Cape Town, South Africa

Family and Friends,
Wow. That is pretty much my experience in Cape Town summed up in one word. It seemed like everyday at some point I would see or experience something unbelievable and I would have to take a step back and say “wow” to myself. In the interest of space, time and the continuum that binds them (a little idea I thought up with my colleague Mr. Hawking) I will just give a description of my best moment from each of my six days in South Africa.
The morning we arrived in Cape Town I left the ship immediately with a group of 15 other students to go and volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. We went by bus to one of the townships, which is a sprawl of shacks and tiny houses on the outskirts of Cape Town where the poorest people live. Mfuleni, the township I visited was part of Cape Flats, the largest township in South Africa that houses more than 500,000 people. Most of the homes were built of scrap medal and pieces of lumber. The roofs were either made of tin scraps or garbage bags to keep out the rain, and in most cases families have to put rocks on the edges of the roof so that it doesn’t blow off in the strong winds. There is no grass, only sand and dirt and there were cows and stray dogs walking around. The woman we were building the house for was Ethel. I am continuing to try and add pictures to the blog so you all can see her and her granddaughter Caroline. Ethel had been living in the shack next door to her new house for 15 years and she was very appreciative of the work that we were doing. The foundation for the home was already set up when we got their so we essentially spent the day building the walls, inserting door and window frames, and mixing “daga” which is an inexpensive recipe for the mortar between the bricks. We had a lunch break in the middle of the day and we got to play with some of the neighborhood kids, which was great. Even though we didn’t speak the same language (most of them speak Khosa) we had a great time interacting and playing games. We got everything we needed to done before our time was up so we went on a short drive around the community. The one thing I will always remember is the extreme gratitude that all of them showed to me and the other workers for taking even just one day out of ours lives to come and help their community. It was one of the most fulfilling things I have ever done in my life.
The second day I left for my safari in Kwazulu Natal at 4:45 AM. It was a long journey to get there but it was well worth it. That afternoon I went on a short game drive around the property and saw some great wildlife. The most special moment of the day was seeing the beautiful sunset over the African countryside. The area was much more lush and green than I had ever imagined and the sunset was fabulous. I stayed in a tree lodge, essentially a hut on stilts, and I loved it because it was very serene and quiet.
The next day was my full day safari. The Kwazulu Natal game reserve was huge and we drive around all day and didn’t see the same place twice. The entire day was just spectacular. I saw zebras, giraffes, warthogs, impalas, kudus, baboons, water buffaloes, elephants, rhinos, and a black mamba. The only animal I really wanted to see that I didn’t was a lion. I suppose it was just Murphy’s Law because every time another safari vehicle would see a lion we would race over to find it but by the time we did it was gone. I have plenty of great pictures from the day of both the scenery and the animals. It was a surreal experience to see some of those animals in the wild, at one point a rhino even charged our car because he thought we were getting too close. It was definitely a day I will never forget.
After returning to Cape Town on the fourth day I went out to dinner with my friends Mark, Justin, Sydney, Meg, Mary, Sarah, Eliza and Connor. It was Connor’s birthday so we went to a classy African restaurant. I decided to check my picky eating at the door and order the Serengeti Platter. The platter consisted of chicken, warthog, ostrich, and crocodile (with a side of fries of course). I must say the ostrich meat impressed me, it was very tender and tasted more like beef than a bird. The crocodile had an interesting texture and taste, as both came off as a perfect mixture of chicken and fish. The warthog wasn’t anything to write home about, but here I am doing it anyways. There was a traditional African band playing all night and at one point everyone in the restaurant was on the dance floor. The lead singer spoke Khosa, so she sang happy birthday to Connor in her native language.
The next morning I visited Khayelitsha, another section of the Cape Flats Township. The experience was great once again and I am just amazed at how friendly everyone is throughout the community. It seems like everyone knows everybody else and has no problem sharing their homes and their lives with their neighbors. We played a lot with the kids and I brought a lot of toys and gifts which all of them loved. They get so excited when people come and visit their community because it doesn’t happen all that often. I had an amazing conversation with a 15 year-old boy named Che. He was learning how to speak English and I was helping him practice, he was very interested in the ship and how I got to go all around the world. When I told him that I had been to a different state in his country he started bombarding me with questions about which place was better and why and what did the other part of South Africa look like. It took a little time for me to realize it, but he was so excited because he has never left the Cape Town area and hadn’t met many people that had. It was definitely a gut check to realize that I had seen more of his country in 5 days than he had in 15 years. It once again made me appreciate the amazing opportunities that I have as a student in the U.S.
On my final morning in Cape Town I climbed Table Mountain, which is directly behind the city skyline. I met two fellow students at the trailhead and we hiked up an area called Platteklip Gorge. Even thought it said it was the easiest was up it took me a little over two hours to get to the top, and the hike was just a giant natural staircase. We had the most beautiful weather and the views from the top of the city and the Cape of Good Hope were fabulous. After walking around the top for a bit I decided to take the cable car down but before I made it over to the ticket office I noticed two people on a ledge about ten feet from where all the tourists were standing on the top. I realized after awhile that they were planning on base-jumping off of the mountain. I watched the first one jump off but I missed her by just a second with my camera. Then about a minute later the man jumped off and I got an incredible picture of him mid-flight jumping off the side of the mountain. Someday down the road when I am and old, fat, wildly successful professional photographer the press will say that this was the shot that started it all.
Well I hope everyone enjoyed reading about my African adventures. It was my favorite place so far and I would love to go back again someday if I get the chance, maybe for the World Cup in 2010. I will keeping trying to get my photos on the blog, but in the meantime I will be posting them on Facebook so anyone can check them out. I miss everyone at home and hopefully I will talk to all of you soon.

Conor

Salvador, Brazil

Oi! Tudo Bem? That’s “hi how are you”, one of the few phrases I used extensively during my five amazing days in Brazil. We pulled into port at about 8 A.M. on Tuesday and I was constantly doing things until last night when I got back on the ship at around 7 P.M. My first day was the most special, right when I got off the ship with my roommate George, his girlfriend Dani, and another friend Greg, we met George’s mom and took off for the coast. The initial drive was pretty shocking; the hills of Salvador and the surrounding areas are covered in tiny houses stacked upon each other that look like the worst of the slums you would see in America. It turns out that more than half of the people in the state of Bahia, where Salvador is located, live in houses like these and the average salary for a year is about 6000 dollars. When we got to the house on the coast, it was the polar opposite. It was in a private gated neighborhood and I am sure that the house cost at least a million dollars. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. It was interesting to see both the rich and the poor neighborhoods in Brazil because there is no middle class so that’s all there is. Rubia, the owner of the house was unbelievably welcoming and made us all feel right at home. The whole time I was in Brazil the sun was shining and it was at least 85 degrees with at least 70% humidity. After some time on the beach and in the pool, the house chef, who is originally from Bahia, made us an incredible meal that included rice, beans, sausage, lamb, churruasca (steak), and chicken hearts. Needless to say it was quite a meal, and even though I wouldn’t usually try it, I figured I wouldn’t be back for a while and decided to have a few chicken hearts, and if you are curious to know they are very chewy. For dessert we had homemade ice cream topped with coconut shavings. After dinner we had a quick nap and started preparing for the night ahead of us, and what a night it was. The four of us bought tickets to see the famous English DJ Fatboy Slim play that night for the last night of Carnival.
In Carnival, the artists play on top of a giant bus covered in speakers called a blocco. The blocco moves down the avenue where people sit up above and look down on the concerts and people as they pass. During the concert, the blocco is surrounded by a group of people holding a rope, and the only way to get inside the rope is to buy a t-shirt, which serves as your ticket to the show. Before the blocco started moving, we walked around the local neighborhood and almost got into a fight with some street children over a cigarette. In Brazil, there are children who will constantly come up to you and ask for money, food and cigarettes. I saw a few children who couldn’t have been more than 6 years old smoking cigarettes on the streets. The show itself was one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced. There were literally thousands of people in the streets dancing and partying and moving along with the bus. The scent of Carnival is unforgettable, the lack of bathrooms creates a strong scent of urine, and the streets are soaked in beer and covered with the debris of the previous days’ parties. The dancing during the concert, when you could move enough to dance, isn’t so much dancing as it is jumping and shimmying your way through the crowd. The locals call the dancing pipoca, the Portuguese word for popcorn, because from up above that it what it resembles. By the end of the night, two of my friends had lost their cameras to pickpockets, we had made it through more than a few scuffles, and I was covered head to toe in beer and sweat, but I was so happy to have experienced the greatest of Brazilian traditions on the ground with thousands of locals.
The next day seven friends and I traveled to Itiparica, a small island off the coast of Salvador. It was a great place to go because we never saw anyone else that we knew and no one there spoke any English. After a long ferry and cab ride, we made it to a nice little hostel and went to dinner at a local restaurant. They were doing a miniature version of Carnival that night which we watched for a while and then we went to an actual carnival with rides for the local children. The following morning we went to the beach and then took the ferry back to the city. That night I got to experience going to a Brazilian soccer game. The game was between Poques and the local team, Bahia. Bahia’s official stadium has started to crumble so they are now playing in a much smaller one, but the crowd was still crazy and they chanted and sang the entire game. Bahia won the game 2-0, and needless to say everyone was extremely happy with the result.
The next morning I visited a Candomble House in Salvador on a guided tour through Semester at Sea. Candomble is a religion that was brought from Africa through the slave trade and has a lot of similarities to Voodoo. Our tour guide was a member of the religion and he told us a lot about his experience of being initiated and having to spend three months in the jungle. He also talked about being possessed by his Orixa, which is a specific God that chooses you when you join the faith and speaks through you while you are possessed. This was an experience that was definitely unique to Brazil so I am glad that I did it.
The rest of my time in port I spent walking around the city visiting markets and haggling with the shopkeepers about prices for souvenirs. With my red hair I stood out like a sore thumb to the point that people would talk to me just because I had red hair, and I know that a lot of the people tried to give me the gringo rate. It was an amazing trip overall and when I get back I will have to tell everybody all the little stories and let everybody know that you should experience Carnival at least once before you die. I am so grateful that I had the chance to be there and I hope to go back to visit George and his mom in Sao Paulo sometime down the road. I am now on an eight-day journey across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Town, South Africa and I will post another entry after my time there. Hopefully all is well at home and wish me luck in the rough waters of the Atlantic. Ciao.

Conor