Sat Jan 18, 2025
Hi All! We had another great day of RRE&GF! (Check out yesterday’s blog to decode that acronym!) After sleeping in we went to listen to the speaker with the topic of “Brazil and Slavery”. While that was a very heavy and tough topic to cover, the guest speaker, Terry Bishop, did a great job of covering it. He’s one of the best speakers we’ve had at sea.
He said the term Slave comes from the Slavs in the Slavic area of Romania where the Romans got them. The Roman Empire gathered many slaves with 35% of the Roman population being slaves with 400,000 slaves in the city of Rome.
Not only the Romans had slaves. The Egyptians used slaves to build the pyramids. The Vikings took 1.25 million slaves. In 1086 10% of the British population were slaves. The Portuguese brought back 60,000 slaves to Lisbon. The Arab countries also used 11 to 18 million slaves for more than 1,000 years. And of course all the slaves brought from Africa to the US and the Caribbean.
The routing to move the African slaves around was called the Triangle of Shame. It started with shipping textiles from Europe to Africa, filling those ships with African slaves and sending them to America and then sending sugar, cotton and tobacco to Europe. And doing it all over again. So sad.
One of the primary places in Africa they got slaves from was James Island on the river Gambia which was the setting for the book “Roots” written by Alex Haley. As many as 3 million slaves were taken from there. In the 1800’s, many countries abolished slavery but sadly Human trafficking is today’s slavery.
After the speaker we had a nice lunch in La Veranda. Today I got fresh snapper and it was so tasty! The afternoon was used for sunning and relaxing. Of course then we got peckish so we went to Afternoon Tea with the theme of the sweets being South America. Not sure what they all were but the ones we got were good (and I included a pic!). We then went back to our room and got ready for dinner.
Tonight we had dinner with four friends (two we ate with the other night) who have each gone on four prior world cruises. I call them the world cruise gurus! Of course we picked their brains feverishly while having another great meal in Compass Rose. Namely Shrimp & Zucchini Risotto, Barramundi and Chocolate Silk Cake. All yummy! But it was hard not checking our phones to see how the Chiefs vs Texans game was going! Of course the Chiefs won but I was rooting for the Texans!
After dinner we went to the show which was the woman from the other night named Lisa-Marie Holmes. Her show was called “The Ultimate Diva Show” and featured music from the great divas like Tina Turner, Barbra Streisand, Adele, Shirley Bassey and Diana Ross. She has an amazing voice!
After the show we watched the Lions vs Commanders game. When I sent this, the Lions were up 14-10. Go Lions! Tomorrow we are back on land in Recife, Brazil. Hope everyone’s having a great weekend!
PS: I added a pic of Kathy and I with her in her new “leopard” dress she got in Belém! So cool!
The Wandering Italian 