Continuing Finding Refuge after SAS

Finding Refuge was started on Semester at Sea Fall 2010 by a group of SASers who went to a village near Lake Volta, Ghana. This village called The City of Refuge ministries is for orphaned children who had been trafficked for child labor in Ghana's fishing industry. It has been operating for three years and has been helping hundreds of children.

There mission is to "create a global awareness of child slavery in Ghana by establishing university and regional organizations that educate the public on the existence of slavery. Empower the mothers within the targeted fishing villages by providing education and training for sustainable jobs."  It's a great organization that my college's chapter is hoping to continue so we may help in ending child slavery in Ghana.

Sailing with the Arch

We sailed around the world with Archbishop Desmond Tutu

My Family

As we pulled into the port in San Diego, signs sprang up in the air reading, “welcome home,” “welcome back to the USA,” “get off the ship I’m out of money,” from friends and families waiting on the pier.

It was an adventure and on December 13 the MV Explorer docked in San Diego, California marking the end of our 108-day voyage around the world. Over 700 students, life-long learners, faculty and staff stepped off and greeted their loved ones.

On the pier in San Diego my mother and sister were waiting, but my small family has grown immensely over the past four months. I was never home sick because family was everywhere.

Many students who participate in Semester at Sea find home stays, one of the many field program options offered by SAS in each country, as an intrical part of their experience and understanding of each culture.

The last leg of our trip included spending Thanksgiving at sea. For those who celebrate the day it is a time for thanks and sharing with one’s family.

Students can sign-up at the beginning of the voyage to be a part of a shipboard family, in which a life long learner gets paired up with 3 – 6 students forming a family. I will never forget JoDee and Cooper my SAS mom and dad or my three sisters and one brother.

My family has grown to include members who have opened my eyes to a different way of life, and have shown me the kindness, and honesty that one usually only gets from their family.

My new extended family includes a Moroccan woman named Fatima who opened her home to my friends and I for an evening, made us diner, and shared secrets of what it’s like to be an Islamic woman. In Ghana a man gave us a free ride to an orphanage so that we wouldn’t have to walk in the pouring rain even though he was losing hours worth of work by doing so. We spent a day in a South African woman’s living room talking about the township she lives and works in. Also, my shipboard friends Maria, Anjali and Ashley, from India, Venezuela and Pennsylvania, were all there during sorrow, danger and laughter.

I now know, my family is all around the world.

Article published in Dec. 6 issue of Hometown Weekly Newspaper