We left Dominica around 8 pm on Tuesday and Molly and I promptly fell asleep. Being in port is exhausting, and theres not rest for the weary until we get back on the ship. The next day classes resumed and nothing that exciting happened. I love my South Asia music class. Despite the title, its actually about mostly about religions of India and how chanting and music are related to them. So right now were studying Hinduism. I didnt know anything about it before this class, but from what I have learned so far it seems to be one of the most gentle and all encompassing religions Ive ever encountered. Our teacher, Dr. Lakshmi Tewari, is from India and grew up as a practicing Hindu, so he has been a wealth of knowledge to us students who just pepper him with questions. In global studies we had this awesome talk by a man named Jeffrey Kottler, who started an organization called Empower Nepali Girls. The non-profit seeks to save young girls from being sold to the sex trade by providing scholarships for their high school and college education. He is a truly inspirational man who deeply cares for a cause that he stumbled upon almost 10 years ago. His passion was evident during his talk when he was brought to tears by pictures of the first girl he was able to send to university. He has been able to turn his organization into one that pays no overhead, so 100% of every donation goes directly to the cause. If anyone reading this is interested in donating or wants to know more, the website is www.empowernepaligirls.org. Yesterday I laid out by the pool while I was doing homework between classes (yes I know, paradise) and I got super sunburned. Some of the girls gave me some tips to relieve my pain, so I came home before my second class and took a shower and put lotion on. At about 9 pm, while I was sitting upstairs on the deck about to enjoy pub night, I started feeling really sick. I came down to our cabin and rested for a while, but didnt feel better until this morning. Im pretty sure I had sun poisoning. I had an upset stomach, a headache, chills and hot flashes, and was just generally ill. Ive been putting lotion on like a fiend and its starting to feel better now, thank god. Pub nights, by the way, are nights when we are allowed to consume alcohol on board. During these special nights, we are allowed to have 2 drinks (beer or wine) during dinner and 3 drinks (beer or wine) between the hours of 9 and 11. We have to purchase an alcohol voucher which has room for stamps from the crew for up to 15 drinks, and when we fill one voucher up we have to turn it in, and at that point we will be charged 52.something dollars, which equals about $3.50 per drink. The rules for drinking are as follows: we must stay in the designated drinking area; no water bottles or bags of any kind are allowed in said area; only purchased food from the pool bar is allowed; there will be no music while drinking; no drinking games or cards; no fast consumption is allowed; there will be no dancing while drinking; all drinks must be consumed by 11:30 pm. Apparently we are responsible adults who can wander all over foreign countries while were in port with no problems, but as soon as we get on the ship we turn into a band of lemmings unable to control our behavior while drinking and will unquestionably reek havoc with our dancing and games. Thats all Ill say about that. Last night at around 10 the captain came over the loudspeaker and announced that we were soon going to be entering the Amazon River Basin! He warned us that they had to pull in the stabilizers because of the shallow water so the boat might roll a lot, and told us to secure objects in our cabin, but that didnt end up happening. It didnt get rocky at all! So as Im typing this Im looking out my window at the hugely wide and very brown waters of the Amazon River. Were stopping for a few hours today in a little town so that some government officials from Brazil can check our visas and our yellow fever cards, and some diplomats are going to board in order to give us a pre-port discussion while we continue up the river to Manaus. Manaus (our final destination) is about 1,000 miles up the Amazon from the Atlantic Ocean, so were going to be sailing on the river all day today and tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who continues to read this blog even though my posts are so long. True friends. LYLAS from Brazil.
