neptune day, bunkering in namibia and a very special guest!!

Lots of internet challenges since we left Ghana. A critical piece of hardware sustained some damage and apparently our ship engineers managed to repair it, but it has been very difficult (and frustrating!) to stay connected to the wireless. I am doing my best to catch up with postings now.

Neptune Day was our first full day at sea after Ghana - October 19. Like last time, King Neptune and his court made their way around the ship, clattering and banging things and waking everyone up to participate in the festivities. This was to celebrate the crossing of the equator on this day, and to turn pollywogs into shellbacks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-crossing_ceremony). It was a fun day with  the usual head shaving, fish kissing, and King Neptune honouring activities. This crossing was made special by the fact that we reached the prime meridian at the same time, giving shellbacks the distinction of becoming emerald shellbacks. We reached 0 degrees latitude and 0 degrees longitude at 2:14pm that day. The captain sounded the ship's horn, and some looking off the starboard side saw a buoy that marks the location where the equator crosses the prime meridian. Apparently this was placed by a research group of some sort, but I have been unable to find anything about that; I will continue to look.

We have been moving quickly since leaving Ghana. I heard this evening on the CNN international news that we now have on the ship that pirates attacked a US ship, carrying oil I believe, in the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of Nigeria yesterday. The captain and one crew member were taken off the ship and no one knows where they are. We were there only a few days ago. Starting during the night after Neptune Day we had very rough seas and for two and a half days I experienced seasickness from the motion. I was very surprised since I never had this before except a very brief period of time one evening in the Indian Ocean on our last voyage. This time it was quite debilitating and I couldn't go near the dining room since the smells made the nausea much worse. Fortunately, we reached Namibia for bunkering yesterday morning and had about 24 hours off the ocean while we refuelled. Since we left Walvis Bay this morning, the water has been very smooth and we've seen lots of seals playing near the ship. It was unfortunate we couldn't leave the ship during the refuelling - John and I really enjoyed Namibia on our last trip.

We learned today that we have a special treat in store in Cape Town, as Archbishop Desmond Tutu (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu) will be coming on board on our last day in that port, October 30. There will be a reception where we will all have an opportunity to meet him, then he will speak with the students. He has been a friend of Semester at Sea for many years, often sailing for partial or complete voyages. We are very much looking forward to visiting Cape Town again, and also to meeting this special guest!

tema

We arrived in Tema, Ghana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tema) the morning after we left Takoradi. John had again decided to stay on the ship in order to get caught up with some of his class work, and I went ashore on the first day with others from the ship. We took a bus into Accra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accra). Some of these folks had been to this port before, and on their advice we made our way to the Global Mamas store (http://www.globalmamas.org). There we were able to do some shopping without the issues of pressure from the people making the sales and the bargaining that accompanies most purchase transactions in Ghana. Afterward we made our way to a nearby restaurant where we ate traditional Ghanaian dishes in an open air environment that was quite comfortable and relaxing. Although the weather was very hot and humid, the areas we saw in Accra were not as difficult to maneuver as those in Takoradi had been. There were still open sewers, but most of them were covered in a way that it was not likely anyone would fall in. There were still young men who tried to make sales in the streets (some of whom had followed us from Takoradi!), but not in the numbers we had seen before. The bus rides to and from the ship were long and hot, and traffic was heavy, but in all it was a better experience than we'd had in Takoradi. It is interesting that some of the things that bothered me about Ghana were things that the students overlooked. They were able to see past those things that were issues for me and some others, and focus on their interactions with the people in Ghana. We'd had an interport student from Ghana who had joined the ship in Morocco and students had spent lots of time talking with him about the country. They were perhaps better prepared for the experience than I was.

The second day in Tema I joined a SAS trip with a couple of friends. We took a bus ride northeast of Accra to bead making place called Cedi Beads (http://www.africancraft.com), named after the man who built this family business. Cedi has figured out how to use recycled bottles and other materials to make traditional African beads. We first had a lesson in the types of beads and how each is made, then were guided in making some of our own beads using the techniques we had been shown. While they were fired in a kiln, then cooled, we ate our lunch under the palm trees in a cool breeze, and got further lessons in glass bead making. Our guide for the trip, Stephen, provided information about palm trees and some of their uses in African culture. Once the beads had cooled, some of the workers polished them for us, using concrete blocks, sand and water. It was great to see the creative beads that came from our group. We boarded our bus and headed back to the ship, enjoying the views of the countryside, such a relief from the crowded cities we had seen. There were some areas with heavy trees and undergrowth, some small villages and lots of rocky hills. On the way back Stephen was answering questions and offering information about the country he clearly loves. When we got back to the ship, he reminded us that when you travel to far places, sometimes you have positive experiences and sometimes you have negative ones. He hoped that we would forget any negative experiences in Ghana, and concentrate on the positive ones. I came away feeling that it is very hard to make judgements about a country in four days, and that there is likely much more that Ghana has to offer than what I was able to take in in the limited time and area that I covered.