Voyage Reflection: Quality of Life

As I sit here stuck in the Nassau airport (after being deplaned due to mechanical problems), I finally have the time to write. It’s kind of ironic that I’m stuck now because in Belize, our last port, we were wondering when our travel luck was going to run out. We were never robbed, we always seemed to catch a bus just in time (when it was the last of the day), we never got stuck anywhere, and we always ended up having an amazing day despite changed plans, miscommunications, and impromptu decisions. In fact, this trip has been quite the lesson in going with the flow. Our days turned out far better when we did not know where we would end up. I learned to trust the process and things would always work out.

On a side note, I started a blog about Belize after the first day there because I was so excited to share my day, but I ended up falling asleep while writing it (it was a long and fulfilling day), so that post is still unfinished and to be continued.

I have been thinking a lot about what I wanted to write now that the trip is over. What I have shared so far have been individual stories, but the theme of the voyage was “Engineering a New Tomorrow” with a focus on the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which I have not touched upon at all. I imagine many of you, like myself before Semester at Sea, have never heard of the MDGs. At the start of the voyage, we filled out a questionnaire to see just how many MDGs each of us knew (there are 8). I had skimmed over the list before the trip, so I was able to take an educated guess and successfully list three. However, at that point the list of lofty, humanitarian goals was still just a set of words on paper.

Here’s the list, summarized:

1. End Poverty and Hunger
2. Universal Education
3. Gender Equality
4. Child Health
5. Maternal Health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS
7. Environmental Sustainability
8. Global Partnership

In essence, this list is composed of the biggest challenges our world faces at present and in the near future. Luckily, for our voyage theme, we took a more manageable approach and focused on “Quality of Life.” We were asked before the voyage to post a picture of what quality of life meant to us. I posted the following image from my trip to Fiji in 2007 where I met the happiest people I have ever known in my life. The picture embodies what I believe to define quality of life.

We were then encouraged to reflect on the quality of life at each port we visited and try to capture that in our photos. I took the photo below in Costa Rica and it was one of the most rewarding and enlightening experiences of my trip. It captures the Pura Vida attitude that filled Costa Rica’s people and shows a glimpse at one woman’s definition of happiness that inspired me.

On the right is Matt, my shipboard brother and fellow Spanish student. In the middle is Doña Chepita, our Costa Rican host. Doña Chepita is the owner of La Finca Virgen, or the Virgin Farm that supports the growth of primarily cacao (cocoa trees). She chose the name because of both its association with the Virgin Mary (religion is an important part of much of the Latin and Caribbean culture) and the meaning of virgin as something new and growing. At 70 years old, Doña Chepita was as full of life as her farm. She spoke only Spanish, often softly and quickly, so at times Matt and I struggled to understand. Luckily we were accompanied by Fernando from Earth University who would fill in the gaps as she explained challenges they face and the process of making charcoal, her husband’s work. Doña Chepita has a big heart and not only opens her home to visitors from around the world, but was supporting a Nicaraguan man who had his leg amputated because of diabetes, then lost his job and lost touch with his family. She made us a traditional lunch with food grown on the farm, including the chicken and fresh guanabana juice. We had bananas, fresh pineapple and even hot chocolate that she made from dried, ground cocoa beans from her farm. Everything was incredible. The reason I am telling you all of this is because when I asked Doña Chepita what happiness meant to her, she answered without hesitation and included everything she had just shown and shared with us. The very first thing she mentioned was the environment and went on to speak of her farm, the visitors, the food and family. And it dawned on me, that despite the “poverty” we witnessed, her life was much richer than most. She was happy; how many Americans can say the same? Our homes are ten times as big filled with ten times as much stuff, and many people are still unhappy. They say money doesn’t buy happiness, but somehow advertisers still convince us otherwise. Costa Rica, however, seems to have it figured out, and Doña Chepita showed me in the course of a few hours how to be happy. Her quality of life was not impeded by the lack of material wealth but enriched in its absence by the natural wealth of her country and her farm.

In most of my pictures, you will find that I captured the countries’ natural beauty rather than their people, and I think, perhaps, it is because I define my quality of life by the environment I am in.

From a reflecting engineer,

Allison