Crossing the Ocean in a boat

Jan 31

        What’s up friends and family? I haven’t written anything the past few days, and figure since I am literally in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, now might be as good a time as ever for me to share some stories and thoughts about my experiences. 
        One of my major concerns, and therefore prayers, over the past year was that I would be blessed to have a community of believers aboard the ship and that my walk with Christ would not falter despite being removed from Cru, church and my friends and family back home.  I have been recognizing how incredibly blessed I have been in my life to have had family enlightened with the Truth, friends in CP that kept me accountable and encouraged me in my walk, and the wisdom that certain individuals from Cru have imparted into my life.  Not surprisingly, God has so far answered my prayers for fellowship aboard the ship in a huge way.  Last night we had our second worship service, with about 30-40 people attending both times.  I was blown away that despite a lack of leadership from staff and adults, a confusing set of procedures and rules for reserving a room, and the fact that none of these people knew one another just weeks ago, we stood in fellowship, worshiping and praising a living God. 
        I think it was the second night on the ship (about three weeks, a few thousand miles and a couple different countries ago) that there was an interest meeting for those wanting to pursue religious services.  Of the roughly 50 people in the room about half said they were looking for Christian services.  The ship has a staff person designated as the coordinator for religious and spiritual services, but he happens to be Hindu and gay, so leadership for a Christian service was clearly going to come from someone else.  I volunteered my name as someone who would be willing to help lead a bible study or prayer group, since I have had some experience in those things during my time at UMD, and expected more information would be distributed in the next few days about meeting times and such. About a week passed with no further notice about Christian services, so I decided to email the coordinator and again volunteer to help set something up.  I had already met a bunch of other believers on the ship who had expressed a desire to formally fellowship together.  Next thing I knew, I was given the responsibility, or perhaps volunteered into the task, of reserving a room, getting together guitarists and singers, emailing everyone who had indicated an interest in a service and coordinating the various aspects of planning and running our service.  Of course, this all happened in about two days time, and just before we arrived in Brazil, we had our first Fellowship @ Sea (we had to pick a club name to go on the room reservation form, and fortunately someone suggested Fellowship @ Sea, otherwise we might be known as the “Christian Club.”  I wasn’t feeling too creative when it came time for names.)
        Although our first service didn’t run perfectly, and we fumbled over some song lyrics, and I had to play the guitar and lead singing for a couple of songs (yikes) and we had it planned out on the back of a napkin, which I lost before the service, it was organic and raw.  Stripped of the conveniences and luxuries of church buildings, power points, ministers, Internet resources and experienced leadership we worshipped the Lord passionately as a body of believers.  It was a very authentic “church” experience and I couldn’t help but feel like some of the early believers that are described in Acts.  Last night we had our second service, and again the presence of the Holy Spirit was apparent in the room we were in.  I think it can be liberating to strip to the necessities of worship; namely a humble and giving heart, and a reverential awe of Christ’s love.  I had asked a student to share a message about her life and was blown away by the manner in which she boldly and humbly articulated the power the Gospel had in her life and encouraged us to daily be vulnerable and broken, ready to receive God’s grace and mercy. 
        I have also had the blessing of meeting with my friend Jim for about an hour every other day to pray for and encourage each other in our walks.  Jim is a new believer, but passionately pursues Christ.  Our times have been mutually encouraging and a blessing, and we certainly plan on continuing to meet together one on one.  Andrew Briggs, who I think I mentioned in an earlier post, has been an invaluable resource and answer to prayer as far as an older believer being able to share wisdom into my life.  Briggs, like my self, is a thinker, and has been able to beautifully articulate some of my thoughts/concerns about the evangelical church in America.  It has been incredibly refreshing to hear something different than Cru’s “pressure” to have a high volume of
“converts” when in reality, I have no idea what it even looks like to be “converted.”  Briggs has been especially valuable in describing a missional (if that is a word) approach to career and life, while not strictly labeling oneself a missionary.  I am beginning to better understand the tension that exists between 100% service projects and 100% evangelical endeavors.  I am sure that, on a case-by-case basis, there exists a harmonious relationship between providing for an underprivileged area’s earthly needs (clean water, education, health etc...) with their needs for a Savior.
        In other non-spiritual news, the water on the ship has been poisonously bad tasting the past few days, and I have been required to buy whatever Gatorades and sodas remain at the ship’s bar just so I can stay hydrated.  However, the Atlantic Ocean is absolutely gorgeous and the waves have been mild at worse (at least so far).  Day to day is pretty busy for me, but does include naps since I wake up early every morning to meet with people for breakfast and for classes.  I work two hours each day, but of that time maybe 10 minutes are actually spent working and the rest spent stealing music from the ship’s 50,000 song library, playing chess with the Ukrainian AV staff person, and talking to my coworkers.  Classes are easy, and it is so different actually having relationships with my professors and knowing them on a first name basis.  The other day I was “adopted” into my extended family for the ship.  My “grandparents” are a nice older couple from Canada named Melody and Dr. Bob and my “siblings” are three other girls.  Once again I am the only guy in a group, but I know two of the other girls pretty well, and I think it will be a good “family.”  On Thursday, we have the Sea Olympics, which means no class.  I think I am competing in the tug-of-war and possibly trivia competitions.  More on that to come.  Hope everyone is doing well back home.

Peace and Love,
-Ben

Living the Jungle Life

Jan 24-27

        I think I just had one of the most memorable experiences of my life.  It is a little hard to figure out where to begin and how to explain how challenging, difficult, fun and rewarding the past few days were. This blog post will probably be a lot of rambling, not follow chronological order, and show some evidence that I haven’t slept much the past few days and want to write this down before I sleep for 10 hours tonight. 

 I guess I’ll start at the beginning since it was quite an experience just traveling to the remote Tupana Village in the middle of the Amazon jungle:
We left Monday morning and were picked up by a river boat at the pier.  The best way to describe the river boat is to compare it to a double-decker bus that you would find in the UK, except not as safe and with 6 foot ceilings that I kept hitting my head on.  We were on the river boat for about two hours, and passed the area where the Rio Amanozas and Rio Negro converge, which results in this incredibly distinct line/barrier separating the black water of the Rio Negro with the brown water of the Amazon.  After the river boat, we hiked a little ways up a muddy hill and boarded a tour bus (again, safety was not a huge concern with this vehicle).  The tour bus then took us to a ferry, which was essentially a barge that was being towed by another riverboat, and again safety was not a top priority, as evidence by the huge jagged pieces of metal we had to navigate while walking onto the barge.  The ferry took the bus and us to the other side of the river, where we had to walk along side the bus up a steep muddy hill (we made it without getting stuck, barely).  After the ferry, it was back in the tour bus and a few more hours of traversing the only road for hundreds of miles, which was of course littered with potholes.  Also, the tour bus driver decided to stop at every gas station (2 of them) and stay for 20 mins, which added a lot of time to an already three hour bus ride.  I think the bus driver was trying to prove that the area was civilized, at least slightly.  We finally made it the village and school where we would spend the next few days, but of course in order to make it the lodge we were staying in, we had to board a canoe and travel up the Rio Negro for another 20 mins.  Literally, we were in a canoe. Imagine all of these American students and faculty with their big backpacks going down a remote portion of one of the largest rivers in the world in a canoe that was handmade of wood, floated maybe two inches above the surface, had a 4hp engine that barely turned over, and was as easily tipped as any other canoe I have been in.  All told, it took us around 6 hours to make it to the lodge.  To review: we came up the Amazon river in a big ship, got in a smaller boat, rode on a tour bus, took a ferry, hiked a little, took the tour bus again and finally rode in an even smaller boat to our lodge.  The way back was a little quicker because of the currents, even though our bus did get stuck in the mud and required a Brazilian arm vehicle to tow it out.  We made it back to the dock today (Thursday) on the midst of a massive rainstorm, but most of my gear stayed dry and I made it to ship on time. 

The Lodge:
        The lodge we stayed at was by far the coolest place I have ever paid to sleep at before.  To get up to the lodge we had to hop onto a floating dock that was partially sunken, cross over the water on a 4 ft beam that was about 6 inches wide, and then climb up a long series of stair cases and platforms to reach the lodge, which was essentially a collection of around 6 different buildings scattered through out the trees overlooking the river.  Half of our group of about 40 stayed at the main lodge (they didn’t do the service project and instead did day excursions) and the 22 of us that did the service project slept in the “tree fort.”  The tree fort was essentially a big platform about 30 ft above the ground that radiated in a circle around this big tree.  The roof was made of trash bags that had lots of holes (great for seeing the stars at night, not so great for the tons of rain we got the last night) and the floor was made of this really great smelling wood, a redwood of some sort.  Arranged in a complete circle around the tree trunk were our 22 hammocks.  Sleeping in hammocks for three nights was honestly better than I expected, most likely due to putting in tons of physical work during the day and being exhausted each night and waking up before six each day.  I got a good 4-5hrs of sleep every night, and didn’t wake up with any additional aches or cramps, at least not due to carrying wood and swinging a hammer for hours. The few times I woke up in the night were mostly due to swinging into the hammock next to me (we were only a couple of inches apart) or the lodge’s monkey climbing around.  Yes, the lodge had a resident monkey, who was very friendly and liked to climb around us and even on top of us.  The monkey also had a habit of getting into our pill cases, and one morning we were awoken to the screams of “the monkey is eating my Ambien” at around 4 in the morning.  The lodge also had a resident taper named Romeo, and some of the largest insects I have ever seen.  One night we found a grasshopper that was bigger than my palm.  We also saw some giant beetles and I almost stepped on a tarantula the size of a grapefruit one morning.  The lodge had a generator, which ran a few lights only during the night.  The only running water was just river water stored in giant vats, although all the drinking water came from bottles.  There was one communal bathroom with one sink, shower and toilet for guys and girls and then a big meshed tent where our meals were served.  We woke around 5:30 or 6 each morning and then would leave around 7:45 for our canoe commute (by far the best work commute I can imagine) to the village where we worked.  We arrived back at the lodge around 5:30 in the evening.  After realizing that the shower water was actually river water, we figured we might as well just go swimming, so each night after arriving from work we jumped out of the canoes into the river and essentially took a bath.  One night, we took some kayaks out and paddled up the river into the forest.  On the way back we were kinda tired, so we decided to flipped the canoe and swim along side while the strong current pulled us downstream.  I guess swimming in part of the Amazon River doesn’t sound like the best idea, especially considering we spotted some caiman and piranha off the dock, but everyone survived and hopefully I didn’t get any bladder catfish or parasites.  Tuesday night at around 2230, one of the guides took some of us caiman spotting which was one of coolest things I have ever down, even though we didn’t spot any crocs.
Brief interjection on caiman spotting: Basically caiman spotting involves silently paddling into the jungle forest in the pitch black while the guide occasional shines a spot light in random directions.  What this results in is having absolutely zero sense of where you are, and being surprised and a little freaked out when you brush pass a tree you didn’t think was there or have the spotlight shine in a spot that illuminates the fact that you are in the middle of a jungle forest, in a crappy canoe with a guide who barely speaks English, having no idea of where you are or which direction you came from, and having to worry about snakes dropping into the boat.  It was a fantastically eerie and awesome experience.  Unfortunately we didn’t spot any big animals, but we certainly heard enough sound to know that they were there.
Service Project:
        So the whole purpose of this trip, and by extension this blog post, was to help a remote village with repairing their school.  We were the first group of Westerners that had ever visited their village, and the village had had electricity for the first time just two weeks prior to our arrival.  The school was about a quarter mile from the river along the side of road we came in on.  If I understood the translation correctly, the school had been built 7 years ago, although it seemed a lot older, and was basically a crudely put together wooden structure with about 7 different classes, a 40 ft wooden bridge over a deep ditch/swamp, and a tiny kitchen and bathroom. Throughout the four days we worked at the school, there were probably about 25 different villagers who stopped by and helped, with about 8-10 villagers staying the whole time and essentially directing the process.  Even though our guides spoke English and Portuguese, I feel as though there was a lot lost in translation and considering the fact that our professor overseeing the project was a little misinformed about the tasks we were expected to do.  For the first three days there weren’t enough supplies for all of us to work and since the majority of the SAS kids were girls, I found myself doing some of the more manual labor such as hammering and carrying wood, while the girls handled the painting in shifts, since there were not enough brushes.  We also had some cool opportunities to play soccer and volleyball with the local kids, on their dirt field with tree branch goal posts.  It wasn’t until the third day that enough supplies had arrived to allow us to all work at the same time.  The main task that the six guys were assigned to was to take down and rebuild the bridge that was spanning the ditch.  To do this we had to carry the 60lbs wooden boards up a muddy slope and down the quarter mile road to the school.  It was pretty rough work, with two of us carrying about 140lbs of heavy wood on our shoulders.  Once the wood was transported, we knocked out the floor planks and wood supports (everything but the posts) of the old bridge and had to carry the old wood to another pile up another hill.  I managed to step on an old nail, which went all the way through the thickest part of my shoes and into the bottom of the foot.  Fortunately the cut wasn’t that deep and so far it doesn’t seem to be infected, but they are still making me go to the doctor tomorrow.  At this point it was around mid day and all we had done so far was destroy the old bridge.  I was slightly worried that we wouldn’t be able to build the new one because of time, which would have made us look like idiots for going into a remote village, destroying their bridge and leaving.  Fortunately, we all found a rhythm and got into a smooth pattern of measuring, cutting, transporting, nailing and then hydrating to avoid heat exhaustion.  Although it had been hot the first several days, the heat on Wednesday afternoon was very intense and I felt the power of an equatorial sun for the first time.  It wasn’t hot in a “ one oven on high temp” kind of way, but powerful in a “50 ovens close by on medium heat” manner, if that makes any sense.  Regardless, we made great progress in the afternoon, and were almost finished until the power cut out and the saw wouldn’t work.  However, on our way back this morning (Thursday) we stopped by, put the last few planks down and had the honor of walking across the school’s new bridge. 

        One of my favorite parts about working at the school was getting the opportunity to experience how the people there live their lives.  Through interacting with them, I never once felt pity for their lack of modern resources or poor living conditions but instead felt the joy and happiness they had for the few meager things they owned.  My satisfaction and sense of accomplishment was directly related to how much I sweat and how dirty I got.  Even though none of the villagers had shoes or clean clothes, they definitely worked harder than any of the students and were incredibly patient, kind and thankful for our efforts, which motivated me to work even harder. I spent probably around 8 hours nailing wooden planks and slats with one older village named Francisco, and even though neither of us could understand each other, we spent almost the whole time singing and conversing together.  I still have no idea what he said to me, but at the end I was very honored to have helped his community and feel like we truly developed a friendship despite the vast differences between us.  Hopefully, SAS can develop a lasting relationship with the school, since there is so much more that can be done to help.  We managed to collect enough money among ourselves to buy all the students school supplies for the next year or two, but I think it would be fantastic if SAS visited 2-3 times a year for similar service projects, and who knows, maybe I will find myself back there one day.  

        I apologize for the length of this post, but this was clearly a great experience for me that I want to be able to remember and share with others.  Tomorrow we have classes again, which means I need to do some homework, and I still really need to sleep.

Enjoy the snow in CP and Cambridge!
-Ben

Manaus, Brazil! Where even speaking Spanish doesn’t help.

Jan 23

Today we finally arrived in Manaus, Brazil after around three days of heading up the Amazon River.  The trip up the Amazon was pretty amazing.  The water was so different than the ocean; flat, brown and in some places the river seemed only a couple of hundred feet wide.  Unfortunately, I was kinda busy with classes, work, planning our first Christian service (more on that later) etc… and so didn’t have too much time to just hang out on the decks (which are covered with bugs) but the good news is that we are headed out the exact same way towards the end of the week and I plan on spending some time relaxing on the decks then.

We arrived in port around 6 or 7 this morning. I was up pretty early to meet some friends for breakfast and plan our day.  The heat and humidity has been noticeable, but honestly my summers on the Eastern Shore have seemed to prepare me well.  Our group of 11 left the ship around 9am and headed off to the city without an English map or any real idea what we would find.

Sidetrack:  One of my favorite things to do is to get completely lost in a foreign location and just see where I end up.  One of my gripes with “Americans” and their idea of tourism is that it doesn’t leave any room or time to truly explore and discover.  If you'’re safe, smart and travel with a group of people I highly recommend leaving early in the morning, wandering, finding adventure and enjoying the life and vibrancies that a new location offers.

Our rough plan was to find one of the historic churches, the opera house and the fish market.  As soon as we stepped off the pier, I felt very much like a foreigner, mainly because everyone spoke Portuguese (which none of my friends or I can speak) and no one, literally no one we met, spoke English well enough to get any bit of useful information from. Except for a few of the less touristy countries in the Caribbean that I had traveled too, I had never experienced what it was like to not be able to communicate with people.  With that being said, we went to a modern mall later in the day that had a McDonalds and a Subway, and Taylor Swift was playing on the radio in our taxi.  I guess you can never really get too far from home. 


We wandered around the streets right next to the pier for a while and found this big, historic Catholic Church.  We found one of the church greeters (or whatever the Catholic equivalent is) and after pointing to my watch, using the miniscule amount of Spanish I knew, and using lots of hand motions, I found out (at least I think) that the next service was at 11am and so we decided to wander on and maybe come back later.  We found a bank where some of us withdrew the Brazilian currency, “reales” is close to the phonetic spelling, and then made it to a big street market next to the bank.  We walked around there for about an hour and then ended up at the opera house.  The opera house was really impressive from the outside so we took lots of pictures and walked around the perimeter.  We, or at least I, was under the impression that the opera house would be closed on Sundays, so we didn’t try to go inside but instead found another historic Catholic Church and went inside there.  At this point it was already 11am, and we were a mile or so from the other church, but this church didn’t have a service until noon.  Anyways, we took some pictures of the church and of the fountain square outside.  We noticed that there were a lot of people that seemed to be going in and out of the opera house, and so we decided to go to the door.  Next thing we knew, we were seated in the upper balcony of this magnificently ornate, world famous opera house.  We managed to randomly time our entrance to coincide with the opening of a symphony orchestra, which was apparently putting on a free concert (at least we didn’t pay).  We stayed for about an hour and listened to the awesome classical music.  I had never heard an orchestra of that caliber and was really blown away by both the beauty of the opera house and the sound that came from the performers.

After leaving the opera house, we walk toward the general direction of the waterfront hoping to find the fish market for some lunch.  After a few hours of walking, wandering and trying to communicate with the locals, we found out that the fish market was closed for renovations due to the Olympics.  At this point we were close enough to the ship, hot and sufficiently hungry and thirsty enough to re-board and grab lunch.  After lunch and a quick 20-minute powernap, we were back in the city.  We found a taxi and asked to go to the mall, on the recommendation of one of the interport students who was from Manaus.  Somehow, we were able to negotiate fares, and a pickup time with our driver who spoke zero English.  I’m actually really impressed that we were able to do it.  We were at the mall, which was about 20mins from the dock, for around two hours.  Minus the language difference, the mall was exactly like any other upscale shopping mall in the United States.  It was definitely interesting seeing the more impoverished side of Manaus in the morning by the dock, and then the affluent side of Manaus in the evening at the mall.

Overall it was a really fun day.  One thing that really was interesting was the smells of the city.  Every 10-15ft the smells would vary from the richness of a fish fry, the nastiness of a dead animal, the sweetness of fresh fruits, and then the pleasant olfactory reminders that a lot of people pee and poop on the sidewalk.  Tomorrow, I leave early for four days of a service project in a village somewhere in the jungle.  I wont be able to blog any then, in fact im pretty sure there wont be electricity, but I am incredibly excited and cant wait to interact with the villagers and help construct some buildings for the community.

As they say in Portuguese, Ciao!
-Ben

Ben Is Finally On a Boat.

Jan 12.

NOTE: this post was written about a week ago but didnt manage to make its way to my blog page.  Sorry the chronological order has been ruined.

My room is a little tiny but definitely doable. Most rooms have a corner dresser with a TV and fridge at the foot of one bed and a corner desk and chair at the foot of the other.  Our room basically has the wall of the closet directly against the foot of one bed and the wall of the bathroom against the foot of the other.  Id say it’s a good 6 feet shorter than the other rooms on deck 2 (at least the outside ones).  In between the 2 beds there is a pretty nice sized dresser type deal with the fridge in the middle, three drawers on either side and a good bit of desk space on top.  The tv is mounted to the wall above my bed and that’s pretty much all the furniture we have.  The’re are 2 closets, one with a place to hang clothes, (about 4 ft wide) and a smaller one (2 ft) with shelves.  The larger closet has a space up top with our lifejackets, and a sliding shoe rack on the bottom.  I was able to fit my shoes on the rack, which is really convenient, and then used the hanging organizer I brought for undershirts, socks and random stuff.  The closet is pretty deep and I’m using a big space saver bag as a dirty clothes bag.  There are also some hooks on the back of the closet door, which is nice for belts and towels and stuff.  In the other closet I took half the shelves for my shirts, shorts and underwear.  The space under the bed is actually pretty nice.  I fit my 2 big duffels, some extra clothes, and my overnight pack and still have plenty of room for stuff ill buy along the way.  The bed isn’t too bad; a little stiff but at least long enough for me to stretch out all the way.  The bathroom is tiny, but at the same time plenty big, and the shower was surprisingly nice.  I made a cool video, MTV Cribs style, which I will try to post eventually.

Today I had to get up at around 6am to grab breakfast, and make it to a meeting at 7 for the work-study kids.  The other students, around 500, started arrive at eight.  I was stationed inside the Union and was responsible for giving everyone their name cards.  This was sweet because I got to meet everyone and find out where they were from.  This was inside and not outside in the heat, and the other student who worked with me was pretty cool.  There were 2 girls from UMD who I didn’t know and I probably talked to around 25 people with mutual friends and/or who were from Maryland.  One of the professors on the ship is a professor at UMD and actually lives in Cambridge around 8 blocks from my house, but I had never heard of him before.

I got off work around 2 and spent the rest of the day meeting my roommate, setting up my email and internet, doing the life boat drill, and getting dinner.  The food isn’t bad here but I definitely see it becoming repetitious in about a week.  The water also tastes terrible but I’ll learn to cope.  One thing good that can be said is that the crew certainly treats us like valued customers.  Our plates are cleared for us, drinks are brought to our tables, and of course the giant chandeliers don’t hurt the fancy mood.

My roommate is Wade Wisler and he’s from Pennsylvania and goes to school in Scranton.  No, he does not know Michael Scott. He seems like a really solid guy and I don’t expect drunkenness or rowdiness to be an issue.  Im actually really excited we got matched up, and I think it will be fun sharing the tiny space we have.

It’s around 1900 now and we are set to depart in around an hour, so Im already posted up on the top deck overlooking the water typing this now.  We have a few more meetings tonight and then have orientation all day tomorrow, with classes starting the next day (Friday).  Itll be pretty crazy actually pulling away from land in a bit.  Im sure there is some appropriately cheesy quote about starting a life adventure, but I kind of like not having words to describe my experiences.  I try my best to communicate whats going on, but I’m not expecting to become Maryland’s next poet laureate.

Take it easy.
-Ben

Note:  I’m finding it kind of tough to spilt up my thoughts between my handwritten journal, emails to my parents and my blog so this last post is a combination of all of them.  We’ll see if that is the pattern Ill follow in the future but for now it seems to be working.  Let me know if I get too personal.

More Important Note:
My new email is bcgarbus@semesteratsea.net.  Send a brotha a message. 

Classes and Such

We will be at sea from Tuesday to Sunday.  The waves yesterday (Tuesday) were pretty intense.   The boat was making about 26mph through 10-15ft seas, which made for a very bumpy ride.  It was tough sleeping at night because some of the larger waves rattled the whole ship and could be pretty loud.  I had to excuse myself from one class yesterday to go lie down, but I was able to attend an alternate section today to make up the information.  After a 2 hour nap, I felt a hundred times better and was able to eat a good dinner and sleep really well through the night (with the help of Dramamine.)  Today, the sea is a little calmer and I haven’t felt nauseous except for a little while this morning while I was working.  Sipping ginger ale has seemed to be an okay relief from the seasickness and I might try to buy some ginger pills at a store in Manaus if I have the chance.  We are finally getting into the routine of classes and such and thought I would take the time to describe what courses I am taking (yes, I am earning college credit).

Global Studies: This is a class that is required for all students.  The professor is British and looks exactly like Elijah Wood’'s character'’s brother in-law in Green Street Hooligans.  It looks like the class will be a lot of guest lecturers and presentations that have been interesting so far.  Everyone was assigned a group and has to do a group power point presentation on globalization and how it has affected a certain country.  I, of course, am the only male in my group, which means that all the girls can easily recognize me and remember my name, while I can’t tell any of them apart.  At the same time, I can’t complain too much about being the only guy in a group of six girls.  We are planning on doing our research in Ghana, which should work out great considering I don’t have too many plans for that country.  The other neat thing about global studies is that although I am scheduled to attend on A days, I am also scheduled to run the mics, projectors, speakers, etc… on B days during the other section of Global Studies.  I am pretty sure I will be able to skip on A days and get the information I need on B days while I am “working.”

World Short Stories:  This class basically involves reading short stories from around the world and discussing them.  I needed to take an English CORE class and this one counted, otherwise I would have stayed as far away as possible from any literature class.  The professor is pretty nice and the biggest assignment is only a 2-4 pg paper so I don’t think the class will be too bad.  Of course I have been completely lost in “analyzing” the stories so far, and don’t really get how a three page story about a basement in Argentina can be so interesting, but Ill try to make the most of the class.

World Religions:  The professor for this class is an ordained Christian minister from Winchester, VA who teaches at Shenandoah University.  He is very knowledgeable and so far his classes have been entertaining and informative.  He has also reached out to me after finding out that I was a Christian and offered to help lead bible studies and/or Christian services on the ship.  I don’t expect this class to be much work either, but the topics truly interest me and I think ill get a lot out of it.

Social Justice and Altruism:  The professor for this class is pretty interesting.  He has written over 80 books on therapy and “transformative” social justice projects and is very passionate about his work, particularly an organization he runs that helps educate Nepali women.  He has already cried several times during class, and is very much into “sharing” emotions and things about ourselves.  Surprisingly, I don’t think he is a crazy person (yet) and think he is pretty legit when it comes to serving others.  Today in class we got partners and had to share with them about a time we felt “oppressed” by someone in a position of power.  My partner was a recovering alcoholic with an abusive father.  I complained about my lacrosse coaches not being supportive.  I’ll have to really “dig into myself” and “find out who I am” (whatever that means) if I want the professor to think I’m growing.  With that said, it has been a cool experience of self-evaluation and I look forward to spending four days in the jungle with the professor working on a service project in the Amazon.

I think that’s all for now, I have to read and do some other work this afternoon and might work on uploading some pictures.  Tomorrow (Thursday) we are set to enter the mouth of the Amazon River and the water will be much calmer. 

Until next time,
-Ben

DOMINICA

Dominica Day One:

Yesterday (Sunday) we arrived at port in Roseau, the capitol of Dominica, around 7am.  We were scheduled to arrive around 8, so I woke up earlier to hopefully watch the process of docking the ship, but was disappointed to see that it had already happened.  It was rainy in the morning when I ate breakfast out on the deck, but as is common in many small Caribbean islands, the rain clouds roll in and out pretty frequently, and the weather ended up being beautiful all day.  I had signed up to take a catamaran cruise on a whale-watching safari that started at 9:30 that morning.  The ship was cleared by the custom officials around 8:30 and then the mass exodus of disembarking students began.  The whole process was a little hectic and was coupled with everyone’s excitement to finally be able to explore a new country.  The boat used for the catamaran cruise was pretty large, probably about 65ft long and 30ft across.  Unfortunately, the crew said we wouldn’t be able actually travel under sail power since the boat needed to start and stop quickly to track the whales, which was disappointing, but nevertheless I enjoyed the time climbing around the netting and rigging and watching and listening to the water pass by.  I admit that I had rather low expectations to actually see any whales, since the crew kept telling us that there was no guarantee.  It looked like those expectations were going to pan out about 45 minutes into the voyage, during which everyone was looking for the tell-tale signs of whales; puffs of water from the blow hole and the whale’s reflection on the surface of the water.  Sure enough, about two miles off shore, we spotted a pair of sperm whales; a mother and her calf.  Shortly after this, three other whales joined them, and we had the privilege of watching a group (pod?) of five sperm whales.  The whales would come to the surface and blow out water from their blowhole, so we could see the upper third of their body at the surface of the water.  The catamaran was able to get at most around 30 ft away from the whales, so it was tough to really see the creatures clearly.  Even tougher was trying to take pictures.  The boat was obviously rocking a lot since we were a few miles off shores and it was impossible to predict the precise moment when most of the whales body would be visible, so the pictures I have really aren’t that great.  Once we found the first set of whales we stayed in the area for the next hour or so, and spotted groups of whales about five more times.  It’s tough to say whether we saw new whales each time, or we just spotted the same group resurfacing over and over, but all totaled we probably saw whales 20 times.  Apparently the location we were at is one of the best places in the world to spot sperm whales.

        I got back to the ship around 12:30 for lunch and met up with some friends to go explore the island and town.  After negotiating with a taxi driver (there were literally 30 taxi drivers waiting and hassling us at the dock the whole time we were there) we decided to take a cab ride up to a hiking trail to Middleham Falls, the largest waterfall on Dominica.  The ten of us piled into the taxi and drove up the switch back roads, blind curves, dirt lanes, and steep inclines to a spot somewhere in the hills/mountains.  I couldn’t help but be reminded of my trip to the Caribbean two years ago.  The taxis, scenery, and weather were almost identical to the half dozen other islands I had sailed around aboard the Stad Amsterdam.  Our taxi driver dropped us off at a dirt pull off and said he would wait there for a few hours until we came back from the falls.  The hike up to the falls was pretty intense, at least for me, but after about 30 minutes of tree root and slippery rock stair cases, the trail leveled out and we had a nice hour hike to the observation platform overlooking the waterfalls.  Our taxi group actually caught up to a couple of other groups who had left before us and had hired a tour guide.  Once we got to the platform, it was pretty breathtaking to look at canyons and falls.  The cliffs went up about 300 ft on either side and the water fell from about 200 ft above.  It didn’t take us long looking from the platform to determine that it was possible to climb down the rocks and swim in the pool, and with the assurance of the tour guide, about 25 of us scramble barefoot down the rocks and slid into the incredibly cool and refreshing water.  There was a tiny little cave on the rock wall on the opposite side of the pool (closer to the waterfall) a few ft above the surface, which we swam over and climbed into.  There were a few rocks sticking out next to the cave leading up to a ledge about 10-15 ft above the water.  It was a blast climbing the rocks and jumping off the ledge into the water.  The jump wasn’t that high or intimidating, but the process of climbing barefoot up the slippery rocks into the pool was definitely a little challenging.  After about 30 minutes of swimming around the pool and exploring the river a little bit, we started our hike back.  It was really awesome hiking back through the jungle, since we all decided to spread out and enjoy the hike in solitude.  It was great to only hear the sound of my footsteps and the birds as I hiked back, and gave me some time to just think about and enjoy God’s creation and splendor. 
        I got back on the ship around 1900 and got dinner with Andrew Briggs and some other adults and them my roommate and I decided to go out into the town with them later that night.  It was a little strange being in a group of professors and faculty, and my roommate and I quickly left them after we found a restaurant full of SAS kids.  It was really crowded and hot, but the restaurant happened to be showing the Pats Jets game, so we stayed for a few hours to watch the game and then headed back to the ship around 2200.  Needless to say, I was pretty exhausted after the day’s adventures and went to bed before 2400. 

Dominica Day Two:

        I didn’t have any plans for today (Monday) and slept in a little bit (7:45am) but woke up just in time for breakfast.  It was raining more than it had yesterday, so I stayed on the ship till around 10:30 before heading out.  My roommate (Wade) and I both decided that we wanted to explore the city of Roseau, and didn’t have any desires to go to another waterfall (we already went to the best one on the island) or go snorkeling (I had been snorkeling a whole bunch when I was in the Caribbean two years ago).  The city of Roseau is literally feet from where the shipped docked, and we spent about two hours walking around and checking out the markets, street vendors, and shops.  It rained on and off throughout the morning, which caused a lot of humidity, but the rain felt good and caused a lot of rainbows.  In fact I have seen enough rainbows and double rainbows over the last 48 hours to last a lifetime (the cheers of “Double Rainbow!!” are getting played out.)  Wade and I managed to sneak down to a beach and decided to try to walk along it until we made it back to the main road.  After about ten minutes we met a group of Rasta who were working on some boats.  These guys were friendly, but definitely not a group I would want my future kids hanging around.  There were a number of sketchy looking dinghy boats moored about 50yds from the shore and I jokingly asked if they could take us for a boat ride around the island.  They of course said yes, which I guess I should have expected, and one of the guys had already begun swimming out to a boat to pull it to shore.  I had a suspicion that the men didn’t own the boats (enhanced by the fact that one of them scaled the 15ft wall of the shed holding the life jackets instead of using a key to unlock the door) but in the spirit of adventure Wade and I decided that we might as well go with them.  We were in a 12ft wooden dinghy, that had a lot of holes (which let a lot of water in), a 40hp hand start Yamaha, and two guides” named Mikel and Kelly.  The boat tour started off great until our engine cut off about ten minutes in and we were dead in the water.  We were only about 300yds off shore, and the tide wasn’t pushing us out to sea, which was comforting, and there were a bunch other boats close enough by that we could have signaled them with the safety whistle I had.  We drifted for about 40mins before we were finally able to start the engine.  Honestly, this ranks rather low on my list of boat engine breakdowns, since I’ve spent four years driving (or trying to drive) the CYC Club Tub, and I had had enough minimal experience with low horsepower engines to realize that the engine was flooded with gas, and we just needed to let the thing sit for a couple minutes before trying to start it.  Sure enough we were able to get the engine to turn over, and we asked that Mikel and Kelly to take us back to the dock where the MV Explorer was.  It was quite an experience and I’m sure will be a fun story to tell later on. 
        It’s kind of surreal that this is actually my life right now.  It already feels like I’ve been on the ship for months and it seems normal that we will be headed up the Amazon in a few days.  I guess I have to read some stuff for class tomorrow, but we will see if that will happen.  I’d much rather just keep looking over the deck at the ocean and hills of Dominica illuminated by the full moon. 

Keep it real.
-Ben 

Sea Sickness and Spirituality

Jan 13


Friends and Family: Please do not envy my current situation.  It has now been around 40 hours at sea, and the rocking motion is all too noticeable.  I would not classify myself as someone prone to motion sickness, as I have spent a lot of my life on boats, but the constant pitch and roll is an inescapable force.  The effects on me have not been too bad; I would not say that I am sick, but rather uncomfortable.  Almost immediately after leaving port two nights ago, the rocking was noticeable.  It is funny watching a line of people walking in the hallways uniformly stumble several steps to the left and then back to the right.  Yesterday (Thursday), we had almost 12 hours or orientation meetings, all of which were located in the Union, a large auditorium style room on the sixth deck near the bow of the ship.  I am convinced that this room is perfectly located to magnify the boats rocking and enhance the effects of seasickness.  Drowsiness, slight nausea and an ever-present headache are my main complaints.  I spent a good portion of the orientation slipping in and out of sleep and trying to keep my eyes shut so as to not see the rise and fall of the horizon through the windows.  Other students have described seasickness as being intoxicated, a comparison I would guess to be correct.  Today (Friday) I had three hours of classes this morning in Union.  I missed breakfast, and the waves are a little worse then yesterday, so the nausea was pretty unbearable.  It didn’t help that a girl threw up in class a few seats away.  I forced myself to eat and drink a little while ago for lunch, and was excused by my boss to go lie down in my cabin and miss my work-study responsibilities today.
        When lying flat or sitting on an outside deck, I hardly feel any sickness at all which has made the past couple of days more bearable.  I’m certain that in the next day or so I will hardly be noticing any rocking motion, but this might be wishful thinking.  I also have to remind myself that I am dealing better than most other students, who have to take medications.  There was apparently a helicopter evacuation of a Life Long Learner (adults on the ship) last night, who probably had fallen.
        Yesterday I continued to meet and get to know a lot of students.  Several were from Maryland, and a few others shared some common interests; lacrosse, guitar, sailing, Christianity, etc… At dinner, I randomly got in a conversation with Andrew Briggs, a guest lecturer, former SAS student (he was a student around 10 years ago I think) and founder of a non-profit organization located in Uganda called Freedom in Creation.  After hearing about his organization and the work it does, it came up that he was a Christian and had actually majored in biblical studies at college and planned on becoming a pastor.  It was very refreshing and interesting to see how his faith played a role, and continues to play a role in his charitable work.  He explained that his foundation was purposely a non-religious associated organization in order that it could be more accessible to public schools and universities, of which Andrew spends a lot of time presenting and recruiting from.  However, his motivation for his work was rooted in his deep faith and an understanding of the Bible.  He said that SAS provided an incredible opportunity to grow and be challenged in his faith in a global environment.  I am embarking on a similar journey of spiritual development, and look forward to more conversations with Andrew, who is both incredibly biblically knowledgeable and in touch with the realities of hardships around the world.  I think he will prove to be a valuable resource until he leaves the ship in S. Africa to continue back to Uganda.
        Last night was also the involvement symposium where we had the opportunity to sign up for all the different activities on the ship.  I signed up for intramural sports (bball volleyball and possibly soccer I think), extended families, a program where students are “adopted” by the adults on the ship, and a bunch of religion and spirituality things.  There are “living learning coordinators,” (basically RDs) who each run a different activity; sports, leadership, service, religions etc… The LLC for religion and spirituality is Hindu which was cool, and basically had everyone who attended the meeting, around 50 people, go around and share their beliefs and what programs they want to occur on the ship.  It was incredible how many students identified as Christian and wanted to join bible studies, prayer groups and worship times. It was encouraging to meet other believers trying to live their life for Christ and excited about pursuing Him on our voyage.  I was able to talk to the LLC at the end and offered to help lead and organize any Christian gatherings, since he obviously might not be comfortable leading a religion he doesn’t associated with.  I really hope and pray that God will bless fellowship on this ship and trust that friends and family will also pray for our time.  I also had my World Religions class this morning, which is led by a professor from Winchester VA, who knew my uncle’s church, and is also an ordained Christian minister.  I spoke with him at the end, and he encouraged me to use this class as a way to better understand other faiths and how to minister effectively to them.  Needless to say it has been a blessing to meet other believers, and look forward to seeing how God uses this experience to draw me closer to Him.
        We are stopping in Puerto Rico tonight to refuel but are not going to be allowed off the ship.  Tomorrow we have our B day classes, which is only one class for me.  Sunday and Monday we will be in Dominica (which is pronounced in a Latina ghetto way: Da Mo nic ka).  After that we are at sea for around a week, during which I will hopefully be able to get into somewhat of a routine, as the past couple days have been a whirlwind of different environments, schedules and activities.

Enjoy America.
-Ben

Test Post

This is a test to see if i can post directly to my blog from the ships email.

BAHAMAS CHILLIN

Jan. 11
I arrived in Nassau yesterday (Monday) around 1 pm.  It was actually quite an accomplishment to make it here to the Bahamas on time with my luggage.  Let me explain:  I was originally supposed to fly out of BWI to Charlotte and then on to Nassau.  However, due to the forecasted snowstorm in the southern US, we (family and myself) were worried about either getting grounded in Charlotte or not even making it to Charlotte.  After being stuck on hold for 4 hours (literally) with the airline trying to arrange a flight out of Philadelphia, we finally hung up and decided to get to the airport early the next morning to hopefully get the flights switched.  Needless to say I couldn’t really sleep well that night and after about 30mins of restlessness and a lot of prayer, I decided to call the airlines one last time. Sure enough the good ole Lord put me right through to the customer service rep and I was able to change flights to Philly and wasn’t even charged any extra.  About 3 hours later my sister and I were on the way to BWI.  The airport process went really smooth.  My 2 bags weighed a combined 99.5lbs, so I wasn’t charged any extra (props to my brother for helping me weigh everything), and all my luggage arrived in Nassau on time.  After a ten minute taxi ride, (costing $20) I was at the Wyndhaum resort.  I was pretty tired and fell asleep on the beach literally around 20mins after I checked in.  I spent the rest of day pretty much napping at various locations (beach, pool, bed etc..)

Today (Tuesday), I woke up after a glorious 8 hours of sleep, grabbed some overpriced breakfast and caught a taxi to the dock to board the ship.  I shared the cab with two other  SAS kids, one of which has the same work study position as me.  I’ve been able to talk to around a dozen SAS kids and staff, and introduced myself to at least 30 more.  Everyone seems real excited, but in a sorta reserved, quiet way.  Its not like we are about to go to Disney World, we are going to take this boat all the way around the world. This obviously warrants a unique response. The anticipation is something I’ve never really experienced before, but surprisingly I’m pretty calm and relaxed (as evidenced by my sleeping abilities.)  I think the best parts about my voyage are going to be things that I never even expected to happen, so I’m not really caught up in tons of emotion I guess.     
 
The ship is baller, but I already knew that.  My room is actually smaller than all the other rooms: we don’t have a dresser, desk or end table, which the other rooms do, but I was able to get all my stuff put away neatly and I don’t feel cramped at all. Of course, my roommate isn’t here yet, but I think we’ll be ok.  I took some video footage that Ill try to put up later. 

I apologize for any lack of grammatical soundness, spelling errors, or mishandling of the English language.  I am of course a product of the public school system so direct your complaints toward them.  Ill try my best though. 

Enjoy the cold back home.  It’s a humid 77 here.

-Ben