"I Will Never See You Again"

I'm currently writing this on the way to Cape Town, South Africa. It seems so crazy that we're just sailing past all of Africa, a place that still interests me so much and where so many things have happened that are worth studying. And then I realized that I'm going around the entire world and bypassing... everywhere. As much as I'm learning so much and seeing so many places, there are so many other things and places to learn and see that I feel that I'm just skipping. I don't want to think about it. I'll keep that thought for the end of my voyage.

Like I already mentioned in a previous blog post, on my first day in Ghana, I ran into a group of school children. One of my companions was Rheanna (who I also already mentioned), and on the packed taxi back to the ship, we were discussing what had just transpired. She told me that one of the boys she was talking to had said the following heartbreaking sentence: "I will never see you again."

The kid, for all we know, is most likely correct in his statement. He probably didn't mean too much when he said it, but it really sticked with me. What are the chances that we will ever cross paths again? What were the chances that we had just crossed paths for the first time?

It just comes to show that even the most mundane, everyday occurrences are really just once-in-a-lifetime experiences in disguise. We tend to throw that phrase around a lot and reserve it for things that seem uncommon, but if we think about it, never again will the cards fall the same way they already have. All moments are once-in-a-lifetime. We can't forget that.

Now I don't want to go into some kind of "live each moment like it's your last" bullshit. Yeah, be thankful for every second you have and all that jazz, but you also have to decide the things that are worth remembering. What I'm trying to say is to value the normal as much as the irregular because those can be just as memorable. Sometimes it's the banality of the situation that makes something stand out. It doesn't need to be big to make a huge impact. No, I didn't go to the slave dungeons in Cape Coast, nor did I do a homestay in a far-off village with no running water or electricity. Those would have been eye-opening and life-changing. But I know for a fact that my "normal" experiences have been just as enlightening.

For instance, I met some remarkable women in Ghana. There was Dzifa Gomashie, a famous Ghanaian actress and the CEO of the Values for Life organization which engages the community in social environmental issues. The colors on her dress were almost as bright as her personality. Her current focus, amongst many others, is to eliminate the dumping of electronic waste in Agbogbloshie, an area right outside of Accra. This practice has not only already harmed the environment and landscape, but it has a lasting impact on the lifestyles of those living there in the form of pollution and other health risks. Through theatre, she gets youth involved in forming and expressing their own opinions in order to shape their future.

There was also Renae Adams, co-founder of Global Mamas, a Fair Trade not-for-profit NGO whose mission is to provide an outlet for entrepreneurial women to have more sustainable livelihoods. A play on traditional micro-lending, the organization gives skilled women raw goods to produce beautiful batik fabrics and sew beautiful garments or other goods with them. In turn, Global Mamas finds markets full of customers willing to purchase these wares. Through this work, she has mobilized hoards of women into the work-force, and provided them with reliable incomes which has given once disadvantaged women more agency over their lives.

These two women are both pretty high-ranking individuals with frilly titles, but there were also the countless unnamed women who helped form my experience. There was the lady who relentlessly pounded my fufu for my eating pleasure. There was the woman who sold me an unknown fruit which may have been the most sour thing I've ever tasted. There was also the madame at Makola Market who laughed as I accidentally bumped into an old man carrying an enormous bag of rice.

It's this combination of little things that made my time in Ghana such a phenomenal adventure. They could have been overshadowed by other experiences that everyone else told me were supposed to be amazing. And I'm sure they were. I know loads of people who chose to visit orphanages to meet abandoned children, relive the events of the slave trade at Elmina Castle, or spend the night in a far-away village. I know that these were incredibly transformative, but I stand confident in my stance that my own "completely normal" happenings were just as epic.

With this in mind, I think we all need to take a vow to enjoy the simple things. We keep looking for "brand-name" escapades, but those things have been, and always will be, right in front of our faces.

Now onto Cape Town!

Lessons in Traditional Economics and Being an Outsider

Though I'm pretty exhausted, I'm writing this now because I know if I don't, I may never do so, and it's worth sharing.

I can very proudly say that I've gotten over a lot of my culture shock over the past few days. This marks the end of day three of five (and the last day I have for my own personal adventures), and I have to say that my attitude has changed a whole lot. Starting with confusion and a bit of fear, I now have more of an understanding and affinity towards Ghana. 

Today, Hayden, Maria, and I spent time in the Accra Arts Centre which is a market full of artisans who were creating many of their wares in front of your eyes. Of course, I couldn't help shopping for anything and everything including 4 wood masks for 5 cedi each (about $3 US) and a replacement pair of "patch pants" since I ripped my other pair in the crotch in a capoeira class last semester. 

 
We also ate at a quaint restaurant in the arts centre where we indulged in the quintessential Ghanaian dish: groundnut soup with fufu. To translate, it's a sticky ball of pounded starch, made of either manioc, plantain, or a combination thereof, plopped in a rich and spicy peanut stew. You use the fufu as a receptacle to eat the soup. As in many countries around the world, it is customary to eat with the right hand, so it was definitely fun to literally dig into the food and feeling the heat and textures with your fingers. It's a more tactile, personal experience with food. Not only was it a fun ordeal, but the pairing of the flavorful soup with the filling starch provided sustenance and satisfaction for hours.

There were two men at the restaurant who followed us into the arts centre and ate with us who were clearly being overtly friendly to us in order to show us to their shop afterwards to get us to buy from them. I'm still trying to decide whether or not they would have been as outgoing and helpful had they known that we wouldn't have bought anything from them. I would hate to confuse genuine Ghanaian friendliness with a feigned sense of caring and hospitality. Nonetheless, we enjoyed them telling us about their lives, teaching us how to correctly eat fufu, and taking us to their shop. One of the men was a woodworker who made drums, masks, and statues, and the other (claimed to be) a painter. The men, along with their friends, gave us a short impromptu drumming lesson, though I could tell that these were all tactics for them to develop rapport so they can charge us more for whatever they were selling.

I hear that as we go around the world, merchants in different countries will start giving you some fun excuses to make you pay more. In the traditional bargaining scheme, there is no set value for anything. The seller gives a highly inflated price, the buyer counters with a very discounted amount, and the two banter back-and-forth until they agree upon a value in the middle with which both parties are satisfied. Some people feel awkward bargaining, but that's just how exchanges in these places work. If the seller has an inkling that you will pay more than their predicted value, they start higher, and it is the seller's duty to make it as fair of an exchange as possible. Merchants often begin telling stories about how many mouths they have to feed so that you feel bad for wanting to pay a lower price. Even if those stories were true, they would not sell you a product for lower than what they perceive its value to be. So even if you pay what you think is a measly amount, they are still getting a profit because they are agreeing to sell it to you. Anything above that measly amount that you ended paying would have just been more of a profit for them.

Every time I was bargaining, I kept thinking, "Why am I arguing for several minutes over 5 cedi?" I know it's three bucks, but it's this bickering that is expected of these interactions. And apparently, I'm good at it. I found it a tendency of Ghanaian merchants that, once the price is negotiated, they act defeated and frustratedly hand you the merchandise and say something along the lines of, "Just give me your price and go away." In that way, they make you feel guilty that you just beat them to a pulp and, in turn, make you feel like you have won. However, the second you walk away, they pocket the cash and laugh with their friends about how much extra you paid them.

After that lesson in traditional economics, we headed to Legon, northeast of Accra, to the University of Ghana and got to spend some time with my good friend Tom Mayer. I like to consider Tom one of my partners in crime at Rochester because we both created (essentially) the same major and suffer through it all because we've never gone a single semester without taking a class together. I'm so happy that we were able to coordinate seeing each other because of our limited communication, but this just comes to show the connections we're making in this small world. I think it's downright unbelievable. It kinda blows my mind that two friends got together on the other side of the world as if nothing were different.

Tom imparted some of his knowledge on us as a fellow American student who has been in the country for about a month. My favorite thing he told us, by far, was the nickname that locals gave to the sewage gutters that are in abundance throughout the city, as well as all over the world. They are lovingly called "obruni traps," as foreigners often trip or fall into them.

Today's happenings were refreshing compared to yesterday. There were, of course, some highlights, including finding Ghanaian Noah Berg on the trotro from Tema to Accra while chomping on sweet plantain chips we bought off a lady's head. With that, though, came many frustrations like getting harassed at Makola Market and getting lost trekking the entire city for an ATM that accepted MasterCards for Maria. 

 

I guess I what I was most upset with was feeling ostracized. My mohawk, or galas (accent on the first syllable) in Twi, as I learned, definitely attracted a lot of attention. And I guess the whole being Asian-American tourist thing was pretty uncommon, too. I was just so fed up that I was being made fun of and felt so different, but then I had a revelation. I wasn't going to blend in... ever. I was blatantly an outsider. I had "obruni" tattooed on my forehead. So I had to own it.

It's not like any of the people were necessarily trying to hurt me. They were just very fascinated by my presence. They were lighthearted about me being "on their turf," so I had to play along with them on their terms. Instead, of feeling attacked, I began smiling back more and letting people feel my hair and laughing harder at myself than they were laughing at me. This switch in my attitude made everything better, and by my third day, I had learned how to deal with the constant calls and looks. I realized that all of their attention was out of interest and not cause they wanted to attack me.

I have so much more to write about, but I will recap all of that eventually. I need to go off and enjoy my last few days in Ghana!

The Dancing Obruni

Disclaimer: This was written last night. Internet has been restored on the ship. Disregard whatever I wrote about below dealing with internet problems.

I would like to preface this e-mail by telling you all that I just danced the entire Fall semester Rochester Raas routine by myself in my cabin. I did this because I realized that it's been nearly a month since I've been in the United States, and I was getting sad and nostalgic. Just so you know, I've forgotten a large portion of the routine, and I'm definitely out of shape. In response, I decided to sit down, write this blog entry, and drink a can of Brazilian guaraná soda that I forgot I had in my refrigerator. Whatever. #sasproblems

In bigger news, I am currently in Tema, right outside of Accra, Ghana in West Africa. As another disclaimer, I have absolutely no idea when this may actually be posted on my blog. You may actually be reading this once I have already departed Ghana. This is due to two things: 1) I usually e-mail my blog posts using the SAS internet system, but the port here in Ghana has mandated that the internet on the ship be disconnected throughout the duration of our stay and; 2) Neither do I want to bring my computer out into the city, nor do I know if I will be able to head to an internet cafe at any point in time. So here's a post that may or may not be delayed.

As for Ghana, I'm slightly in disbelief that I'm here. It's crazy to think that I was supposed to spend an entire year in this country. Upon disembarking, my friend Grace said to me, "Hey Paul... we're in Africa." The simple statement threw me for a loop because, yes, we were indeed in Africa. Especially because I've been discussing it so much on the ship on the way across the Atlantic, there's a definitely vision we have of this continent that Westerners have ingrained in their minds. We think of Africa as either a breeding ground for poverty and disease or some kind of far-removed, strange, and different place. I can assume that I know much more about Africa, most especially West Africa, and even more specifically Ghana, than most. Nonetheless, I was still very surprised, lost, and overwhelmed as I walked in the center of the city where we are docked. Tema is a port city which has the largest man-made dock and handles a significant portion of the export activity in the country, and many of the people who live in this area are related in some way to this industry. It is separate from, and seemingly in contrast to, the neighboring capital city of Accra which I will be able to explore in the upcoming days.

As we walked around the streets of Tema, we incited slight riots. You can only imagine a line of white Americans (and a Chinese Trinidadian named Rheanna who is, by far, one of the most interesting people I've ever met) is not a normal thing to see in the far-from-the-beaten-path market. Shopkeepers often had their mobile phones out taking pictures or videos and being amused, or even laughing, at the sight of us. We drew the comparison that our typical tourist roles felt like they switched. We SASers were usually the ones pointing and snapping photos and staring with a prying gaze because of our interest in their exoticness. In this case, the tables turned, and it was a weird feeling being on the other side of the cameras and stares, let alone being unaccustomed to the environment which caused even more uneasiness.

Obruni is a term which means "white person" or a general foreigner. People here don't use the word very derogatorily, and it's more of a title or monicker that they use to refer to all strangers. My soundtrack of walking down the unpaved sidewalks of Tema included honks from tro tros, guys hawking at you to buy stuff from them, and a whole lot of "obrunis."

Somehow, my group gravitated to a yard where young people were playing soccer (my bad... it's football). It was right outside of a school which just ended classes for the day, and upon seeing a group of obrunis approaching their territory, a swarm of the schoolchildren flocked to us. Mostly speaking in what I assume was Twi, the local Akan language widely spoken in the Southern part of the country, especially in the Greater Accra region, the kids asked us tons of questions. Many of them were expected (Where are you from? How old are you? Why are you here?), though some were a little more peculiar or funny ("Why are you white?" was common, though "Do you know kung fu?" stood out as my favorite). Their questions and our answers were usually translated through an outgoing child who knew more English than the others. For the most part, we communicated through genuine smiles and vibrant gestures.

At one point, some of the kids started to tell me to dance. A kid brought out a makeshift drum, and they started doing a kind of funky dance move coined the "wash and wear" which was aptly named because it mimed the action of washing a shirt and putting it on. Of course, the world dancer in me began to copy the move which made them laugh like no other. Perhaps the only other thing that made them laugh harder was my new mohawk which many of the children took liberties of petting. I'm sure that these kids told their parents once they got home that they found a dancing obruni with weird hair making a fool of himself. And I'm okay with that. I'm telling all of you that I found a group of Ghanaian schoolchildren for whom I made a fool out of myself, so it's only fair.

As for being the dancing obruni, this wasn't the only time today I found myself getting my grove on. The first thing I did in Ghana was go to a dance performance and workshop with the Agbe African Dance Company. It was a trip with Semester at Sea, so it was fun to see other students, teachers, lifelong learners, and little children take part, most of whom I can safely say have not had much exposure to anything of the sort. Of course the performances were phenomenal and the dancing was fun, but my favorite part was talking to the dancers and drummers who were such sweethearts. They were genuinely in love with their art, and they were very impressed with my knowledge and interest in their craft. In my short interactions, we shared a camaraderie that I found refreshing. I promised that I would return to Ghana, and I assured them that their company will one day make it to New York where I will be rooting them on. The very joyous and incredibly talented artistic director also helped me to perfect my Ghanaian handshake which is a lengthy ordeal consisting of many intricate gestures including a finger-snap at the end.

All in all, my first day in Ghana has been a fun and transformative experience. I'm refraining from making some kind of grand conclusion because my time here has just started, but I already know I've made some very lasting memories. The best thing is that there are so many more to come.

What I'm ACTUALLY doing...

So this is apparently what my boss at Starbucks at the University of Rochester says I'm doing this semester…

Ghana, Ghale, and Guinea Worm

On Semester at Sea, we often have guests come on board who travel with us between ports. These interport lecturers are incredibly knowledgeable people with both amazing stories about the culture and customs of their home countries and inspiring insight about globalization in general. World-renowned figures like Reverend Desmond Tutu have fulfilled the role of interport lecturer in the past. These guests who share in this experience with the community really exemplify the Institute of Shipboard Education's mission of increasing awareness of the interconnectedness of our world, and they truly enhance our voyage in thought-provoking and engaging ways.

Currently on board during our week-and-a-half stretch across the Atlantic Ocean is a magnificent musician by the name of Sheriff Ghale. He is most well known as a reggae artist from the Northern region of Ghana who is basically likened to Bob Marley. He has graced us with nightly concerts of music from Marley's, and his own, repertoire. His wailing voice over the mellow strumming of his acoustic guitar has a beautifully jarring sound that is a perfect pair to his music which often is very critical of society and the government. Of course, coming from a strong traditional musical background, he is also well versed in many of the musics from the many tribal groups of Ghana; he is pursuing graduate-level study in music at the University of Ghana at Legon, which if you know me well, is where I was actually planning to study for an entire year. Other than his evening concerts and jam sessions, he sits in on classes and provides his input on what we are learning about from his perspective.

One of his most recent accomplishments was in conjunction with the national health ministry of Ghana to help eradicate guinea worm. Guinea worm is a parasite which lays eggs in water sources. If ingested, those eggs hatch inside the body after about nine months, and those hatched worms find ways to escape. To do so, they eat their way out to the surface of the skin. It's not a fatal, but you can imagine that it is very painful and quite gruesome.

Ghale was hired to write music about awareness and prevention of this water-borne disease, and because of his popularity as a Ghanaian superstar, these songs were broadcast throughout the country through a variety of media sources. More importantly, he was also able to tour the country to perform in more remote areas of northern rural Ghana, where he is originally from and where there is less access to modern media outlets. These local concerts mobilized people, in terms of both physical distance and social action, for they gathered people together from neighboring villages to enjoy his music as well as they incited social change amongst these people. His main focus was to entertain but also to spread a valuable message. This message was simple: this disease is easily preventable by filtering and boiling water before drinking it and refraining from walking into potable water sources such as ponds or dams to decrease the incidence of infection.

As of right now, partly due to Ghale's musical efforts, Ghana has been free of any new cases of guinea worm for a year and a half. Because the life cycle of guinea worm is nine months, this means that the entire species has ceased to procreate, and the country is awaiting certification from the World Health Organization that the parasite has been completely eradicated within its boundaries.

This story blew my mind. We all know my whole schtick about the power of the arts and its possible uses for public health initiatives, so I was in awe. You have no idea how excited I am to have met Sheriff, and I hope to continue talking to him and learning from him in the upcoming few days until we reach Ghana. Though he's tried to teach me and a few other voyagers some drumming (and let me tell you, I'm a lousy drummer, but I'm getting a djembe in hopes of actually practicing with it), I've gained so more from examining his demeanor and his attitude on life. He is such a laid-back, humble man with so much knowledge that I can't imagine can fit into his dread-locked head. When he talks to you in his slow drawl that I find distinctly Ghanaian, you can't help but smile. There is so much hope and joy in his spirit, and I find that mesmerizing.

People like Sheriff Ghale are what makes this experience completely worth it. It's a shame to me that some people on board treat this so much more like a booze cruise than a once-in-a-lifetime educational experience, especially when such insightful people like Sheriff, who is such a valuable resource of cultural knowledge, is right at our fingertips. I guess I really shouldn't care about those people all too much because I figure I should be happy that I'm taking advantage of the things like this that will help me learn, grow, and develop into a well-informed global citizen. On the other hand, I tend to question the typical American college student, and I begin to worry about education in my country, but that's a different topic altogether (about which a blog post will be written soon). In the meantime, I'll continue to be in awe of Sheriff and anxiously wait until my arrival in Ghana in a couple of days.

“If it’s Neptune Day, are we going to outer space?”

Bright and early at 7AM yesterday, all the cabin stewards dressed in white toga-like costumes were causing a raucous in the hallways.  This meant only one thing: it was Neptune Day.

Neptune Day is (apparently) a longstanding sea tradition that happens upon crossing into the Southern Hemisphere.  We technically have already crossed the equator twice while traveling to and from Manaus on the Amazon, but that's beside the point.  On the MV Explorer, our initiation from polliwogs to shellbacks consisted of getting neon "fish guts" dumped on us, kissing a fish, and (optionally) shaving your head.  I, for one, was a punk and decided to just get a mohawk, or it has been lovingly been nicknamed, a bro-hawk.

This blog post exists for the sole purpose of being a vehicle for showing off these horrible and embarrassing photos.  Enjoy!  A better blog post will be up very soon!

Sea-Sickness (Part Two)

It strikes again.

As you know, I was just in Manaus, Brazil, a city found at the crossroads between the Rio Amazon and the Rio Negro. As you can imagine, it's pretty smooth sailing along a river, so I thought I was finally accustomed to the movement of the ship. Oh, how wrong I was. Two days ago, we exited the Amazon and was plopped right into the Atlantic Ocean. I may get my science terminology incorrect, but from what I understand, we sailed against an oceanic gyre created by a circular wind current, thus we encountered pretty choppy waters. Of course, this meant many sea-sick passengers who were not really expecting it, and I am included in this cohort.

Two days ago, I felt the sickness coming on, so I skipped class in order to lie down and take a breather. How many times can you give the excuse that you were sea-sick in order to skip class? Might as well take advantage of it. However, yesterday was even worse. I threw up twice after struggling through work and doing very poorly on an exam, and slept for much of the rest of the day. My roommate and I were both bedridden and would periodically make noises at each other throughout the day to signal to each other that we were still alive.

Now onto today. I am much better off than I have been, and many of my peers are making some steady recovery. Let's hope that this is the last time sea-sickness will get to me.

Assim você me mata

If there's something I learned from being in Manaus, it is to not be afraid of mistakes. Well, mistakes may not be the exact word I'm looking for. I guess I mean something more along the lines of being completely open to opportunities and to just wing it and enjoy the outcomes. In that case, there are no such things as mistakes because all actions can turn out well, and everything will be a pleasant surprise. The past few days in Manaus were completely unplanned, and I don't think I would have had it any other way.

Manaus, felt a bit slower for me (in contrast to Roseau) in the sense that I didn't have to pack so much activity into just two days. It's not like I was going on any huge trips to the heart of the Amazon Rainforest or to Rio de Janeiro, as many of the other SASers did, so I had four days of frolicking within the vicinity. Manaus was not, by any means, a São Paolo in the sense that it was not a massive global city with millions upon millions of people, but it was also not smack-dab in the wilderness with sloths crawling on your shoulders and piranhas biting your toes if you stepped into the water. However, it was a little of both, yet neither of them at the same time, with an incredibly remarkable history of conquest, exploitation, and restoration. This city at the meeting of the waters of the Rio Amazonas and the Rio Negro is both a natural wonder and an urban metropolis.

From exploring the some of the exquisite architecture brought to the city by the European rubber barons of yesteryear to trekking through the nature and animal reserve at INPA, there were lots of contrasts to be found in the city. There was a huge native Indian presence, but there were always constant reminders of outsider influences. It was not uncommon to see pirarucú, manioc, and açaí next to pizza, burgers, and Coca-Cola in the restaurants. Lining the streets full of exquisitely designed buildings pre-fabricated in places like France and England were stalls selling Amazonian fruits with colors, flavors, and textures you won't find anywhere else. And of course, there was the diversity of the people all speaking Portuguese which ended up being a very fun language barrier. You can't imagine how far a smile, a thumbs-up, and a thank you can go until you do that same routine with everyone you encounter. A rough understanding of Spanish and getting used to pronunciation from singing a lot of capoeira songs definitely helped.

By far, though, the best thing that happened during this visit to Manaus was running into Frankie James and Diego at the Museu Casa de Eduardo Ribeiro. Upon searching for food downtown after an amazing morning exploring INPA, Maria, Tommie, and I walked past a gorgeous house. We almost ignored it and kept going, but I was especially drawn to the beauty of the building. So we walked through the gate and were greeted by two young men, the tour guides. Walking through that gate ended up being the best decision we made the whole trip.

The two guys, who were roughly our age, were paid by the government to give free tours of the house of one of the most influential governors of the Amazonas state. The house underwent a decade-long restoration that was completed two years ago, and many of the original parts of the house were salvaged. Now a museum, the house is open for visitors completely free of charge, and as of two weeks ago, if you were to visit any time between 1 and 5 PM, you'd be getting bilingual tours from Frankie James and Diego.

After the very informative tour of the beautiful home, Tommie, a very friendly girl (yes, girl) with an extremely outgoing personality, asked FJ if he wanted to hang out later that night. He happily agreed and brought Diego along for the ride. We met them after work in our best clothing because we were going to a free orchestra concert at the Teatro Amazonas, the city's most famous landmark that is a clear reminder of the rubber boom days. It is a prime example of the contrasts found in Manaus; the quintessentially high-class European cultural institution of opera was inserted into the middle of a far-removed enclave in the largest rainforest in the world.

Frankie James took us on a bus ride to his humble home half an hour away telling us about how nobody believed that he befriended a group of Americans. We learned that he is a student hoping to become an English teacher, and was already teaching informal classes in the morning. He was incredibly ecstatic to be practicing his skills with us. As he took us further and further away from the city center, the neighborhoods got increasingly more frightening. It wasn't exactly a place where many foreigners would typically venture. Finally, when he was bringing us down the alleyway to his home, he started talking about how his boss told him that we would think that he was a killer.

Now, this is not something you really want to say to a whole bunch of young Americans far away from home. But I had faith that he wasn't actually trying to hack us with machetes. Instead, he opened us up to his home and his family, one of the kindest gestures anybody around the world could do. It's peculiar to think that a complete stranger put his life on display for a bunch of tourists he met a few hours earlier, and it is equally as peculiar to have been the tourists viewing it.

The peek into his home was interesting, to say the least. He considered himself middle-class, though his house would be considered meager at best by American standards. A rooster was at the bottom of the steps. Yet there was an uncanny beauty in the simplicity of the home. We met his mother and his sister, and what I assume may have been his nephews, but meeting his grandmother definitely took the cake. She took time out of praying in front of the television to tell us that we were welcome. She was visibly in awe that her grandson just brought a group of Americans into her home. Tommie, always prepared, took out her Polaroid camera and gave the photo to Frankie's grandmother as a memento who said that she will remember us for a long time. That one line was the most memorable moment of my time in Manaus.

Eventually, we made it back downtown to go to the free concert at the theatre and eat traditional tacacá at the plaza outside of it. The theatre is a glorious structure, both inside and out, and sitting in a booth in the center of the balcony may have been the second-most memorable experience in the city. Possibly the best part of being there was dragging along Frankie and Diego who both had never been to a concert there. It just comes to show the accessibility of different resources and the cultural divide between the elite and the laymen that the theatre has represented ever since its construction over a century ago.

Ultimately, the boys also agreed to accompany us the next morning as we navigated the city, and they continued to share stories and show us their hometown. I'm sure it was a view into Manaus that not many SASers, or visitors in general, have ever gotten.

My time in Manaus has made me realize the importance of human connections. The relationship formed amongst a group of young people sharing this world, yet not knowing of the other's existence until now, is inspiring. It just comes to show the increasing rate at which we are becoming a globalized, interconnected world. Our social networks are widening as the space between us diminishes. Though we may never see each other again (though it would be absolutely amazing if we did), I can't even imagine how much we have changed each other's lives. This trade of knowledge and this shared experience will provide us long-lasting memories. And what kills me the most is the fact that we kinda just stumbled into this whole situation, and it ended up being one of the most rewarding things I've ever done.

In the end, we promised to be friends on Facebook and to continue our dialogues. We all vowed to be just as hospitable to them in the United States if they ever get the chance to visit us. Regardless of what happens from here, I am so humbled by the fact that we were so lucky to share in this beautiful experience.