Class Afloat 2011-2012: March 2012

Dakar, Senegal!

We left Las Palmas 4 days late because we were in dry dock and our helm was getting repaired. And our exams finished before the end of the sail, so to make up for lost time we did a thing called “Operation Sail Fast” To try to get to Dakar ASAP. We combined watch groups so there were 3 groups instead of six. We stood 2 hour day watches, and 4 hour nighwatches (8pm – 12am, 12am – 4am, and 4am to 6am) we only had two nights of this so luckily We got the 8-12 pm watch on one night and then the 12am to 4am watch on another night. It was actually really fun. Everyone was energized and we all just lounged around on the deck for the last half hour and it was pretty awesome. Operation sail fast worked and we arrived in Dakar on December 16^th, only one day late!

My first impression of Senegal was: well this is interesting, people are swarming us and trying to sell us stuff, and it smells weird here… HA” The first thing that happened once we walked out of the port gates was locals coming up to us and saying “Welcome to Senegal! Very nice country” then they insisted on being our “tour guides” around the city, which was very helpful. The first day our tour guide “Joe” decided to tour us around downtown Senegal. The city was so hectic, and people were always trying to sell us something, it was quite exhausting. I ended up getting a massive amount of necklaces and bracelets for a really cheap price. The currency in Senegal is Franks or CFA, 1000 franks is about $2.50 CAN. We went to this factory type place where a lot of people bought some African clothing, it is all really colorful and really nice to wear. I bought a pink bag with white and black elephants on it! Then Joe the tour guide took us into this mall type thing, we weren’t really interested though because it was kind of like a cosmetic shop. One of the owners of a hair salon asked for a piece of my hair because it was a very nice color apparently, so I gave it to him! Haha.

Near the ship, there was conveniently a beach; the market was so exhausting all the time that a lot of people just went there to chill out afterwards. And a lot of people spent a good amount of time there. It was right by some hotel, and it has really nice sand, and turquoise water, and it was pretty clean despite a few pieces of trash. But the water was worm and it was really just a nice place to spend time at with some friends and jus kind of do nothing after a tiring day.

Our port programs for this port were spanned over like a 4 day period. The first two days we were voluntarily split into two groups for doing two-day service projects with the Peace Corps and SYTO (Senegalese Youth Travel Organization). One of the groups went to the Fann Hospital to inquire information about micro gardening at the infectious disease ward (it is a lot more interesting than it sounds I promise!) and the other half went to a kindergarden class to paint letters of the French alphabet on a wall (French is the national language of Senegal next to Wolof). One of the first days we met up with the SYTO students to just get o know each other and whatnot, most of them spoke English pretty well, so it was awesome to get to know them. The following day, the 2 groups went their separate ways into the Fann Hospital group and the kindergarden/painting group. At the Fann Hospital (the one I chose because i knew we were going to an orphanage eventually so I thought I would do something different.) we went outside the infectious disease ward and learned more about a program they have to give fresh fruits and vegetables to the patients in order to help them get better. IT was surprisingly pretty cool. We helped garden, and it was pretty big and it cost a very small amount to create in order to produce as much food as it does (enough for about 50 people a day!) We got to harvest some potatoes and plant some new stuff. The next day, part 2 of the program, we went to the psychiatric ward to their theraputic garden to help paint it and make compost and clean it up a bit. The tasks we were doing weren’t exactly fun, but the people we were with and the country we were in made it so much better!

On December 23^rd we went to the SOS Village in Louga, Senegal. It is basically a type of orphanage where the kids live in a village with houses, with “parents”, and with other orphans. We arrived there and we were taken to their play area and the little boys were so rowdy and they were wrestling with the class afloat guys and were just being kids, and it was awesome to watch. A lot of the orphan girls were calmer and walked around and stayed around eh gazebo, we chatted with some of the 13 and 14 year old girls, and they told us that they went to school and helped out around the house and took care of their younger orphan siblings. They have a lot of responsibility there. And as we were talking a few of the little girls decided to be mischievous and play a game to see who could touch my hair the most without me noticing… I noticed, but it was still adorable! Then one of the older girls who said her name was Nicole, chatted with me and decided to cornrow my hair, which was pretty cool, they did my whole head in like 20 minutes! There was like five of them doing that. They didn’t speak English very fluently, but it was enough to make conversations about our families, and friends, and what both our life’s were like. WE slept overnight at he orphanage and the next morning we had breakfast (bread, cheese, and coffee) and got to play with the kids for an hour or so, we left shortly after for a long four hour bus ride back to the ship. The busses here are quite different. There is a cage built around the seat where the teller of the bus usually sits and me and my friend Morgan sat in there for a good portion of the bus ride and just m=looked out the window and we did ‘the Jenna marbles face’ at them, if you do not know what that it, the go on YouTube and type it in. It was very entertaining for both sides of the spectrum. The Senegalese people got a kick out of it, and so did we! It made the time pass by a lot faster.

When we got back the Professional crew had decorated the whole ship in Christmas decorations. And there was even a tree in front of the mast with presents under it! Peter, one of our AB’s dressed up as Santa and handed out our presents! On the 24^th (aka Christmas Eve) we had a sad sad day. Some of our crew left because they were only first semester. We said our goodbyes there were tears shed, but then we went to bed. We awoke the next morning and it was Christmastime! We all had little presents from the teachers. Andrea, Aidan, Miss Williams and I all got up and made big breakfast for everyone. French toast with Ice cream!!!!!!!! For that whole day we had shore leave and we didn’t have to do any gangway watches as a gift from the Pro-Crew! It was an awesome day, we spent most of it at the beach and also getting internet to say hi to our families. That night we also has our watches get changed and our bunk areas, the girls side and the boys side switched so everyone was moving all of their belongings around the banjer at the same time and it was a total gongshow, our bunks are arranged in our watch groups since we all wake up at the same time to do night watch, and I have a top bunk this semester, yay! The following day we had the new students arrive. There were five of them in total. They all seem like their really cool and 3/5 of them are from Calgary! Just like the other 60% of us J That day we went on a port program to Goree Island which is western most part of Africa and it was the island where all of the slaves were shipped off from during the slave trade. We went to the Slave house where they were all kept and it was not very enjoyable living quarters. It is basically just walls and a dirt floor. It is right along the waters edge and there’s a thing called “The Door of No Return” which is the door that all the slave were shipped from. The whole place had an eerie feel to it. After we got to explore the island, which was really cool. We were able to get around in in like two hours because it is really small.

Senegal was a really busy exhausting port, and it was supposed to be our break ;) We got shore leave the next day, and then we got ready for departure to brace ourselves for the Atlantic Crossing

Class Afloat 2011-2012

Friday, 9 March 2012

Las Palmas/Senegal Photos

Morocco Pictures!

Senegal!

Canary Islands