Crew Talent

On Monday night, the ship was treated to a super talent show by the members of the ship's crew.  We got to see the waiters, the stewards, the galley workers, the maintenance guys and even those folks who do our laundry in deep anonymity performing for us. You could tell that this was as big a deal for them as it was for us.  People started packing the Union at 7:45 for the choice seats for the show that didn't begin until 9 pm.

Two students, Eric and Matt, were the emcees and kept the show rolling while filling in the spaces between acts with jokes and introductions.  They were great.

 Darwin was a crowd favorite with his moves and voice.  The students have really gotten to know a few of the waiters who go out of their way to help you and have learned some many of our names.  They really are as much family as the academic side of the ship even though there are strict rules about fraternization between crew and everyone else.

Mez sings all day long in the dining hall and preaches "one love", and he sang to us last night as well.  A few singers came from the ranks of the unknown, and they blew us away with their vocals. Standing ovations were shared with these special ones.  Our AV guy did a powerful rendition of  "My Way" that left us thinking he should have been on American Idol.

Even the folks who were too shy to sing joined in a dance group of a chorus.  Allan was a big crowd pleaser with his drumming, guitar playing, singing and final act spinning wine bottles.











The talent show had two purposes: it was a way to showcase the crew and then to let us show how much we appreciate them by our response and contribution to the crew fund.  The crew fund goes to support activities and equipment for the crew.  They have their own collection of DVDs to watch and exercise equipment.  I hope we all pledged an amount equal to the pleasure that they gave us.

Africa Day

Yesterday was Africa Day on the ship.  No classes were held, but the day was a continuous offering of seminars and activities about Africa or the issues facing Africa.  The students created an AIDS "quilt" since AIDS is such a huge problem in Africa.  For example, twenty-nine percent of the pregnant women in South Africa are HIV positive.

Some other sessions included: Cultural Norms in South Africa and Ghana, Apartheid: How Much do you Really Know?, Names we Call Africa: Digging the Roots of Cool, and Electronic Waste in Africa.

Hunger was another theme of several sessions.  There was a "Hunger Luncheon" where participants were given the persona of a person with a name, age, sex and income level.  They then were able to eat according to their status, so the higher income people were well-fed and the low-income people had very little.  It was interesting that some people chose not to particpate if they were high income.  There was some food sharing going on.

Lunch and dinner included some South African dishes and good conversation between friends.

A lone oil derrick in the sea served as a sentinel for the coast of South Africa, and we could see the outline of the coast and the lights of a town as the sun went down.  Many of us proceeded to the Union to view selections from musicals of South Africa, performed by our students after only 3 hours of rehearsal by our inter-port lecturer.  It was a perfect treat to the end of Africa Day.

Quiet Day on MV Explorer

Stealing from Garrison Keillor, it's been a quiet day on the MV Explorer.  We have an interport lecturer, Michael William from South Africa, who joined the ship with this wife and two girls in Mauritius.  Mike runs an opera company and has already started training the students for a musical presentation on Africa Day.

We also had sign-up day for the Alumni Ball, and that was a little chaotic as everyone had to figure out which table they want to sit at and who they want to sit with. It was a little like choosing sports teams in elementary school when someone got chosen last or who was going to go to the prom with your group. We get around this at dinner every night by just pulling up another chair.  The Alumni Ball dinner has two seatings and will be pretty formal.

Speaking of formal dinners, the dining services has something called "special dinners" where a group of  people can go together and and reserve a room off the main dining room to have a sit-down served dinner like the captain's dinner but without the captain.  There is an extra charge, of course, but it's great food.  We attended one last week for a faculty member's birthday.  I had seen students dressed up on the ship and taking pictures on the deck, and I finally figured out what was going on.

I forgot to write about the post-port reflections from Mauritius, so here are a few:
People found the Mauritians to be wonderful people.  One guy serenaded a bunch of Living Learning Coordinators (LLC's) with songs from "Grease" when he heard they were from the U.S.  Others learned that the Mauritians live in good harmony even though they represent different religions, and ethnic cultures.  They all contribute to the whole of Mauritius.

Several people spoke about meeting with church groups or making service visits.  One person made necklaces for the "mothers" who work in the orphanages.  Another group of students had a church group take them in and feed them and then take them around to a school on the next day.  One student reflected back to India where he had spent the best birthday of his working with kids and learning that everyone spoke the universal language of love.

Another spoke of the unreality of this voyage since there is so much beauty.  I came away thinking that the connections people are making are the most meaningful parts.

The sunset was stunning enough to bring a group out onto the 8th deck to watch.

Perfect Day

One of the mantras of the ship is "How could it get any better than this?"




Well, it starts like this.  We moved to a different time zone, so we get an extra hour of sleep or in my case an early start to the day to see a spectacular sunrise.

Then you get to do some early morning walking on the deck for exercise, joined by great students like Rachel and Abigail ( who is turning 21 as I write this--happy birthday).

Then I get to exercise vicariously with another group out on deck at 6:15 am without having to break a sweat.

And an opportunity to thank the great crew who secretly care for the ship every hour of the day.
Breakfast was French toast with some of my best friends. mmmmmmmm

And off to work where Vanessa had arrived early and already opened the library.  That was great because we had the busiest day in the library so far, and I love busy days in the library.  We were filled to lying room only.

There was no Global Studies yesterday, so, although I love Global Studies, that gave everyone time to go to the library or catch up on work. The afternoon was overcast which made a great atmosphere to eat out on the deck at lunch with Shepherd's Pie as the main course--a South Africa dish.  A smoothie in the afternoon and a cookie with one of our adopted kids was great.

Then the Pièce de résistance was the Captain's dinner.  Faculty and staff have the opportunity at some point to have dinner with the Captain and some of his staff.  This is a very fancy multi-course dinner where we dressed up and were served excellent wine.  Captain Roman is a very charming man so I had to keep a close eye on Nancy.  We sat at his table and got to ask all kinds of stupid questions and hear great stories.  I told him that my friend Mary Johnston had assured me that the librarian gets to steer the ship at some point on the voyage and he said that sure that's a tradition.  I'm anxiously awaiting his call.

Mauritius Day 2

 

On our second day in Mauritius, I woke up early and watched the sun rise over the mountain behind us.  The roosters were crowing all over town, and the dogs were all out walking around having their morning constituutional.  The locals were catching their buses or climbing into the back of trucks to go to work.

 

We sat on the veranda and watched the life on the bay.  Through my binoculars, I watched three boats with two guys poling them through the water with two more guy sitting in the boats.  They moved as a unit, and then the guys who were poling started slapping the water with the long poles.  Then I could see fish jumping, and they seemed to be herding them until they formed a triangle with the boats.  Then, the guys who were sitting in the boats jumped in with nets, and they seemed to be catching the fish.  I would have loved to be out there with them watching up close.

 

Then Theresa woke up, and we headed down the street to find coffee. There were several walk up little stores, and we asked a guy outside the first one if they had coffee.  He said "no coffee".  We asked and he didn't know any place that had coffee, so we wandered on up the street passing several other places that didn't seem to have coffee.  A few minutes later I heard someone yelling "coffee, coffee".  This guy had stopped at one of the places we passed and found out that they could make coffee. How astonishing that someone had gone so out of their way to help us.  I'll always remember his kindness.  And the coffee and fresh bread were delicious. 

OK, I swear this is true.  While we were having coffee, we were next to the only stoplight in town.  I saw a dog standing there, and when the light turned red, he crossed the street.  The dogs are really smart here.

We checked out of our nice and inexpensive lodging and said goodbye 

to the Ropsens and were off to join our friends for hiking.

This is the point that I should probably talk about driving.  I was now driving on the left side for the first time in my life. I love driving, and I had not driven for over two months.  Now I had to sit on the right side with the gear shift on the left side and drive down the left side of the road. I actually caught on pretty quickly, and only once did I find myself driving down the right side of the road, and the oncoming car let me know that I was in the wrong by blinking his lights.  There were a few more things to learn as I kept turning on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal which were now switched around.

We did a short hike with Mary Abel around the place where they were staying in Chamarel.  It was very nice with bungaloes and pool and beautiful landscaping in a pretty remote location up in the mountains.  They had very nice views.  Everything was so lush on this island paradise.





The six of us finally got our act together and headed for Black River Gorge Park.

We made a brief stop to view Alexandra Falls on one side and the south seashore on the other side.


Then we moved on to the Park where we were happy to see some students taking in the sights. The park offered a number of options for hiking, so we took a "out and back" trail along the top that lasted us a couple of hours and gave us spectacular views.

It was great to be out in nature again, walking in a country that was not parched dry like India.  As we got ready to leave, Nancy hugged a tree and then said "I can go back to the ship now".  It was also nice to be in a place where there was hardly another person.  I also loved watching the White-tailed_Tropicbirds soaring about.

So we climbed back into the car with me driving on the left sides still and stopped for lunch at a fancy restaurant at a rum distillery where I had a sample of raw sugar cane juice and a healthy salad of palm hearts as befitted the designated driver. We headed back to the ship with plenty of time to spare UNTIL traffic came to a complete stop.  We didn't think it would be a problem since we had almost 3 hours to get back to Port Louis, turn in the rental car and get back to the ship.  It turned out that we were waiting for someone to clear up an overturned truck load of frozen squid that was blocking both lanes.  We eventually got clear, but had lost our margin for trying to find the ship by car and maybe shopping.  Oh yeah, it was now rush hour.  Thanks to directions at a bus depot that we accidentally turned into, we got back to the rental car place, and rushed to get to the ship by "ship time" which means we would be penalized at the next port and have to be on the ship earlier than usual.  We tried to run for it, but the ship was across a bay, so we grabbed two (expensive) cabs, and these guys raced us to the ship with 15 min to spare.  But, there was a line that was moving slowly as everyone was getting checked in and searched for contraband (ie. alcohol).  We were in the very back and our colleagues on the ship were yelling down from the decks "dock time".  I have to tell you that we did make it with almost a minute to spare and were very relieved.  We all agreed that we could live here.  The people were wonderful, and life moved at a nice southern pace.

For my birder friends, we also saw the Red-whiskered_Bulbul and the Madagascar_Fody.

Exciting Mauritius

After the heat, poverty, and just plain old stress of India, everyone was looking forward to Mauritius as a place to relax and re-charge our mental batteries.  You could tell that the students were excited.  There are a few of us that are morning people, and we've gotten to know each other while we watch sunrises and share breakfasts.

We also like to watch as we enter new ports and this port, in spite of a drizzle, was beckoning us with its promise of beaches and more beaches. So, the tugs came out, hooked up and cozied us into a berth.  This was not our permanent berth, but a temporary one where we would take on fuel (bunker).  You could see the tour buses over at the other berth, thrown off by our change in plans, scurrying to change locations to pick up the trips.  Immigration went really quickly, and in this port, we only had to carry a copy of our passport, and it was never inspected after we left the ship.  The weather was blustery, and the Semester at Sea flag which is flown in ports, stood straight out.

Kids had all kind of plans from beaches to SAS trips to scuba diving to mountain hikes or just shopping. Nancy and I were traveling with a group of faculty/staff, and it's harder to get a group moving than when you are traveling alone.  We finally got on the water taxi with a bunch of excited students to head to the main part of Port Louis.  I was pretty sure that the life buoy that looked like a peace symbol was a good omen.

Some of the kids who had beaten us to land were already trying out exotic concoctions of fruit juices with dazzling colors. Mauritius is a big sugar cane producer, so the fruit drinks were really sweet. (The Cokes tasted sweeter since they were made with sugar instead of corn syrup) We spent a little time exchanging Indian rupees for Mauritian rupees and trying to get an ATM to take our cards, and then grabbed an early lunch dosa and samoosa at Masala Dosa while we waited for our rental car.

Our plans were to take the rental car and head south with one group staying in a nice place up in the hill country of Chamarel, and the other group staying in an apartment in the little town of La Gaulette on the bay.  The drive was the most exciting part of the day since a faculty friend was driving on the left hand side of the road for the first time.  There were six of us with 4 people crammed into the back seat doing their impression of "how many SAS faculty/staff can you get in a rental car".  The roads drop off into a 2 ft. gutter in most places with no guard rails, and I'm pretty sure we had half the tire over the edge several times.  Nevertheless, we got 3 folks dropped off, and I drove the short distance to our place.  We had 2 big rooms, kitchen, bath and veranda overlooking a bay.

One goal for me was to get to try out my snorkeling gear that I had  bought back in Hawaii which seemed like a long time ago.  Nancy and I got in the car and headed for a public beach.  I had shaved off my mustache in the morning so I could get a good seal on my face mask.  The beach was uncrowded, and I put the mask on , stuck the snorkel in my  mouth, and I was off.  It was really neat seeing various stuff on the bottom and lots of different fishes swimming around.  One little yellow fish came right up and peered into my mask.  Although only an hour long and in only 4 feet of water, this was definitely the highlight of the Mauritius experience for me.  Other SAS folks were on snorkeling trips on boats and saw lots of coral and other cool stuff, but this was just right for my first time.

We headed back and watched the sun go down from our veranda while drinking a local beer.  The looming rock mountains provided a nice backdrop.









Dinner was at a local restaurant where we three represented half of the diners.   I had a shrimp dish with a local sauce that was delicious.

Then for dessert, we had what I called "faux pas".  Theresa speaks fluent French, and the Mauritians speak mostly Creole and English.  We ordered bananas flambe for dessert, and it was delivered to our table standing in a nice syrup.  So, we started to eat it, and the waitress came running over with matches telling us to wait.  We forget that they coat it with rum and then light it.  We go that treatment, and it was even better.

 Then we waddled back to our apartment and settled under our mosquito net for a good night's sleep. But, everybody in this town owns a dog, and they all started barking and howling at about 11pm.  I didn't really mind, because my dogs do the same thing, and it made me feel right at home.

Pre-Mauritius

Glenda, our store manager, gets bombarded just before every port.  There is one store for clothing items, and this week they were featuring beach towels--great marketing.  The store got hit hard at the beginning of the voyage when we all wanted SAS clothing and needed sweatshirts to deal with the air-conditioning.

There is another store just across the hallway that sells supplies--everything from sunscreen to pencils.  On the night before a port, these stores are open just so we can stock up on those things like mosquito repellent or a  gift for someone we are visiting in a port.  When in port, the customs regulations require that the store be closed.

Yesterday was a big exam day, so students were studying away early in the piano lounge.  This piano gets a lot of use after classes, and you can hear some really good music coming from our student musicians.

I almost missed this shot.  One of the drama classes is studying masks in theatre, and they have been busy creating their own masks and trying them out.  The masks free the performer to be whatever they want to be, and we are promised a shipboard performance in the future.

I can see Mauritius as I'm typing this early in the morning, and I can also see rain, so I'm crossing my fingers that it will burn off in the next couple of hours before we port.

Bummed at Sea

OK, bummed is not something that has to do with this voyage.  We might be at sea, but a lot of people are still following March Madness back home, and most of them are bummed because their bracket has been shattered. The NCAA basketball tournament doesn't have much relevance to us right now since no one has actually seen a basketball game in more than 2 months, but it is a way to keep us connected to home and our friends.  I post the updates every day in the library, and the U. Wisc folks are weeping as is almost everyone who picked Kansas.

One of the other activities that is happening on the ship that connects people to their home institutions is class registration for next fall.  People are online making graduate school applications, filling out financial aid applications and signing up for classes.

Head rubbing is a phenomenon on the ship.  You can watch anyone who got their head shaved and within 3 min, they will rub their head.  It is reported that temperature differentials are more noticeable on their heads now.  And a lot of them let us friends rub their heads as well.  I'm starting to think I should be making a wish.

Last night was the second global studies exam, and everyone I talked to thought they did OK--somewhere inside the curve, at least.  There were some map questions where they had to identify places and some of the oceans we were in.  I can guarantee you that a love of knowledge was gained in the last few days as kids studied for the exam.

Following the global studies was a session labeled "Great Sex in the Union".  The catch title was for a panel discussion of sexuality by our health care professionals, counselors, and professors who teach human sexuality. The kids submitted the questions like "Can guys get hpv?" (yes)  It was pretty well attended and useful.

OK, there is one bummer.  We have a calendar in the library that we use to keep up with what day it is, ie. A day of B day.   As I look at the calendar, we only have 6  1/2 weeks left until Ft. Lauderdale.  Bummer.

Or to look at it differently, we have 6 1/2 weeks of beautiful sunsets left.