Guest writer Hala tells of her recent experience aboard the Fathom Adonia. Fathom is a new kind of cruise that combines your love of travel with your desire to make a difference. Here's Hala's story.
I was lucky enough last week to be a guest on board
the brand new Fathom Adonia cruise ship. Fathom is a new brand of cruising by Carnival Cruise Lines.
It showcases a new type of vacation that lets you enjoy your vacation
like any other cruise line but with a difference - and that difference is you -
or more specifically what you do. Fathom brands themselves as “Impact
Travel” which they describe as travel designed to make a difference, a real
impact, in the local communities that you visit. So, it is a combination of the usual cruising fun and
plus specially designed impact activities that give you a real sense of
accomplishment and joy at being able to help those less fortunate. But
don’t worry - the volunteer activities were easy and fun!
Our journey began as soon as we stepped on board and
were welcomed by Fathom’s impact guides. These guides were specially
picked by Carnival after a rigorous screening because of their enthusiasm and a
desire to help others. They are all young, very energetic, and extremely
sociable and talented, and they all share a strong desire to change the world
for the better. Their enthusiasm was totally infectious. They were
all there to make a difference. Once you step onboard the ship the Adonia, we
were all greeted by the enthusiastic Impact guides with big smiles on their
faces. You can feel their energy and enthusiasm and their sense of
purpose for being part of a new era in cruising and being part of the Fathom
family.
Carnival spent 18 million dollars to refurbish the
Adonia and it shows. It was a nice combination of classical hardwood
panelling in some of the bars and lounges, and modern functional cabins. The
Adonia is small by modern cruise standards, carrying only 704 passengers, but
that is ideal on a cruise like this because it helps give you a sense of
intimacy and you very soon get to know many more people than you ever could on
a large ship. We made many new acquaintances very quickly. It was
fun to be able to meet people you barely knew but whom you had already passed
three times going to the buffet and discuss which seminars you had been to or
which impact activity you had done.
The food choices were plentiful and they were all
good. There was a main sit-down dining room, and
the usual buffet with an omelet and waffle station in the morning and a
pizza station at dinner. There was one
specialty restaurant that had a modest cover charge that served up some unique
caribbean inspired food. Two of my husband’s favorites were the pool-side
bistro and the coffee bar. The poolside bistro served up some Cuban and
Dominican Republic specialty hamburgers and sandwiches that were really tasty.
The coffee shop specialized in Cuban and Dominican style coffees like Café con
leche, Café Cubano, Colada, and Cortadito. He didn’t even know what these
were before this cruise but he soon learned and
loved them. The coffee bar also had a daily specialty pastry which was
always amazing. For example, one day they made Pineapple and Cilantro
Cake - it was soooo good!
We sailed away on Sunday afternoon and arrived in the
Dominican Republic late Monday. The seas were calm and there were tons of
activities onboard including all the usual pool side stuff, spa, ping-pong,
games, etc. There were even free meditation, yoga, and dance
classes. However, and surprising to us, was that what was really special
to us were all the great workshops and seminars they put on. First, they
organized us into groups called “Cohorts” which gave us a good chance to meet
more people since you stick with your cohorts for a few of what they called
“Core Programming” sessions which consisted of entertaining and at times very
thought provoking presentations and interactive discussions.
Everything from basic history of the DR to special programs designed by
Ashoka (who designed the “Humans of NY” project). One of these special
programs was called “Social Innovation in Action”. In this program we
teamed up with everyone to brain-storm and see how we might solve some of the
world’s pressing problems like declining fisheries, and leftover land mines.
In another workshop, called “Raising the Next Generation of
Changemakers” we looked at and discussed what children need in order to master
the four essential skills needed to deal with constant change - empathy,
leadership, teamwork, and changemaking. If you have children or
grandchildren you would find this workshop especially interesting. There
was also some training available to directly help make you impact activities
more productive such as “Empowering English Tutoring” where we were taught the
basics we needed to help students learn english and “Spanish Phrases”.
One of the activities on board was playing dominos. Many people in the DR
love dominos and so knowing how to play can help break down barriers. My
husband and I had a great time playing with one of the Implact guides,
Francisco, who was originally from Spain. For fun we decided to play
using only Spanish which really helped us learn our numbers quickly!
Tuesday morning we woke early, ate and then were off
for our first impact activity - Reforestation. After about a 45 minute
drive through Puerto Plata and then some countryside, we arrived at a national
park where the people of the DR are trying to reforest. In this case the
park has a large marsh-like area where we planted mangroves. The
mangroves will help keep the soil from eroding and will retain moisture in the
soil. After arriving, we split up into teams of diggers, planters, and
conveyers. I am sure you will be surprised to learn that the diggers dug,
the planters planted and the conveyers kept the planters supplied with
seedlings from the nursery :). It was a little muddy and quite hot and
humid but we all had a great time and really felt a sense of a job well done
when we found out we had planted 350 trees!
Our second outing, on Wednesday morning, was to teach
grade six students english. We had a short bus ride into Puerto Plata and
soon arrived at Padre Las Casas school. We were first welcomed by the
principal and then given a short tour of the school. Then it was off to
meet the students! After a few words by the Entrena guides and a song to loosen
us all up we divided quickly into groups of four students and two
travelers. We were given a lesson plan, called “Nice to Meet You” which
guided us in teaching the children basic phrases like “Good morning”, “How are
you?”, and of course “Nice to meet you”. We had pictures and flash cards
to help us. The children were adorable. They were all extremely
well-behaved and really eager to learn. I cannot really express how
heartwarming and enjoyable it was even for people like me who have never taught
a day in their lives! Our first lesson lasted 45 minutes and then we met
with a second group of kids. It was so inspiring to find out there
dreams of being veterinarians, doctors, teachers, and even one who wanted to be
a secret agent - 007 no less!
Wednesday afternoon we went to “Rapappel” - where a
group of enterprising Dominican women have set up an association to create and
sell arts and crafts from locally recycled paper. As soon as we arrived
at their workshop, we were greeted with a song and introductions to each of the
eleven women working there. They were all so happy to see us that it made
you feel like you’d won a million dollars right from the start. We split
into small groups and then rotated through the tasks required to go from used
office paper to new recycled paper. The first station is where we tore
the paper by hand to separate it into the parts with ink on them and the parts
that were just white paper. Next, we took the paper shreds and put them
in a washing machine to turn them into what looked like very watery cold
porridge. From there the porridge-like material was put in an ordinary
kitchen blender and blended for 45 seconds or so to make pulp. At the
fourth station, we took 8.5 by 11 sized screens (just like on your windows at
home) with wooden frames and swished them in the pulp that had been put into a
large (like two kitchen sinks) fiberglass tub. The swishing caused the
pulp to adhere to the mesh. After a couple of minutes we took the mesh
screens out of the pulp and let them drain a bit. Then we flipped the
frames upside down causing the pulp to separate from the screen and form a
sheet of paper. The final step occurred after the newly form paper sheet
had dried. We took it and rolled it briskly between two other pieces of
paper to make it nice and smooth. From there, it went to their store
where they finally made some money! We had a fantastic time here, the
women were so happy and constantly singing and dancing while they worked.
We felt like we had known them for years by the time we left. We were
all so sad when it was time to return to the ship. Its a true lesson in
humility to see how happy these women were, in spite of how hard they worked to
make a living to support their families. A few of them were single mothers and
this was their sole income.
Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to make it to our last
scheduled impact activity on Thursday due to a scheduling mix up.
Want to book your own experience? Contact your PERX travel planner today!
