Mauritius - Island Paradise

        AH, this semester is going by so fast and I am having a hard time keeping on top of this whole blog thing. I am most likely not going to get back on track until after Japan, but I am writing as much as I can.

        Anyways, onward to Mauritius. I had never heard of Mauritius before I signed up for Semester at Sea. I had no idea where it was or who lived there. Come to find out, Mauritius is Europe’s Hawaii…and it couldn’t have come at a better time. We were at the point in the semester where all our exams and assignments were due. I was getting really stressed out and needing some time to relax and get away from shiplife. A few days before we arrived, I booked a private studio apartment in Bain Boeuf. I just wanted someplace to go for a night by myself and do nothing pretty much.

        When we got to port, I headed out for awhile to see Port Louis. Our ship was too big to get very close to the actual city, so we had to take a taxi or watertaxi into the city. The watertaxi was actually pretty fun, but took a long time. When I made it in, I went out into the waterfront to get some money. I walked by some restaurants and ran in to Bri, Jon, and Amanda. They were headed up to Grand Baie in a little bit which was where I was headed, so I decided to take the bus with them. I headed back to the ship and grabbed my bags then met them all back at McDonalds. We got our ritual McDonalds stop in and headed to the bus station. We luckily made it to the bus station right before the bus was taking off. There wasn’t enough room so we ended up standing the entire way to Grand Baie. It wasn’t bad, but I was trying to eat my Chicken Mac and fries at the same time. It was only a 30 minute ride.

        When we got to Grand Baie, I had to figure out how to get to my apartment. Hotels.com said that it was located near Pereybere Beach, so I asked this guy if he knew how to get there. He told me I just had to jump on a local bus and it would take me there. A lady on the bus overheard me asking how to get there. She happened to be heading there with her husband on their way back from work. She came and found me when I got off the bus and told me they would take me there. It was so weird to have people I have never seen before in my life be so nice. They drove me to Pereybere Beach and refused to take any type of money. However, I wasn’t done trying to find this place I was staying at. I walked around forever trying to find someone that knew where it was. It was called Cape Garden Residence. No one had even heard of it. I couldn’t tell if they had never heard of it before or if they just couldn’t understand my English since they speak French. I ended up just walking around for about an hour before a taxi driver found me walking on the side of the road. He told me to get in even though he didn’t sound like he knew where this place was.

        It was a correct assumption to say that he didn’t know where it was. In fact he took me all the way back to where I got off the bus. We had gone the complete wrong direction. We finally found someone that spoke English and pointed us in the right direction. We got back to Pereybere Beach and had to find another person to ask. This guy knew English really well and knew that Cape Garden in French is Jardin du Cap. All I have to say is screw Hotels.com for trying to make us happy and translate names into English. Well, after finding that out, I finally made it to my apartment. There was a nice big sign on the front gate that said Jardin du Cap.

        When I got there, I had to check-in with the guard at the gate. Once he cleared me, my taxi was escorted to my parking spot. When we pulled in, a guy opened my door for me, said “Welcome Mr. Nagaki”, and grabbed my bags for me. I was instantly creeped out. I felt as if I had known these people for years since everyone was calling me by my full name already. This guy showed me to my room, explained everything and made sure everything was ok. The apartment was so nice. It had a king sized bed, nice kitchenette, and a nice big bathroom. After I got settled in I went and walked around the property. I found the pool first and decided to go lay out by it. It was a very cool area. I layed out for awhile before I had to go get ready for dinner. I headed back to my room and cleaned up before I met Jon, Bri, Megan, and Travis for dinner. We had initially planned on meeting at my apartment and cooking dinner, but I didn’t have a full kitchen so we scratched that idea.

        We ended up at a restaurant and I had a steak with potatoes and crispy onions. I hadn’t had steak in awhile and it was really good. We hadn’t really eaten all day so we just shoveled food into our mouths. Once we were done eating, I decided to go with them for awhile. We went to Jon and Bri’s hotel to get another room for Meghan and Travis. It was the most disgusting hotel I had ever been in. It had mold all over, broken everything, and cockroaches in the ground. I don’t know how they stayed there.

        After we got them a hotel, we headed to the B52 bar. We sat around and hung out for awhile. This part of the island was supposed to be really popular and busy with all the SAS kids in town. It was actually quite dead so we decided to head to the Intercontinental Hotel. My internet was down at my apartment, so I actually had our taxi driver, Deepak, go to my apartment first and I packed up all my stuff and decided to stay the Intercontinental in an open bed. I felt bad not staying at the place that I had booked, but I planned on getting some work done on the internet and that wasn’t going to happen there.

        When we got to the Intercontinental, it was insane. The whole place was packed with SAS kids and it looked like spring break. I went straight to my friend’s room that had an open bed and didn’t leave. I didn’t want anything to do with what was going on outside, so I just connected my computer and got some stuff done. It was so nice to actually have decent internet for the first time since I left home. After I got some internet time in, I went to bed. I had the option of laying on the beach or going on a catamaran the next day, but didn’t want to decide till the morning.

        Since I had stayed up so late the night before, I decided not to go on the catamaran since it left at 7am. Instead, Gina, Annie, Eloise, and I stayed at the Intercontinental for the day and layed on the beach. It was so nice. There were barely any clouds and it was really hot. The hotel was right on the beach so it was a private beach just for the hotel guests. It was also very clean because it was on hotel property. After we layed out for the afternoon, we grabbed a few drinks at the pool and cooled off. We then dried off and headed back to Port Louis.

        When we got back to Port Louis we dropped our bags off at the ship and headed back to the city to do some last minute shopping. We all had some extra money so we found some souvenirs around the waterfront. We wanted to go to a market, but we didn’t have that much time before we had to be back at the ship. We made it back with plenty of time before on-ship time. However, tons of kids didn’t. On-ship time is 6pm. At 6pm, there was still a huge line of kids waiting to get on the ship. All of them got dock time for India. Since we only stayed in Mauritius for less than two days, everyone was cutting it close getting back to the ship. We all wanted to spend as much time as possible in port.

        While it was only a short stay in Mauritius, it was a great time. I didn’t end up spending as much time as I had wanted by myself, but it was relaxed enough for me. It was nice to get away from schoolwork and the constant bustle on the ship.

        Well, I am off to take my Global Studies exam #2. We will be in Singapore in 2 days. I will try to get my blog about India posted right after we leave from Singapore. I hope everything is going well at home. See ya!

Waka Waka...South Africa!

        Hello again. I have gotten behind on my writing, but I will hopefully have everything through Mauritius up by the time I reach India on Friday. Enjoy!

First of all, South Africa is beautiful. Rolling into the Cape Town Waterfront during sunrise was amazing. Seeing the skyline with Table Mountain in the background…so cool. We were all amazed with South Africa right away. South Africa is very deceiving though. We walked off the ship and it seemed like we landed right in the US or Europe. It was very developed, had a huge mall, and there were tons of nice cars and buildings around. Drive for about 15 minutes and you are in a township. Small, broken down huts all over the place. It was pretty interesting to see the difference.

        Well, the first day in SA, Amanda, Bri, and I decided to hike Table Mountain…along with half the rest of the boat. It was really fun. We didn’t feel like taking a taxi, so we walked from the ship to the top of the mountain. It took us from about 10am to 6pm to get there and back. It was definitely the most strenuous hike I have ever done. We started at sea level, and ended at around 2,700 ft…I believe. The hike up the actual mountain seems just straight up. It was pretty much like climbing stairs the entire time. It took us a good 2 hours to get to the top. We hung out at the top and got lunch before heading back down. There is a really nice restaurant at the top. We contemplated taking the cable car back down because it was getting cold, windy, and late, but we toughened up and hiked down. It was much easier getting down. On the way back to the ship, I took off the bandana I had been wearing. It didn’t cross my mind to actually put sunscreen on my head because I have always had hair. Everyone I was with laughed hysterically at the fact that I now had a perfect red stripe on the top of my forehead. It is now a lovely tan stripe. By the time we finally got back to the ship, we were exhausted.

        We all ate some and debated on whether or not we wanted to do anything else. We had planned to go out for awhile, but we didn’t know if we could anymore. We did end up going out. Everyone told us that Long Street was the place to go at night, so we headed down there. We ended up at a place called the Dubliner. It was a pretty cool place. It was packed with Europeans, but eventually a bunch of SAS kids packed in there later. I only planned to stay for a little bit because I had to be at the bus for my trip the next day at 5:30am. I stayed around and talked for awhile longer, and before I knew it, it was 3:45. We all headed back, but I decided I would just stay up the whole night so I didn’t miss the bus.

        That plan didn’t work out so well for me. I went back to my room to make sure I had everything ready, and I instantly passed out when I sat down on my bed. If it wasn’t for my roommate being on the same trip, I would have missed it. He woke me up at 5:40am…only 10 minutes after I was supposed to be there. There were a bunch of us that were late, so I made it on the bus. We then headed out to the Bloukrans Bridge for the World’s Highest Bungee Jump. Yeah, I didn’t tell my parents about this one beforehand. It was about a 6 hour drive, so I slept the entire way. I got up once to go buy chips and water at a gas station, but other than that I was sound asleep. It worked perfectly. I was completely rested by the time we got there. It was probably a good thing, so I didn’t freak out about the jump all the way there.

        When we arrived at the bridge, everyone was going crazy. We drove over it slowly and just gazed in awe at how far down it was. I couldn’t believe that I was about to jump off of it. We first checked into our rooms. They have a bunch of cabins around the bridge that we stayed at for the night. Once we got that done, we headed over to be weighed and signed up for the jump. They then put on our harnesses. We had about 30 minutes before the jump, so we just stood there and stared at the bridge…all freaking out.

        We finally got called to head to the bridge. We walked through some trees and came out at the side of the bridge. Then you have to go up into the catwalk type thing. It is essentially this walkway that is bolted to the underside of the bridge…with a mesh wire bottom. Yeah, if that isn’t scary enough looking straight down over 700 ft. That seemed like the longest walk of my life. We made it to the middle of the bridge and it became real. We were really going to jump off the bridge. When we got there, they welcomed us and explained it all to us. Then they started blasting music to get us all pumped and excited. We all were ready, and then the electricity went out. Hmm…that didn’t make me feel so safe, but what was I going to do? I was already on the bridge in a harness. When their generator started again, they blasted the music and called off the first name. They said they were going to go by weight, so I figured I would be somewhat close to the beginning. They kept on calling names and calling names and I still wasn’t going. I had been so stoked to jump, but this waiting while everyone else was going was killing me. I finally got called and I didn’t know what to feel. I had no idea how to act. They kind of just grab you and you don’t really have a choice anymore, so I just went with it. They strapped on a cord to my feet, walked me out, told me to wave to the camera, and shoved me off. HOLY CRAP. That’s all I can say. That was the biggest rush of my life. It was a 216m fall. Freefall of about 5 seconds. I was going about 70-80 km/hr as I fell. It was crazy looking and seeing the floor of this gorge come closer and closer. Then all of a sudden it pulls you back up and you see the bottom of the bridge. Then back down again…and up and down for awhile. Then a guy gets lowered down, connects himself to you, and pulls you back up to the top. I think I was more scared during that then the actually fall. All I can really say about it is, WOW. I would definitely do it again though.

        After everyone jumped, we all checked out our videos and pictures (which I will be posting to Facebook as soon as I can) then headed to the Cliffhanger Bar for dinner. They made us delicious pizzas. We all got one to ourselves. After we ate we had a huge dance party for the rest of the night. We got the whole kitchen crew and everyone out dancing with us. We all crashed relatively early compared to other nights…so probably around 2am…so we could be back on the bus at 5am to go shark diving.

        Once we got back on the bus, I fell right back asleep. We had about a 3 hour ride to Gansbaai to shark dive. I woke up to grab some food at a gas station again, but that was it. When we got to Gansbaai, we checked in and had some breakfast. We had to wait a little while for the group before us to get back with the boat. Once they were back, we headed out and got on. It was a small white boat. It only took about 10 minutes to get to the diving spot. When we got there we anchored the boat and we all struggled into our wetsuits. Our leader then gave us the briefing and safety information about the dive. Before he could even finish, a huge great white shark was already circling our boat. We all freaked out and our leader just quit trying to give us information. He instead just told the first group to get in the cage. The sharks weren’t being that cooperative that day so we didn’t want to miss out on a shark being around. We didn’t know at this point that we would get as lucky as we did. We had several sharks circling us the entire time we were out there. It was so insane. The sharks would go for the bait then swim right next to the cage and just stare at us. We were literally less than a foot from these sharks. The only thing that was saving us was some metal wire. I was in the last group to go. We all got to go twice though because the sharks were so good. On the last time, the guy threw out the bait and the shark actually bit on to it. Normally they pull the bait away so they don’t get it. This time the shark got a hold of the entire thing. The guy was pulling the shark back…which was directly at me on the edge of the cage. When the shark got next to the cage it looked over at me and the girl next to me. The shark immediately started attacking the cage right in front of my face. We were flailing around like crazy. The sharks nose and teeth were about 5 inches from my face. That had to have been one of the most frightening things I have ever done. It was so cool though. I have it on video as well.

        If that wasn’t enough of an adrenaline rush those two days, I don’t know what would be. After the shark dive I was pretty worn out. We only had about a 2 hour drive back to Cape Town. When I got back I immediately cleaned up and got ready for dinner. A bunch of us went out to dinner at a restaurant called Belthazar. It was right on the waterfront and it was delicious. I had a salmon filet with potatoes. It was the best cooked salmon I have ever had. After dinner Amanda and I went to Mitchell’s and found some other people to hang out with. We hung out there for awhile then a huge group of us decided to go to a club outside of Cape Town. It was called Tiger Tiger. We all got there and found out that you have to be really dressy in order to get in, so we scratched that idea. We decided to go to a club not too far away instead. I have no idea what it was called haha. Only Amanda, Jourdy, Ed, me, and 2 locals we were with got in. The rest didn’t have their IDs and you had to be 21 to get in. Hmm, I guess they don’t know how to read US drivers’ licenses since I’m definitely not 21. Oh well, we had a great time dancing around for the night.

        The next morning was another early one. We had to be a Café Eco at 830am to meet our guides for our Bikes ‘n Wines tour. I was woken up at about 805am and hadn’t started getting ready. We eventually made it down to the café on time though. Once we all made it we headed out. We had to take a train to the winelands. Once we got there we all got situated with a bike and a helmet. We then headed off to our first vineyard. It was called Spier, one of the most famous in the world. It was a very cool property to walk around. We then got to start tasting some wine. When we heard wine tasting, we took that literally. Apparently in South Africa, wine tasting means you have a glass of each wine. We tried five different wines at Stellenbosch. My favorite was the rosé. After that we knew it was going to be a long day. We luckily got to go to a small game reserve before we went to the next winery. We got to check out some cheetahs and this one dog that is now saving livestock in South Africa from cheetahs. After the game reserve we headed to our second winery. We ate lunch at the second place. It was so good. I had a bacon, avocado, and blue cheese pizza. I definitely recommend it. After we ate, we had round two of “wine tasting”. We had another 5 glasses at this place. My favorite here was definitely the white wine or the rosé again. We did get to try a wine at this place that only had 3,300 bottles ever made. It was a red wine which I’m not a huge fan of, but it was cool to get to try such an exclusive wine. 

        After the second winery, we headed to Van Ryn’s Brandy distillery. Van Ryn’s has been voted #1 in the world several times. That didn’t mean much to me, however, because brandy was disgusting. The only thing I liked there was fresh apricot and peach nectar with brandy in it. We got to try the 10 year and 12 year brandy. Supposedly the 12 year was much better than the 10. I wanted to die trying both. Anything you drink that doesn’t allow you to breathe in at the same time shouldn’t be allowed to drink. I wasn’t aware that you aren’t supposed to breathe in through your nose at the same time and now I think my nostrils are burned. I think brandy is just classy rubbing alcohol. Ok, maybe not that harsh, but I’m not a fan.
        Now that we had 10 glasses of wine and some brandy in us, what else to do than get back on our bikes and trek back to where we started! Haha. No, it really wasn’t bad. We only had to go about a mile or two back. Once we got back, we put away the bikes and headed back to the train. Once we got back to Cape Town we hung out for awhile with our guides then headed back to the ship. We were all pretty exhausted so we called it an early night.

        The last two days in Cape Town were more relaxing. On the second to last day Annie, Ellie, Damien and I headed to the Cape Town Stadium in the morning. We got to take a tour of the whole stadium. It was really cool to see where a lot of the teams played in the World Cup. We got to see all the private club levels along with the jail, locker rooms, and walk on the actual field. When we got done there we stopped for our ritual meal at Mcdonald’s before heading to the Greenmarket Square. We shopped around the market for a few hours before heading back to the ship. I lounged around for several hours and then decided to go out for a late dinner around 8pm. Chris, Bri, Amanda, Jon, and I went out to a restaurant called Primi Piatti. It was delicious as well. I had a salmon pasta along with this really delicious watermelon tea drink. We sat around and had a few drinks for awhile and headed back to the ship around 10pm. The people I was going out with for the night were still flying back from Johannesburg from a safari, so I had a few hours before we went out. I just layed around again and ended up going out around 1230am. We went to Mitchell’s to meet up with other people and headed to a club called Fez. It was a very dressy club. I didn’t meet dress code or the age limit to get in, but I got in anyways. We stayed there until about 430am before heading back.

        The last day I went around with Amanda and Chris to the market again. We walked around the whole waterfront area and down to the market. It took about the entire day. I again didn’t buy much, but it was cool to walk around the whole city one last time. We also did find a hole-in-the-wall market. It just looked like a store front, but when you walked in there was an endless market. It just kept going and going. We were all mad that we found it so late because we had spent all our money already. It was much better than the Greenmarket Square that everyone had talked about. This place had a lot more authentic stuff. Oh well, some place to go to when I go back. Before we got on the ship for the last time, we stopped at Pick ‘n Pay. It is a fairly large grocery store inside the mall that was next to the ship. I stocked up on some snack foods to keep me sane on the way to Mauritius.

        Well I think that about wraps it up for South Africa. It was one heck of a time. I will be writing soon about Mauritius. Till then, see ya.

Shiplife.

        I haven’t written about my time on the ship for awhile now, so I decided to fill you in on my life back on the MV Explorer. It isn’t nearly as fun as when we are in port, obviously, but it really cool living on a ship. I can’t believe it has already been over a month since I moved into my room on here. This semester is just flying by. That is good because I can’t wait to get to all these countries ahead of me, but I also don’t want this semester to be over at the same time.

        A few days before we arrived in Ghana a few of my travel friends from Spain and I signed up for the Special Occasion Dining they offer on the ship. It costs $25 and you get a 5 course meal. It was for Ariana’s birthday. It was the best meal I have had on the ship. It started out with a glass of champagne and trays of small appetizers. I had smoked salmon with fish eggs on a cracker type thing and calamari. Then we ordered our meal. For a real appetizer I had more smoked salmon, crab, and shrimp with a mustard type sauce. Then I had cream of broccoli soup and a Caesar salad. For my main entrée, I had filet mignon with cheesy hash browns and green beans…and for dessert I had chocolate pie and cake for Ariana’s birthday. Needless to say, we were STUFFED. I ate every last bit though because it is the best food we can get on the ship. It was so nice to get away from pasta and potatoes for a night.

        Classes are going fairly well. I have had an exam in both Global Studies and Environmental Psychology so far. Global Studies didn’t go as well as I had planned, but oh well. Global Studies is really the only one of my four classes that I dread going to. If we don’t have a guest speaker, it is soooo boring. It was amazing today, however. Our class was taught by Desmond Tutu because we will be in South Africa tomorrow. It was really cool. He is so funny. Outside of that though, it hasn’t felt like we have gotten into much in any of my classes. When you only have class for a few days then get a mini-vacation, it never seems like you actually have class. I have tests in my other two classes when we get back from South Africa, so I will see how that goes. I lucked out and my classes don’t require me to do much as far as FDPs (Faculty Directed Practicum). I only had to sign up for two. They are both directed by my Cognition teacher. Those two trips will count for three of my classes. I just have to write a different paper for each class from each trip. Shouldn’t be too hard. My Environmental Psychology class requires a semester-long project as well, but it shouldn’t be too bad either.

        The 28th of September was Neptune Day. Neptune Day celebrates the crossing of the Equator into the southern hemisphere. We didn’t have classes for that day, but did have a Global Studies exam that night. At 7am we all got a wakeup call…that was King Neptune and his royal family (our Dean and administrators) banging on pots and pans and our doors. They walked around the ship doing that for about 1.5 hours. Then they announced over our intercom systems that all “Polliwogs” must report to the pool deck. Once we got up there, the royalty paraded onto the deck. Once everyone got on the deck, they made introductions of the royalty and then asked King Neptune (Dean David) for permission for all of us to pass into the southern hemisphere and be deemed “Emerald Shellbacks”. It all was quite hilarious. After that, we all got to decide how we wanted to celebrate Neptune day. You could either get fish guts poured on you and jump into the pool, kiss a fish, or shave your head…or do them all if you please. I toughened up and SHAVED MY HEAD! Yep, for the first time since 4th or 5th grade my hair is short. Probably the shortest it has ever been. I actually like it. It is pretty nice not having to mess with it ever. There were probably a couple hundred on the ship that shaved our heads. Some completely shaved it, some just got it cut off, and some just shaved part of their heads into Mohawks or other designs. There were also many more girls that shaved their heads than guys. Apparently it is that way every semester. Some cut of over 15 inches of their hair. A guy on our ship had hair that was over 2 feet long and had been growing it out since he was in 8th grade. His friends talked him into completely shaving his head at the last minute. It is pretty hard to recognize a lot of people on the ship now though.

        Intramurals are just getting under way. I am playing volleyball and dodgeball. Games will be starting after we get back from South Africa…for volleyball at least. I have no idea when dodgeball starts. Volleyball is only a single elimination tournament because we really don’t have much time left on the ship. We only have 36 more days actually on the ship until we get back to San Diego. Crazy. I am playing volleyball with Gina Hoppe and Ellie Doherty and I am on Ryan Church’s dodgeball team.

        One thing I was told to participate in from past voyagers was the Extended Family Program. The program sets you up with an adult on the ship and other students as a sort of family. My parents are Chris and Lance. They have a 7 month old baby as well, Griffen. He is the youngest person on the ship. My siblings are Inna, Lilly, and Michael. Mandy is my aunt. She was adopted into our family by Chris and Lance, but can’t be an official family member, so we call her our aunt. It is a really cool thing. I didn’t know any of them before this. It is nice to just have another group of people to hang out with every now and then. We have dinners usually after each port to reflect and tell each other what we did. I think we have other things planned as well, but I’m not sure what yet.

        There have already been some people kicked off the ship. It is pretty amazing how stupid some of these kids are. I guess the first person to get kicked off was actually in Halifax. Apparently this guy wasn’t even allowed to board the ship the day of embarkation because he was so drunk. There is also one kid on the ship right now that will be kicked off tomorrow when we get to Cape Town. He was caught with heroine I guess. Don’t quite understand why you would spend the money to do this and be that dumb. Whatever, not my problem. SAS is a bit strict with some stuff though. A kid named Tom hurt himself really bad in Ghana being stupid. He was on top of a storage crate thing and jumped off. He landed wrong and bruised both of his heel bones. He didn’t go to the doctor right away and I guess that is against the rules. He isn’t allowed to get off the ship at all in South Africa because of it. I think that is a bit harsh, since it was his choice to take care of himself or not.

        Well this was short, but I will be writing all about South Africa really soon. See ya.

I Love Ghana. Plain & Simple.

Hello again. Sorry it has been forever since I have written. I have been swarmed with stuff to do since we got back on the ship from Ghana…and you can probably tell by the length of this that it has taken me awhile to compile my thoughts about my time in Ghana.


Well…Ghana. Wow. Where do I even start? It isn’t possible for words to describe what an amazing experience I had. I couldn’t have asked for a better travel group, tour guide, or hospitality in Ghana. All around, Ghana is just amazing. I went with a group of 6 other students on a service trip to the village of Senase. It is a village of about 4,000 residents 7 hours away from Takoradi, our port. We went there to help a school. We went with our tour guide, Fred. We all met him on Facebook several months before we left for SAS. Chris Toone had talked to him and explained what kind of trip he wanted. Fred then set up a custom trip just for us. He had 8 or 9 tours going on when SAS was in Ghana, but we got the pleasure of having him come with us. Fred chose to go with us because Senase is where he grew up, and he went to the school we went to. We also had a group of 8 other SAS students tag along with us doing their own project…the water project.

We started our stay in Ghana as soon as we could. Right when they announced that the ship was clear, my group and the water project took off to meet Fred. It took us awhile to actually get out of the port. In Morocco, they had buses running from the ship to the entrance of the port…they didn’t in Ghana. Once we walked and finally got to the entrance, security wouldn’t let us out because they were under the impression that we were all suppose to be in tour buses that came to the ship. After they figured it out, we made it out and I immediately recognized Fred. He spotted me out as well and gave me a big hug. It was awesome to finally meet him after talking to him for so long on Facebook before SAS. Once we rounded up the whole crew and did introductions, we headed to our van…our very small van. It was a 15 seat van with no storage. We had 17 people with a lot of bags. We also had one kid, Austin, who uses a wheelchair. Let’s just say we all became very close, literally and figuratively. We all got packed into the van and then drove for about 5 minutes to just get out and get money at an ATM since Ghanaian currency is closed. While we were getting money out and getting some water, Fred and our driver managed to get a new van. It was a little bit bigger, but not much. We made due and just laughed about it. It was all just part of the experience.

I was amazingly pretty dang comfortable in our packed van. It was very fun. It was easy to get to know the ones that we didn’t know very well yet. Roads, however, aren’t the best in Ghana. For the most part, they are paved…but paved doesn’t mean much in Ghana. Every other second, we were slamming on the brakes to avoid diving into pot holes. Also, there were many sections of road that would just turn in to dirt for awhile. To explain it the best, all of our butts and some of our heads hurt quite bad by the time we made it to Senase. About 3 hours into our trip, we made our first bathroom stop. Bathrooms in Ghana have a different meaning. When you need to go to the bathroom, you stop the car, get out of the car, and you have found the bathroom. Yeah, the bathroom here was a tree behind the houses we stopped by. Guys can go to the bathroom wherever they want in Ghana. Women have to at least find a semi-secret spot.

Well we got back on our way. About an hour down the road a dog ran out in front of us. We slammed on our brakes so hard to avoid her, the van actually broke down. We all just looked at each other with the “this would happen to us” look stamped on our faces. My whole group was so good with dealing with stuff though. No one complained. We all were roasting hot, sweating, and sore from sitting so long, but we made the best out of it. After we had been sitting around for awhile waiting for the van to be fixed, we noticed a house off of side of the road. We noticed a lot of the people had noticed us and were watching us. We decided to walk over and say hi. Why not? We had nothing better to do. When we got over there, they didn’t know what to do. Some walked back to the house; others just kind of stared at us. After awhile, they opened up to us. We found out that this was actually a residence and a village church. We also found out that the dog we about killed was theirs. Her name was Peace. They were also taking care of many of the children from the church. Kids kept on showing up from all over, and the adults brought one baby after another out of the house. We started taking pictures of their land. Then they soon wanted to get pictures taken of them as well. We spent a good time taking pictures with each other and letting them look at them. They thought it was the coolest thing. Then they walked us around their land. They took us to the river that they bathe in, let us hold their babies, and help make their dinner for the night, Fufu. Towards the end of our unplanned stop there, Chris got out a soccer ball. All the kids started playing soccer together. They were so happy. Chris left the soccer ball with them when we left so they could continue to play. The other Chris, Chris H., thought of a great idea. He had brought a big bag of Dum Dum suckers. He got them out and started giving them out. These kids had never had a sucker in their life. They were so happy.

All in the meantime, our driver and a technician were fixing our van. They finally got it running and we headed out to Senase again. By this point we were going to be pretty late. We were trying to make good time because the whole village was waiting in the town square to welcome us with a cultural dance and ceremony. We hurried and hurried, but we were just too far out to make it on time. By the time we got there is was pretty late. The whole village went home and postponed the event till later. We instead just enjoyed the evening at Fred’s house. We got to meet the whole family. His sister, Ophelia, made us dinner. I don’t remember what it was called, but we had rice with a sauce on top of it. It was made out of fish and a type of leaf. It was really good. We got our first real Ghanaian meal experience. They don’t use silverware in Ghana. We ate every meal with our hands. It was so fun. We were all a mess by the time we got done, but it was worth it.

After we ate our dinner, we headed out with the whole group to go to our houses. A few girls stayed in Fred’s house, and the rest of us were split up among a bunch of other families. I didn’t really get to meet the family I stayed with because of the way the house was set up. It was more like apartments…but just one room. The building was a U-shape and you entered into each room from outside. They opened the room for us, but that was about the extent of us meeting them. I stayed with Sam, Chris T, and Chris H. Another new experience for most of us here was the chance to live without plumbing or running water. We had a little hole in the ground outside of the house for a bathroom, and a bucket of water in the street for a bath. We essentially felt like we were just camping since our room consisted of a cement floor with some pads on the ground. After we got settled in, we were going to go walk around the village, but we all decided to just head to bed because we had to be up early to get our projects going.

Before our alarm could even get close to going off, we all woke up on our own. It is pretty tough trying to sleep past 6am in Senase. We didn’t really have windows. They were more like screens so every single noise came in. Senase is a farming village so people are up and about early in the morning. When I woke up there were really loud roosters, people yelling, loud Ghanaian music…pretty much everything you can think of. We tried to go back to sleep for awhile, but that didn’t work too well. We finally got up and ready to be in the square by 8am. We walked around and found our group to head to the square with since we had never been there before.

When we got to the square, there were people all over. They all came flocking to take pictures and just stare at us. We were instant celebrities. All the school children came to see what was going on. After awhile we had women coming up with tray after tray of homemade donuts for us…along with porridge. The donuts were delicious. Everyone had several of them. This was the first time I had tried porridge though, it was interesting. It was very tangy and had a ginger taste to it. By the time we were done eating, the square was full of people that had come to see us. Kids were all over the place grabbing on to us…wanting us to take pictures of and with them. We spent probably 30 more minutes taking pictures of the kids. They loved to do a funny pose then we would show them the picture and they would all laugh hysterically. It never got old for them. For most of them, they have never seen a camera in their lives. Also, we were being treating like such celebrities because this village only sees white…or non-black people once every 5 years or so. That is why this was such a huge deal to them.

We finally managed to break away from the crowds of kids swarming up. We had to head to the main building in the town to meet with the Chief, Queen Mother, and the elders of Senase. Each village in Ghana has royalty in a sense, and then each region in Ghana has a King. It was awesome that they wanted to meet with us. It was a big process going to meet them. The purpose of the meeting was to propose to them what our reason was for being in the village. After they hear what we want to do, they decide whether or not they accept our stay in the village. They of course accepted our stay and were extremely honored that we chose Senase. It is also a tradition that the Queen Mother only speaks through the elders to the guests. The Queen Mother almost never speaks directly to the guests. When we were sitting there she spoke up and said she wanted to speak directly to us. That was a huge honor to us. All of the elders were so excited that we had come that they said that we did not ever have to leave, and if we wanted to come back, they have a place for us to live.

Once we were done meeting with the elders, our two groups split off. The water project headed out to get building while my group got in a truck and headed out to a farm. By truck, however, I don’t mean a nice Ford F-150. This was a large open-bed truck with rows of wooden benches to sit on. These are the transportation for the people who have enough money to get rides out to the farms for the day. We all hopped in and took off. It had been sprinkling all morning, but we hadn’t expected it to do much else. About 10 minutes into the drive, a torrential downpour hit us. We were going about 40mph and were being pelted with rain. It was the most fun ride I have ever been on. I couldn’t even open my eyes because the rain hurt so bad. We were all just yelling and laughing the whole time. Because it was raining so bad, we decided not go to the farm and just stop at the school instead. I wanted to go to the farm to experience that, but it would have been a mess in that rain.

It was quite a culture shock when we arrived at the school. It was exactly what you would see on TV about a school in Africa. They always try to pick the worst thing possible to show the public to make them feel bad. This was that school. It was located in the middle of nowhere. There were 5 classrooms with 2 more under construction. The kindergarten building was off by itself, and the others were a little ways away. The structures were essentially made out of a few sticks pounded into the ground, bamboo for a roof, with a few sheets of tin on the top to drain water. The floors were dirt and there were parts of the roof that leaked very bad, so since it was raining, the floor turned to mud. They didn’t have enough desks so the kids had to cram into them. Most of them were broken also. There was no storage of any kind for books, supplies, bags, etc. There was one chalkboard per classroom. Every board was broken and looked like it was going to fall down at any time.

This school had our equivalent of K-5 grades. These kids see white people even less than the ones that live in the actual village. The combination of that and the fact that we were completely drenched left them with the “who the heck are these people” look on their faces. After we did a bit of an introduction, we split up into pairs and went to a classroom. We brought a ton of supplies to donate to the school, so we grabbed what we wanted and headed to the room we chose. We all took coloring books and crayons. These kids had never colored before in their lives. That was just crazy for me to think about. It was so fun coloring with the kids. Some were unbelievably artistic for not having access to these things. After they were done, they got to hold their picture up and get their picture taken with it.

What struck me the most at this school was the fact that there were hardly any smiles on the kids. In Senase, kids were smiling all the time. They were just all really happy. These kids at this school weren’t the same way. Fred told us they feel like there isn’t much for them. They feel like there isn’t much for them to be happy about. It was amazing to see them gradually start to smile throughout the day. Some did right away. Some other kids took the entire day to get one smile out of them. Those smiles alone were enough to satisfy me for the time being.

After being there for a few hours playing with the kids, we got a lunch break. We were fed Red Red. It consists of fried plantains with a sort of chili sauce on them. The sauce had fish, beans, peppers, and other stuff. It was good. I am not a huge fan of fried plantains, but it tasted really good with the sauce. Lunch was a good time for us to kind of get away and reflect on what we had seen already. This was definitely necessary for our group. We had all seen so much that it was hard to process.

When we were done with lunch, we wrapped everything up with the kids. They assembled all of them together outside the school and had the leader and the teachers come to the front. As part of the One World Futbol Project, we presented the school with a ball as a sort of thank you and a way to unify us with them. We got a different reaction to the ball than I was expecting. In the actual village of Senase, the kids freaked out if they saw a ball, but here they didn’t have too much of a reaction. You could tell that some were excited, but others weren’t as much. Once we took pictures and turned the ball loose, not many went out to play. They all just kind of stood there. That was really when it hit me about their situation. These kids didn’t know what it meant to have opportunity.

After we played soccer for awhile, it was time for the kids to go home. Fred told us that some of these kids walk 2-3 HOURS each way to go to school. We got the opportunity to walk with them on their way home. It was a really cool opportunity to get to see what they have to do just to go to school. We walked until we got to the first turn off someone made. We had been walking for over an hour when the first kid turned off. It was only him. They entire group we had been walking with still went on. We didn’t want to take that much time out of our day, so we stopped and went with this boy. He led us to his home and showed us around. He lived quite a ways off the road. When we got there someone mentioned they wanted an orange. He quickly changed from his school uniform and took us to their orange trees. He climbed all the way up to get us oranges. This wasn’t any sort of short tree. He climbed up probably 30-40 ft to get the closest oranges.

When we were done at the boy’s house, we headed back to Senase. Instead of walking back, we got a ride back on the same trucks that we took to the school. It took us forever to get back because they stop to pick up anyone as long as we have room. Our truck was packed by the time we finally got back. We had some comical encounters on the way in. They are kind of only comical if you were there, but they included a woman changing clothes on the full truck, and a incident of a woman meeting a bar with her head…you can probably imagine what happened. When we got back into the village, we got swarmed again. Kids were getting out of school and came right back to the square to see us again. We took a few more pictures, but got out of there fairly quick so we could go wash up and rest in our rooms. Some of the kids followed us all the way back to Fred’s house. When we got back to Fred’s we found out that the water project was missing some things they needed to finish. They were very far behind, so Fred went with them to get the things they needed and went to help them get everything done. All of us in my group headed back to our rooms.

We made it back and just laid down. After awhile our door creaked open. Some little kids started peaking in. This little boy came to the door and just stood there and stared at us. We told him to come in. He came in and stood by our feet and still just stared at us. Chris H. and I decided to try and teach him how to give a high-five. Chris and I would do it then try to get him to do it. He was not catching on at all. Chris eventually gave up. Right when he walked away I held my hand up and the little boy gave me a high-five. I cheered and after that he gave them constantly. Anytime you would hold up your hand he would give you one. He was the cutest kid ever. After we taught him that we decided to go outside. Chris T. had brought an extra soccer ball and decided to bring it out. What we didn’t know was that it was going to cause the village-wide rampage of kids.

Once the word got out that a few of us were outside, all the kids in the area came over. There were literally over 100 kids that swarmed us. It was Samantha, Chris T & H, and I. I had brought a bunch of candy to give out. This was a great idea when the first swarm of kids hit us. I had enough to give to all of them. Then the rest came out. I didn’t have enough to give them all so I told them I was out. The rest of the time that’s all they would ask about. They all wanted more and more candy. One boy tried to drag me back to my room to give him more candy the whole time. Sam and I probably had the least draining experience of us 4. Sam occupied a lot of them by teaching them songs and dances. They loved it. For the two Chris’ however…it was a different story. The kids loved to hang all over the two of them. They were human jungle gyms. Chris T. at one point was a human tug-of-war game. The kids were trying to drag him somewhere while Chris H., Sam, and a few others were trying to drag him away from the kids. At a point, Chris T. wasn’t touching the ground. Things started getting crazy. Kids were trying to beat each other up because they were all fighting over who got our attention. While all this was happening, I had it fairly peaceful. The kids for some reason just liked holding my hands. I had a little girl, probably about 10-12 years old, come up and grab my hand. She walked around with me the entire time. She knew perfect English. It was amazing. She would tell me what other kids were saying or yelling at me. She wouldn’t let go of my hand. If someone else tried to take it she would hit and yell at them. My other hand was taken by a few kids that would fight for it. It was quite entertaining. Chris T. also got the punishment for us teaching them how to high-five and give a pound. All the kids wanted to give high-fives, and at a certain point Chris was on the ground in the fetal position with his hand over his head. All the kids at once were trying to give him a high-five. They were essentially just hitting him repeatedly. After we had enough, we told one of the parents that we had to go and she started yelling at them all to go away. We took off as fast as we could to our room. They ALL followed us back and tried to not let us in our room. We finally made it in, but they wouldn’t go away. They banged on our windows and door. They were yelling at us and a few busted down our door. It was insane. We all just layed down and tried to see if they would go away. We stayed in there for probably 1.5 hours, and by the time we left there were still some kids there waiting for us.

It was about 2 hours past when Fred said he would come get us for dinner at this point, so we figured something was wrong. We decided to try and find our way back to his house. It was dark already so that made it a bit more difficult. We actually made it back on our first try. When we got there, the whole water project was still not back. They were about 4 hours late by now. Ophelia had made us dinner again. This time it was Fufu…a very traditional meal for Ghana. It is also traditional in Ghana that you wait for everyone to eat, so we waited for the water project to get back. It took them about another 1.5 hours to get back. The whole village had gotten together again to do their welcoming ceremony and allow us to present the project we had done, but we were too late again so they went home. We had to wait till the morning to finally do it. Instead we all ate together. By this point, we all loved eating together Ghana-style. All of us just dug into the dish. We didn’t even want our own plates anymore. Fufu was very good. It is a mixture of cassava and plantains. That is turned into dough then a sauce is put on top of it. It is a spicier sauce. On the top of it all they put bush meat. Bush meat is whatever they kill in the bushes that day. Luckily it was deer today haha. Ophelia also brought out what we ate the first night and the same thing with a tomato sauce on it for the vegetarians. We tried the vegetarian one and everyone loved it. She had to bring more out because it was gone in a few minutes.

After dinner my whole group and one of the kids on the water project, Austin, headed into the town outside of Senase. It is the closest place to Senase that has any type of commercial activity. We went to a local bar for a little bit just to relax. We didn’t stay very long though. We were all pretty tried and we knew we had to be back up fairly early to go to our ceremony. Also, Fred was not doing very well. He couldn’t even sit because he was in so much pain. We all knew Fred was sick before we got to Ghana. We weren’t sure if he was going to be able to come with us. When we got there he told us that he had Malaria. He wasn’t going to let anything not let him come with us though. We all hurried up and got back to Senase as soon as we could so Fred could get some medications and get some sleep.

On our last morning we were supposed to be in the center square around 8am. We ended up going to Fred’s around 8 instead. Ophelia had made us homemade oatmeal with milk and sugar. It was delicious. She also made us homemade bread. We all ate one last time together before we had to go. We took pictures with the family and exchanged some last goodbyes. We all piled into the van and headed to the square for our ceremony. We got there and the Chief, Queen Mother, Elders, and a bunch of others were waiting for us. Right when we stepped out of the van a group of boys began playing the drums. It was a pretty cool entrance. We all went down the line and shook the hands of the Elders. Then they got up and shook our hands as an official way of saying welcome. They welcomed us all then they brought out the dancers. A group of dancers had been waiting 3 days to perform for us. They finally got to. It was awesome. They put on a cultural dance and showed us the different dances from all the regions in Ghana. It is a sign of respect that whoever is being performed for gets up and dances after the dancers are done. We all had to get up and perform “what we saw” in front of the crowd. By this time the square was completely packed with people. It was so much fun dancing. We just acted like idiots and the whole village was cracking up at us. When we were done, we started the process of presenting to the Chief and the Queen Mother what we had done in the village. Since there wasn’t anything to show them from the schools, we just told them what we had done. Then the water project got their turn to hand over the purification system. They also brought a bucket of purified water for them to try. It was really cool to get to show them what we had all done. After that they all came by us again and shook our hands. They told us how happy they were and how proud they were that we chose Senase to help.

We then packed up the van for the last time and said our goodbyes to Senase. Our van was surrounded by little kids. They were reaching in the windows saying goodbye to us. It was very hard to leave the village…especially Fred’s family. About 10 minutes outside Senase, we stopped at another school that Fred knew. We had another soccer ball to give out for the project, and Fred wanted us to see the differences between the two schools. We only had a few minutes, so we just walked around for a bit, exchanged information, and presented them with a ball. The sight of the ball made the school go nuts. They all ran out of class and sprinted to the field. It started a school-wide game. You could immediately tell the difference between the two schools. These kids here were so happy. They were part of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. They had three different buildings at this school. Two were fairly old and not all that much better than the first school we went to. They did have cement floors, nice desks, nice chalkboards, and adequate drainage for water though. Their third building, however, was extremely nice. It was a U-shaped building with 5 very nice sized classrooms. It also had offices and storage rooms. They had a gutter system on the roof that collected rain water for them to use. It was a million times better than the first school we got to see. The kids and teachers didn’t want us to leave, but we made it a short stay.

We headed back out and hoped for a better ride home than it was on the way there. Actually, the way our breakdown turned out, we may have wanted it to breakdown again. We had originally planned to go back the way we had come and stop in Kumasi for lunch. Before we got to Kumasi, we had decided to take a different route back to Takoradi and go through the goldmine areas as well as Cape Coast where the slave castles are. It didn’t end up being all that much better because it started raining again so we didn’t get to see much. We didn’t have time to go into the castles, so the only way to see them was to walk around. No one wanted to do that in the rain since we still had to sit in the car for awhile longer. We just continued to Takoradi. About 30 minutes out of Takoradi, Jules, Sam, Chris T, Kat, and I got a bit delirious. We started a singing party in the back 2 rows. All of them in front of us were having serious conversations, but we couldn’t handle it anymore. We just started singing whatever came into our heads. The rest of them having the serious conversations didn’t even get fazed by it. Those conversations must have been pretty intense.

After a long (but not as long as the ride there) day in the packed…and very smelly…van we finally made it back to Takoradi. We made it back around 730pm. Chris T. had bought Fred a Semester at Sea t-shirt as a gift. We thought it would be a good idea for him to put it on and take pictures with us in front of our ship. There were a lot of other SAS kids that wanted to do a tour with him but were concerned that he wasn’t a real tour guide. We thought that having a picture to prove that past SAS kids have gone with him would be a good idea. At this point, it was time for most of us to say goodbye to Fred. It was really hard for us all. Everyone had become such good friends with him even though we weren’t there for very long. I had planned to go to lunch with him the last day, so I didn’t have to say goodbye for good.

I hadn’t eaten the entire way back from Senase so I was starving. I made it up to our pool bar and had a pepperoni and mushroom pizza…yum. I also got to go shower for the first time since the ship arrived in Ghana. Haha. Yeah, our hygiene wasn’t the greatest on our trip in Ghana. All of us didn’t take one shower, change many of our clothes, or brush our teeth much. Yeah, sounds gross, but not much you can do when there isn’t running water. It was actually fun living with none of the amenities that we take for granted. Once I got cleaned up I decided to go out for then night with a bunch of people that I hadn’t seen since we got to Ghana. We all went to a club called Paragon.

Paragon was interesting. It was the first club I had been to since Privilege in Ibiza, Spain. Not quite the same feeling. There were about 20 people on the dance floor when we got there. I kind of just walked around looking for something to do because it was so lame. They also are OBSESSED with the song Waka Waka by Shakira (World Cup Theme Song). In the first hour I think we counted it being played 5 times. The song has to be about 4 minutes long. That’s at least 1/3 of the hour that we were listening to that song. Oh well, at least I like that song. The club did eventually fill up…with SAS kids later in the night. Well, not much else exciting happened at Paragon, so I’m going to move on because I have already written a novel on Ghana.

On our last day, Jon, Bri, Amanda, Heidi, Travis, a few others, and I went to the market for the morning. Takoradi isn’t a tourist spot, so their markets are a lot different. For the most part they are for food. I didn’t get anything and headed back to the ship to get changed to go to lunch with Fred. Heidi and I got changed and headed out of port to meet up with the group. There we got to meet another one of Fred’s sisters, Olivia. She was so nice. She and one of the other tour guides in Fred’s company joined us for lunch. We went to The Planter’s Lodge. It is a nice resort/hotel not far from the port. We went there because the water project people were meeting with a NGO about what they had done and to help set up new projects for future SAS students. Heidi and I just tagged along because we wanted to see Fred one last time. They food was great. I had a club sandwich. I successfully made it the entire time in Ghana without using silverware.

Once we were done eating, Heidi and I didn’t stay much longer. We weren’t there for the meeting and Fred needed to go because he was really getting sick. He looked absolutely miserable and just needed to get some sleep. We snuck out and headed back to the port. It was time to actually say our goodbyes now. I tried to not make it so hard to say bye by turning the goodbye’s into see you next time’s. That still didn’t make it easy. I didn’t want to leave at all. I have fallen in love with Ghana and the people of Ghana. I felt it was easier for me to leave, however, because I have already made up my mind that I am going back. Chris T., Jules, and I have plans that I will write about later. I hope it will be very soon, but I can’t wait to get back there to Senase.

Well, now that I have written a novel about Ghana, I am finally going to wrap it up. I arrive in South Africa in 2 days. I can’t wait. I have a ton planned already and I can’t wait to tell you all about it.