Arch parts (from) the seas

We all knew this day was coming, but we still weren’t prepared.  Goodbyes are like that.  This last week has been full of requests for Arch’s time in classes, for photos with Arch, for movies featuring Arch, to show Arch movies he is in, to get Arch’s autograph.  His assistant Nancy (my boss Jim’s wife) serves as Arch’s gatekeeper, trying to preserve some private time and some rest time (he is 82, after all), balanced against his desire to say yes to as many people as possible.  It’s been a tough week.

I got my Arch time in early in the voyage, and I’ve enjoyed watching him from a little distance.  He loves the students and they love him, and there’s a little buzz that accompanies him everywhere.  When Arch dances, people circle him to film him dancing.  When he moves through a crowd, the seas part.  When we took our group picture, students who had staked out front and center willingly gave up their spaces to Arch.

His last day on the ship happened to be Palm Sunday, and he celebrated Communion with us.  Christine, the Resident Director in charge of spirituality, arranged to get crosses, lovingly made for us by several churches in Mauritius.  The kitchen offered communion wafers, but Arch prefers bread.  Mass for 400 is quite a production, even abbreviated.  Arch gave a small sermon (message:  God loves you, just because you’re you) and we all stumbled over the South African Anglican prayers, which are not quite like the ones back home. 

The Palm Sunday service was followed immediately by preport, where we officially said goodbye to Arch with a very touching video put together by the communications team.  (Again, our internet connection prevents my uploading it.)  His last hurrah was singing along with Doc Micah to “Don’t worry, be healthy.”

The one thing missing for me was a picture of Arch with Nancy.  For me, she was so much a part of his shipboard life.  She and Jim ate with him frequently, they had communion with him every Sunday in his cabin.  As a self-proclaimed shy person, Arch counted on Nancy to make things a little easier.

I asked her if she –after all the pictures she helped other people get—had gotten a picture with him.  No, she said, but that was okay.  She had lots of pictures of him with other people.  No, no, no, she said, it was okay.

For her, maybe.  It was not okay for me.  I asked her, would she be angry if I asked Arch for a picture of them?

Of course he said yes.  

I’ve taken thousands of pictures on this voyage.  This one will be one of my favorites.  I hope it will also be one of hers.

Crew members with Arch and Leah's luggage--and balloon menagerie

Windy morning in Cape Town

We have been sailing very close to the coast of South Africa for a couple of days, hoping to find calmer waters. Not calm, to be sure, but perhaps calmer. At night, you can see lights. During the day, it's hard to distinguish where the clouds end and where the water begins. If you know there's land, you can sort of see it. Maybe.

This morning, we could see land clearly as we came into Cape Town harbor. At full light, I went up to the observation deck on 7, only to find it was closed due to high winds. (This is common. Deck 7 is often closed. Deck 8 is almost never open once we get into open waters.) I went into the faculty/staff lounge and found an intrepid (and defiant) group of people braving the deck.

Since I am pretty heavily scheduled with SAS trips in this port, going out on deck may be the most adventurous thing I do in Cape Town. You can see from my hair how windy it is. After I came back in, I realized my hair ribbon (you can barely see it) had blown completely off.

The view was worth it. The aptly named Table Mountain looms large. The city hugs the shore, with the mountains rising close behind. There's a cable car up the mountain (on days less windy than this).

Warnings for Cape Town: don't go anywhere alone, or even in a small group. Beware of ATMs which might blow up, or where you may be mugged. Don't ride the trains unless you are in a car with an armed guard. Never let your credit card out of your sight, even at a good restaurant. Compared to Cape Town, everywhere we've been is considered safe.

Tom has been getting a lot of flak for emphasizing crime and safety in the preports. This time, he just sent everyone the Country Specific Information and said, "Read it and take heed. This time it's up to you." I think the students were disappointed. There's a certain amount of Schadenfreud--we all want to know the adventures we avoided.

Several students are departing in Cape Town, having gathered enough disciplinary points that they are no longer welcome. Others are going to be enjoying South Africa from the ship, having accumulated double or triple dock time for landing in the drunk tank after Mauritius. (If you land in the drunk tank, it's an automatic 24 hours of dock time in the next port. I think about 40 students ignored Tom's warning of triple dock time and came in wasted. At 6 PM. These kids really are flirting with a life of alcoholism.)

Me? I had wine at Communion last night. I'm on a search for Easter Candy.

It ain't over till it's over

...and then it was over.

The Sea Olympics gave me an opportunity to find some sports quotes, and I chose Yogi Berra.  The title above is one of his most famous.

My work study student Heidi thought it was a typo and drew this little sketch.  We're making a book of quotes from the Deans' Memo for the Shipboard Auction in April.  She's illustrating it.  Yogi Bear won't make the cut, but he's cuter than the average bear, so here he is.

I could have also used the inimitiable Chickpea's "I won first.  And you won second."  There were some pretty amazing performances yesterday. 

The faculty came in fourth, a middling showing.  There was a little muttering over breakfast this morning along the lines of, "If they worked as hard on their schoolwork as they did on their karaoke..."  Their routines for that competition were impressive in both their creativity and technique. 

The last two competitions were the synchronized swimming and the karaoke/lip synch.  Because the seas were rough and all the water was sloshing out of the pool, the synchronized swim was moved to dry land, which presents some interesting challenges and hilarious results.

I was a judge for that competition, so no pictures.  Some of the kids did more dancing than (fake) swimming, but most were down there on the floor, kicking, diving, and doing water ballet. 

Luna Sea had planned on a Lion King number featuring a toddler and an older child as the two brothers, but scrapped it at the last minute when our team captain heard another sea practicing to the same music.  (Our team captain, the assistant dean of students, is VERY competitive.) 

Instead, we got four guys, with children's bathing suits on their heads, rocking a bizarre combination of sexy and baby to "Living the Vida Loca."  Turns out the crowd goes wild when the assistant dean of students rips off his shirt and demonstrates his zumba booty dancing skills. This picture was lifted from Rachel's blog, Sea What I See.


Sea Olympics is designed to break up the monotony of the long passage from India to South Africa, give the students something to think about besides drinking, and build team spirit.  The prize was the choice of getting off first or last in Barcelona (they choose).  The winners were the Caribbean Sea, who were convincingly pirates and had some amazing choreography for their cheer, karaoke, and synchronized swim.  One of my shipboard children said, "I don't want to win.  I want to get off somewhere in the middle!"  Lucky for her, they also get an ice cream social in the faculty lounge.

I learned some things, too:

1. Sports, even fake sports, are not very interesting unless you are watching them.
2. I am culturally illiterate.  At least half the music chosen meant nothing to me.
The noise of 600 cheering students is exhausting.

I am old.  Time for a nap.

Luna Sea reigns

We OWN the Eastern Toilet Squat.

In the Sea Olympics, every event has the same number of points.  There are 9 seas, so first place in any event gets 9 points.  This means that the person who comes in first in the (random) game of Captain, wave, ship earns the same number of points as the team that prevails in volleyball.  No points awarded for difficulty here!  (The point system is actually a bit more complicated for the sports with brackets.)

Like other Olympiads, competitions take place simultaneously at venues all over the ship.  The games started at 1000, with Jeopardy, Ping Pong, Dodgeball, and the Eastern Toilet Squat.  Having spent the first half of the hour watching Jeopardy, I wandered aft to see what else was happening.  There was an enthusiastic crowd around classroom 4, where the toilet squat was down to two competitors, my work study (from the Adriatic Sea) and my teammate Rachel.  For 40 minutes, these two had been going squat to squat, hands raised above their heads, feet flat on the ground, on deck 6 of a rocking ship. In a room of screaming people. 

Both of them looked a little green.  They were definitely trembling.  Heidi’s teammates shouted, “It’s one point.  No one will think the less of you if you quit.”  Her arms dropped below her shoulders.  She pulled them back up.  Rachel called for a judge’s ruling.  Finally, it was over.   The judge lifted Heidi to a standing position and the toilet squat was Rachel’s.  Her Luna Sea teammates howled our approval.

At noon, Luna Sea is in first place, having won the banner and Ping Pong and come in second in Jeopardy and pull ups.  Very poor showing in Ninja and Captain, ship, wave.  More to come.

And in late breaking news from Thailand, I hear from our hotel director Stefan that squat toilets have been banned.  The government is concerned about a high incidence of arthritis in the knees.  Stefan, who lives in Thailand with his Thai wife, points out that people spend a great deal of their time squatting in places other than toilets, so the ban is not likely to affect arthritis in Thailand. 

However, we who cannot squat thank you.

When the inmates run the institution

We are Lunacy.  It is all lunacy today. 

Today is the Sea Olympics, another of our diversions to make us forget that we are going 13 days out of 14 at sea between India and South Africa.  The students, whose residence halls are named after the seas, compete with each other in feats of strength, agility, speed, intellect, and most of all silliness.  The faculty, staff, life long learners, family members, and Unreasonable at Sea folks make up a giant team of over 100 people.

Having spent my school years figuring out ways to avoid all team sports, field events, and mob action, I was not terribly disappointed that I was not assigned a role in any of the competitions. The “competitions” include Sudoku puzzles, Jeopardy, and a shipboard version of rock, paper, scissors (Captain, ship, wave).  I signed up for several, but was not selected.  It’s not easy to figure out how to include everyone on a team that includes ages 2 to 80.  Or to explain to our eager elementary school students that the college students they have been adopted by are not to be trusted in dodge ball.

I’ve done my little bit for the team.  I was tapped to be the costumer, turning 10 yards of fabric into headbands, kerchiefs, armbands, and florets, and then decorating them with moons, stars, and our sea name.  I had to sacrifice for my art, too; that fabric was ugly, cheap, and icky to touch.  (Yes, I am a complete fabric snob.)  And don’t get me started on our “color,” which is grey.  Fortunately, I have a grey t-shirt and pants, but they are far below my standards.  

No one takes the faculty/staff team seriously.  We are playing for laughs and surprise.  Our entry in the cheering competition was a bunch of lunatics stumbling around in the dark chanting, “We will haunt you, we will taunt you, we will win the day,” followed by insane howling.  You know, the werewolf, lunatic, full on full moon insanity.  I gather that our karaoke number involves spit takes. 

I was hoping we could persuade Arch to be part of our team.  I’m pretty sure he could win musical chairs, since it’s quite likely a crew member would rush up to bring him a chair if one of our students were so bold as to not defer to him.  (Or maybe we would all wind up sitting on the floor together, singing hymns.  He likes to shake things up a bit.)  He would definitely take the stand up comedy competition. 

Instead, we have the advantage of the judges, all of which are on our team.  Not sure how that is supposed to work. 

As part of the opening ceremonies, we had the flag and cheer competitions. Our flag, designed by Charlottesville artist Kaki Dimock (who is also director of the Haven), has moons made by members of our sea, incorporated into one big moon shining over the sea.  That’s Kaki on the left. 

My little moon is on the right, over the red square.  It’s a silver crescent moon (cut from a Burmese candy wrapper) sewn with Indian thread onto a disk of turquoise cardstock.  (As usual, overkill.)

Nothing else even came close in design or technique.  The Persian Gulf had a drawing of a fluffy cat playing golf.  The Adriatic Sea banner had us all stumped until the Resident Director held it up. 

The cheers were harder to judge.  Some were unintelligible.  Others were too complicated for the teams to remember, or they dissolved into giggles when they messed up.  But some were well choreographed and executed.  Ours was so different it’s hard to compare.

The faculty/staff team has never placed above third in anyone’s memory.  I’ll keep you posted.

Ship to shore to ship

Mauritius is a small country, struggling for identity.  It’s the most prosperous country in Africa, but it identifies with India.  It’s part of the British Commonwealth, and its official language is English, but its citizens speak Creole first, French second, and English a distant third.  It’s named after a Dutch prince, with a capitol city named after a French king (pronounced in the British way).  Pinning its economic hopes on technology, it is perhaps no surprise that it is home to many customer service call centers, places where people pretend to be what they are not.

The most famous animal of Mauritius is the dodo, a bird that became extinct only 100 years after its discovery by Europeans.  (Mauritius had no native population.)  Although our tour guide told us the dodo was eaten by the Dutch and its nests plundered by rats who came as stowaways on the Dutch ships, this is disputed.  It was an easy bird to catch, but not particularly tasty.  How disappointing:  a huge bird, which does not fly and is not afraid of humans, but whose meat is tough.  Perhaps best used as a croquet mallet (see Alice in Wonderland), although it’s unclear how a child could swing a 3 foot croquet mallet that weighed as much as 50 pounds. 

But every country finds its niche, and Mauritius has established one as a model ship builder.  They build them in bottles and they build them without the bottles, and they build them in a wide range of sizes.  You can take home a Mayflower, or a Bounty, or any number of other sailing ships.  Oddly, although the ships are painstakingly detailed and accurate, almost none of the ships in the showroom are labeled.

Vasa model in Stockholm--made in Mauritius?

They didn't get the memo about the paint colors in Mauritius.

Because I was studying the ships, I soon attracted a salesperson who told me what fine quality they were and how they will of course happily pack them for shipment around the world.  I was trying to pick out the Vasa, the Swedish ship that sunk on her maiden voyage, and remembering a lovely day I spent in Stockholm's Vasa Museum with Catherine.

Alas, no matter how I squinted, I could not find her in the crow's nest of this Vasa.

and a child shall lead them

[Tomorrow, we return to travels overseas.  This post is inspired by an email from home.]

This just in from the Human Rights Campaign:  Republican Senator Rob Portman supports gay marriage.

His change of heart came about for the same reason that millions of others have taken a fresh look at this issue around the country: someone close to him came out as gay. In the Senator's case, it was his college-aged son, Will. As Portman told reporters,

"It allowed me to think of this issue from a new perspective, and that's of a Dad who loves his son a lot and wants him to have the same opportunities that his brother and sister would have – to have a relationship like Jane [my wife] and I have had for over 26 years."

We are asked to thank Senator Portman.  I think we should be thanking Will. 

I think we should be throwing out of office every elected official who can’t see beyond his own family when considering laws that affect every constituent in his district. 

It wasn’t until my own daughter was struggling in school that I saw we needed to provide public education.

It wasn’t until my son fell in love with an undocumented worker and my granddaughter went back to a third world country with her deported mother that I understood we need to think on a global level about immigration and trade.

It wasn’t until my sister couldn’t get health insurance…

Really, Senator Portman, Vice President Cheney, and all of the rest of you on both sides of the aisle, in the pulpits of the country, or holding signs in the street.  Look around!  If you don’t know a gay person flying under the radar, it’s not because you don’t know a gay person, it’s because the gay person you know is good at flying under the radar. 

Even if that person is your son, evidently.  I think about what it must have been like for Will, knowing that his father was making a career out of trampling on his civil rights.  How much harder to have the conversation knowing that your father’s affirmation costs him his job.  How many family photos paste a smile on the pain of supporting a campaign that invalidates you as a person?  It’s not just the law that keeps people like Will from marrying their true loves. 

I am glad that Senator Portman chose love over party.  I am glad that Will’s future can include bringing his boyfriend home for Thanksgiving dinner. And I hope that every policy maker can look beyond his or her own family album and realize that government for the people means ALL the people, not just the ones that you have personally invested in.