Day 52
I love logistical pre-port. Because Dr. Dave tells it to us like it is. Although the best part of this particular pre-port was when the Ghana interport student got on the mic to say thank you to us and, in reference to being on the ship, said, "It's like being back in school but everyone's painted white."
Oh Jeffery.
The camels got us in Morocco and they are doing everything they can to prevent it from happening again.
Ok, so it wasn't really the camels that got us, it was the food and the water, but the point still stands.
Ghana is trying even harder to kill us. The water is even worse, we can't even brush our teeth with it this time. Although I guess we really shouldn't have last time either.
I am not going on a overnight this time though, so I won't have as many chances to die. I do have a lot of really cool things lined up though. Tomorrow, on the first day, I am going to a drumming and dance workshop. We will have a chance to buy a drum, something I haven't decided if I am going to do yet or not.
On the second day I am going on a village visit. We will meet the elders of the village and receive an African name. Then we will tour the village and get to hang out with the kids. Should be cool. I am told that little kids love people with blonde hair because they don't see it very often. Sweet.
On the third day, which is actually in different port, we move overnight, I am going on a program that looks at the street art in Accra. Apparently it is a huge thing there. At one point we are going to be able to create art with some locals. It sounds really different. I signed up for it on a whim but am already glad that I did, I am looking forward to it.
And on the last day I am going to find out how they make beads. Glass and ceramic beads are a huge part of their culture and there is a really intricate way that they are made. After we learn how they make them we are going to go to a bead market.
Pretty much what I am seeing are lots of opportunities to buy things. And I didn't make the deadline to order currency on the ship, so hopefully I can get to an ATM.
The 8 day stretch to get to Ghana went by really quickly, and I never once felt claustrophobic or trapped on this ship. The exact opposite, it still feels huge and it is still weirdly hard to find people. And they provided a lot of things for us to do. And we have gotten really good at entertaining ourselves. It was recommended to us to bring flash drives so that you can share things. We have dived into that completely now. We share a lot of movies. A lot of movies. Movies are a main pass time, as are T.V shows. I am currently looking for season 5 of Grey's Anatomy and have not been successful. I have acquired The Breakfast Club, Star Trek, and The Dark Knight Rises. And the Butterfly Effect, but I already talked about that. And today I hit a jackpot of movies that I got from the Ghana interport student Jeffery, but none of them will play on my computer. That was a sad moment because they are all really recent movies that I really wanted to watch. Like The Bling Ring, and This Is The End, and We're the Millers, which I have already seen but is hilarious. I guess that is what I get for trying to cheat the system. I don't know what system but there probably is one and I tried to get around it and was just disappointed. Now I guess I will have to talk to people for entertainment.
I took two exams today. They were both really hard and I already know that the entire class, including myself, did absolutely terribly on one of them. The good news is that he already told us that he is going to curve it. Which is a good thing because so far the highest grade that I have heard is a 72. That's awful.
My bio exam was crazy hard, he wanted us to know all of the scientific terms for the groups that contain worms and bacteria and jelly fish and lobsters. And they are super hard to keep straight. In the middle of the exam my mind drifted for a moment and I thought about how this was information that I was never going to use again in my life. And yet science classes are required for me to graduate. Maybe I just haven't found the use yet but I can not see how taking this class will help me, the business major. Don't get me wrong, I approve of the idea of the baccalaureate experience and taking Gen Ed classes so that you are broadening yourself as a person, but sometimes it can stretch to extremes. I can see how english and even social science classes will help me but marine bio? Or even regular bio? I'll be really surprised if I ever use this information while I am at work. I may be proved wrong, in fact I hope I am. I have used the things I learned in my Astronomy class… but I also wasn't at work.
Even more frustrating is that my school requires us to take a non-western class. So that’s like taking Japanese or Asian literature, or African drumming. Seriously, I have to take African drumming just to fulfill a credit? Because I sure as hell am not taking Japanese. This seems like a waste of my time.
When tests are hard I get frustrated. And when I get frustrated I think about why and then start thinking about random things like this. I'm just asking to be told the future now so that I know I am learning and cramming this information into my head for a reason. Because I better be learning that Echinoderms have radial symmetry for a reason.
I'd rather learn things about the countries that I am going to. Which I did today in the World According to Boyer: Ghana lecture that was held after pre-port. I found out my whole life has been a lie.
Go look at a map. Not a globe, a map.
Go ahead, I'll wait….
Now look at Greenland and compare it to Africa. They're about the same size right?
Wrong. So wrong.
Maps distort things. Meaning that they have to distort something in order to get something round to be flat. The most common map is made with the Mercator Projection. It squishes things together at the equator and spreads them apart near the polls.
So Greenland isn't as big as Africa. Not even close. He put two diagrams on the board, one of the distorted continents from the map overlaid on each other and then the real size overlaid on each other.
You can fit Greenland inside of Africa. It along with the entire US, China, India, Japan, the UK, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Ireland. Africa is freaking huge. It is the second biggest continent. And its old. Well, the land is old. But the continent itself is pretty young. 50% of the population is under the age of 25. Granted the average lifespan in all of Africa is only about 47.
And 49% of them are living on only a dollar a day. If you bump it to two dollars a day then it is 70%. Which is amazing because the continent is extremely rich in natural resources. They have 90% of the worlds cobalt and 90% of the worlds platinum as well as a crap ton of gold and cocoa.
Ghana itself is one of the more prosperous countries in Africa. As Boyer pointed out, they are the only country to have national parks. And what does having national parks mean? It means you are wealthy enough to just look at your natural resources instead of use them.
Ghana's average life span is 65 and they have a literacy rate of 72%, which is actually very high.
At the rate that Ghana is going they will be the richest and most successful country in Africa. They are on the path for it.
Every time I go to one of Boyer's lectures I can never stay for the whole thing because I have stuff I need to do and he talks forever. But it is so interesting! All of a sudden it was 10:30 and he had been lecturing for an hour and a half; time flew by. I really want to take his classes for real, he is so awesome and makes history and geography so interesting. Bring on the learning.
There was something else I was going to talk about but I can't remember what it is.
Oh, Cody is being taught to swing dance by Erica, who we met separately and happens to be my on shipboard sister. I went to learn but pretty much just ended up helping him get a stepping turn down. It made me miss dance. I used to love teaching the kids to dance in my choir at church. I utilized the same techniques to help Cody, and he did actually get it right in the end.
Speaking of dance, I am trying out for the talent show. But what I am actually doing is a secret. At least until I find out if they actually think I am talented or not. But that doesn't happen until the 20th.
Before then, Ghana! And Neptune Day. But you'll find out what that is later.
Ghana!
