Ethan's Semester In the South Pacific: April 2013

So, this will be final entry in my study abroad blog. It’s hard to believe sitting here Wednesday, April 3rd, but this is the very last day that I will be out of the country. At 11:15 PM local time, I will be boarding a red-eye in Papeete, Tahiti and flying through the night where I will land in Los Angeles and connect to my Atlanta flight and will arrive home tomorrow evening. It’s sad to be leaving, but I am very excited to sleep in my own bed tomorrow night, eat American food, and see family and friends. This entry, picking up last Thursday, March 28 is about my final days overseas.

So anyway, we woke up Thursday and had somewhat of a free morning. A couple of us walked into town to buy souvenirs and run some errands and such, and then we got all of our stuff packed and organized, loaded it on a coach, and walked about a mile to the ferry to go to Moorea. The ferry ride was great, mostly because it was a chance to sit in air conditioning for an hour. Moorea is the island next to Tahiti and is another island in the Society Islands Archipelago, one of the 5 archipelagos that make up French Polynesia. Around 2 or so, we arrived in the port of Moorea. We boarded a public bus to take us our accommodation. The only problem was there is a road that basically circles the island. We were about 20 minutes away when we were at the port, except the bus circled the other way and it took about an hour to get there instead. So that was great… Anyway, we got settled in, waded around in the water, and had somewhat of an orientation before dinner. The accommodation was pretty neat. It was called Gump Station and it was a Marine Research Station for Cal-Berkley. It had a little dorm, which was really more of us house with lots of tiny bedroom and it had a nice classroom with AC and WiFi, which had been a rare find in Tahiti until that point. It was set right on the water and we could walk right into it from our back door. After dinner, we were all pretty tired, so must of us went to dinner pretty soon after.

The next day, (Friday) we had a “cultural day”. We had ecology class in the morning, but after lunch, we walked down to the cultural center where we did some Tahiti cultural things, such as weaving baskets with palm branches, cracking coconuts, and preparing the “earth oven”. The earth oven is a pretty prominent part of Tahitian culture, where they are basically able to prepare an entire mean within this large fire pit that is covered by palm branches and wet cloths. That took most of the afternoon and we went back to our place for a little before going back for the feast that night. The feast was actually to celebrate the departure of a group of Maoris who were canoeing from Polynesia to New Zealand in a Va’a, a traditional Maori canoe. It was pretty to cool to see them do their cultural dances, including the Haka (sp?) which is a war dance and actually quite intimidating. We ate and mingled with, although quite honestly, I didn’t care for the food at all. As usual, we went back, were pretty tired and went to bed.

Saturday was much more relaxing. We had class in the morning, but were given a free afternoon. We all went to the beach and spent the afternoon there, which was really nice. That night, I attempted to get a little schoolwork finished and actually managed to be somewhat productive before going to bed.

Easter Sunday started with class, as I mentioned earlier. Many of my classmates went to a local Catholic Church as I and a few other people attempted to watch the North Point service online. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful. After lunch, we went out in a couple boats to go snorkeling with sharks and sting rays, which was pretty cool. The sting rays, thinking they might be fed would come right up and start sort of pecking. As long as they kept their stingers away, it was fine. And then occasionally, the black-tip reef sharks would swim around too. Afterwards, we went to another spot on the beach and relaxed for a little bit before heading back to base camp. I did a little more work that night after dinner, we had class for a little, and went to bed.

Monday, we had class again to start the day. We had a free afternoon and although I did go swimming for a little. I spent most of my time that afternoon preparing for our module discussion that night. Unlike our normal modules, where we would write, this time our professor would just randomly call on us and ask us for opinions and feedback on specific parts of the reading. It went pretty well for me, which was good. Afterward, I had a lot of work to do because our ecology exam was going to be that evening.

That morning, we had a few wrap up things to take care of such as a program evaluation and a post-trip survey. It was hard to believe, it was our last full day abroad. Unfortunately, I had to spend most of the day studying for our exam that evening. We took the exam around 7 and I felt pretty good about it. Although it was open-note, it was a three-hour exam and it took almost all of that time. Afterward, we did some moderate celebrating out by the water before heading to bed.

Wednesday, April 3, we packed our things and prepared for our departure. Unfortunately, I did the dumbest thing of all time and went out swimming for a little without sunscreen. I got nice and burnt for our long travel home. Around 3 pm, we made our departure from Gump Station by car and headed to the ferry, where we got to hang around the main island of Tahiti for a couple hours. We ate dinner at the market, but had a little bit of a scare when our coach didn’t show. Fortunately, some police officers we found on the street were very willing to assist us and they went out of their way to arrange for some cabs to pick us up. A huge God-send! We made it to the airport around 9 finally and caught our red-eye flight to LA.

All in all, it was an amazing trip and I was so blessed to see so much of the world at such a young age. I was really able to see the world from a broader perspective and I look forward to experiencing changes in my lifestyle as I re-acclimate to life in the great US of A. I can’t say enough about the beauty of the places we saw, the people who make the program happen, and the people made a trip like this possible for me (my parents). God Bless and thank you for following “Ethan’s Semester in the South Pacific”!