muster muster muster

Thursday, September 29, 2011 (5:28pm) - Cape of Good Hope

 "that was the general emergency signal. not the signal to abandon ship." thank youuu captain jeremy! muster drill #2 just ended. such a blast. if we have to do this every month, i'm going to be very upset. and i'm fairly certain we do, so wah.

day off school means lot of sleep! slept about 12 hours last night, pure bliss. woke up to "the voice" making announcements over the intercom. had our global studies/africa reflection talk at 11. it was kind of nice because the professor that runs my discussion is from south africa (he is actually the director of the cape town theatre!). so he had a lot to say. some crazy stories came out... i guess a semester at sea student got kidnapped... craziness.

i'm still trying to comprehend my experiences in africa. from my blogs, you can tell how completely different each country was from the other. morocco felt like it was left behind socially, ghana was the definition of a developing country, and south africa could have been america. this might sounds stupid, but this is the first time i was truly aware of being a white woman. i said this before, but being a woman in morocco was frightening. i said the country was left behind socially, and the reason why i said that is how women are treated and how they view women in society. which is basically as a non-entity. and it's pretty weird being pegged as an american the second i get off the ship. this isn't just me feeling it. especially in america where we claim any and all heritage other than american. pretty sure american isn't even an option when you're answering the race/ethnicity question on college applications, at the dmv, or on standardized tests. yet, we couldn't even pretend to be anything other than american if we wanted. not even the cliche "american?? no no, we're canadian." and so far, i haven't felt threatened for being american. but some people kind of look at us differently... i got the feeling in morocco that people thought we were dumb or something.

it's also kind of hard to "emerge yourself in the culture" and be a "global citizen" when locals are taking pictures of/in front of our ship because it is SO gigantic and pretentious. in cape town, we were by far the biggest ship... and everyone kept taking pictures in front of it. i felt kind of awkward about it. especially when we could see it all the way from the top of table mountain. and when people ask us where we're from and then immediately say "oh, you're from the ship." kind of strange. it's hard to be humble when we are coming off such a massive, luxurious ship.

all in all, africa was an amazing experience. i've wanted to come here for a long time. i had such diverse experiences in each of the countries, which shows the diversity of africa as a continent (no, africa is not a country!). and plus i think mauritius is a part of africa too... so one more stop!

michael, maddy, and i are about to meet some friends for dinner in a few minutes. then i need to do a lot of homework and go to work. love and miss you all. hope san diego is treating you all well! don't forget to keep emailing me! i love hearing from any and all people from home! xoxo.