communication breakdown

JESSICA, JENN, ANNA, STEPH, MEGHAN, TORI:

have you guys been getting my semester at sea postcards?? i've sent a bunch to all of you and i haven't heard back (with the exception of meghan) and i'm getting worried that maybe they're not sending or something. if everyone's just busy that's cool too i just need to know if you've been getting them because if you're not i need to figure out another way to communicate with you. the postcards are free and since internet is 40 cents a minute i've been trying to just use those instead of email. hope everyone is happy and great. love you.

true poverty

the first picture is of the favelas in salvador. 70% of the population live in these usually illegal structures. they often have no sewage, electricity or running water. In Brazil, the richest 20% of society possesses 60% of the wealth while the poorest 20% has only 3% of the country's wealth. so you can only image how poor these people are. the rich take helicopters to work each day and the poor fight to feed their children. the second picture is my arm. the flowers were painted with a natural dye extracted from a plant in the amazon. it lasts about 2 weeks and is very good for your skin.

BRAZILIAN LIFE

It’s all becoming so clear. It’s as though Brazil had the power to rectify by beliefs about society, racism and stereotypes, hidden and exposed inequality, materialism, poverty and the hope for a better future. While I now feel wholly confident in my own ideas, I have also taken a new perspective on my perhaps one-sided way of viewing civilization (that everything is horrible and a big mess and there’s no hope- none of this is true!). It’s a hard thing to put into words- the feeling you get when you start to realize your eyes are open for the first time. I feel like I’m just beginning to live life, or maybe I’m just beginning to understand it. There’s this profound feeling lingering inside of me and with each class I sit through and every page of every textbook I read, I put together the pieces of this crazy jigsaw puzzle we call life. Lewis Mumford once wrote that “Habitually, people treat the realities of personality and association and city as abstractions, while they treat confused pragmatic abstractions such as money, credit, political sovereignty, as if they were concrete realities that had an existence independent of human conventions.” We need balance. Everyone needs money to live, but why do we need so much of it? Everyone innately yearns for power, but why must we drop bombs to attain more of it? I’m starting to not only affirm my beliefs, but also question them as well. How can we find this balance? For the first time in my life, I’m learning because I want to. I read my books because I desperately want to know. While we learn about sustainable development in my sustainable communities class, I find myself connecting this idea of sustainability to society. Has our greed led to the dilution of relationships? One night in Salvador, we met these travelers who were all around 20 to 24 years old and in a matter of several hours, I could already feel my world view morphing into something new. On the outside, these kids sitting on the curb selling the jewelry they made from various natural materials they picked up along the way (mainly seeds and other materials from the Amazon) appeared to be desolate. In actuality, they were the richest people I have ever known. They are doing whatever it takes to travel the world and truly learn the things that are important. Behind their tattered clothes and the rows of earrings and bracelets was Eduardo, a guy my age who had been bicycling around South America for the past few months. And Lizzy, a girl from New Jersey who picked up seven months ago to see the world and has been doing so on her own ever since. This is not to say that hitch hiking around the world is the answer to all of our problems- the point is that we’ve reached this place in society where we must find justification for the direction that we take and the paths that we choose. I believe that people must choose to live the life they want to lead. It all goes back to this question of balance. While I know I need to be educated so that I can get a decent job so that I can support myself, I also need to be aware of what I want out of life. Before I can think about applying to law school, there are many things I need to do to become the person I want to be so that I can live the life I want to lead. There isn’t one way. This idea in the United States that there is only one way has literally led to the demise of humanity as we know it today. Desmond Tutu spoke this morning in my mysticism and the religious experience class. His speech was based off of his article about silence. He said that people now see stomach ulcers as a status symbol. People boast about how long it’s been since they’ve taken a vacation or how jam-packed their daily schedules are. This kind of life is not sustainable. First, there is no happiness in living this way. Second, the human mind and body was not created to SUSTAIN this way of living. We need to get outside and run around and breathe in the fresh air that we are rapidly depleting. I’ve never been so happy because I’ve now finally found hope. I’ve found hope that I can choose the life path that works for me and that not only is what I think important, it is vital to my survival. For the longest time, I never voiced my opinions because I thought they were illegitimate. I thought they were illegitimate because it seemed no one understood what I was trying to say. Then I got on this ship- the MV explorer and I commenced on a journey around the world. It is on this ship that for the first time, I’m living in a community of people who UNDERSTAND. I’ve met professors who put everything they have into maintaining their orphanages in Cambodia and professors who have changed lives through their work in the peace corp. And so I’ve finally been able to realize that I’m not strange, and my beliefs are not unimportant- I simply have never lived in the right environment. I’ve never opened my mind to the possibility that there are other options for my life than settling on the east coast with my husband, dog and two kids. I can live in California if I want to. I can work hard and save money and travel the Amazon. I can become an environmental lawyer. I can do whatever I want because I have the power to choose. Today I realized that what all of this means is- I’M FREE.

maritime adjustments

happy valentines day! today we crossed the equator. i also had to buy more internet minutes. can you believe that just from updating this blog i used up 3 hours worth...thats how slow the internet is. hope everyone is happy and doing well. also, here are some pictures from puerto rico. they include el morro, old san juan and the rain forest. i'm not going to be able to set up webshots until we get to port this weekend and find an internet cafe. we set our clocks ahead last night for the third time. even though we have lots and lots of work and get very little sleep...everyone is happy and having a great time. i really love living on a boat. it allows for plentiful group time but it also offers the chance for some wonderful alone time. today i just laid on the deck and wrote in my journal after classes. it was glorious.. there's a scary storm chasing the boat but it hasn't hit yet. no one is sure if it will but many students are quite excited at the prospect of sleeping in their life jackets tonight. i havent gotten seasick at all yet so this might be my chance. as we pass neptune's throne- they constantly make announcements for us to put on sunblock...there are tons of sunburned kids all over the boat. LOVE YOU

more

i forgot...the voyage between san juan and salvador is supposed to take us over some of the deepest points in the ocean. also, pictures are on the way. i can't give you a full version because it takes about an hour to load 10 pictures and internet minutes are hard to come by. check back for link to webshots. love you all.

PUERTO RICO realizations

Puerto Rico turned out to have an impact on me that I never thought possible. We just got back on the boat- our first port over and done with. Now I’m left here with this strange feeling of change. I thought that going to beaches and rainforests would be fun and exciting (which they undoubtedly were) but these adventures also stirred up the primitive human being inside of me. WE ARE KILLING THE PLANET AND IT’S A REALLY SCARY THING. That’s the message I got from every single tour guide and bus driver that I met over these last three days. When we went to the bioluminescent lagoon in Fajardo I had high expectations. I thought that swimming with electric plankton would be a truly magical experience- and it was! HOWEVER, the tour guide instilled a deep sense of sadness in me. Over the past seven years that he has been guiding people through the mangrove forest to the lagoon, the plankton has significantly died out for the following reasons:

*The run off from storms has increased due to global warming which is a cycle that we have created due to the insane commercialism that has completely consumed our modern society. People want more cars and bigger houses and houses that overlook endangered lagoons and they don’t care if that means wildlife will die and that we are permanently altering our planet and that by 2020 this isn’t going to be a sustainable way of living. We simply MUST stop wanting.

*Because of the runoff from the storms, all of the waste and pollution coming from the construction is contaminating the lagoon and causing irreversible damage. This lagoon is one of FOUR left in the world and soon it will die. Is this really the planet that we want to leave our children?

Don’t get me wrong, I had an amazing time. We kayaked through the mangrove forest for a mile and half before we reached the lagoon. Katie and I had a great time paddling around- we tried to hang back since the other 35 kayaks full of SAS kids were crashing into each other and into the bank. It was completely dark and impossible to see which made it that much more mysterious and fun. Once we got to the lagoon, our guide tied out kayaks together and gave us a crash course on plankton and the way they reproduce and proceeded to send us off into the electric water saying “Go make plankton babies!!” Apparently human stimulation causes them to reproduce. We swam around and even got to look in the water with magnifying goggles. Our skin literally glittered. It was wonderful. We kayaked back and after the hour long ride home we all passed out. Don’t even ask what it took to plan this trip- I was in charge and luckily I can say it was worth the stress. So anyway, today we went on a rain forest (el yunque) hike and to Luquillo beach. It was today that I really started to realize the impact we are having on the planet. Our rain forest guide was AMAZING. She was so knowledgeable not only about the rain forest but about Puerto Rico as well. The hike to coco falls was about 50 minutes. When we got there we got to stop and swim in the waterfalls. The water was so clean and fresh- I felt exhilarated. Then we headed back for the 50 minute hike to our bus whereupon we went to a local restaurant for rice, beans and plantains. On the 45 minute bus ride home, someone asked the tour guide to enlighten us on some of Puerto Rico’s problems since all we knew up until that point were all the good things about the island. Here is an abridged version of what I learned:

*There is a huge problem with immigration that is making a really negative impact on the economy. Illegal immigrants are coming into Puerto Rico so that they can attain American citizenship (since Puerto Ricans are American citizens). This wouldn’t be that big of a deal if it weren’t for the fact that the island is starting to become overpopulated. Right now the mark is at about 4.5 millions humans. With these humans come 2.5 million cars. By the year 2020, they expect the number of cars to reach 4 million. Because of earthquakes and tropical storms, highways can’t be built on top of each other like they are in so many places in the US because they will crumble during one of these natural disasters. So now there is the problem is figuring out where to put all these cars since it already takes 45 minutes to get somewhere that should take 10 minutes. This leads me to my next point.

*Development all over the world has already reduced the rain forests on the planet to 7%. This is drastically lower than the percentage from 60 years ago. Condos are already going up all over the coast and as mentioned above, the runoff is killing the natural beauty of the island. If things don’t stop, the island could be nonexistent by 2020.

There was a lot more to what our guide said but this is basically what I can remember. Her point was not to upset us or make us feel guilty but rather to awaken us to the possibility that our generation can be the change that we want to see in the world. Since the 1960s, more and more information has been surfacing regarding what we are doing wrong as a species and how we can fix it. The problem is that people simply don’t care. Very few people are worried about the fact that we are running out of room to dump waste or the fact that not only are we living in excess, we are not living in a way that is sustainable. Eventually we will reach the breaking point and what will happen then is that the human race will die out. The planet, well the planet will be just fine because the straight scientific facts prove that we are going to kill ourselves before we finish the job of killing the planet. This is a very real and relevant problem and all of us really need to start thinking about what has to be done because I know that I don’t want my ancestors living on a garbage dump with no clean water. I’m so sick of hearing “well I don’t care because the world isn’t going to end in my lifetime so it’s really not my job to do anything about all of these environmental issues.” It is our job because this planet gave us life. This planet provides us naturally with all the things we need to survive yet we continue to destroy her and reject her offerings. No one NEEDS plastic or candy or twelve pairs of jeans. It’s a sad life we are headed towards. Soon all remnants of how life should be- active, beautiful, peaceful, enjoyable etc…- will disappear. And when that happens, there will be no more civilization, only robots programmed to want and buy and want and buy. I know I don’t want to be here for that and I plan on doing whatever I can to make a difference.

the beginning

i don't think i've ever been this happy in my entire life. we've been on the ship for about a day and a half now and there's already so much that has happened. this is such a beautiful home for us and everyone living aboard is so respectful of the ship. i've met so many people and all of them are different and kind and smart and it's so amazing. the professors have the most innovative attitudes and everything about this trip astounds me. i think i'm already enamoured. me roommate is this really amazing girl from berkley california. her name is beth. her boyfriend tristan is also on the trip and they are both so fun and cool and smart and mature and i already love them so much. katie is great and we've been meeting lots of new people to hang out with and travel with. last night my friend cristal led a sing along on the deck and all these people joined. she's a great guitarist with an even better voice and she reminds me of hanna in a lot of ways. tomorrow is the first day of classes and i can't wait. after that, we'll land in puerto rico and the real adventure finally begins. i'm even starting to learn to love the lull of the ship. it rocks back and forth all day and night day and night and night after day but it's starting to become reassuring. the waves rock me to sleep at night. the internet is extremely slow so i'll try my best to keep this updated and personal emails will hopefully be on the way soon. i love you all so much and wish that you could be here with me to experience all of this. i've truly been given the opportunity of a lifetime.