Africa Day

Yesterday was Africa Day on the ship.  No classes were held, but the day was a continuous offering of seminars and activities about Africa or the issues facing Africa.  The students created an AIDS "quilt" since AIDS is such a huge problem in Africa.  For example, twenty-nine percent of the pregnant women in South Africa are HIV positive.

Some other sessions included: Cultural Norms in South Africa and Ghana, Apartheid: How Much do you Really Know?, Names we Call Africa: Digging the Roots of Cool, and Electronic Waste in Africa.

Hunger was another theme of several sessions.  There was a "Hunger Luncheon" where participants were given the persona of a person with a name, age, sex and income level.  They then were able to eat according to their status, so the higher income people were well-fed and the low-income people had very little.  It was interesting that some people chose not to particpate if they were high income.  There was some food sharing going on.

Lunch and dinner included some South African dishes and good conversation between friends.

A lone oil derrick in the sea served as a sentinel for the coast of South Africa, and we could see the outline of the coast and the lights of a town as the sun went down.  Many of us proceeded to the Union to view selections from musicals of South Africa, performed by our students after only 3 hours of rehearsal by our inter-port lecturer.  It was a perfect treat to the end of Africa Day.