South African Safari

             Today marks the half waypoint of my time on Semester at Sea, and my physical location of being half way around the world on the map. I cannot believe how fast the time has gone, and after visiting only 4 ports, the next ports are going to fly by.

            We are now on are way to Asia, where we visit a different port at least twice a week, which is a refreshing change from being between 8-10 days between each port in the past.

            South Africa was an amazing experience…once we actually got to Capetown. We were delayed by a day because of the wind, and I was disappointed that I had to miss my wine tour as a result of this, but I was still able to do some informal wine tasting once I got to land. 

            The first day a couple of my friends and I headed to table mountain to hike it to the top. It was one of the most intense hikes I have ever done, as it was more rock climbing than hiking. On average it takes 3 hours to hike, but we had to get to the top before the “table cloth,” clouds covered so we did it in 1-hour. Intense. The view at was amazing, and to celebrate our arrival at the top, we popped a bottle of champagne.  

Top of Cable Mountain. Celebrating 

            The second day in Capetown I headed to Kruger National Park, one of the most famous parks in the world, for a three day Safari.  The first day we got up at 4:30am, because that is the best time to see the “Big 5.” The “Big 5,” are the 5 most dangerous animals in the park; the Elephant, Lion, Rhino, Water Buffalo, and the Leopard. I was able to see 4/5, but spotting Leopards is hard because they hide in trees, and there are only 100 in the whole park. The last day of my Safari we went to a place to ride elephants. The elephants were all trained and could respond to over 100 commands, and could identify over 10 people. It was the coolest experience. The trainer would ask the elephant to talk and he would raise his trunk, and then after he completes the command, they get a treat. The trainer threw a hat on the ground and asked him to pick it up and hand it to a guy named “John,” and he knew exactly who to hand it too. I was lucky enough to ride “Timba,” the biggest elephant weighing 6 tones, that’s over 13,000 pounds! The Safari was a blast.

Lions, Kruger Park

            The last day I went on an “Operation Hunger,” trip and visited a local soup kitchen in a township. We went in the morning and many of the local moms of the village were already gathered around when we got there. Once we arrived, we weighed all the kids to compare their weight to the average and record it as a z score. The scale shows that if a child is above 0 they are over fed, and below they are under, up to 3 points each way. Most of the kids were -3, which means that the child needed to seek medical attention immediately. It was a heartbreaking but informative experience.

 Next stop. Mauritius. 

     

Ghana, Africa

Ghana

            Exactly one month ago I boarded the MV Explorer and began my voyage. It’s hard to believe that I am already one month in and three countries in. If the past month has been indescribable, I can only imagine the experiences the next two bring.

We left Takoradi, Ghana Thursday, and today it hit me what an incredible experience it was. I have begun to learn that the ports are all a blur until you get on-board, and it hits you like a wave.  It’s such a surge of energy when you first arrive, and the experiences all catch up to you when you leave.  For some people it hit them so fast that they just started to cry at what they had seen. Other students chose to treat it as a spring break and drink the whole 5 days. Each to their own, but I am happy with how I spent my 5 days.

To highlight what I did:

Day 1: Walked around the city of Takoradi, and visited a beach

Day 2: Travelled to Cape Coast and walked on the canopy walkway, a series of swinging bridges on top of the trees- one of only 4 in the world.

Day 3: Visited the slave castles and Dungeons in Ghana

Day 4-Day 5: Travelled to an orphanage and spent the day with 18 kids, and then travelled to a fishing village to feed 1250 kids.

The last two days were by far the most powerful. We visited an orphanage called the City of Refuge, where former child labour victims live after being rescued by the couple who run the orphanage. The amount of child labour in Ghana is unacceptable. We seem to take pride in the fact that the slave trade was a thing of the past, but modern day slavery exists, and its kids who are the victims.  After visiting the orphanage we travelled to a place where many children are kidnapped and used as child labour in the fishing industry. The sad part is that many of the children willfully leave the village because they have been told they will be taken to a place where there is better education and more job opportunities. Their captives make a promise to the mothers of these children, a false promise. While we did give out 1250 meals, there were still children who walked away with nothing. In talking to a friend after she described it perfectly. She said, “normally when I help people I feel good, but this time it doesn’t feel that way.”

I hope to visit the orphanage again one day and dedicate more time to the cause in stopping child labour. It’s difficult to experience all these emotions at once, but I already feel like a stronger person for it.

Edwin, City of Refuge Orphanage, February 10th 

Next stop is South Africa. Should be another amazing experience.