Happy Wave Day!

Though I'm currently in Taiwan, I wanted to wish all my SASsy friends a very Happy Wave Day!  In January 2005, we had no January 27th...and two January 26ths.  That is the kind of bizarro world you live in when you zig zag across the international date line while being chased by low pressure systems and 65 foot waves.

45 degrees to starboard, 45 degrees to port, windows going all sky and all water, six hours in our live jackets...I'd do it all again in a second!

Goodbye Winter Camp!

Today was my last day of winter camp, and therefore my last day of camp in Korea.  I spent the last two weeks at Cheondong Elementary doing my district camp and loved every minute of it.  If I could do that all the time for my job, I would.  It was well organized, I worked with good people, the kids were awesome, the location was stellar, and in general it was sad to say goodbye to them last Friday.

Journal from my student Eric.  I love the giant squid entry.

Blue class performing "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" during our final performance.

Blue Class Photo!

Me, Eric, Paul, Jeff, the principal, Jane, John, Whinnie, Jasmine, Jenny, Ann, Cindy, Julie and Ellie (my co-teacher)

The district winter camp allows you to plan your own lessons about topics you choose, and work with a co-teacher.  My school's winter camp is very different.  It is run by a hagwon, or private academy, and that also runs the after school program at our school.  They ran the camp last year and it went alright.  I was called in to meet with the other teachers about a month in advance and given information on what I would be teaching. That's why I was a little worried when it got all the way up to last Wednesday and I still hadn't heard word one from EduBest (the hagwon).  After some pressure from my co-teachers, the director from EduBest finally called me and said she'd send my t-shirt and textbook to me, so that I'd get it no later than Friday and I'd be able to have some idea of what I was doing for the week.

Friday, and then the weekend, came and went.  No book. No t-shirt.

Monday morning I woke up and got to school early to try and get a handle on what the hell was going on.  That is when my frustration started...and it didn't end until 12:20pm this afternoon when camp ended!  The whole week was a mess.  I was given ZERO lesson plans and really zero information about what I was supposed to be doing.  We had "co-teachers", but most of the time they weren't even in the same room as us.  I was given the lowest classes: first and second graders, many of whom couldn't even identify colors.  The lessons they gave me to teach were bizarre and way WAY over their heads.  Ever try to talk about the history of Mexico, the solar system, and/or Greek gods with kids who have a pre-school vocabulary?  UPHILL BATTLE.  Moral of the story, I am so very glad that this week is over.  The one upside was that the kids were damn near painfully cute.  And now I show you many pictures of them being adorable.

One of the cooking lessons was making the delicious (made up) foreign delicacy of "roll sandwiches."  How do you make this delicious dish?  Easy! Take a piece of white bread (stale if you want yours to be like our masterpieces) and tear all the crusts off.  Then rip it in half.  On top, place half a slice of American cheese.  Then perch a single Vienna sausage on the cheese.  Add a dab of mustard and roll that bad boy up.  Secure with frilly toothpick.  VOILA.  (ugh)

Adorable, and ready to get down to business.

Delicious?

Chowing down.

Through out the week there were a few lessons called "City Experiences" that took place in banks, hospitals, and stores.  The kids had to do little role plays (that were mind blowingly boring and often Konglished up).

Who, exactly, considers it important for first graders to know how to ask about opening a checking account vs. a savings account in ANY language?

Looks like you've got a bad case of English fever.

Don't you dare make fun of my "gingerbread men" until you come into a class of rowdy first and second graders who don't speak English and are forced to describe various illnesses!

One of the more fun classes was making a piñata.  Kids broke into groups and each one was given a paper bag with candy in it.  Then they got strips of tissue paper which they cut into fringe and glued on to the bag.  We stapled it at the top and taped it to a stick before giving kids a turn to whack it.  They had a great time and it killed AN HOUR AND A HALF, so I can't complain.

Getting down to piñata making.

Adding the fringe.

Team 1 and their piñata.

Team 2 and their piñata.

Team 3 and their piñata.

 

Team 4 and their piñata.

(All boys, all bad, haha.)

Team 5 and their piñata.

IN IT TO WIN IT!  Look at that face of determination!

Collecting their spoils.

One of the classes that most made me want to bash my head against the wall was the science class during which I had to teach them about the solar system. Here is a direct quote from the book: "In Roman mythology, Mercury is the god of commerce, travel, and thievery. Mercury is also known as Hermes, the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology." ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Thankfully a combination of my mad solar system drawing skills and making a "planet garland" took up most of the class.

Theeeee sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees.  Yoho its hot. The sun is not a place where we can live. But here on Earth there'd be no life without the light it gives.  (You can thank Ms. Horvath's 7th grade science class for that one.)

Putting together his garland.

Daniel, on the right, was baaaaaad but so so so cute.

Adorable girls.

Everyone wants a piece of the action.

Schmoozing for the camera.

During the other science period we made magnetic balloon darts, which had little to do with English, but were fun anyway.

Magnetic balloon darts unite!

Throwing their darts at the target.

Haha, alternate way to play, I guess.

Our other cooking class was making mini kimbap rolls.  That was pretty fun, but all the kids already knew how to do it.  I just hope that when I get home next year I can find kimbap making kits like the one we used.  Perhaps at some Korean grocery.  I know I'm going to miss chamchi (tuna) kimbap like its my job.

Nothing like a little teamwork to get the job done.

Mixing the rice with a little sesame oil and dried veggie packet.

Then you put the rice on a piece of kim, or dried seaweed.

Next, add your veggies and fillings.

Then roll it up and enjoy!

Today we had our last few classes before having a closing ceremony.  Par for this weeks' course, I had no idea what was going on and just quietly seethed most of the ceremony.  One of my girls burst into tears because she couldn't remember her part, the idiot Korean teacher made fun of her ON THE MICROPHONE, and I was just super glad it was over!  I am going to write a letter expressing my displeasure and send it to the hagwon coordinator and my co-teachers.  I mean, the kids and school pay for this program, you damn well better believe it should have been run better.

Awesome project one of my little ones made for the closing ceremony.  Yup, that's me in the blue holding the piñata on a stick!   

Two of my girls presenting their work.

Solar system show offs!

Goodbye Sincheon Winter English Camp...I shall not miss thee.

Outside of school some various interesting things happened this week.  A corgi ran around in the subway station on Wednesday morning, confusing the crap out of me and some Koreans. I still do not know where he came from, or where he went...but he was a sweetheart so I hope he found his owner.  Tonight I got to meet up with 5/7 of the Dasi Hamkke project girls (Changhye, Rachel, Kate, Erica and I were there physically, while Julia and Hannah were there in spirit) and get my hands on a copy of our book!  A full year in the making, hours and hours of love and effort went into that project.  It is so gratifying to have the actual, beautiful book in my hands!  If you're living in Korea and would like a FREE copy, click here and follow the directions.  It is an absolutely worthwhile read, I promise!

Check it out!  SO FREAKING EXCITING!

I will be meeting Carin in less than seven hours (ouch) to hop on the airport bus that will spirit us away to Incheon, from which we will depart for a week in Taiwan. I am very excited, and ready to be in ever so slightly warmer weather.  Catch you on the flipside, everyone!

Happy SASiversary!

The world is my classroom.

Wow, six years (SIX YEARS!!!) have passed since that fateful day when we sailed out of Vancouver and into the adventure of a lifetime.  For the next one hundred days I laughed, cried, wondered, wandered, ate, drank, climbed, slid, rode (planes, boats, cars, buses, trains, horses, ferris wheels, sleds, cable cars, and god knows what else), walked, ran, and stood in frozen awe through ten countries.  They told us early on that SAS would be trip of opposites, and it surely was.  


I was privileged enough to see monuments of great power, like the Great Wall in Beijing, and great weakness, like the townships outside Capetown.  Memories of a painful war at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, and a hopeful peace along the lonely sidewalk where the great Gandhi took his last steps in Dehli.  My breath was taken away at the wonder of what man can build when I looked out over the vast, crowded cityscape of Hong Kong...and equally lost when I took in the stunning, untouched wilderness of Kenya's Lake Nakuru.  I'll always remember the warmth of the Rio Negro as it flowed into the Amazon River near Manaus, and the cool mist in the cloud forests outside Caracas.  I can still feel the blinding, overwhelming brightness of the sun on deck seven as we floated around near the equator, and the absolute darkness when they turned off the the ship's lights in the middle of the Atlantic and we were blanketed with stars.


Semester at Sea drop kicks you out of your comfort zone and it is an incredible, unique, fantastic experience. I doubt you'd find a single person from our voyage who regretted a minute of it.  I've said it a million times, and I'll say it once more:  I'd do everything again in a heartbeat, Wave Day included.  I love how Larry Meredith puts it when he says that the "titanic wave baptized us into a community."  We are all cemented with a bond forged in high seas and driving rain.  By those few notes that played at the beginning of the announcements as "The Voice" came over the loudspeaker, the fear so easy to hear just under the surface, and told us to put on our life jackets and sit in the hallway, and later as Captain Buzz told us the worst was over.  We are bonded by the few simple words: We Survived Spring '05.  

And not only survived it.  We flourished!  We learned (definitely from other voyagers and those we met...questionably from classes, haha), and exchanged stories, hopes, fears, advice and e-mail addresses.  We made connections that would serve us in the future, and had experiences that can never, EVER, be duplicated (no matter how badly we wish it to be true).  In last year's SASiversary entry, I shared a bunch of quotes from the journal I kept after returning home from SAS.  This year, I'd like to share the words of two great men, both of whom are arguably the smartest and most well traveled person you'll ever meet.  


The first is a speech delivered by Dr. Larry Meredith, one of my heroes, and a teacher of comparative religion classes on the ship.  Some of my favorite memories involve Larry, and I do not exaggerate when I say that the Christmas letter I received from him this year signed "Stay SASsy" made my week.  This speech was shared as part of the graduation ceremony on the ship for those who were missing their graduation ceremonies at home, or were simply seniors.  I have highlighted my favorite parts below.

Lawrence Meredith, Ph.D 

Professor of Religious Studies, Emeritus 
University of the Pacific 

I am grateful for the opportunity to share this valedictory and to thank Deans Susan Hansen, Jill Wright, and Becky Drury for their leadership and for making possible this experience of a lifetime. And I’m excited to arrive at our last port of call and lead my newly assigned FDP to the Ft. Lauderdale Adult Bookstore. We will be reading such adult literature as Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Melville’s Moby Dick, and, of course, that erudite classic Life Before Death. 

Charles Beard, the famed Columbia historian, was once asked if he could sum up what he learned from history in one sentence. He replied: “I could not do it one sentence, but I might do it in four.” 

1. The mill of the gods grinds slowly, but it grinds exceeding fine. 
2. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power. 
3. The bee makes honey from the flower, but it also pollinates the flower. 
4. When things get the darkest, the stars come out. 

If I were asked to characterize this voyage, I might also do it in four sentences. 

1. When my eldest son and I were traveling through India in 1978, we stayed at an ashram in Rishekesh on the upper Ganges. One evening we listened to an old guru, who shared with us this remarkable bit of wisdom: “The secret of life is to shoot an arrow into the air, and whatever you hit, call it the target.” 

Pittsburgh’s way of putting the same point is “flexibility.” And the first half of this voyage has seriously stretched out our notion of flexing. San Diego, Vancouver, North Pacific, “angry green angels of the sea,” the Poseidon adventure, Midway, no way, Aloha way, Semester-at-Air to California, nine hour Impracticum in the San Francisco airport lounge, Shanghaied to Shanghai, Panda bearing in Hong Kong, and multiple world hoteling in Ho Chi Minh City shooting arrows in every direction. Fill in your own flexibility multiple choice target. 

2. I am because you are.

Which is the Buntu version of Tennyson’s famous line: “I am part of all that I have met.” [Ulysses ] A scary thought, that. If I am part of you then I’ll have to get a laptop, a digital camera, a cell phone, an I-pod, a tattoo just above my posterior, and four piercings (two you can see and two you can’t). May I have your attention please! I carry my valuables down there among my valuables, where no one goes without my permission! Good grief! Well, you better enjoy it, Kenn, because one of these days, no one will go there—even with your permission.

But its true. We are part of each other now. We always were, but we didn’t realize it until January 27. That is what we celebrated April 20, with song, dance, and satire—including The Dong Diaries’ testosteronic response to a women’s night of “Nothing Could Be Finer Than To Speak Of Your Vagina,” and a circle of deans, faculty and staff all dancing to the Beatles, singing “All You Need Is Love” –while Peter Baofu’s body was taken over by aliens. 

3. If you haven’t been to Waxahachie, you haven’t been to Waxahachie. 

My old ethics teacher at Southern Methodist University used to say that. He was an existentialist, which meant that actual existence was prior to the abstract essence of a thing. Waxahachie was a little town about thirty miles south of Dallas—and the point was plain. If you haven’t been there, you haven’t been there. You can watch slides and movies, hear speeches and lectures, read hand-outs. But the experience of Waxahachie will elude you. You have to go there. 

Now I doubt if John Tymitz or Max Brant or C.Y. Tung ever heard of Waxahachie, or thought much about existentialism for that matter. But their vision includes the idea that education can be as epic as Homer’s Odyssey: the great Buddha in the mist at Lantau Island, Varanasi at Shiva’s birthday, the killing fields in Cambodia, the Cu Chi Tunnels in Vietnam, the prison cell on Robben Island that held Nelson Mandela, the Slave Church in old Salvador, not to mention the paroxysm of sight, sound and apocalyptic yellow and green that is Brazilian soccer Semester-at Sea was born in this proposition: the sense of place is irreplaceable. 

It is not exactly a secret that SAS is difficult to administer. We all know that Utopia quite literally means “no place.” But our adventures in learning around the world can begin to break open our absolutes, and end our cultural apartheid. 

Not that this openness is automatic with travel. Some of us have remained intentional tourists, trying on different cultures like so many changes of dress, but remaining untouched by the fundamental differences we have encountered. 

Some students on this voyage have never ceased to ask me how a Christian can remain true to the belief that Jesus is the only way to salvation and still accept other faiths as genuine paths to God. Or to say it differently, at what point does tolerance become treason? 

What does the phrase “multiple world views” really mean? It means just this: facts don’t determine what we think of as true. Our world view determines what we are willing to accept as fact. Facts are located by an angle of vision, and when the angle is different what we label as act is different. Did the sun rise on our shipboard Easter morning, or did the earth turn? Unbiased opinion is more rare than the opening of the Red Sea, and True Believers have no sense of irony. Ask any Muslim what he or she would accept as evidence that God did not dictate the Qur’an. Even such a question might be taken as blasphemous. 

Voyages are no guarantee of new vision. But just for a moment, when the usual cultural cues are missing or rearranged, when the full force of liberal education is pressed up against our prejudices, when what we are seeing no longer matches what we are feeling, transformation may be possible. Psychological studies suggest that children, until they are ten or so, think the whole world revolves around them. Make that twenty or thirty-six or sixty. Seventy-five, even. 

The Original Sin is exactly this: the whole world revolves around me. And I do mean me. Oh, I’ve run for God, but I’ve never been elected. Most of those who know me think I’m not even in the right district. This difficult and dangerous experiment in education, this Semester-at-Sea, moves us into so many places of consequence that we just might see how paralyzed we are by our cultural, intellectual, and religious autism. 

4. Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living, but he doesn’t get the last word tonight. I say that the unlived life is not worth examining. 

And that takes courage. Not just the courage to sail, but to give up your comfort zones, to move into the unknown, and study under difficult circumstances. I mean real courage: the courage to give up your clichés: inscrutable Chinese, primitive Africans, idol-worshipping Hindus, fanatical Muslims, decadent Brazilians, treacherous Vietnamese. 

A booze cruise IS a ship of fools, insulated by consumption, and simply carrying the person you were around the world untouched. Semester at Sea is dedicated to making that difficult—if not impossible. We can risk growing up: as Zorba said “cutting the rope and being free,” as Joseph Campbell said “following your bliss,” or, as I would say it, risking openness on the open seas. 
And I am part of you. When the Titanic wave hit and baptized us into community, many of us were looking heavenward for a little assurance. Now the Lord and I have been close for years, and I remember sliding around on the seventh deck and saying, “Lord don’t you think we’ve had just about enough?” And a voice answered back—I have to tell you this was the real Voice— “Larry,” — we’re on a first name basis—“isn’t about time you renewed your commitment to live the life given you more abundantly?” “Abundant” is the right word. It refers to the waves of the ocean, undulating, never ceasing, always rolling on, wave after wave…after wave…after wave. Life. Abundantly. 

And during this adventure I have renewed my sacred promises and, as the last moment of my teaching career, share them with you now:

I promise to exercise my freedom by helping all others to be free, and to show my compassion by using things and loving people, rather than loving things and using people.

I promise not to impose my idea of morality on any other human being, engaging instead in probing discussion, honest exchange of views, and consensual allegiance to the common good.

I promise not to equate my nation’s cultural values with divine standard of behavior, or my own faith with absolute truth, believing that in the vastness of this one world there are many sacred paths.

I promise to give thanks every day for the life of the mind, for the gift of reason, and every community of inquiry that audits our ignorance.

And I promise to always have a little madness in my life, that I can pray and party at the same time, and that in the midst of the laughter, continue to love my family and the family of Earth.

So now, with some inspiration from Robert Frost, I say to you all:

The ocean is vast, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. 


The second speech was provided by our Global Studies professor, Robert Fessler.  This was a farewell speech, and I couldn't imagine it any better.  He spoke so clearly (and CORRECTLY) about the feelings we were all going to have once we got back to solid ground.  His words played in my head during difficult moments during the next few months and still sometimes pop up unexpectedly into my thoughts. Again, I've bolded a few of my favorite parts...though really the whole thing could be bold!

Robert Fessler

Professor of Psychology

Point Park University

The Last Lecture – April 16, 2005

As far as I know, there is no course taught anywhere…in any university or any country…that is quite like this one. You have heard from a lot of different lecturers…representing many different disciplines. History. Economics. Music. Sociology. Political Science. Oceanography. Anthropology. Theater. Religion. Biology. What kind of course is this, anyway? What kid of course talks about the temples of Angkor one day and ocean currents the next? Female circumcision and media and haiku and Hinduism and Ho Chi Minh? What kind of course tries… in one semester…to enrich your experience…not only of the world, but of ten specific countries?

No, wait, scratch two…add another one. Wait…Hawaii’s not a country. Zigzagging around the dateline. January 25^th…January 27^th. What happened to the 26^th? A hole in the space/time continuum. Smack. The gods are angry. Wham. Waste baskets and televisions bouncing off the walls. Furniture tumbling over people…but don’t put your feet on the furniture! Wait. Where are we now? Fly non-stop to Shanghai. Okay…one stop. Wait some more. Over the dateline again. Where are we now? Does anybody have any idea what day it is? What a long strange trip this has been.

I knew from the beginning that there was no way that we could do everything in Global Studies. I remember telling the faulty that we could easily spend the entire semester on any one of the topics that I was asking them to present in 30 minutes. The history of China…Apartheid… Buddhism…in 30 minutes? So what was it all about? What was this kaleidoscope of information intended to do for you?

Let me take you back to that first session of Global Studies and repeat a few of the things that I said to you then. Anyone who has been around the world should not come back unchanged. You can do it, of course. People do. They travel around the world and stay in Western hotels and eat at Western restaurants and watch CNN. They may hear that India has a caste system…they may see the Candomble women with their colored necklaces. But all they come back with is a lot of pictures and video. They’ve seen the sights.

But as you know, the experience is very different when you know why the Candomble women wear those necklaces. When you know what it means. And when you understand how the caste system developed…and how it is intertwined with India’s history and religion…and how it affects relationships and politics and everything else in India. That was one of the aims of Global Studies – to help you see below the surface. To help you understand the underlying dynamics so that your experience would be richer…deeper…more profound. To help you become a “world traveler”, not just someone who has been around the world.

Global Studies was also designed to give you a concrete experience of how the academic disciplines interrelate. You have learned that the theater of South Africa cannot be separated from South Africa’s history and politics. You have learned that you cannot fully understand the music of Brazil without understanding the slave trade…and you cannot fully understand the slave trade without understanding colonialism and economics and African religion and so on. Each academic discipline has given you a slightly different profile of what is in fact an interrelated whole. And you have learned that the more you know about one discipline, the more you need to know about the others.

There was not enough time to do it all…but Global Studies was never intended to do it all. Only to assist you in getting here…today…with a greater global awareness.

Back at the beginning of the voyage I talked to you about the difference between individualism and collectivism. You had just come on the ship…650 of you…from different backgrounds, different schools, different religions, different countries…with different interests, different dreams, different hopes, different plans. And in those first few days you were trying to get your sea legs…and just beginning to get to know each other. There was a lot of excitement and enthusiasm…mixed with some apprehension about how the voyage would unfold…about what it would be like to travel around the world with all these strangers.

Look at you now. Shipmates. Friends. Many of you have found yourselves talking to people you never would have approached at home. Many of you have made friends with people you didn’t know you could be friends with. Slowly…so slowly that you can’t quite put your finger on when it began to happen…650 individuals became a community. The diversity is still there… maybe even more so than it was at the start. You are shaved and braided. Beaded and saronged. But you have learned to live with that diversity. And you have learned to be incredibly accepting and tolerant of each other. Want to shave your head? Okay. Don’t want to shave your head? That’s okay too. Guy wants to wear a skirt? Doesn’t bother anyone. Professor wants to wear a skirt. Yeah…whatever.

And it has been more than simply learning to accept the diversity. You have learned to appreciate the differences…to appreciate what each individual brings to the whole. It takes threads of different colors and textures to make a tapestry. It takes tiles of different sizes and shapes to make a mosaic. This is a collective society and each of you has your place in it. Not one of you can be removed without all of us losing something. Seniors and kids. Staff and students. Family members and crew members. Happy people. Cranky people. Serious people. Silly people. New Yorkers. Californians. South Americans. Canadians. Sky divers and poets. Myopics and mystics. Scientists and surfers. Philosophers and fools. Poker players. Preachers. Atheists. Smokers and weight lifters and drummers and sunbathers. Each of you belongs here. Not one of you can be removed without all of us losing something. Not one of you can be removed without disturbing the “wa”.

And we have achieved that in less than 100 days. Learning to look out for each other. Leaning to take care of each other. But most of all, learning to listen to each other. Social scientists have shown that the only way to break down the walls between people…or between groups of people…is to put them together in a situation that allows them to get to know each other…to get to see what they have in common. From the outside, it is too easy to make judgments about those who are different…to hold stereotypes. Us and them. But when we sit down together, the differences in our values…in our beliefs…in our assumptions…that looked so divisive from the outside, begin to be seen more as interesting variations…because we discover that there is so much more that we share.

We have shared a lot on this voyage. Some of it exhilarating. Some of it frightening. Some of it very funny. Some of it tragic. But all of it…enlightening. And those shared experiences have brought us together. Back in that first class I told you that you would have many new experiences on this voyage. Not one…not ten…not a hundred…but wave after wave of amazing experiences. To much to process all at once. Do you have any idea how much we have been through together? How much we have seen and tasted and touched and smelled?

Lunatic rickshaw drivers playing bumper cars in the streets of Chennai. Children without homes. Beggars without limbs. Open sewers and open sores. Neon nights in Hong Kong. Lion kills. Shantytowns. Dolphin and dong. Flying fish and flying pianos. Buddhism/Hinduism/

Caodaism/Confucianism/ Shintoism/animism/Feminism/Socialism/Communism/Capitalism/ Nationalism/Colonialism. The smell of popcorn in the Piano Lounge. A legless man crawling toward you across the sidewalk. A masseuse…with wandering fingers. Candomble. Germaine’s Luau. The untouchables. Babies holding babies. Midgets on tiptoe. Table Mountain. Rolex knockoffs. Dock time. Hidden orixas and inner fetuses. Rough seas and cubed cheese. A dead bicyclist lying on the pavement. Tiger beer and Tusker beer. Suck and blow…and the Panda Hotel. The Rex…the Voice…the bistro…the Bantu. Vagina monologues and Abba interruptions. 45 degrees to port…45 degrees to starboard. Samba…sunsets…street mimes and Swahili. Poverty and paper shortages. Life boat drills and laundry day. Lantau Island. Robben Island. Larium. Imodium. Clogged toilets. No toilets. Head wobbles and thumbs up. Rain forests and rhinos. Polygamy and polyrhythms and pasta who-knows-what? A surrealistic Alice-in-Wonderland voyage where clocks are retarded and sweatsocks are bartered and doctors shampoo tangerines.

Ba-ai-ah!

(Come on…this is audience participation. All you soccer fans, let’s try it again)

Ba-ai-ah! Ba-ai-ah!

I knew you knew that. And that’s my point. It is our shared experience that brings us together as a community and which makes our differences much less important.

I was in a jewelry shop at the Waterfront in Cape Town with my wife. She was looking at rings. And there was a black African couple there. The woman was trying on earrings…and the salesgirl was oohing an aahing about how fabulous they looked. The woman’s husband was standing back a few feet…and for a split second we caught each other’s eye…with a look of mutual recognition. In that brief second, there was no black or white…just two clueless guys who both knew we were in danger of spending a great deal of money on little sparkly things whose allure we did not understand at all. It was a “guy” moment. And it was great.

I hope you have had moments like that. I think you probably have. Maybe it was a moment when someone smiled at you. Maybe it was a moment when language differences stopped being a barrier and you found yourself communicating. Or when you quit worrying about being ripped off and just started talking to a street vendor. Or when someone taught you to dance a new dance …or play a new instrument…or sing a new song. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t expect the world to change easily. But I do know that the only way it can change is by finding the common ground. The smiles…and the “guy” moments.

You now know, more than you have ever known, that you are privileged. Sure, some of you have more money than others. But each of you has more money than most of the people in the world. More money…more freedom…more education…more opportunity. You are privileged. And in addition to that, you now have a global awareness. Don’t buy the myth that one person can’t change things. Whether you become a CEO or a lawyer or a Peace Corps volunteer doesn’t matter. You are in a position to do something…and a far better position than you were in three months ago. I don’t care if you spend the rest of your life in Kansas…you will always have a global awareness…an enriched understanding of your place in the larger whole. Make good use of that…and the voyage will never end.

Find a cause. Something you believe in…and work for it. It doesn’t have to be some big sweeping world movement. In fact, one of the things you have learned on this voyage is that small local projects…like the Grameen Bank…are often far more effective and productive than large decisions made high above or far away by people who may have good intentions, but who don’t fully understand the local implications. It may seem trite to say, “Think globally, act locally”…but small community-based and community-designed projects work. And small changes are real changes.

We are all in favor of the big things, like World Peace and the abolition of hunger. Those are things that are easy to believe in, but very difficult to do anything about directly. That’s the reason why people throw up their hands and say, “One person can’t do anything”. Well, one person can. You can. You’re smart…you’re free…and you are a lot more independent and confident than you were three months ago.

You have communicated with people from different cultures, different backgrounds and different languages. You can figure out how to get from here to there in India, just because you want to. You can bargain with the best of them in Beijing. You have skills. If you can cross a street in Saigon, you can do anything.

This voyage has been an incredible gift. It has changed you. And now you’re going home. No you’re not. At least…not to the home that you left in January. When you get off the ship in Ft. Lauderdale, you are going to know that. You already know it in your head. But when you get off the ship in Ft. Lauderdale you are going to know it in your bones. You are going to feel it in your skin. The world that you left behind isn’t there any more.

There is a story that I like to tell my students about a fish in a fishbowl. There is a way in which a fish swimming around in a fishbowl knows nothing at all about water. Because water is so much a part of the fish’s life. It is surrounded by water. It is embedded in water. In that sense, the fish does not really know water. If you want the fish to really understand water, you have to take the fish out of the fishbowl and say, “Look, that’s water.” Now…if you put the fish back in…the water never looks the same again. Well, in a certain sense, we’ve all been taken out of our fishbowls. You have been out of your fishbowl for 3½ months. Now you have to go back.

It may not happen to you immediately. Caught up in the excitement of seeing your friends and your relatives…it may take a day. Maybe a week. But sooner or later there is going to be a moment. It might happen to you at the airport. It might happen to you in your hotel room. Maybe not until you get home. But sooner or later there is going to be a moment when you realize that the world just doesn’t “fit” the way it fit before.

Many of your friends…even your good friends…are going to seem suddenly, strangely… stupid. You’ll want to talk about India. And they will say, “Yeah. Right. Sounds great.” And somehow that is just not going to be enough. And you’ll say, Yes, but I was in Varanasi…let me tell you about the colors and the smells and the people…and the bodies! Let me tell you about the burning bodies!” And your friends will say, “Uh huh”. And you will watch their eyes glaze over as they smile and nod and glance over your shoulder. So you’ll try Vietnam. “You know, I was in Vietnam. Saigon. Well, really it’s Ho Chi Minh City, but everybody just calls it Saigon. And they have the most unbelievable traffic! Hardly any traffic lights…and no one pays attention to them anyway.” And your friends will say, “Oh.”

And then your friends will suddenly get enthusiastic again when they begin to tell you all the great things you missed while you were gone. Like that big party…where everyone threw up on each other. And that really great episode of “Desperate Housewives”. And they will start telling you some of the lines…and getting excited as they are telling them to you. And you will be crawling out of your skin.

And you’ll say, “But I saw beggars. I saw children begging. Did you know that parents sometimes actually maim their kids to make them better beggars?” And your friends will say, “Awesome”. And you’ll know that they don’t get it. In fact, you might even begin to wonder if some of your friends really know what itmeans for something to be…awesome. Standing on the Great Wall of China and seeing it zig zag off across the mountains into the mist, that’s awesome. Waking up in a hammock on a small boat chugging up the Amazon River, that’s awesome. Floating in a hot air balloon over the Serengeti Plain at dawn, that’s awesome. The big party you missed while you were gone, isn’t.

And you are going to hear yourself sounding pretentious. You won’t feel pretentious, but you are going to hear yourself sounding pretentious. You know, here on the ship, if you are sitting around with one of your friends or your roommate and you start a sentence like, “One night in Saigon I was taking a rickshaw back from the War Remnants Museum…” That doesn’t sound odd, here. But can’t you just see your friends back home rolling their eyes? You are going to have to choose between sounding pretentious…and being silent. And you are going to long to be back here with us…where you can be normal.

And maybe you have a relationship back home. An important one. One that seemed really comfortable and promising…last January. Oh boy. All those emails you wrote? Or didn’t write? Some of them maybe feeling a little forced as you wrote them? That relationship might not feel right any more. Like an old pair of jeans that’s comfortable…but no longer your style. And you think, “I just can’t do this any more.”

Many of you have become independent on this voyage. Much more genuinely concerned about the world. About other people. Stronger. Braver. Better than you were last January. And the life that you had planned for yourself might not seem big enough any more. You might be thinking about changing directions. A new major. A new career. Maybe even a new country. Who are you going to talk to? How are they going to understand?

There are a thousand little ways in which the world is just not going to fit any more. And a thousand little reminders that it doesn’t fit. Television commercials are going to look really stupid. Houses and cars are going to be obscenely big. Restrooms are going to be disgustingly sanitary. Salespeople will look at you like you’re an idiot when you try to bargain. And everybody is going to have so much…stuff.

Even words aren’t going to seem the same. You’ll hear the word, “Shanghai”. Shanghai is a place…it’s not just a word. Cape Town. It all comes back. It’s not just a word any more. How could you possibly have imagined, back in January, that you would spend the rest of your life getting chills whenever you thought of the words, “Put on your life jackets and get into the hall right now!” With the steady haunting moan of the fog horn in the background. Who else will ever understand that? The world is never going to be the same again.

So what do you do? Well, I think one of the things you have to do is to forgive your friends. Looking at the pictures…listening to your stories…it’s not the same as having been there. You know that. You’ve looked at people’s vacation pictures before. You know that pictures can’t capture the same experience. They are going to be looking at it and listening to it…you’ve lived it. It has changed you…it hasn’t changed them. So you have to be a little patient with them… you have to be a little forgiving if they don’t quite get it. But I think that you can only do that if they are willing to let you be the person you have become. It is not the places you have been to …and it is not the things that you have done that have to be shared. It is who you have become that has to be shared. You don’t have to find people who have been around the world to understand you, but you have to find people to understand you. And if your old friends won’t let you be the person you have become, make new friends. There are a lot of people out there. You know those foreign students on your home campus? Those strange people with the accents? You see them wandering around confused and not knowing what building to go into. Been there. Done that. Go talk to them.

There are a lot of people out there who can confirm who you are…and who you are becoming. Even if that is not clear to you now. In many ways, the person you will be six months from now is still developing right outside of consciousness. You don’t know yet how much you have changed. And you won’t know for another six months or a year. It isn’t a good idea to make any major life decisions before then. You might want to…but give yourself some time.

Earlier I suggested that you might want to find a cause…something that you believe in…and work for it. I think that’s a good idea. But I’m not worried about you. I don’t think that you have to be urged to do that…you don’t even need to be reminded to do that. I think you are going to have to do that in order to feel at home. If the world doesn’t fit any more, then you have to create a world for yourself that does fit. A place where you can feel at home.

I have been on previous voyages…and gone home. So has Dean Wright…Dean Hansen… Kenn…Adrienne…and some others. We’ve all been taken out of our fishbowls and put back in again. And I think I can speak for all of them when I say, “Come on in. The water’s fine.”

Thank you.

And I'll just leave you with a toast, also provided by Larry Meredith:
"Here's to the four cardinal sins of those who travel the seven seas: Stealing, Lying, Swearing, and Drinking. When you steal, steal away to a grand adventure. When you lie, lie in the heart of wisdom. When you swear, swear allegiance to the truth. And when you drink, drink with me!"

HAPPY SASIVERSARY EVERYONE!