Crossed the equator

Good morning to all!

 

We crossed the equator this morning. I guess the tradition among ships is, if it your first time to cross the Equator on a ship, you are supposed to shave your head. It is called Neptune Day. We will be celebrating Neptune Day between Brazil and South Africa, although it technically occurred today. A lot of people are going to shave their heads, but, needless to say, I will not be participating. I like my hair too much.

 

Still a few days until Brazil, but we have a day off from classes today. Yesterday, I did a presentation about human rights in Brazil. In particular, we talked about the death squads that kill the street children, landless people, and indigenous there. It is quite a depressing practice and about 4 to 5 children are killed on the streets of Brazil everyday. There is a lot of corruption within the police forces and government. Last night I watched the movie City of God. Good movie, especially if you are looking for a drama. They show lots of these types of movies, relating to the countries we are visiting every night. In addition to movies, they have had Latin dance classes and Portuguese for travelers. There are also port-to-port speakers who come on the ship just between two ports to talk about their country of expertise.

 

As I said last time, in Brazil, I will first be going to Carnaval in Salvador. It is similar to Mardi Gras, but much larger and crazier, so I have been told. It is 6 days of partying the nights away. I will be going on Tuesday night, the last night, in a camarote. In other words, I will be in the stands (with a security guard) observing the craziness below.

 

On Wednesday morning at 2:30 AM, I will be leaving for Manaus. There, we will take a riverboat down part of the Amazon. We are sleeping in hammocks and doing lots of fun activities that I can describe later. Here are some facts that we learned about the Amazon Basin in class yesterday:

• It holds 20% of the worlds' fresh water.
• It is 6 million square miles (42% of which is in Brazil - also in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia).
• It has 1/3 of the worlds' forests.
• It has 20% of the world's bird and plant species.

Some other facts about Brazil:

• It is just slightly smaller than the U.S. (I knew it was large, but didn't realize it was that large).
• There are 200 million people.
• The unemployment rate is 1.8%.
• The inflation rate is 4.1% (not bad as compared to other Latin American countries).

Have a great weekend!