For anyone who is going on Semester at Sea, who knows someone going on, or who has never heard of Semester at Sea at all...

Senase Village, Ghana changed my life. I got the experience to completely immerse myself in a world that I otherwise never would have been able to see, a third world country where first world norms like running water, toilets, and paved roads are non existent. I went to schools where walls did not exist and there were maybe a handful of pencils to go around for an entire class. 

Senase Village was an opportunity I had because I was a student on Semester at Sea. However, this experience wasn’t given to me by the insitution itself, but rather an amazing group of Senase villagers who opened their hearts and their homes to these foreign students. There have only been three groups of SAS students to visit Senase, but I guarantee that each and every student will say it was the most life-changing experience they have ever had.

The reason I am writing this post isn’t to try to summarize my experience in Senase (though I’m pretty sure that could never be done anyway), but rather to share this opportunity with anyone willing to read. Can Do Land Tours, the operating team of the Senase Homestay, among other student-oriented trips in Ghana, has been banned from the upcoming Semester at Sea voyages facebook groups (which have been its main source of self-promotion and registrations), and it’s founders fear that their programs with SAS students will no longer be able to run. Students promoting Senase and Can Do are being rejected entrance into the group and this lack of crucial space has created a major road black. I am reaching out the best way I know how, in the public web, to urge you to keep Senase in mind. If you yourself are going on Semester at Sea, fight for Senase. If you know anyone that’s going, tell them about Senase and to get themselves registered. If you have never even heard of Semester at Sea, I’m sure someone you know has and somewhere you can find a future student.

Here are some helpful links:

http://www.thesenaseproject.org/ <- To me, this may be the most important reason to fight for Can Do Land Tours. The first group of SAS students established a fully functioning NGO non-profit organization after their time in the village. Senase influenced them so much that somehow, someway, they were able to fully establish themselves from the middle of the ocean before their semester even ended. So far, they have built a brand new school and are working towards more aid to the community.

http://disneyalisaatsea.blogspot.com/2012_02_01_archive.html <- These are my blog entries relating to my experience in Ghana. Though they can’t in the slightest express how much Ghana changed my life, they can do more than this brief plea can.

Here is the facebook page for Can Do Land Tours, the company that runs trips in Ghana, including Senase Village. Join this page to support Can Do.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/CAN-DO-LAND-TOURS/104874722889866

Next, the link for the website of Can Do Land Tours, showing some of their hopeful offerings for the future. http://candotours.webs.com/

Lastly, here is a link to the head of Can Do Land Tours, Fred. Fred is a local of Senase and is a truly amazing person. If you are interested in a trip to Senase, please friend request Fred and send him a message. He has asked all of us to help him continue these trips, and he is a wonderful human being who loves Semester at Sea and it’s students. Fred is a true inspiration and will do anything he can to make these trips happen. You don’t need a big group of people to save this experience, we just need one person at a time. http://www.facebook.com/fredrick.benneh

Senase is inspiring, and it can’t be forgotten. Ghana has a place in my heart that no where else will ever come near. Some of my peers on the voyage didn’t think highly of Ghana, and instead prefered most of the other ports. For me, nothing will ever stand out the way Ghana did. Friends of mine expressed that their biggest regrets on SAS was not experiencing something like Senase. For me, not a single day, hell, not even a single hour, has gone by where I haven’t thought about this village. Semester at Sea is meant to be a life-changing, culturally enriching experience. And the trips that Can Do Land Tours provided are truly the definition of these goals. This village opened my heart to a whole new world and I will never be the same person. It kills me to see this program reaching its possible end. Senase needs us. Please share this message with anyone you might know. All we need is a chain reaction. Fred is heartbroken in facing this wall, but he is hopeful that we can all overcome it.

Thank you.

This is my favorite picture from Semester at Sea. I hadn’t showered for four days and I thought the dirt on my legs might never go away, but none of that mattered. I was surrounded by the kindest, most friendly, happiest people I had ever met. Looking at this picture brings back a mixture of tears and smiles. My time in Ghana has inspired me to devote myself to change. This is an experience that can never be duplicated. So one last time,I ask you to please share this message and help future voyagers experience what I got to.

Homecoming

So I may have skipped a few ports, but before I go back and finish, I think it's a good time to write a bit of a reflection. I am in Massachusetts, having debarked in San Diego where only one week ago my 8 best friends and I were standing on deck 7 holding a giant sign for our parents as we sailed into shore for the last time. Truthfully, that week feels like an eternity, a world apart from where I am right now. I have traveled 25117 nautical miles (or 28,904 standard miles) from the Bahamas to San Diego. I've traveled across 4 continents and 3 oceans. I've seen and done things most people could never even imagine. And now, I have to learn to cope with it all.

I loved being on the Explorer with my best friends, living in this world where most technologies didn't exist and we were forced to involve ourselves in the now. I loved living in a place where we all understood how our lives and our world was changing, we found it ourselves to recognize this world and develop ourselves from it. We took with us a spirit of community that can never be paralleled by any experience, ever. We lived in a community where we lived, learned and traveled together; a community of 700 that went through what no one else could ever go through, and we did it together. Students, staff, faculty, lifelong learners, children and crew...this was a journey that changed us all and forever bonded us all.  But I was one of the lucky ones, ready to go home. I was ready to graduate from college, and begin my life in Florida. I was ready for some normalcy. I was ready to not loose an hour every other day. And though my transition from home may seem easier than some of my peers, who depression has hit with a boom, I still didn't anticipate the new me in the old world.

Things have changed. I have changed. But here hasn't. I can already hear the people around me becoming sick of me talking about Semester at Sea, but the truth is, my life has been impacted so much by it that I see this voyage in everything I do. When I make a comment about throwing out a pad of paper, it isn't meant to be a joke. I envision that school in Senase where there was 1 pencil for every 2-3 students, and there wasn't a single notebook to be seen. Saying that people in Ghana need that pad of paper you are throwing out isn't a joke, it is a reality, a reality I have seen and the people at home haven't.

I hear an entire bar scream at a TV about how bad the Red Sox are currently playing, and start to wonder why then, are 35,000 people buying tickets to each and every game and why is everyone around me wearing head to toe team apparel? I hear people chanting about how people should stop supporting the team so the establishment gets a hint, but they themselves wont do it. Instead of spending time, energy and money on an amusement you aren't even enjoying, why can't that drive be focused elsewhere? But that's the American way, and they don't realize the things that I do. They support an industry that spends billions on men hitting balls and running bases when instead they could literally re-build an entire South African township. But my explanation won't do anything justice. They don't know what I do and they don't feel the same things that I do. I am no longer an unknowing American. Though I am far from an experienced world citizen, I truly hope to continue seeing and experiencing more of it and hopefully one day become one.

So here I am, home. Calling Massachusetts home sounds strange to me now. I consider myself more Floridian than Bostonian, but I also consider myself a sailor. For a place that I spent 21 years in, it's funny how 2 can change it all.

Pretty soon, I'll be walking across the Salem State graduation stage, packing my bags, and heading back to Florida. I'm not sure what life in the future holds for me, but I've learned to accept life without a plan. Before this voyage, I wanted to be a college professor, and I really believed that was my definite path. Now I find that I am lacking a desire to commit myself to a lifetime of work in a place where the majority of my students will come from a background where they think college is the norm and will probably take it for granted, students like me 4 years ago. Of course, there are exceptions to these, and this is in no way meant to generalize anyone, but I find I now have a desire to do more. I don't exactly know where this will take me, but I want to make a difference. I want to make our world more unified, more equal, more understanding.


Thank you, Semester at Sea. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for being the biggest change of my entire life. Thank you for making me a better person. Thank you for being the sole best thing I could ever have done for myself and for this world. It may have been, literally, rocky at times, but it was the most enriching 3.5 months anyone could ever have.  I am excited to see what the future holds, but SAS will forever be in my heart.

I said before that I was one of the lucky ones that was ready to return home. Truthfully, I was. While some people find themselves in a state of post-SAS depression, I find myself in a period of reflection, thankfulness and fulfillment. I will forever miss Semester at Sea, and I am that the moments of closing my eyes and trying to bring myself back to the MV will never end, but I am ready to set myself down in one place and set more of my life in motion. Semester at Sea has inspired me, and I am ready to use that inspiration for good. So here's to you, Semester at Sea, you life changing, awe-inspiring, motivating, thrilling, whirl wind adventure. I am so proud to be able to call myself an alum.
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I miss the freedom that came along without cellphones and facebook. Though I have no idea what happened in the world in the last four months, didn't know a single song on the radio, and am still trying to figure out some of my new friends last names, the escape from the world was such a gift. We couldn't text our way out of anything, we couldn't sit at the table and completely ignore our current surroundings for the latest app, we had to be in the now, we had to solve things without the internet, we had to hunt down and seek out situations. Our world was limited, but we were free. We lived in a world that our generation will never experience, and it was heaven. Semester at Sea Spring 2012.