BEGINNING MISCELLANEY

 

Mornings on the ship are sometimes a little challenging. We've had four, count them, four continuous nights of time changes as we journey across the North Atlantic heading for Cadiz, Spain, with 2 more singly before that. Even though it sounds like the changes are gradual, they are definitely cumulative. This morning I reluctantly left my cozy cot and slogged through my workout, spurred on by the reward of my Starbuck's coffee at the end. The ship coffee is truly nasty and everyone I advised to bring their own French press has thanked me profusely. So I'm hunkered down in the dining room, worshipping the brew, and suddenly one sound completely changes my mood. From a table behind me, what can only be called a giggle, at once deep-throated and high pitched, fills the room: "Hee hee hee hee hee". Arch has joined us for breakfast.

 

Archbishop Tutu's presence among us is a gift that is difficult to describe. He not only honors us with his decision to make this voyage and share his wisdom with us in meetings and classes, he also models in his everyday life the characteristics of humility, an infectious playfulness born of living in the moment and respect for and belief in the essential goodness of people that he speaks about so passionately in public. He and his wife Leah have managed to be among as role models for all to see and emulate but also as real people. They are welcoming and gracious as they meet over 750 students, faculty, staff members and lifelong learners, each of us shy and insecure at first but quickly put at ease by their genuine friendliness. It has a lot to do with that laugh.

 

I've only had one brief conversation with them and that was our first day, back in Halifax. Les McCabe has just escorted them onto the ship and I was standing near enough to join the group and welcome them. I reminded Arch that I had spoken with him at the St. Timothy School commencement where on of their granddaughters was in the graduating class and I was attending as an alum.  His face lit up and he quickly introduced me to Leah; they both beamed as we connected as grandparents and I complemented their beautiful, smart and accomplished granddaughter. Now I long for a real conversation. They join the LLLs in the lounge for our Happy Hour meetings so hopefully that will happen soon.

 

In other news, my courses are stimulating and diverse. Because I am only going on a third of the voyage, I decided to sit in on a number and not commit to a few as I usually do by doing all the readings and having more of a focus. So far I've been to classes in sustainable communities, global music, travel writing, global societies, family/community/utopia, fetal development and childbirth, the rhetoric of film and the core course everyone takes, global studies. Fascinating! I think I've learned most in the sustainable communities class. The professor states his main thesis as "Enough, for everyone, forever" or economy, equity and ecology. After living around the environmental movement for decades but never really connecting with or committing personally to its goals, beyond simple things like recycling and buying responsible light bulbs, I have finally gotten excited about the social equity piece of it, the "enough for everyone". We've also talked about the locavore or locally grown food movement which I've been interested in for awhile. Rocky Rohwedder, the brilliant and charismatic professor from Sonoma State University, told us about "guerilla gardeners" who were new to me. They dress up in Ninja outfits and, under the cover of night, plant gardens somewhere they do not have permission to use, often a public green space in a low income area. They leave a sign that invites the local residents to take responsibility for the garden and share the harvest among themselves.

 

Regular readers of this blog might remember that on my last voyage I tried to look at quoz, The Other, and my encounters with it. For this voyage, I want to look at what happens in the relationships, the exchanges that I experience with people from another culture. I read Pico Iyer's masterful article "Why We Travel" http://www.salon.com/travel/feature/2000/03/18/why and was struck by his discussion of what American travelers bring to these meetings. I've always been so focused either on what I wanted to learn or on not being disrespectful or culturally insensitive that I have forgotten to honor the give and take of meeting a new person from the point of view of what they might be seeing in me. I'm still a little uncomfortable with the notion because it seems more self-centered than I want to be, and I know I'll always want to focus on openness and respect. But it might be a step towards normalizing these encounters with local people to be aware of or learn about how they see me, what they're curious about, what they might need in that exchange. Iyer suggests that we can bring "a fresh and renewed sense of how special are the warmth and beauty of their country". You can "teach them what they have to celebrate as much as you celebrate what they have to teach you". I remember when my mother visited Denver from Shreveport and we would be driving somewhere, me in my mundane, getting- from-here- to-there groove. I would turn west and she would throw up her hands and gasp at the beauty of the mountains, a vista I ignored on a regular basis. Or she would turn on the tap and say "Oooooh, I just love how cold the water is here." Visitors can bring locals gifts of wonder and fresh senses, not just a casual "Your country is so beautiful" but a specific and appreciative act of seeing, listening, tasting and feeling that I hope to share.

 

My first chance to practice this will be in Spain. We arrive tomorrow in Cadiz and that evening I will go with my fabulous global music professor to an authentic Andalusian flamenco club. Dan Ferguson has taught music at Columbia as well as several universities in California, is a touring professional guitarist and speaks both Mandarin and Cantonese fluently! I've already learned lots about this passionate musical form and am really looking forward to the performance tomorrow night. When I was in Spain before, I never got the chance to go to Grenada and visit the Alhambra, reportedly the most popular site in the country. I struck out finding someone to go with so I'll be traveling solo, either on the bus or train, not sure yet, and staying for two nights in a restored Moorish home that has been converted to a hotel in the old Arabian quarter. I haven't explored on my own in quite a while so this should be great fun.

 

Finally, being on the ship this time has been a little different. If you scroll down to the posts just before this one, you'll see that I shared tips on getting ready for an SAS voyage, just hints I've collected over the years and thought it more efficient to write down somewhere. I posted links on the SAS Fall 2010 Facebook page and apparently lots of future voyagers checked them out. Many students have come up to me to thank me for doing that and to say very nice things about how helpful my advice was. More than a few have said something like "My mom really loved your blogs too and she made me promise to find you and thank you."  In the Lifelong Learner group particularly, I've become the Go To person for questions of every kind. Fortunately, there are many resources now that we're on the ship, including our marvelous LLL coordinator, Betty Waldrin, who has sailed 19 times and two other LLL couples who have sailed 10 times each! The early days of a voyage can be overwhelming so we've all been busy helping everyone get settled and oriented. Those exchanges, coupled with the fact that I'm only going to be on the ship for a short time, have made me feel a little like a staff member instead of a voyager myself. It's been great fun but I also want to shift my focus now to my experiences, my relationships, my writing, etc. It's already going by way to fast and I want to savor it all!