Spring Break '09

This Spring Break, I have decided to donate my time working in an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. The program is being organized by a non-profit organization called Orphanage Outreach, which has been working in the Dominican Republic since 1994, ever since the programs founder discovered the poor conditions under which these children were living. These are children who have already suffered through unfortunate circumstances in their lives, such as being the victims of abusive or irresponsible parents, or living in poverty.

The mission of Orphanage Outreach is to provide opportunities to orphaned, abandoned, and disadvantaged children. Its goals are to help the orphanage provide basic necessities, to provide a quality education, and to help the orphanages become self sufficient.

Each Orphanage Outreach volunteer has two significant roles - to donate important volunteer time while in the Dominican Republic, and to help raise funds necessary to fulfill Orphanage Outreach's mission.

As a fund-raiser, I am helping to raise funds to not only to cover my expenses, but to also provide the basic necessities at the orphanage: food, water, housing, transportation, supervision, medical and dental care, and more. The orphanage is currently out of sleeping space for additional children; a second floor is currently being built to add more space.

My goal is to raise $1000 more than my program fee and airfare. I invite you to become involved in partnering with me in this effort. With your donation, we will be able to make a significant difference in these children’s lives.

Orphanage Outreach is a small organization, is not government funded, and relies on the tax-deductible donations of individuals.

If you are willing to help, please go to http://www.orphanage-outreach.org/oo.estrella.php?volunteer_id=MTU4 This is a tax-deductible 501-C-3 organization: U.S. federal tax id #58-2197227.

If you have any questions, please call me at (410) 599-4162 or e-mail me at jmw5178@psu.edu. You can also call Tom Eklund, Executive Director of Orphanage Outreach, at (602) 375-2900. Orphanage Outreach also has a very informative website: www.orphanage-outreach.org.

Thank you so much for your help. Any amount that you are able to donate will be greatly appreciated!

Sincerely,

Jennifer Winters

State College

I will now reside in State College for the next four months. Staying in one place is a hard concept for me to accept, I am used to being on the go all the time. I am alone for the first time since August. On the ship there were always people around and in the countries it was frowned upon to wonder off by one’s self. I just moved into my apartment, my parents just left, and my new roommates have not yet arrived. This leaves me all by my lonesome which is nice because it gives me time to reflect and to ponder ideas about my future. I have an uneasy feeling in my stomach about starting school again at such a large campus. I will survive; I just find it strange that I felt so at home in each country and now that I am in my real “home”, everything feels foreign. Although everything is changing around me I am in a much better place than I was three weeks ago. I no longer want to stay in bed all day and sob over missing the ship. Now I must focus on the future and figure out what I want to do with my life once I graduate next year.

Observations: it’s really cold here. I really miss the warm air rushing against my skin on the 7^th deck, forward. I can only rely on a few people here, on the ship I had about 700 people I could depend on for support. Americans are not as prone to helping foreigners as citizens of other countries are. In Vietnam the people were so pleasant and wanted to help in any way possible. In India I had a woman come up to me and offer to join her for tea at her house. It would be rare to find that kind of hospitality in the States.

Home

I am home. Not sure what that really means anymore, you know the feeling you usually get when you think of home? The feeling of being safe and secure. I still have this feeling, but it is altered. It is not exciting to come home, I don't like that I am not going to be in a different country next week. The night before we got off the ship we had a meeting about returning home and what to expect. One girl who had studied abroad before said that when she came home for the first time she sat in her bathtub for two weeks. When she said this I thought to myself it's not going to be that bad. Well now I understand. I have no desire to do anything. Every chance I get I find myself lying in my bed looking at pictures from my trip. I have no energy or will to get up and do anything.
Throughout the whole voyage I would try to step back and evaluate myself to see if I had changed. I never noticed any difference which confused me because everyone said I would change but I didn't feel different… that is until I came home. I basically lived in a false world while I was on the ship, everyone had observed the same things I had and we all kind of thought the same way. I think this is why I did not notice any change within myself.
I did not know what to expect when I got home, I did not know how people would respond to me and to what I had to say. The first thing I noticed was how big everything is. I went to the bathroom in the airport and the stall was so wide I had enough space to turn around with my book bag on my back and I did not hit any side of the stall. In all the Asian countries the toilet stalls were three times as small. As I walked around the airport random people would stop me and ask why I had a lamp shade on my back and then I had to explain that it was a rice hat from Vietnam. This led to a conversation about why I was in Vietnam which led to explaining the whole Semester at Sea program. This happened about three times and at that point I got sick of talking about SAS so from then on my response was that I got is at a souvenir shop in Florida. I even had one of the flight attendants stop and talk to me for ten minutes about my travels. When I got home everything looked the same, nothing had changed. The first few days home I visited my family and friends. My grandmother took me Christmas shopping one day and this is when I noticed another change. The way I view people now is different. I am used to being in a different culture and observing unfamiliar ways of living. I liked looking at what the people were wearing and how they acted. Well now I am continuing to do this in my own country. Before this trip I never noticed how many different kinds of people we have in the US. This is one of the only countries that has such a diverse group of citizens. In Japan you would never see a black woman sitting next to a Hispanic man sitting next to a white family sitting next to an Asian. The US is very special in this way. For the most part everyone is accepted here and it is in no way strange to interact with people of a different nationality. Now I am on a road trip because I could not stand staying at home and being in one place. I went to Long Island to visit my friend Eilis from SAS for her 21st birthday and then I went to New Jersey to visit my SAS roommate, Amanda, and we went to Time Square for New Years. Next I went to Philadelphia to visit my boyfriend and his family took me skiing with them in Killington, Vermont. Tomorrow I am headed home and then on Friday I am moving into my apartment at University Park.
I like being on the go all of the time. The only downfall is that I do not get to spend as much time with my family and home friends as I would like. It's all about sacrifice.
It seems as though no one at home changed very much. When I talk to people about what they have been doing in the past four months it is usually the same things they were doing before I left. I hope I do not fall into a rut like that. I want to constantly be doing new things. Every time someone asks me about my trip I try really hard not to sound conceited because I did a lot of the things over seas that most people would never dream about and I feel like when I talk about them I make people feel bad about themselves. I try not to bring up SAS in most conversations but it is hard when I have so much to share. More changed will arise when I return to Penn State and I am excited to continue evolving my view on the world.

bits and pieces

My whole world is changing. I now only have 2 weeks on my voyage around the world. Where did the time go? How did I get to this point already? I can still distinctly remember the way I felt as I watched the ship depart from the Bahamas; I thought to myself oh my gosh I am finally here after so much frustration and hard work. Then I looked around and thought what the heck did I get myself into? I am still trying to answer that question. Looking back, I do not feel changed. I think this is only because I am not in a familiar place yet. Once I go home and see things that used to be so familiar it will hit me because I will most likely look at everything in a different light. I actually noticed this in Hawaii. I was in Wal-mart and everything felt so strange, I can’t put it into words yet. I am excited for the whole new world I am going to walk into on December 14th. At the beginning of this trip I had no desire to go home but now home is all I think about. I’ve reached a point where I am overwhelmed by all the traveling I have done and I just need time to reflect on my adventures in a familiar place for once. Everything is just so crazy right now. Finals start in 2 days, the Ambassador’s Ball is sneaking up on me and I still have so much to prepare for it. Soon Costa Rica will be over and Miami will be outside my cabin window. I can not believe it’s over!
Aloha from Hawaii! Even though I only spent 9 hours in Oahu it was well worth all the hassle of American immigration procedures. I had the intentions of hiking Diamond Head but as it is Thanksgiving Day, it was closed. Almost everything was closed so my only option was to lie on the beach. I know this is so terrible, wink wink. Hawaiian people are the nicest people in the world. So considerate of others and will go out of their way to do a good deed. I watched the best sunset while sitting on the beach watching sail boats past through the setting sun. On my way back to the ship I stopped at a sushi buffet because I got spoiled in Japan and really wanted sushi. That was pretty much my whole day.

The 18 days at sea went by faster than I expected, we did not have any rough seas which really made a difference. Studying for finals and writing papers took up a lot of time, so I didn’t really get bored until the last few days after Costa Rica.

Once we arrived in Costa Rica all of my exams were over with so it was basically a vacation without have to worry about class. I spent most of my time by the beach or pool. The second day I went zip lining which was fun. It consisted of 13 different lines in the canopy of a forest. I was nervous in the beginning because I did not think I would be able to stop myself from running into a tree but it was really easy. I did not do anything very cultural there. It was just a relaxing last port before home.

It is now the night before we dock in Miami. As you can imagine emotions are running high on the ship. Everyone is saying their goodbyes and reminiscing on all the adventures of this semester. The most popular sentence of the day is “I can’t believe it’s over” these past 108 days flew by. It doesn’t even make sense to me that I just traveled the world and visited 10 different countries. I will have a lot more reflection time once I’m home (that’s so weird to say) but now I must say my goodbyes to the people I have spent every second of my life with in the last three and a half months.