Day 88

I have an affinity for oatmeal. Real, good oatmeal. When I make oatmeal in real life I put berries and bananas and honey in it. Sometime I even cook it with cocoa powder and make chocolate oatmeal. I take oatmeal seriously. 

They have oatmeal on this ship. Crappy, package oatmeal that I tried once and vow never to eat again. In both of my classes this morning there has been a person sitting right near me eating this oatmeal. It smells like fake cinnamon and is awful. I have a headache from continuously smelling this terrible oatmeal. These people don't know good oatmeal, I don't know how they eat that crap. 

And that was my rant on oatmeal. I miss oatmeal. 

Today we got some exciting news: we are going to the Bahamas!!

But we already knew that.

We are getting off in the Bahamas!! 

Woooo!!!

This was quite a surprise, they did a really good job at shooting down all of the rumors. Nathan swears he didn’t know about it until we did but none of us really believe him. We still don't know the day that we are going to be getting off, and it will be only one day. We do know that it will be after Cuba and we have to complete behave ourselves. 

Where did I learn about this? At logistical pre-port. 

Holy crap. Brazil is already tomorrow. 

It's like we are back at the beginning of the voyage when we only had three days between countries. 

The good news is that we will have postage service, we will be getting stamps in our passports, and we will not have face to face immigration. The bad news is that because we are entering Rio on tourist visas none of the staff can work. Crew is taking over their duties, including making the announcement. When it comes to field programs we are basically on our own. I think Dr. Dave and Lori are still working. They are pretending that rule doesn't exist. And it is apparently only in Rio, once we leave Rio and once the ship gets to Salvador that rule no longer applies. They don't enforce it anywhere else I guess. 

The two representatives from the U.S embassy in Brazil did the safety part of the pre-port. Salvador is the murder capital of Brazil and has a crack epidemic problem. Yay? 

Oh, and they have an unnaturally high rate of pedestrian accidents. People just don't want to stop and red lights. Especially at night, they just don't. 

Dr. Dave informed us that we can not drink the water. I will be pre-dosing pepto again. I am taking no chances. 

Dr. Dave also told us to wear pants if we are going into the jungle. Then he modeled his pants for us and said, " They have zippers on the sides where you put your passports and your parents money." 

He then told us to wear sunscreen when we buy those skimpy bathing suits in Rio. He also said he emailed all our fathers about those bathing suits. 

Another note on sunscreen from Dr. Dave: "If you don't year sunscreen your gonads will dry up and you won't be able to reproduce… For some of you that might be a good thing…" 

And finally he held up a ball of fabric and said, " This is a pillow for the bus or train. Presto-chango, it's a raincoat." 

I swear to god, he is the funniest person on this ship. 

One really annoying thing that they started doing at this pre-port is play music when someone needed to stop talking. Like they do at award shows. I still don't understand the time crunch during these things. It is all information that we need to know and where are we going to go?! We are on a ship. We are stuck on a ship with not much else to do. Just have the pre-port go as long as it needs to. 

By email got information about the Life Long Learners and Cuba. Here's the exact email we received: 

“We regret to inform you that we have learned that the U.S. government-issued educational license to go to Cuba does not apply to Lifelong Learners and dependents. The unique role of Lifelong Learners and dependents puts this cohort in a nebulous category with respect to the educational license. Of course we are very disappointed by this outcome and have been seeking alternative solutions with the assistance of legal experts.

 

An application for the second license was submitted to OFAC, the department makes these decision, however the status of this application remains pending. At this time we are unsure whether the Lifelong Learners and dependents can remain onboard in Havana, should the second license not be approved in time. If this fallback option is also denied, we will have a plan to disembark Lifelong Learners and dependents in Freeport, Bahamas prior to the arrival in Cuba.

 

The possibility of OFAC issuing the license between now and the ship’s arrival to Cuba still remains, in which case all members of the shipboard community will be able to disembark in Havana, as we had originally planned. We are hopeful that the department of the US government responsible for this decision will come through with a positive response prior to our arrival, but we are actively working on alternatives should no decision come through in time.

 

We appreciate your support of our SAS family challenged by this situation.”

That's really unfortunate, I hope it works out. 

Speaking of things that I hope work out: 

My friend Marie, who is Molly's roommate, had plans for months with some people to go overland in Brazil. They talked about it for months but never made any solid plans. She assumed they were going to figure it out so she registered as going overland. Her 21st birthday is on the 24th and she really wanted to be on land to celebrate it. Well, just today her friends told her that they were now going to go to the Amazon, it was going to cost 700 dollars, and they didn’t want any drama. They told her right to her face that "if a bug landed on her she wasn’t allowed to scream." Basically that they didn’t want her to go. Then her friends approached one of Marie's other friends and said that Marie had invited herself along on their plans. 

Completely untrue! They had tentative plans for months. 

So now she is scheduled for overland with no plans. She went to the pursers desk to try and be removed from the list and be allowed on this ship but it has already been sent in so they will try but she won't know until our last day in Rio. So she may be stranded all alone. And on her birthday. 

I know that she will be ok and it will work out because her has spoken to her mother and she is going to put her up in a nice hotel and pay for her plane ticket but she still is going to be alone on her birthday. How horrible. 

I think Molly and I are angrier about it than Marie is. 

As for my plans, my overnight doesn't leave until the third day. Molly has a field lab tomorrow and I didn’t really process that until today when I realized I had absolutely nothing planned. 

Oh, I did get dock time for being left behind at the bird park. It is annoying that they send out those emails only the day before port because it gives us no time to fight it. I did complain though and Dean Eddie said I would get an email but I still haven't. It is only two hours so I am not hindered all that much. Tomorrow once the ship is cleared I go hand my ID in to the pursers desk. After two hours goes by I can get it back and leave the ship. 

Jessi also has absolutely no plans so we are going to do something together. Probably go to the Christ the Redeemer statue. We are going to wing it. And Molly and I are going to wing it on the second day. 

Tomorrow morning we have to go with Dean Eddie to talk to the Hotel Director. When I wasn’t in the room Jessi got a call from someone that told her they wanted us back in our room tonight. But the carpet is still damp and while the smell is better it still isn't fantastic. It should be fine, I don't mind going back in there but I want something to happen. My backpack is grossly stained, and our laundry smells. Dean Eddie said that it should be fine to wash it again. Hopefully they can clean my backpack too, but I need it for my overnight. 

I bought delicious smelling Febreze from the store. I wouldn’t mind smelling that forever and ever. I think it will be ok. 

Regardless, I will be in Brazil tomorrow and that means everything is magical. Because I am overlanding I have 8 days in this country. After this we only have two more countries and 15 days at sea. Time to embrace what we have left.