Plugs and Sockets

One of my favorite events on the ship is Post-Port Reflections. After every port, the two ship psychologists facilitate an open mike meeting where members of the shipboard community speak about their travels in that country. We are encouraged not to give just a play-by-play account of what we did, but to share how we felt and what our experiences meant to us. There is something of the nature of a Quaker Meeting about it, as long pauses stretch out while students get up their nerve to stand before the group. When they do, I always learn something about the power of this voyage and get an insight into the individuality of travel.

The metaphor of the male-female connection has been rumbling around in my head lately to describe our experiences in these countries. I don’t quite mean it in the sexual sense, although, God knows, that’s a fascinating topic on a ship full of young people. Think of it electrically, like a plug and a socket. Each traveler arrives in a port with an infinite number of projections, points wanting to connect with the people, place and culture. We extend ourselves outward with curiosity, enthusiasm, openness and often considerable courage. Each of our own plugs is a different shape, characteristic of our interests, our personality and our past experiences. Multiply each individual set by the 800 travelers on this voyage and you get an onslaught of urges to connect as the shipboard community pours down the gangway. Ok, maybe the sexual context works well too.

Every country we visit has a virtually infinite number of places to connect, sockets to plug into. Each person searches for their own favorite locations, encounters or experiences. Some put on their backpacks and head out, often alone, to see whatever is out there, whatever presents itself to them. They have what I think of as a complete set of adaptors that connect them to almost any type of socket. Others know exactly what they want to do or see, many having dreamed of these adventures since they were children, of going on safari, for instance.

Seeing the cherry blossoms in Kyoto at their peak has been on my Bucket List since just missing them on the SAS Spring 02 voyage. This spring I took my aesthetic plug to Kyoto and made a high voltage connection to the magnificence of those trees, grove after grove of them, river banks crowded with them, city parks canopied by them. In Post-Port Reflections, a student told of randomly poking his finger down on the map of Japan and heading off to the small island where it landed, just to see what was there. As I was leaving the Hong Kong History Museum, I bumped into a student heading in, breathless from both hurrying and excitement. She had already been to the Art Museum and also wanted to see the Science and Technology Museum next door. She expressed frustration that she only had a day in Hong Kong before leaving for Beijing and there were so many museums she just had to see. One of the boys in my shipboard family is an avid geo-cacher. He downloads GPS coordinates in every port from a website and goes in search of actual buried treasures, often no more than small film canisters with a log inside to register the finders. Sometimes he takes a small talisman and leaves behind a token he’s been carrying. The caches are hidden by local people in places they want a visitor to be sure to see. Many people have a goal of having at least one meaningful conversation with a native of the country, sharing information and insights beyond what’s the best local beer. Their accounts are exceptionally powerful and poignant. Thirteen countries, over 800 people, story after story after story.

That’s the power of Semester at Sea. The goal is to facilitate as many of those stories as possible and to have them become learning and growing experiences, not only for each individual but for the ship full of listeners as well. The process usually starts after the first port when we come back to the ship and hear stories from people who did fabulous things we never even thought of. It’s hard not to have a little buyers’ remorse, thinking of all the things you could have done, places you could have gone. Slowly it dawns on each one of us that in five days, one person can only plug into so many different experiences. After hearing a shipmate’s story, we may promise ourselves we’ll do something similar in the next port. We may also realize it’s just not our thing, while appreciating the importance of the experience for that traveler.

Now, we have traveled all the way around the world. Powerful connections have been made. We have learned to savor the memories and lessons of the choices we made and to be grateful for the stories that have been shared.