Greeting earthlings,
Last we spoke I was rushing through the happenings of Cochin, India in a last minute effort to complete my India blogs before arriving in Africa. Well, as usual, I succeeded. Thanks to hard work and determination I conquered that task and captured all of my memories into one brief blog. Damn it feels good to be a gangsta.
Since then I got back on the ship and sailed down approximately 40 degrees of latitude to a small island named Mauritius.
What’s that? You are wondering what else I did in between? Well funny you should ask, because I was just thinking to myself “Yo Jordan, you are awesome” and then I was thinking “you should probably write more about life on the ship.”
We got back onboard on March 16th around 6pm. I passed out that night by 9, that’s how tired countries make me. The next day I had my Sacred Places midterm. Being that I myself am pretty sacred, I think I nailed it. The next day I had a bye (only one class) but on the 19th, a Friday, I had a paper due for my History of the Modern World class. It was on a book called Godaan (the Gift of a Cow). Decent book, tough prompt, results pending. Froday night we started planning the seders and had a good shabbos. Then, low and behold, came the twentieth. The 20th is a sacred day because it is the day that the MV explorer passed the equator (Nope, that is not true, we passed it on the 19th, but because of a conflict in scheduling it was easier to celebrate the accomplishment a day later). The day is called Neptune day. On this holy day the crew wakes us up at 7am by banging pots and pans in the hallways. We proceed to the top deck pool area for a nice ceremony in which Mark White (the Academic Dean), Loren Crabtree (the executive dean), and Cindy (Dean of students), get dressed up in some interesting garb and recite some words that I didn’t really listen to. After they were through some people shaved their heads (not I, my lovely Jew fro is flowing like Craig David). Others, obviously me, got fish guts poured on them, jumped in the pool to clean it off, and then kissed a fish to replace the hair cut. I didn’t get good pictures so I did it a second time too. Let’s just say I may have scarred that fish with my second kiss (it’s lucky that it didn’t have to be alive to experience it). The rest of the day was full of relaxation and studying. Sunday the 21st came and I had my final Mid-Term, this one in the core course, Global Studies. It was tough but fine. On Monday I chilled, went to class, and did some final preparations for that lovely country. Mauritius.
8am the beeping of my alarm sounded. I rubbed by eyes, stretched my arms, and smelled the great smells of Africa. Weirdly it smelt exactly like my room, hmm idk. After eating some breakfast and hearing some diplomat, we got off the ship by 9 and headed to Grand Bay. In the cab ride over, there was mucho drama. First the company that we had rented a catamaran from said their boat was broken and the replacement could fit only 11 not 12, then they said the coast guard wasn’t letting boats out, then I was just in pain because I cut my foot open (as usual) while walking to the cab. Luckily, by the time we made it to our Villa everything worked itself out.
The weather cleared up and they agreed to take us out on their more expensive boat for a sunset cruise. Since it was only like 11 we had some time to play on the beach. We got some Pizza for lunch (score!) and relaxed. We played catch, went on a banana boat, turned a boat into our personal diving board, may or may not have skinny dipped (the world will never know). Sooner than we expected it was already 5 and we were ready for our catamaran. We went out for a couple of hours, had some good dinner, drank a few beers, and saw the gorgeous sunset over a mountain that I swear was Pride Rock (I will bet a lot of money that pride rock was inspired by this mountain). At one point we, again jumped into the water and the temp at this point was absolutely perfect. As the cruise concluded we went back to our Villa and passed out. BUT not before we went into town and got Pizza again.
The next morning we woke up by 8 (Tahlor woke me up at 6 because he couldn’t sleep and was bored) and we headed back to the beach. Mauritius has a lot of French influence (in addition to Indian) so we had good Crepes for breakfast (obviously, sup G, they were too cultured for me so I just had waffles and cereal). We laid out on the beach for another hour or so and then headed back to Port Louis.
The city of Port Louis was awesome. It reminded me a lot of the Baltimore Inner Harbor (less seagulls, more awesomeness). We got lunch there and walked around the mall area but at 3 Tahlor and Pierce had dock time (had to be on ship early b/c they got in trouble for being late) and so I was alone.
Being alone I decided to walk into some dark alley. I got beaten up, no big deal. Is what I would have said if it were true, but it’s not so I won’t. I actually decided to hop on an SAS trip to the SOS Children’s Village of Beau Basin. SOS (save our souls) has set up over 400 Children’s villages around the world. This one is for children who have been taken from their parents by the gov.t because of abuse. We heard some of their terrible stories, but were asked not to pry them for more. The village is amazing; 100 kids live there in houses of 8 with one adoptive mother. We played ball with them; they taught me their version of volleyball, I taught them a game called TAPs. At one point they took may camera and snapped some awesome pictures. They were so fun and so beautiful, it was great to get to smile with them and see what its like when you give a child a chance to thrive. I loved it.
We got to stay there till 6:30 (onship time was 6 but b/c of an accident it took us an hour to get there, so they let us stay out late) and when we got back on we had breakfast for dinner (wow!). Since then I’ve been sleeping, watching movies, and going to class. Now that you know all about my life, tell me about yours. Jdsoffer@semesteratsea.net EMAIL ME!!!!
Until next time, stay classy San Diego.
No comments:
Post a Comment