Jumpstart: Brazil

Monday morning we left for the Acajutaba Village Homestay until Tuesday afternoon. So far this was my favorite trip! We took an hour and half speed boat ride down the Amazon to this village and upon arrival they introduced us to the families we would be staying with. I stayed with Dr. Bill’s (our ship’s resident doctor) wife  Suzie and our village “mom” was Owlina and our “sister” was Vanessa.  Even though I could only speak a few words in Portuguese I some how figured out a way to communicate with the kids of the village, who I spent most of my time with on the trip.

My favorite part of the trip was spending time with all of the villagers at once when we hung out in the main house area. Monday night the children showed us their traditional village dance and then taught

It was very tough to get up this morning (Wednesday) but I couldn’t miss the orphanage! So we drove about 45 minutes outside the city of Manaus to get to the Monte Salem Orphanage. I was in a foul mood for who knows what reason and I was not really that excited about this trip. The problem was that there were about 30 students going on this service trip to an orphanage of 17 students. So I already knew (as stupid as this sounds) I would be fighting for one on one time with kids and being involved with Jumpstart makes me so possessive of kids! I like need to be the one front and center hanging out with the kids and its quite obnoxious and I was really bummed that it was going to be a less personal experience than I wanted.

So we get to the orphanage and its actually quite beautiful. Of course the kids were adorable and there was actually another group of volunteers at the center who were from all over. They were a group called YWAM I think, and they were spending a month in Brazil volunteering at the orphanage… so there were like 50 adults and 20 kids. Sorta annoying but this one girl came up to me and we played tag, hide and seek, and took videos the whole time. My mood completely changed when I was hanging out with her because I was one of the lucky few who actually got to connect with one of the kids. I can’t speak any Portuguese so the most communicating we did was with signs and through one of the translators but it was completely fine.

The hand game that the children in Acajutaba village taught me was also being played at the orphanage and our guide noticed that I knew it so he asked me to do a demonstration for the crowd! It was a simple moment but it made me feel pretty cool in front of the orphanage and the other students and faculty teaching a Brazilian game!  Sarah, the girl I was with made me a bracelet before I left whichw was really cool and now I have something to remember her by ☺

Today (Wednesday) is the first day I don’t have anything to do and I plan on catching up on sleep then making some phone calls home before and after dinner. Then off to the Samba! WOOO BRASILA!

Today was our first day en route to GHANA! I am super pumped to be on my way to Africa! I had such a busy day! Three classes, work, 3 meetings and now I am babysitting my buddy Sydney! I met her on my homestay at the Acajutaba village on Monday. The first thing she said to me was “Why are your eyes so big?” She is the most outspoken spunky seven year old I have ever met. I love her! My new found friendship with her is only going to add to my reputation as the college student who cant get enough of kids. Every place we have been to so far I always find kids that I love! This is what Jumpstart has done to me!

Sydney is actually the daughter of Marti, one of the deans on the ship, and the woman who we all call “the voice” because she makes all the announcements on the ship. Marti was the first adult I met on the ship and is an awesome lady. I hope I stay in contact with her after the voyage.

Brazil!!!

Brazil is crazy. The people are crazy! Crazy good! I love them. I am learning some Portuguese but I am pretty bad at it. Thankfully there are a lot of similar Spanish words. So the first day we were here (Sunday) Tyler Elias Gabby (Pitt friends) and Shelly (UVA) just walked around the markets in Manaus the port city we have docked in and explored. That night we heard about a Samba rehearshal for the carnival that happens in March in Manaus so we wanted to go check it out. Apparently the people putting on the rehearsal knew we were coming so they put on quite the show. I have never had so much fun in a public event like that. I can’t really explain it without showing the videos I have on my computer but if any of you ever get the chance to experience a samba GO! It was so much fun. You are just in a crowd of a hundres of people while they play instruments and you dance the samba!! I was talking to Brazilians the whole time and asking them to teach me the dance which was awesome! They loved us semester at sea kids!  Originally we wanted to go find a bar to watch the football games going on but the samba was WAY better! So the steelers beat the Jets (sorry andy and ali) and we celebrated by singing the “Here we go Steelers” song the whole way home and we decided that if the steelers win the super bowl we are going to riot on the ship and video tape it and post it on youtube like they will throughout Pittsburgh!!! Go steelers!

Monday-Tuesday I went on a village homestay! I am gonna nap then write about that and post! 

brasila =)

Tomorrow is BRASILA!!! A group of us are going to walk around Manaus (the city we are docking in check it out on a map its pretty far into the Amazon!!! 1000 miles down the Amazon to be exact!!) and try to find an internet café and phone cards so I can call all you lovely people!!!! I am super pumped about Brazil but really just about this whole trip. I can’t describe in words the amount of emotions I have been feeling over the past few weeks but I hope to do it through a few videos I plan to make.

Today we had a “reading day” where we have no classes so I just laid out and finally got some color on my pale body! Everyone on this ship is super tan so it is nice to no longer be called Casper in my group of friends. I had work from 4-6 which I have come to love. I am one of the students that works at the student activities desk where you go to sign out games or balls for sports and we also coordinate and plan the sports tournaments. It’s a sweet job cause I can do homework or whatever really I ant when we are not busy. Some of the other work-study jobs are intense so I really lucked out with getting this work study award. I only have to work 2 hours a day while at sea and I get a $4000 scholarship!!!!

Tonight we had our “pre-port” meeting and we learned all the do’s and don’ts of Brazil. Our LLC’s (living learning coordinators, kinda like Resident Assistants or RD’s) put on a hysterical show of skits. They seem like they are having a lot of fun. I would definitely love to be an LLC sometime in the future, and for those of you who want to study abroad but haven’t yet or don’t have the chance to in college, think about applying to be and LLC on SAS. You don’t have to be an alumni to get the job which is sick!!

So Jake Fitzgerald and I got together today to talk about our plans for when we get home. My whole idea was to do some sort of “Global Awareness Campaign” at highlands and in our surrounding area. I would love to do something more concrete, like raise money for a more specific cause but I truly believe we must educate each other on the importance of gaining a global perspective and from there the idea is to encourage people and particularly high school students to STUDY ABROAD and see the world. There have been so many things in my short life that have completely changed my perspective but none of them have as much as traveling to another country and the in depth discussions you have with people while your there. Then again Jumpstart did and does rock my world and will forever be a huge part of my life but going to another country and learning about other cultures and talking to people about their lives is life changing. I am not really putting into words exactly how I feel which is frustrating me but I will attempt to at another time.

This whole blog thing is tough for me because all I wanna do is run around this ship and meet more people and not sit on a computer and write but I know I will regret it in the end if I don’t!

Anyways back to my plan with Senor Fitzgerald. We are going to have a percent night at the AB&G sometime in June to raise funds for a project called “Freedom and Creation” If you read nothing else on my blog that’s find JUST READ THIS CAUSE ITS AMAZING! SO… Freedom and Creation is a non-profit that an SAS Alumni started. Andrew Briggs is the founder and his goal is to build fresh water wells in areas and villages that are in need. In many places across the world people must travel miles for one days supply of clean water because they do not have access to fresh water where they live.

So Briggs goes into these villages with tons of art supplies and asks the school aged children to create anything they want. Then he brings these pieces of art back to the states and tells the story of that particular village and children and auctions off their artwork. He spoke to us last week and explained that many of the children he meets have never been exposed to crayons or color utensils to create art with. Can you imagine only ever drawing in pencil? How many years of art did we all have in grade school?

With the money he raises he brings back to the village to build wells that cost on average $5000. So our percent night is to fundraise to build a well for a village in need.

.... I wrote this last night. TONIGHT was awesome. TODAY was awesome. GO BRASILA. and GOOOO STEELERS WOOOOOOOO!! 

me in dominca!! wooo!

FIRST WEEK AND DOMINICA!!!

So the first day was super overwhelming but I think it went much smoother than I had expected. Mom and Dad dropped me off at the airport and I cried until I got through security. It was so hard to say goodbye to them!!!! But I actually let go and I actually got on the plane! Hooray for me! I didn’t become excited until I got off the plane, and the Bahamas were SO HOT! I grabbed a taxi with Paroma from Pittsburgh, and this girl Shelly from UVA. Shelly’s best friend from home is actually my older brother Mike’s best friend from school Schev! So it was really cool to meet her and have another person that I knew on the ship. They got dropped off at the Wyndam and I continued to the ship for my work-study orientation. $30 from the airport to the ship, mad expensive for a short ride! Got the ship and was in awe. So gorgeous! I felt like such a spoiled brat walking around that ship until I made it to my lovely economy cabin. Don’t get me wrong I am extremely appreciative to be on this trip but damn I got the shaft when it comes to cabins, especially economy cabins. The economy cabins are smaller, and usually room 3-4 people. I had 2 other roommates as of the first day and I was so glad I got to move in first but I was pretty nervous about the amount of space we had in the room. Long story short, Alicia my roommate from Seattle moved in the next day and not the other roommate and at first we thought she was one of the people who’s flights got cancelled because of the snow, turns out she cancelled and is no longer coming on the trip!!! THANK GOD! Cause me and Alicia bump into each other all the time in that small room and I don’t know how we would have fit another girl in there.

That afternoon we had a quick work-study orientation and then I went out and walked around Nassau with Jake Fitzgerald from Highlands and my friend Tyler that I know from Jumpstart at Pitt! We met up with other work-study students and went out to a bar for a little to meet other people coming on the ship. I stay out till about ten cause I was wiped out not having slept much Monday night, so I passed out fast on Tuesday night and woke up at 6 to welcome and move in the 650 other students coming on the trip Wednesday.

Wednesday was SO much fun! It was so nice moving in early and knowing where thing were on the ship. It was also so nice knowing a bunch of the staff already and it felt good to be able to help people. I was a floater so I just walked up and down the line that people were standing in waiting to get on the ship talking to people asking if they needed help. It was a lot of fun cause I got to meet a lot of people and I scoped out any Pittsburgh/NY/NJ shirts. I met so many people from NJ and Pittsburgh so I already felt like I had a lot of people I could connect with and it made me miss home but feel excited about all these new people I was meeting.

Since I was a floater I was able to sneak out to Nassau and go shopping for a bit with my two friends who are on the ship with their professor parents Emma and Allison. I found a sweet giraffe that I bought for my Arts and Sciences advisor Mary Beth at Pitt. She is the sweetest lady and she was one of the people who helped me get through my homesick filled freshman year.

The day went quick and before I knew it I was in bed again ready to get up early for our next day of orientation. Alicia my roommate and I clicked right away so that was awesome. She is super sweet and she talks so fast! We figured out that we are both open to sharing stuff so that’s nice and I feel really comfortable with her so far!

Wednesday was so long but still very exciting. We had a full day of orientation on Wednesday and to be honest its already blurred together with Thursday. I have never met so many people in such a short amount of time so of course I remembered no one’s names but I am getting so much better as the days go on.

Yesterday’s trip was amazing. I was choked up the whole time thinking about how lucky I am to be on this trip. I will probably say this a thousand times over but I really can’t believe that I have this opportunity. The people I have met so far have been so nice and just amazing. I went on a Carib Indian visit where we saw the indigenous people of Dominica. Tyler and our new friend Raquel went with us and we were starved and looked miserable at the end of it but it was so worth it. The people are so environmental and use the land so well. They showed us so many different herbs and spices and taught us different remedies for sicknesses, it was really awesome! And I got the guava jelly I loved in Costa Rica from the chief's daughter!!! She was actually an extra in Pirates of the Caribbean 2! They filmed one of the village scenes in their little village and a few of the chiefs daughters were in the scene! SO COOL!

At an internet café right now but the lady told me she has no more internet cards so no internet today for me =( but that’s okay! Last night was my first night going out while on SAS and it was a blast! I went out with Greg, Gabby and Tyler from Pitt, Raquel, and a bunch of other people that I can’t remember names right now. We went to a small bar that was about a street away from where the ship was so it was nice and close. It rained on and off all night and we bounced back and forth between two bars, one of which had an open roof so you were getting rained on while on the dance floor so fun! There were like 600 students roaming around Roseau last night it was crazy! The locals were super nice, and I met about 10 people who were wearing Yankees hats so of course I went up to them and tested their Yankee knowledge. Not ONE of them knew who number 2 was on the Yankees. I was very disappointed and from there I educated them on the few Yankees players’ numbers I could remember. One of them did know Sabathia’s number, which was impressive at the time, but for the most part they knew nothing about the Yankees!!!!

We got back surprisingly early and when we did Greg and I ended up playing mom for a few hours to a bunch of our drunk friends who were either getting sick, or wandering around the ship trying to find their rooms. Most hysterical evening thus far. < wrote this on Monday the 17^th – more to come soon!

bon voyage!

Spending my last few hours with some of my favorites <3 thanks everyone for all your wishes and help with this trip! Can't wait to write about my adventures to share with all of you =)

I will love and miss you all very much!