Morning arrival and lights of the Cathedral over the city.
Family at the beach walking back from one of the missions.
This is one of the White Towns seen on our way to hike above Grazalema.
Painting of a bullfight at Arcos de la Frontera in Musea de Cadiz. Some people attended one, a cultural experience that held no appeal for me.
Hanging with colleagues at the time of our sail.
Pulling away from port early to sail to Canary Islands. Another volcano hike in the plans.
When I was an undergraduate, I had Classical Greek as a language requirement for my Liberal Arts degree. (Had I known I would end up in LA for a substantial part of my adult life, I would’ve planned differently.) This was not a popular route of study at Ohio State, so my classes were the size of graduate seminars rather than the large lecture halls that shaped much of my learning in those days.
In larger, impersonal classes, I could do badly on an computer-graded exam and not feel the impact. In my language courses, if I was one of eight students and not prepared to translate, I was flush with embarrassment. That guided my choices and hence, my cumulative GPA suffered. The nice thing at the time is that I remember my father saying, but did you learn something? I did learn, and continue to do so.
As news unfolds in the world, in many ways Semester at Sea is in a bubble. Internet is slow, so the regular news that I would get from television or reading papers or blogs is not available. The protests around the world came to our attention because it directly impacted this community. For more than a week we waited while others assessed the viability of our planned agenda, to sail from Spain to Morocco, a Muslim country. it is the country most different than the United States in many ways, and the first non-European port.
As one who travels independently, i have ignored warnings from the State Department to visit Bali and Nepal. I have been with one other person or a small group. If it had been different circumstances, a quick ferry from Tarifa to Morocco may have definitely been part of travel plans.
Traveling on a ship full of predominantly Americans is different, and the Institute for Shipboard Education decided to nix this Muslim-dominated country. I am bummed, as are pretty much everyone else. Once again the actions of a few and their First Amendment rights ruin something for the many. My partner was excited about the hiking in the Atlas mountains and doing home stays along the way. I feel badly about the venders and organizers who expected the funds from this many tourists to significantly contribute to their economy, and besides the deposits, a large portion of their anticipated income is lost.
We are a different beast to be sailing as a campus community into a port, than lone travelers entering a space. We have the chance to be ambassadors and cultural explorers. Some students embrace this consciously. We had a student panel today about the Arab Spring, and learned a lot about Arab cultures across borders. Others are still orienting and probably doing the best they can given their stages of development. There is a lot of beach-seeking behavior, which makes some sense for someone in a landlocked state of the union; this feels like an extended spring break.
What I hope is this: Even if the most magical event is shopping or a new club or the beach, at least these students did this on foreign soil. There are a huge percentage of Americans who do not have passports or any interest in travel far from home. Perhaps for those who are less invested in the education beyond the classroom, there is a basic lesson about other places. If someone says, I went there; it was fun. Let’s go again, that is progress. This orientation gets them beyond their Xenophobia, and perhaps the next time there will be that moment of taking in more of what is deep and old and historically and culturally relevant.
We sail to the Canary Islands instead of Morocco, then on to Ghana. Having been six days in Spain has been relaxing, and because many students left for Barcelona, Madrid, or Ibiza, the shipboard community was mellower during this time. I feel renewed. I keep having conversations with students, faculty, and staff about ways to make meaning of these experiences. I contemplate many of the one liners from repeat travelers whose statements are koans, words to be savored and internalized with meaning beyond the surface that speaks to the heart.
Life on the ship is a culture in and of itself. Students are not quite prepared for the acclimation to living within a community where one cannot really walk away, take a bus into town, or go home for the weekend. The students range from gap-year to post-baccalaureate, with the majority being Juniors. All this packing and considering the moments in various communities, and the biggest hurdle, here and in life, is how do I get along with others?
I have been thinking and talking about the difference between being “responsible to” and “responsible for”. Here is a dilemma: We come as an individual for the adventure, and then there is the messy complications of others! Or, some come with friends who share many similarities on the land campus, but the test of novelty and adventure starts to differentiate them. To thine own self be true. There is an invitation to grow up in the kind of young adult way where one is able to break off from the pack.
One of the encouraging statements heard repeatedly is to allow yourself to get lost. I am noticing for myself and others the need to both have enough knowledge to have a good experience, and then enough flexibility to be open to the mysteries of what might unfold. It was lovely being on a scheduled trip to Greece, and to see and experience so much beauty. It is also a treat to get lost, to wander into courtyards and find all kinds of gems. The band below was playing the theme from the Love Boat, and had an angel dancing in front of them.
To duck in behind a shop yielded this cool public art, then led us into a store with bamboo housewares that were unbelievably light and aesthetically pleasing to handle.
I anticipate that future post-port reflections will bring a different tone even, once we get beyond the Euro countries. The students of color have been challenged in a different way, such as when being Asian American provokes a lot of questions. So much of the Global Studies course has been addressing colonization, and we will be heading to Africa and Brazil, where a huge portion of the Africans taken into slavery ended up going under the oppression of the governments and countries where we’ve been stopping. With the current events and being around larger Islamic communities, there are layers to uncover regarding human rights, religious freedom, free speech, and respect for plurality.
Another idea that I have been mulling over is the idea of no judgement, especially as it relates to comparisons. I am guilty of mentally compartmentalizing and cataloguing, because it is so efficient! What it costs is the 3-dimensional comprehension of something new and wonderful.
I was suggesting to someone planning a honeymoon, if feasible, to go someplace where you’ve never been before. Start off your marriage on an even playing field wherever possible. Rather than one person, knowing already, do some homework together and have the direct experience together of discovering and delighting in all the magic that the occasion should hold.
So we leave Antwerp, and are off to Lisbon, which is suggested to be the most beautiful port in Europe for disembarking.
