Salam from Morocco!

Hello Mrs. Simpson's class!

The MV Explorer just left our final port, Morocco! In Morocco the vast majority of people are Muslim, and many people speak both Arabic and French. Sometimes they spoke Spanish too!

The ship landed in Casablanca. It is famous for having the third largest mosque in the world, called the Hassan II Mosque. It was beautiful both inside and out!



These are what the windows inside look like!



A couple friends and I traveled on the train to Marrakech, a city on the edge of the Sahara Desert. It felt like being in a fairy tale! In a large square called Jamma El Fena there are snake-charmers, monkeys, and magicians. At night the square filled with these food vendors and we ate the most amazing food.



A common food in Morocco is tagine. It is a style of cooking where food is placed in a clay triangle pot and placed in a fire. I tried a couple different kinds of tagine and they were all very good! Also something famous in Morocco is mint tea! It is very sweet but very yummy. I drank a lot of it.



We stayed in the medina in Marrakech, which means 'Old City'. Most cities in Morocco have medinas, where the city is oldest and is surrounded by walls. The streets are very narrow and it is very easy to get lost in the alleys, it is like a maze. Fortunately, many locals are willing to give you directions.



Finally, we traveled to Rabhat, which is the capital of Morocco. We spent a lot of time looking at the ocean, and we even went surfing! It was cold, but we were wearing wetsuits so we stayed warm.

I am very sad that Morocco was the last port for Semester at Sea. The next time I get off the ship I won't be getting back on again! We arrive in London in three days, and I just finished writing all my tests for my classes. Next time I write to you I will be in London, England!

Bridge Tour of the MV Explorer!

A couple days ago I went on a tour of the bridge of the MV Explorer! The 'bridge' is the command center, where they steer the ship from! Normally students aren't allowed to see the bridge, but the tours let us see how the ship works.



There is always one or two crew members whose job it is to look out at the ocean with binoculars, all the time. There is a lot of fancy electronic equipment that lets the MV Explorer crew see ships in the distance, but sometimes machines don't work, so there is always one person using their eyes to make sure we are safe!

This is the view from the bridge!



While we were up on the bridge the ship was on auto pilot so no one was actually steering! This is what the steering wheel looks like.



Below is a picture of the nautical flags. They all mean different things. Also, when we arrive in a different country we are required by law to hoist the flag of the country we are arriving in!



Finally, they let us try on a Captain's hat! What do you think? Do you think I could be a Captain one day?



Tomorrow we arrive in our final port, Morocco! I am very excited but also sad that it is the last stop on Semester at Sea before we disembark the ship. I can't wait to tell you about my adventures in Morocco in a couple days!

Akwaaba from Ghana!

Hello Mrs. Simpson's class!

The MV Explorer is sailing away from our second last port, Ghana! Ghana is on the west coast of Africa, with a population of approximately 24 million people.

The first day I was in Ghana I got to work with an organization called Pencils of Promise. Pencils of Promise helps build schools in rural communities that can't afford to. Without these buildings, students go to school under trees outside. We got to see a completed school that Pencils of Promise built, as well as help with one still under construction. It made me think about how thankful I am for having grown up in a country where I can go to school in a building, with chairs, desks, school supplies and everything else that you need to learn.



The next day, my friends and I traveled to a city called Cape Coast. In Cape Coast there is a very famous castle. There was a horrible time in human history when people enslaved others just because the colour of their skin was different. Europeans captured Africans and treated them very badly, taking them to the Americas, although many of them died before they even arrived. The Cape Coast Castle is a place many of the slaves were held before being put on ships.



Although it looks beautiful, we also saw the dungeons where many Africans died. Even though history like this might be sad or not fun to learn, it is still important to remember so that we can stop something like this from ever happening again.

Also in Ghana I got to meet up with an old friend of mine from Bancroft! Rebecca Malloy was my babysitter when I was little but now she is working in Ghana. We hadn't seen each other in 10 years so it was cool to find her again on a beautiful beach in Ghana. We talked about what we miss about Bancroft and Canada, but also how awesome Ghana is.



That's all for now! I have a couple special pictures for you that I'll post in a few days. Meanwhile, I have a lot of homework to get done!

Molo from South Africa!

Hello Mrs. Simpson's class!

I just spent the past week in South Africa! It is an incredible place, and possibly one of my favourite places so far! I got to do and see so many things, but I feel like I barely scratched the surface. I think I want to go back one day.

When I woke up the first morning in South Africa, I saw this outside my window! I had a perfect view of Table Mountain. Table Mountain surrounds Cape Town, the city that we were docked in. Can you guess why it is called Table Mountain?



Here's another view of it.



Later in the week, I would hike up this mountain! It took about 3 hours and I was exhausted at the end. However, there was a cable car that took us back down the mountain in 3 minutes.



From the top of Table Mountain we could see all of Cape Town and we could even see the ship!

One day I took a train to visit a small town called Simon's Town. It is famous for a national park called Boulder's Beach that is home to an African Penguin colony! These are an endangered species of penguin that only live along the coast of Africa.



They were very cute and a lot smaller than I thought they would be, only as tall as my shin. However, you are not supposed to touch them because they will bite you!



There were a lot of cool things to see, but there were also a lot of important things to learn in Cape Town.

For many years in South Africa, people were told by the government where they had to live based on the colour of their skin. This was called apartheid. People fought to end this system but the government threw them in jail for many years. This includes a famous man named Nelson Mandela. He was imprisoned for 27 years before he was released! He then became the President of South Africa and worked to reverse all the bad things that were done during apartheid. It is important to remember that this wasn't very long ago! Mandela was elected in 1994, a year after I was born. Your parents probably remember this being on the news.

I traveled to Robben Island, the prison where political prisoners were kept for many years. I got to see Nelson Mandela's cell, where he lived for 18 years.



Something fascinating about South Africa is that there are eleven official languages! It is a very diverse place with many different people. One of the languages is Xchosa - but you don't pronounce the "X", because it is a clicking sound you make with your tongue! It is a tricky language for people to learn because of the clicks. An easy word is "molo", it means "hello"!

Is there still snow in Bancroft? It was colder in South Africa, I often had to wear a sweater, but we are now sailing closer to the equator again, where it will be much warmer again. I wish I could send the warm weather to you!

Questions from Myanmar, Neptune Day, and Mauritius!

Thank you for all your questions! I'll do my best to answer them.

1. In this picture there are pagodas! Pagodas are the type of temple I was talking about. I took that picture while standing on top of another pagoda at sunrise (certain types of pagodas you can climb up). Here's a closer view of one of the pagodas.



2. In Myanmar the money is called 'kyat' (pronounced 'chat'). Approximately 985 kyat equals one US dollar! This is what kyat looks like. The bill I'm holding is 1000 kyat, so just a little more than a dollar or a loonie.



3. We rode all over Bagan with the scooters! We drove on the paved roads which were smooth, but the dirt paths on the plains were dusty and sandy. At one point we even got stuck and had to run alongside our bikes while pushing them through the sand!

4. The monks with the red robes were everywhere in Myanmar! And we were allowed to go basically everywhere they were. Quite often they were just visiting the temple as well.

- - -

1. For the first few hours it felt very, very strange to have my head shaved! Yes, my head feels very cold sometimes! I carry a scarf with me so if I am cold in my classes I can drape it over my head. And yes, because of the sun my skin is rather tan but my head was white! Now that my hair is growing back it looks less strange. Yes, I've still been using shampoo mostly because I don't know what else I would do. When I go out in the sun I am very careful to make sure I am wearing a hat so that it isn't boiling on my head! Here is a picture of what I look like now, a week after shaving it all off- I'm holding up my Semester at Sea ID card to compare how much hair I once had!



2. Yes, it felt strange to kiss the fish. It was cold and slimy. It wasn't that strange to kiss my professor's hand because everyone was doing it! It was just part of the fun. And I knew it wasn't going to be fish guts because we had seen them already dump it on a bunch of people before we went. If you want to see more pictures, here is an article on the Semester at Sea website with pictures of King Neptune and all the crazy stuff that happened that day (if you look closely I'm actually in it- I'm wearing a blue tank top and jumping into the pool)!

3. Hmm, the temperature differs a lot. While we were in the Indian Ocean it was very warm, close to 25-30 degrees. However, now that we are farther away from the equator and getting closer to Africa, it will be about 15-20 degrees. When we sail back up to Ghana I think it will get warmer.

- - -

1. It was a lot of fun to go swimming with my friends on the beach! We didn't go very far out because a lot of boats were moored very close to the beach, and there was a roped off section to show us where it is safe to swim. The water only went just past my waist. Because of the rain, all the sand had made the water very cloudy, so we didn't see any fish. I'm grateful we didn't see any whales or sharks, I might have been scared!

2. I think my favourite country so far has been either Vietnam or Myanmar. Myanmar was very beautiful and unique but I met so many wonderful people in Vietnam so I think it is a tie. I still have a few more countries to go!

3. The rain was very hard at times! We were soaked in seconds. Other times it wasn't as bad.

4. For lunch in Mauritius I had this wonderful traditional Mauritian sandwich! I don't remember its name because it was in French, but it was covered in cheese and onions and tomatoes. It was very tasty.



- - -

I love answering your questions! In two days I will be in South Africa. We are actually sailing very close to the shore, so I have been able to watch South Africa go by from the windows in my classes.

Questions from Myanmar, Neptune Day, and Mauritius!

Thank you for all your questions! I'll do my best to answer them.

1. In this picture there are pagodas! Pagodas are the type of temple I was talking about. I took that picture while standing on top of another pagoda at sunrise (certain types of pagodas you can climb up). Here's a closer view of one of the pagodas.



2. In Myanmar the money is called 'kyat' (pronounced 'chat'). Approximately 985 kyat equals one US dollar! This is what kyat looks like. The bill I'm holding is 1000 kyat, so just a little more than a dollar or a loonie.



3. We rode all over Bagan with the scooters! We drove on the paved roads which were smooth, but the dirt paths on the plains were dusty and sandy. At one point we even got stuck and had to run alongside our bikes while pushing them through the sand!

4. The monks with the red robes were everywhere in Myanmar! And we were allowed to go basically everywhere they were. Quite often they were just visiting the temple as well.

- - -

1. For the first few hours it felt very, very strange to have my head shaved! Yes, my head feels very cold sometimes! I carry a scarf with me so if I am cold in my classes I can drape it over my head. And yes, because of the sun my skin is rather tan but my head was white! Now that my hair is growing back it looks less strange. Yes, I've still been using shampoo mostly because I don't know what else I would do. When I go out in the sun I am very careful to make sure I am wearing a hat so that it isn't boiling on my head! Here is a picture of what I look like now, a week after shaving it all off- I'm holding up my Semester at Sea ID card to compare how much hair I once had!



2. Yes, it felt strange to kiss the fish. It was cold and slimy. It wasn't that strange to kiss my professor's hand because everyone was doing it! It was just part of the fun. And I knew it wasn't going to be fish guts because we had seen them already dump it on a bunch of people before we went. If you want to see more pictures, here is an article on the Semester at Sea website with pictures of King Neptune and all the crazy stuff that happened that day (if you look closely I'm actually in it- I'm wearing a blue tank top and jumping into the pool)!

3. Hmm, the temperature differs a lot. While we were in the Indian Ocean it was very warm, close to 25-30 degrees. However, now that we are farther away from the equator and getting closer to Africa, it will be about 15-20 degrees. When we sail back up to Ghana I think it will get warmer.

- - -

1. It was a lot of fun to go swimming with my friends on the beach! We didn't go very far out because a lot of boats were moored very close to the beach, and there was a roped off section to show us where it is safe to swim. The water only went just past my waist. Because of the rain, all the sand had made the water very cloudy, so we didn't see any fish. I'm grateful we didn't see any whales or sharks, I might have been scared!

2. I think my favourite country so far has been either Vietnam or Myanmar. Myanmar was very beautiful and unique but I met so many wonderful people in Vietnam so I think it is a tie. I still have a few more countries to go!

3. The rain was very hard at times! We were soaked in seconds. Other times it wasn't as bad.

4. For lunch in Mauritius I had this wonderful traditional Mauritian sandwich! I don't remember its name because it was in French, but it was covered in cheese and onions and tomatoes. It was very tasty.



- - -

I love answering your questions! In two days I will be in South Africa. We are actually sailing very close to the shore, so I have been able to watch South Africa go by from the windows in my classes.

Bonjour from Mauritius!

Hello Mrs. Simpson's class!

A couple days ago I spent the day in Mauritius! Do you remember where Mauritius is on the map? It's a very small island east of Madagascar. It is a very beautiful place, but unfortunately when the MV Explorer was there, it was raining! It rained all day but my friends and I didn't let that stop us from having lots of fun. Below is what the island looked like right before it started raining.



To get out of the pouring rain, we visited the Natural History Museum. Something very special about Mauritius is that it is the only place in the world where the dodo bird used to live before they became extinct. Because they had no natural predators on the island, the dodos became a fat, flightless bird! When Europeans landed on the island, they were very hungry from having spent months at sea, and it was very easy for them to hunt these birds.



This is what scientists think the bird looked like. It is actually quite big, about a metre tall. At the museum there was a complete skeleton. There are only a couple other museums around the world that have dodo skeletons.



Unfortunately, by 1700, less than eighty years after Europeans had first seen a dodo bird, it was extinct. This is partially because humans ate them, but also because Europeans brought animals, such as rats and monkeys, to Mauritius that ate the dodo bird eggs. Later, humans would realize that the dodo bird demonstrates how we can destroy the natural world if we're not careful. We have to work hard to preserve nature and it's inhabitants.



After the museum, my friends and I wanted to go swimming, even though it was raining! The Indian Ocean was a turquoise colour and was very warm.

Something interesting about Mauritius is that everyone speaks French! This is because, like Canada, Mauritius was once a French colony. I wish I remembered more French from when I was in school, it would have been very helpful.

Wow, you have so many questions! I'll do my best to answer them soon.