It's just like riding a bike...

Cape Town, South Africa

I was asked to be the trip leader for an orphanage visit/township bicycle tour on our first day in South Africa. Two things about this itinerary: One, I am tired of getting the feedback that these orphanage visits are basically an opportunity take pictures of poor children with their being absolutely nothing I can do about it. Two, I haven’t been on a bicycle in the better part of two decades and really wasn’t looking forward to it. This particular trip turned out to be a pleasant surprise. First off, we visited Baphumelele Orphanage in Khayelistsha Township, the largest township in Cape Town, the second largest in South Africa only behind Soweto outside of Johannesburg. This particular orphanage caters to 106 children, many of whom are orphans due to HIV/AIDS. I’ve heard various statistics on how many people in South Africa suffer from HIV/AIDS, anywhere between 1 in 4 to 1 in 5. Either way, the numbers are staggering. While HIV/AIDS is on the decline in most of the rest of the world, it is actually on the rise in South Africa. The organization also hosts a school in addition to a bakery and a soup kitchen in order to help fund their efforts.

With these “service trips,” there tends to be this sort of cognitive dissonance between wanting to learn more about the social justice issues at hand and feeling like intruders in the way that we are able to do so. On the way to the orphanage, I even challenged the students on the bus to take 10 minutes, put away their cameras, and really focus on interacting with the children. Everyone nodded along in agreement, but still some still proceeded to treat the children and staff like they were animals in a zoo. One of the toddlers was crying, so the staff member on site picked her up to console her. Folks stood less than three feet from the staff member who was holding her, zoomed in, and took their picture. I, along with the staff member (who spoke perfect English by the way) was stunned. She asked, “Why did they take my picture without asking? They should have asked me.” I wanted to ask her if she could come say that to our entire shipboard community. I just can’t wrap my idea around the idea of taking pictures of people like they’re zoo animals. Yes, they look different than you, but they’re still people. Take out your camera, point to it, point to them, and if they give you the thumbs up, you’re good to go.  Simple as that.

After the orphanage visit, we headed to Langa township to do a bicycle tour. First of all, I hate when people say, it’s just like riding a bike. Because it’s not true. Not even a little bit. I didn’t learn how to ride a bike until 6^th grade, about 5 years behind everyone else I knew. In middle school, my dad bought me a 10 speed bike for my birthday. It was hot pink and purple and quite a big deal for someone who had only been riding a bike for less than a year. Now let’s talk about the last time I distinctly remember riding a bike. Around that time, they had just put in a new bike path in Omaha. We were out on the new path and the novice cyclist that I was, was a little unsteady. A rollerblader coming up behind me said, “Passing on your right.” Instead of moving to the left like I should have done, I veered right thus proceeding to run her over. Mortified at the tire marks I’d left on her leg, I put the bike in the garage, vowing to never ride again. A short time later, my dad was at home with my baby brother who was taking a nap. The garage was open and my dad saw some punk kid go into our garage and come out riding my bike. He couldn’t chase him too far because baby brother was sleeping and he couldn’t leave him alone. When I arrived home from school, my dad told me what happened. We drove around the neighborhood, looking behind bushes and in dumpsters, trying to find my not so beloved bike, but to no avail. The bike was nowhere to be found. After my recent trauma on the bike path, I opted not to get another bike thus ending my hopes of every being an Olympic triathlete. So that’s the last time I was on a bike. Needless to say I wasn’t too keen on riding a bike in a foreign country.

The bike tour actually wasn’t too bad. I didn’t hit anyone, get hit by anyone, or fall off. And I learned a few things in the process. Our guide was actually from the township we visited so he was able to give us a firsthand account of what it was like to grow up there. We saw ladies cooking and selling sheep’s heads, the upper middle and lower class homes in the township, and ended our tour with a performance by the students at Happy Feet, an after school organization that teaches kids in the township dance. Happy Feet gives the kids an incentive to attend school, study hard, and be on their best behavior, all requirements for being Happy Feet participants. The kids showed us some dances and even taught us a few moves. All in all I consider it a win.

When I got back from the trip, I headed across the street to the waterfront, an area with fancy shopping and fine dining. There was also a huge shopping mall, the South Africa Mall of America. Anything you could possibly want could be found inside that mall and for probably more than you wanted to pay. Between the township and the waterfront, it was a day of contrasts. Dichotomy day, if you will. I heard several students talk about how they were just going to hang around the waterfront or on Long Street, another shopping area peppered with bars and restaurants, during our time in Cape Town, missing out completely on the very recent history that makes South Africa the nation it is today. We’re not talking ancient history, folks. Apartheid officially ended in 1994, within our students’ lifetime. Staying at the waterfront and in fancy safari lodges, ignoring the very large elephant that, almost 20 years later, is still in the room, isn’t giving South Africa its due. The very that least we, as visitors, can do is learn about and recognize the resolve of this great nation and learn from them. 

Shop 'Til You Drop

Port Louis, Mauritius

I’m sure the question you’re asking yourself is, “Where the heck is Mauritius?” It’s a question I asked myself not too long ago. It’s a small island about half way between India and Africa. (I challenge you to find it on a map.) We were only there for about 8 hours, so there isn’t much to report. My friend Christine and I treated it as more of a shopping stop: stocking up on supplies for the upcoming Sea Olympics, buying snacks for our long haul to South Africa, and hitting up the post office. We stopped by the local market and decided to inquire about the price of some of these really cool pants that we’d seen. The two guys running the shop insisted on taking us to another stall down the way. They attempted to take each of us into separate stalls in order to bargain and see how much money they could get out of each of us. We were pretty insistent on making a package deal because buying in bulk usually bodes well in environments like this. They originally quoted us a price of $60 and all we could do was laugh. I got him down to $20 and Christine managed to get her guy down to $15. I then proceeded to pay my shopkeeper $15, insisting that we get the same price. They kept insisting that they were conducting two separate transactions and that we should each honor the individual price. They were quite upset that we both insisted on paying the same price for the exact same thing. Silly us. One of the shopkeepers then proceeded to insult us, telling Christine that it was a shame for such a nice girl to argue over a couple of dollars. We then proceeded to tell him that it was shame he would try and hustle two nice girls out of a couple of dollars. At this point, money had already changed hands so I’m not even sure why we were still having this conversation. We told him we were sticking together and that we were going to pay the same price. The shopkeeper then asked us if we were lesbians as if that had something to do with it. If standing up for ourselves in order to not get hustled by a sketchy guy at the overpriced market makes us lesbians, then sign me up. Long story short, it was not a shopping experience that I appreciated. Makes me really miss the Gap. 

An Indian Adventure

Agra, India

This morning, my alarm went off well before the sunrise, but it was totally worth it. Today was the day that our Amazing Race to the Taj Mahal was set to begin. Due to our duty schedule, my friend Christine and I had only 2 days to drive an hour to the airport, hop on a four hour flight from Kochi to Delhi, drive from four hours from Delhi to Agra, see the Taj Mahal, then repeat the whole process again in reverse the following day. All within 48 hours. In a country whose public transportation reputation precedes itself, we somehow managed to pull all of this off without a hitch.

The Taj Mahal itself was every bit as beautiful as I thought it would be. It was built by Shah Jahan in the 17^th century to honor his favorite wife Mumtaz. Mumtaz was the Shah’s third wife and died during the birth of their 14^th child and after bearing 14 children, it sounds to me like she earned every bit of it. Pictures don’t do it justice. It’s no wonder it is one of the Seven Wonders of the World.  Although it was a quick turnaround, it was totally worth the 18 hours of travel over the course of 28 hours. Amazing Race, here I come. 

A Culinary Conundrum

Kochi, India

I feel that much of my time in India revolved around food…or the lack there of. My hate-hate relationship with Indian food dates back to one of my first nights in New York. All of the residence life graduate assistants were going out to dinner after a long day of training. One of the grads who had lived in the city for a couple of years suggested an Indian restaurant. Being from the relatively bland cultural landscape of the Midwestern United States, I hadn’t yet tried Indian food. I don’t remember much about the meal itself, but the I remember the aftermath like it was yesterday. I spent the second night in my new apartment pooping my brains out and sleeping on the cold, hard tile floor in the bathroom. Not wanting to recreate my first experience with Indian food, I opted to be super careful with my cuisine choices during my time in India. My rule of thumb was to not eat things that looked like they’d already been digested. I acknowledge that this is an incredibly insensitive way to view another cultures cuisine, but my digestive system escaped unscathed so I’m sort of okay with it.

They Call it Myanmar

Yangon, Burma

I have found myself relatively uninspired to write about places where I spent a significant amount of time on duty which, unfortunately, includes Burma. I spent the first 48 hours during our time there staring out at the port from the comfort of the ship. This is unfortunate because Burma is a pretty wonderful place. It is also relatively large and difficult to travel around in the three days that I had available. Semester at Sea hasn’t been there since 2006 so we were the first voyage to return in seven years which was a big deal for all parties involved. The equivalent of a Burmese governor even came and toured the ship. It was all very exciting.

Burma itself is shrouded in mystery. We watched a documentary on the ship called They Call it Myanmar: Lifting the Curtain. While “lifting the curtain” sounds a bit dramatic, it’s actually pretty accurate. It is only recently that Burma “opened” to the outside world. According to that documentary, it is the second most isolated country in the world, behind North Korea I’m sure. And what’s with the two names? According the film, Burma was the name given to the country by the military regime, but Myanmar is more inclusive of the other cultural groups that also live in the country so either name can be considered correct. During a pre-port seminar, we even saw a Coca-Cola statement about how proud they were to come to Myanmar and be there for its people, just like they were after World War II in the US and the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany. We also saw the Burmese version of a Kentucky Fried Chicken, which by the way we have seen in every country we’ve been to. Capitalism at its finest, ladies and gentlemen.

I tried to spend my three days in Burma wisely. The first day, I went to the village of Thanlyn with a couple of other staff members from the ship. We hired a cab driver to take us there and somewhere along the line, he turned into our tour guide and eventually our friend. He took us to the local temple, the street market, and the pagoda in the river, which in and of itself was really cool. By the end of our time together, he was telling us about his children and teaching us words in Burmese. My favorite was when he pointed to my friend Kevin who was sitting beside him in the front seat and said “friend.” This cab driver even helped me wipe pigeon poop off myself after we startled a flock of the mangy birds.  These are just a couple of examples of how incredibly kind and wonderful the Burmese people are.

In addition to visiting the local market and the infamous golden Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, I also had the opportunity to serve as a trip leader for an orphanage visit in the town of Thanlyn. It was a monastic school/orphanage run by local monks. According to the documentary I saw, these monastic schools aren’t quite up to snuff with the traditional public schools, but the well-intentioned priests do the best they can to educate these children. Even though the public schools are supposed to be free, there are all types of fees that prohibit poor families from sending their children to school. Many children do not even complete primary school. Many children drop out and work in order to help support their families. It was interesting to see how school works for children in other countries, though. I look forward to sharing this with my future students somewhere down the line.

There have been a lot of complaints about these so-called service visits and about this idea of poverty tourism. It all started after Vietnam when students could no longer ignore the staggering poverty that exists in the ports we were visiting. In Japan and China, it was easy to avoid. Stick to the big cities and you’ll be fine. In Vietnam, even if you just stayed in Ho Chi Minh City, it was impossible to avoid. People were shocked at the living and working conditions that existed there. I think that some of them were even more shocked to realize that this level of poverty may also exist within 20 miles of their home in the United States, but that they’ve just never interacted with it before. The service visits to orphanages and schools in the poorer areas of these countries were just as surprising for many of our students. Students sign up thinking they’re actually going to perform some type of volunteer work, leave somewhat of a lasting contribution at these schools and orphanages, but thus far the formula for these service visits has remained the same: drive into an impoverished area, interact with the poor children for a couple of hours, return to the comfort of the ship, eat a nutritious meal, take a hot shower, and sleep in a warm bed. I have a thousand ideas on how to make this process better. Actually, my Semester at Sea dream is to create a venue in which students can actually perform some service in these areas while learning a little something in the process. Engaging with people… letting a community defining its own needs… … learning about the larger issues and why they’re important…  I blame NCCC for all these crazy ideas. And for that I thank them.