had been painting finished houses, so naturally, our group was tabbed to fill house foundations with sand and level it out before they poured concrete slabs (which I understood because of helping build the patios at home, thanks Mom and Dad!).  It was a ton of hard work (very possibly a literal statement), but we finished filling foundations for seven of the eight houses they were starting and we saved the subcontractors two days of work.  Our work leader, Rob, has been involved with Habitat for two years and he said they’d built 460 houses in that time in Mfuleni Township alone, with only 40 left on the waiting list.  That’s about 4 to 5 houses a week, which is awesome… I was planning on heading out for the last couple hours before the ship left, but I crashed hard after I showered.  South Africa (at least the Cape Town part) is amazing, and I’d love to come back someday.  I guess that’s why it’s an adventure, memories I’ll never forget…

P.S. It has come to my attention that WKU won the Indoor Sunbelt Track Title, congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Cliff, It's Ghana Be Exciting

Hey everyone! Long time, no blog.  Today is a momentous day for my big brother.  Cliff is turning 28, so, he deserves a shout out from my recent stop in Ghana. Happy Birthday Cliff!

Now, I'll say a little about Ghana.  The country was an amazing experience in seeing what poverty looks like, and how the less fortunate part of the world survives. I roamed around the capital city of Accra the first day visiting markets, an abandoned fort and eating dinner in a slum.  After my friend asked a street vendor where we could eat local food, we taken into an urban slum where a woman cooked fish for us and made bankum (sp?), which is crushed maize.  I saw a man hard at work at his sewing machine after the sun went down, people walking home from wherever they work, women mashing the maize to make bankum, and children playing near us and near their own urine...it was a tough sight to see.  Accra is also the most developed part of Ghana.

The second day I visited slave castles that were used as human warehouses while traders waited on ships to take captives through the Middle Passage.  The conditions were, of course, awful to see.  I learned about how difficult life was before captives even left the African continent.

On the third day, I visited a chocolate factory, the University of Ghana, and a couple markets, which took a little edge off of the pessimism of the first two days.  Accra is still a bustling city, despite its poverty.  The University of Ghana was very exciting because I was able to talk to a law student there about issues in the United States and Ghana.

My fourth day in Ghana was spent listening to experts at the World Bank branch office in Ghana talk about the country and its growth prospects.  For those who didn't know, Ghana was the world's fastest growing economy in 2011 (with the help of oil discoveries).  This means that as long as Ghana can find a way to begin developing the northern region of the country, then it should become a shining example to the rest of sub-Saharan Africa of how to move forward.  Despite the dryness of the technical terms, I enjoyed the entire presentation, especially, when they discussed the World Bank's new policies on transparency.  Check out their website and search for their database, the amount of information should be staggering if you find the right program.

On the fifth and last day, I capped my Ghana experience with a visit to an orphanage.  We played with many of the kids at the local school while they waited two hours for someone to bring their lunch in on a truck.  Eventually we had to leave, but seeing the "school" which was only some trees with chalkboards leaned on them, and meeting the woman running the orphanage, Mama Peace, was certainly an influential experience.

I still have a lot to digest about my experience in Ghana, but it was amazing and I'm glad I was able to visit the places I did.  The opportunity to dwell on things I've never even thought about before, that's why it's an adventure...

Jeff

A Brief Break from Stories about Brazil

Hey everybody!

I thought I’d take a break from telling you about Brazil and give you an update on what’s been happening around the ship.  Or really what just happened this morning.  Semester at Sea has a tradition every time a voyage crosses the equator for the first time on the open ocean (we already crossed it sailing the Amazon River).  It’s called Neptune Day, and people who’ve never sailed across the equator (which is almost all of us) are treated to a little ceremony.

First, we were woken up early in the morning by members of our crew banging drums and blowing whistles while dressed in togas.  After that, we had fish guts poured over our heads and we jumped into the pool on-board to rinse off.  We also had to kiss a fish.  Plus, everyone had the option of shaving their heads.  Being the rebel that I am I decided to go for it (sorry Mom, it’ll grow back).  Tonight, some friends and I are signed up for a five course meal to celebrate a birthday.

This is how you pass ten days on a ship the size of a high school by the way; by doing things you didn’t really plan for.  It keeps you from getting cabin fever, but hey, that’s why it’s an adventure…

P.S. I figure the ship's bandwidth can handle one compressed photo right?

The First Half of Brazil...Sailing Around the World Is Inspiring

Well everybody, sorry for the long intervals between posts, but I’ve been catching up on sleep and class work since Brazil.  Oh, speaking of Brazil, it was awesome!  So awesome, that I’ll be splitting my post about it in two…so, here it goes.

The MV Explorer sailed up the Amazon River for a few days until we reached Manaus which is where the Amazon forms between the meeting of the Rio Negro (which has black water) and the Solimoes (which has brown water).  This juncture is called the Meeting of the Waters because the two rivers flow together, but don’t mix.  The first thing my group (the one I traveled to Rio de Janeiro with) did was get on boat and motor downriver from our port to the Meeting.  It really is as nifty as people say because the rivers hardly mix (due to temperature, density, and some other factors I’m told).

After this point our guides took us out into the marshes between the two rivers on motor canoes.  We didn’t see anything absolutely amazing nature wise, but it was definitely sobering to see houses floating on and built along the water.  Some were actually nice, but a couple of the houses were leaning a foot to one side and people were still living in them.  I took a few pictures until I realized people were actually home, at which point I got really embarrassed.  I certainly wouldn’t like people taking pictures of my home simply because it showed how poor I was…

So, after that sobering moment, we got to see some cool things in the marshes, several birds, a gigantic colony of ants carrying leaves to a tree, and a caiman (which is related to alligators).  I actually spotted one of the caiman.  From there we returned to the port in Manaus, and since we had finished an hour and a half early (it was still a long outing) we had time to explore Manaus before we had to be ready for our plane flight to Rio de Janeiro.

I definitely wish I’d had more time in Manaus because the parts I saw were really interesting.  Right out of the port there are street vendors everywhere because it’s the heart of downtown.  There were several blocks of stores and street vendors actually, which is super interesting consider how dead the downtowns of some cities are in the United States.  We passed a cathedral in the middle of a park downtown which was having mass when we passed by and a few blocks up we saw the Téatre Amazonas.  This is the opera house in Manaus, which like most of the other really nice European style buildings was built during the rubber boom in the early 1900s.  It seems like your average neoclassical building until you look at the dome on top.  It’s a mosaic that looks like the Brazilian flag and has other bright colors. 

It was at the opera house that I and two other guys from SAS met some high schoolers from Manaus.  They knew some English words, and we were able to gesture the rest.  They taught us a few words in Portuguese, we laughed at how weird both our sets of names were, and everyone exchanged e-mails. Brazilians are extremely friendly (at least the ones I met) and I’m looking forward to a future where Brazil has more influence and contact with the USA.

After exploring Manaus a bit, I got showered and packed for the flight to Rio de Janeiro.  We flew out of our airport at 12:30 AM and because of the time zone changes, we reached Rio at 6:30 AM.  Except for the two and a half hours of sleep I caught on the plane, I didn’t close my eyes until one the next morning.

So, our guide in Rio took us to Copacabana (a few blocks from our hotel), but we didn’t hit the beach.  Instead, we hiked up a steep hill near the end of the beach into a former favela.  It’s now known as the Babilonia/Chapeau Mangeira community.  This was the most inspiring place I was able to visit in Brazil.  There was obviously a lot of poverty; people lived in units, only about a third of the size of my home, built of bricks and other easy to obtain materials.  The catch here though is that, according to my guide (who grew up in Babilonia) this community is heavily involved in improving its lot.

They’ve made deals with the city to gain some electricity and sanitation services, and they’ve built a water storage setup to help with sanitation in the community.  They also host a university from either Switzerland or Sweden that built a green roof over their community center to help keep the building cool and catch rain water.  In that community center they have an after school program staffed by teachers who are paid by the tours they give to groups like SAS.  And, the reason they have so many tour groups visit this favela lies in the half the community’s name – Babilonia.

You see, Babilonia, when it was founded as a favela in the early 1900s, was named after the hanging Gardens of Babylon.  The hillside where they built the community was Atlantic forest (of which only 7% remains on the Brazilian coast), and they’ve preserved a large chunk of it for tours.  There are even monkeys, so, it’s not your typical trail.  After walking through the trail and stopping at an overlook of the city (it was spectacular) we headed down from Babilonia and out to our bus (I’m not really sure it could have driven the road up to the community).

I walked around the city for a couple of hours with some others, and we ate lunch along the way.  I had a cheese and meat pastry of some kind, which was awesome.  And a note to any travelers in Brazil, you need to be on the lookout for Pao de Queijo.  They’re fluffy little cheese rolls that are very difficult to stop eating.  Once we had eaten, my group set out to find a good deal for tickets and travel to the futbol match being played that night.  And that’s where I’m leaving you all for now…

P.S.  Again sorry I haven’t posted more pictures. I fully intended to in Rio, but it cost money to use our hotel’s internet, and I didn’t really have time to log on anyway.