pirates?

at lunch, i discovered we were completely stopped. i asked mazraim, one of the dining hall workers, if we were stopped because there was a traffic jam ahead. boats were still about everywhere, including several tethered to us, one big one port side, three smaller ones, starboard side. of course, the students first thought them to be pirates. these areas, especially around malaysia are notorious for pirates. i heard students set up a pirate watch between india and malaysia, any excuse to sleep on deck at night.

on the bridge tour i learned that our best and only defense against pirates (other than 702 students) was the water hose for putting out fires. students were disappointed that captain jeremy didn't carry a gun. i don't think we have to worry about pirates. however, after shopping our way around the world, we probably have as much in consumer goods as the container ships.

turns out, the boats tethered to us are fuel boats. they hang out refueling vessels on the fly. mazraim said, if he could be on one of those boats, he definitely wouldn't be on ours. apparently, it's a very lucrative operation.

back to civilization

i actually made it up for breakfast this morning. the first time in a while. i ate out on the garden lounge deck, and was struck by how we were no longer the only kids on the block. ships and boats everywhere, even land. some of the container ships are so big they look like land. not surprisingly, this is quite a busy little area - the south china sea, i believe. i'll have to make a point to try and get outside during the day, more than i tend to. i'll also have to buy some new binoculars in vietnam. the first time i took them out, i broke the ones sesheta gave me for xmas. sorry shay shay.

yesterday we did a man over board drill, or i should say captain jeremy did. the drill is basically making the necessary turn to rescue the person overboard. it's happened twice on s@s voyages - once a drunk girl was seating on the rail and fell over. another time a boy decided to traverse down the side of the ship to touch the water. apparently the current is a lot stronger than it looks from above. they were able to rescue him, but he was expelled from the program. i think i mentioned recently how resourceful these students are. this particular one, although expelled from the program, met the ship at each port thereafter. listening to and watching some of these students, some parents probably gladly paid the $17,000 tuition and expenses to get them out of their hair. some families sent multiple kids. one set of twins are my favorite. i'd pay $40,000+ grand to have them out of my hair. just kidding, they're quite fun.

since the beginning of the voyage we've also had a couple of lifeboat drills. we don't actually get on the boats, we just put on cool weather clothes and life vests, and go to our muster areas, where we are suppose to gather and be accounted for. we (except the videographer and photographer) can't take pictures during the drills, but i look quite fashionable in my vest. one student had his cool weather clothes on and snorkeling gear. one of the questions on the bridge tour, was "are there enough lifeboats for everyone". these kids, you gotta love em.

from traveler to tourist

(an alley in penang). shayla, my next door neighbor, and assistant to the dean, asked me today where we were last. earlier, i had wondered the same. clearly we’re wearing down. all the ports are starting to blur together. while in malaysia, i spent a day in penang and two nights and one full day in kuala lumpur. the difference from india was huge. well, that’s a useless statement. most places are different from india. aspects of malaysia are very modern and very western – the roads (better than ours), the stores (all the food chains everywhere; many of the same non-food products), the language (most speak english, although it’s not an official language); and their own little silicone valley. they differ from the u.s. most in that they have a thriving manufacturing economy – palm oil, rubber, electronics, and only 3% unemployment.

for the first time in my life, i participated in a bus tour – you know one of those hop on, hop off sightseeing tours. both were semester at sea field trips, one a “city orientation” in penang the day we arrived, and the other a kuala lumpur (kl) trip. after fumbling around cities on my own, albeit happily, i thought i was ready to just get on a bus and be escorted around. not. these buses are what distinguish the travelers from the tourists. mostly, i saw a lot of chinese tourists, and school children on field trips. in addition to limiting opportunities to truly discover stuff and meet local people, the experience is mind numbing. the only perk is air conditioning, but i still prefer the natural ac of indian rickshaw rides.

to make matters worse, i didn’t realize until hours before docking in penang that i was assigned to be the trip leader for the kl trip. this meant i had to keep track of and supervise large numbers of students, students who would be spending two nights in a kl hotel room. college students and hotel rooms aren’t a good mix, especially in a country where some drug offences carry the death penalty. ok, no i didn’t expect this type of problem, but a call from the front desk in the middle of the night wasn’t out of the question. didn't happen either, but our tour guide did say that students were dancing and singing in the hotel lobby in the middle of the night. i got out of being trip leader, by agreeing to be a bus leader, thinking it might be less responsibility. not. when there are three buses of kids, 120 total, at two different hotels, a group at your hotel and another at the official trip leader's hotel, essentially there is no difference between a trip and bus leader? the biggest drawback to either position, is that you can’t opt out of any of the itinerary, unlike the students. they’re not totally foolish, except for the fact they spend all their time shopping for clothes and accessories that they can get at home from the same retailers. the exchange rate is only $3.44 rm to a dollar, so it’s not like they’re saving that much money, especially when many will be shipping purchases back home from honolulu or san diego. however, for many disposable income is their middle name.

many not only opted out of parts of the itinerary, but some flew back to penang or other points, instead of coming back to the ship with the group on the bus. they are resourceful, i’ll give them that. whatever they want, they tend to find it and get it.

well after hopping on and off a bus for three days, i was ready for a day in kl to myself, which of course wasn’t part of the itinerary. 20-45 minutes at museums, pagodas, temples, monuments, palaces, gardens and some drive by architectural viewings was most of what i did in malaysia. oh and of course, reminding students not to talk over the tour guide, to be on time, and keeping track of who had decided to leave the group and do their own thing. i was envious. oh, and i use to like chinese food. i know billions of chinese eat it everyday, but i need some variety, especially in kl, where i saw every type of ethnic restaurant imaginable. i suppose only the chinese, known for their huge banquets, can easily accommodate 120 guests at once.

the one evening we did have to ourselves, we had a great dinner at a malay restaurant one of the hotel workers recommended (he even called the restaurant to make sure we arrived safely). my stuffed squid in a ginger-tumeric sauce, with a fragrant rice, with fruit relishes was perfect. the atmosphere and decor was minimalist chic with a young multiethnic crowd - people from different ethnic groups were seated at each table, and many tables were mixed - very cosmopolitan. the restaurant was in a neighborhood where there were all sorts of bars, restaurants, and cafes that catered to young, hip, locals, rather than the bars and restaurants that cater to young tourists, like our students, who want to get drunk and dance to deafening music in an environment, where the ability to communicate isn't a priority.

when i turned in my bus leader folder (paperwork - how many kids you left and returned with, evaluations, etc.) and first aid kit (another drawback to being bus/trip leader is having to carry around a fanny pack full of drugs and other first aid materials. during one of the numerous orientations at the beginning of the voyage, dr. matt passed on some professional inside information for emergency situations – “bleeding eventually stops.” great stuff huh?), i left a note for the field program office to not assign me to be trip/bus leader for my next tour which will be 5 day trip in china, and require flights from hong kong to beijing, beijing to xi’an, and xi’an to quindao.

with all the bus riding, i did get a lot of reading done, most of foreign babes in beijing, behind the scenes of a new china, which is fun and culturally informative, but not what i'd call great writing.

in kl i bought a device to easily upload my pictures with. other great finds in kl were ricola cough drops, to comfort me from an allergy cough that has been an ongoing problem; hagen daaz; and dare i say it, starbucks coffee, my first decent, non-expresso cup of coffee since cape town.

penang architecture:



registrar, dia draper, at the butterfly farm in penang:



butterflies eating pineapple:



students at a kl war memorial:



kl twin towers from the viewing deck of the 4th largest telecommunications tower in the world:



worker on palace lawn in kl:



next stop vietnam.

"all they understand is money"

since leaving india i've had all sorts of problems trying to complete my india posting. much of what follows was composed in the three days between india and malaysia (we’re leaving malaysia in 5 hours). thus, the narrative will be a bit fragmented. in part because of the technical problems, and in part because india is intense and there’s a lot to process. even those students whose main goal at every port is to drink themselves into oblivion had to find something else to do and think about in india. if they stayed in and around chennai, a bar, hotel or anything remotely touristy or western was not available. instead, heat and humidity, beggers and hawkers, trash and soot had to be dealt with before one could enjoy the people, food, spirituality, land, and culture, in general. some were better at it than others.

"all they understand is money" are the words of the child of an indian sex worker in calcutta's red light district. one of the great things about shipboard life is that films loop between 8pm and 8am everyday on the closed circuit tv channels that are piped into our cabins. it's like a floating international film festival. the stations and films shown are categorized as edu-tainment, entertainment, and family. there's a lot of crossover between edu-tainment and entertainment. in addition to documentaries, pbs series, and international (from or about the countries we visit) and or indie films may show on the edu-tainment, whereas most of the entertainment are mainstream feature films (i.e., memoirs of a geisha, the perfect storm, the committments, bend it like beckham). i've watched many films that i've missed in the theater, including "born into brothels", which i couldn't bring myself to see, for all the obvious reasons. "all they understand is money" comes from "born into brothels", which i thought was about children sex workers, but is not. it's still not uplifiting, by any means, but i was very impressed at how the children theorized their lives. of course, the depressing part is that these precocious and talented children are also so very deprived.

students of color, myself and other faculty and staff allies meet after each port for dinner and to debrief about our experiences in port. the india debriefing started off with many humorous stories about rickshaw ride/driver experiences. haggling the cost of a rickshaw ride and one's destination (you wouldn't think this would be negotiable) is part sport and part public theater in india. the drama is fun early in the day, in route to one's destination, but at the end of an exhausting day you just want to get back to where youre going, not their cousin’s, or anyone else's, craft shop.

towards the end of the meeting the students had me in tears as they eloquently articulated how india impacted them in ways they never experienced before - how it felt to not be recognized as american or have that questioned; and how it felt to have one's normal insecurities disppear - in india, surrounded by so many who have so little, insecurities seemed irrelevant. many of the students of color not only have to deal with their identities in port, but on the ship as well. how they relate to the white community, some of who they can identify with and some which they can't. they also struggle with their place with other students of color who they may or may not relate to as well - the age old questions of who am i and how do i bridge these multiple identities. it made me recall similar struggles of my own at that age. as i sought answers from my own past, i realized it's not that i resolved them, at some point i just became comfortable with them and the contradictions.

i'm really glad i decided to be a trip leader for the nargercoil trip. myself and the four students had a great time with our host family, eating like indian royalty, and visiting various industries and cultural sites in the area. the afternoon we arrived in chennai we took a motorcoach the short distance to the train station where we met prof. prem kala (teaches english at the local university, and a native of nargercoil) and her niece mahisa (a japanese translator; pictured w/students), who was coming along for the fun of it. prem kala was our local guide who would accompany us on our homestay and village-farm-plantation visits. we traveled to nargercoil on an overnight sleeper train.

the train left chennai at 5:30 pm and arrived in nargercoil at 6:05 am. the train was comfortable enough but i didn't sleep much because i was excited about the trip and was in a compartment with three strangers who came and went at different times during the night. also, at certain stops the attendant would knock on the door when trying to find the appropriate compartment for a passenger. on the way back i had a compartment to myself. i slept through the night. in part, because i was exhausted from trying to keep up with these young students who seem to be able to go 24/7 and need to experience everything. funny how they can go all day and night and anxiously agree to get up at 6am for more sightseeing, but can't get to global studies class at 9:20am in the morning.

our host family, the kumaraswami's, had a teenage son at home and a son at the university in chennai. they've traveled all over the world. their first stay in the u.s. was in santa barbara - small world, no? latha, mrs. kumaraswani, met us at the train station in the air-conditioned coach that would carry us everywhere the three days we were there. after arriving at her home we cleaned up and had breakfast, the first of many incredible home cooked meals we'd eat with our fingers and occasionally on banana leaves. latha never gave us a chance to get hungry before we were fed again. the motorcoach we were transported in was also stocked full of snacks and beverages. i can't tell you everything we eat, because every meal was different, and unlike indian food in the u.s. we talked much about food, and any time we mentioned a certain type of food, it would be served at the next meal. while driving down the road, we passed a herd of goats. recalling the many west indian goat rotis i had in brooklyn, i asked latha if they eat goat. the next meal we had goat. after our discussion of crunchy and sweet plantains in puerto rico, fried bananas were served at our next meal. latha had quite a staff, men and women who prepared our meals, men who served us our meals, a woman who cared for her mother-in-law, and men who maintained their yard, animals, garden and greenhouse.

we didn't realize exactly how wealthy the family was until we visited the rubber plantation, and thread factory. her husband was there to greet us at the rubber plantation and show us how the operation worked. it wasn't until the end of the tour that we realized that they actually owned the plantation. midway through the tour of the thread factory we asked if they owned that too. they did. we stopped asking. we each brought gifts for the family, which seemed small and trivial given their status. before we left, latha, had given us each a book and nice hand carved incense burners, as if she hadn't done enough for us already. i can't remember how many acres the rubber plantation was but it was large and picturesque. under the rubber trees were also bee hives, which produced honey for them as well.

at their thread factory, we saw the entire production process from the raw material (cotton) to thread. the factory operates 24/7.

we also saw how certain traditional products, coir mats (think pottery barn jute rugs and door mats) and pottery were made by hand, without any type of automation. because like products are being produced by machines at a much lower cost than the handmade ones, these industries and traditional ways of doing things are in jeopardy of being lost forever. the government is subsidizing what's left of the tradition to protect it. the kumaraswami's don't own these industries, but the easy access they have, and the respect granted them, was further evidence of their status and influence in the community.

at the coir factory and the pottery factory, we saw the whole process from raw material to shipping (see photo of pottery shipment). these cooperatives and communities have been doing this work for generations. it was really incredible. it's so cool to see how things are made. in 1992, when i was living and working in angola, africa we also visited factories to see how everyday things, like garden hoses, were made. i remember thinking that such field trips should be part of the curriculum in u.s. schools, but then i wondered if the u.s. actually makes anything anymore. our role in domestic and global economies seems to be that of consumer. the cultural and environmental implications of this are frightening.

nagercoil is near the southern most tip of india, where three bodies of water meet, the arabian sea, the bay of bengal and the indian ocean. kanyakamauri is the focal point of this very popular indian tourist area. latha took us there to see "the rock", where the vivekananda memorial is. the rock is an island about 400 meters off shore, and only accessible by ferry. on this trip i feel like i've been on every type of water transport possible - ship, riverboat, ferry, water taxi - and with the mekong delta ahead, i don't think i've seen the end of it. swami vivekananda meditated on the rock in 1892 before before becoming one of india's most popular crusaders. he has an institute in the la area, and toured the u.s. in the late 1800s. the memorial, the mandapam, was built on the rock in the 1970s. the views from the island are peaceful and serene, despite the many hindu pilgrims who flock here. we were the only westerners. actually, in chennai, nagercoil, and kanyakamari, there was no sign of tourism at all - no hotels, no tour operators, no westerners.

latha, prem kala, and i on the rock, resting in the shade.

latha also took us inside a 3000 year old temple, with all of the hindu gods carved into the outside . the temple was created over the reign of three gods. i felt somewhat uncomfortable and out of place, but latha really wanted to share it with us. we bought offerings for the god that was being honored that day, and visited three others. worshiping all could have taken hours. latha called it the short cut version. ghandi's shrine is also in this area too. although the attendants at the temple didn't given any indication that non-practicing foreigners weren't allowed, i don't think we would have been permitted in if latha wasn't with us. with latha, mahisa and prem kala by our side, the attendants guided us around and explained the significance and history to us. although it was hard to understand sometimes, they were very patient and gracious.

latha's family also owns and operates a school we visited. instruction is in english. we spent time at the school interacting with the students, who were finishing up there end of the year exams. the students' native language is tamil, the language of this part of india (tamil nadu). in chennai, hindi is the lingua franca. there are 22 official indian languages.

despite the busy streets, filled with every type of motor and peddle transport one can imagine, as well as every type of commerce imaginable, nargercoil is a rural community. unlike chennai, where one is hard pressed to find any open space, trees, or agricultural production.

after returning from nargercoil, i had two days to spend in chennai. the first day i spent shopping with students. the exchange rate is around 43 rupees to the dollar, which makes things ridicuously cheap for us. restaurant meals average about 150 rupees, and clothes in stores 150-300 rupees. i didn't buy as much as i thought i might. it's just so overwelming, there's so much to choose from. in chennai, more than shopping, i mostly enjoyed riding around on the motorized rickshaws. if you like carnival rides, you'll like rickshaw rides. you can cover a lot of ground in these zippy little things. their openness makes for nice natural air conditioning. riding a rickshaw is about the only time you'll feel the air move. it's stifling hot and humid, and the soot from all the motor bikes makes for a pretty grimmy experience. the pool deck was closed while we were docked in chennai. students were disappointed, but by the end of our stay it was clear why. there was a thick layer of soot over all the outdoor decks. for the first time there was actually visible dirt for the housekeeping crew to clean. normally, they seem to be cleaning and polishing what already seems to be clean.

i love this photo of prem kala and latha, taken on the ferry to the rock. i don't know how indian women manage to stay so clean and fresh in their beautiful saris, but they do. while in india, i don't think i've ever sweat so much in my life, especially when i returned to the ship right after two bus loads of students returned from agra (there were field trips to the taj mahal and other places in the north). after walking back from the post office in the heat, i had to wait in line behind all these students with luggage that needed to be checked for contraband (booze, food not sealed in it's original packaging, hookahs, etc.) before boarding the ship.

the second day in chennai, i went on an s@s field trip to the working women's forum, a self identified indian feminist cooperative, that has a microlending and education program for women entrepreneurs. the president, dr. jaya arunachalam, organized a nice program for us, where we were told about how they promote self-relaince for indian women. we were also allowed to visit the bank where the women leaders, those who managed an eight women cohort of borrowers, were repaying loans.

indian women were fascinated by me, especially my hair. although i'm clearly a part of a group of white americans, they never believe that i'm from the u.s. the population in southern india is quite dark, so while i'm fairly dark, especially with all the recent sun exposure (as one student put it, i'm sun drunk), i'm lighter skinned than many of them. yesterday while shopping in a traditional indian store, a little girl and her mother came up to me because her adorable little daughter wanted to talk to me, the strange lady fumbling her way through the three step checkout process at the store (shop and get your selections written up at the different counters; take invoices to the window to pay for merchandise [1215 rupees; visa accepted]; then to another window to pick up your merchandise, which were brought there from the different counters you selected them).

i've never been to asia before, so i've been looking forward to this part of the voyage most. so far it hasn't been a disappointment at all. i feel farther away than i have elsewhere. although in one mall in chennai, there was a subway and pizza hut, i haven't seen a starbucks since puerto rico. i'm sure mcdonalds is somewhere in india, although because cows are sacred in india, maybe not.

there are three days in between india and malaysia, barely enough time to get one's laundry done and pack again. in malaysia, i'll be traveling to kuala lumpur, but right now we're on the move again, and there is nothing but big sky and wide open seas that continues to mesmerize me.

for those of you following my reading habits, you'll notice that i've diverged from my planned reading list. i came across reef by romesh gunesekera, an award winning sri lankan writer, in the shipboard library and decided to read it while in india. today is a no class day. the library is only open 1200-2300, and i'm only working 3-4 hours. i hope to have time to start foreign babes in beijing. i've picked up a couple other books along the way that i hope to read, so you may see those as current readings too. reef is a short book, so it was read before i got a chance to update the blog. it was sort of ironic that i read it while being constantly waited on at the kumaraswamis. it is the story of trinton, the servant of mister salgado, who meets and falls in love with nili, who moves into the household. the story is told from trinton's perspective, and focuses on their lives together and his development, and ultimate independence, after many years of service. i'd never heard of the author, but it was a good find.

out of exile

between cape town and mauritius i went into a self imposed exile. the constant social environment for someone who needs and loves generous amounts of solitude had caught up with me. since mauritius i've been slowly coming out again, and believe me there has been plenty to do. this week there was a sea olympics (the different cabin areas for students are named after bodies of water - aegean, caribbean, etc.). the winning sea gets to disembark first in san diego. i opted out of all this, except to watch parts of the basketball tournament. i opted in for the formal (got to dress up) captain's dinner last night with a small group of others. i ate shrimp cocktail, a cream of broccoli soup with almonds, greek salad, prime rib, chocolate moose cake and ice cream. tonight there was another bbq. i had ribs, a hamburger, corn on the cob, macaroni salad, and fruit punch. another recent culinary highlight was taco day, always a hit - recognizable food. myself, and most others, have been less than enthusiastic about the menu options (perhaps i've mentioned this before), so when something different comes along it's quite the spirit booster. of course, some students are still piling it high and shoveling it in. after all every meal is an all you can eat buffet, and as one student put it, "it's better than what i can cook for myself". personally, i'm looking forward to hitting the farmers market when i get home.

between the normal dining hall food, the really really really bad internet service, and unrelable proxy service to the linking software (the equivalent to uc-elinks) to full text articles in UVA's bibliogrpahic databases, it's been a pretty frustrating few days since mauritius. i wish there was no internet service at all. learning to live without it would be easier than living with the pitifully slow (5+ minutes for a page to load, students play solitaire in between page loads) to non-existent service. i feel for students trying to write papers, blog, enroll in fall classes at their home institutions etc. oh, and here's the kicker, they're paying .40 cents a minute to be online. this is the first time i've been able to sign in to my blog in a few days, and am thinking about giving up the effort. the time comittment and anxiety is too great.

this week, i also attended a bridge tour, and saw from where the captain and his officers manage to get us from one port to another. lately the seas have been especially calm, completely different from the cape town to mauritius stretch. last night i woke up in the middle of the night thinking the ship had stopped. i didn't feel any movement at all. not long ago we were trying to keep from falling out of bed at night. more photos from the bridge, including captain jeremy, and erika, one of our library work study students:









other programs and social events, include a q&a with the captain and his officers which is going on now, and a b-day party tonight for mary weil, the spouse of michael weil, one of the faculty. the party is being set up behind me, so i'm going to need to go soon.

this next phase of the trip, we'll be in port more than on the ship. in india we'll be docked in chennai (formerly madras). i'll be doing a three day rural village, farm, and plantation visit in southern india (nagercoil and some other nearby areas). myself and five students will be traveling to the area on an overnight sleeper train and staying with a family that operates a school. i'll have two days when i get back to hang out in chennai, the city.

now that i have a way to upload my photos, when i can, i'll try and do some retrospective uploading.

not quite out of africa

we left mauritius last night, and are in day one of seven to chennai, india. mauritius is a small island off southern africa, near madagascar, mauritius is african geographically and asian culturally. colonized first by the french then the british, who brought the indians to the island to do slave labor on the plantations. not surprisingly, today french influences are the most dominant – the language (french is dominant, but english is also an official language), and older architecture. our ship is docked in port louis, a city and working port. access to town is by water taxi, for 1usd or 50 rupees. the ride is about 100 meters and i’m sure most days their only riders are dock workers going to and from work. the last three days they have been making a killing, working over time i’m sure, and encountering probably more americans they are likely to ever again, at least until the next s@s ship arrives next spring.

water taxis:



around port louis:



the colonial and post colonial converge in a local park, where this plaque was appended to a statue of a colonial figure.



mauritius is a nice prelude to india, not as grand geographically and population wise, but the majority of the people are of indian decent, with some africans (mostly south Africans), and chinese. in preparing the shipboard community for an arrival a few ports back (brazil i think it was), dean mike commented that “you” will stick out, so don’t do anything to draw more attention to yourselves. one of the administrations favorite phrases in “protect your assets”, meaning not just your material ones. my thought at the time, other than the fact that he disregarded quite a few people of color on the ship, was obviously, all these white folks might stick out, but us black and brown ones won’t. everywhere we’ve been so far, i’ve managed to blend in and am frequently mistaken for a local until, i open my mouth, take out a camera, or wear a baseball cap for sun protection. And even then, american is the last nationality many associate me with. within 30 minutes of getting off the ship in mauritius i was asked the time and directions. this, obviously will change once we get to asia. there i expect to be more of a novelty than the white americans that invade every port with me. although the anonymity of being mistaken for a local is nice, especially in markets where i tend to want to observe more than buy, in asia i’m actually looking forward to being a different type of american ambassador. but, truth be told, the real american ambassadors are the hip hop generation – their music, dress, and language. in most countries we visited, i’ve spent most of my time away from the tourist and business centers, and in the neighborhoods. in every community from old san juan, puerto rico; to boipeba island,brazil; langa township, south africa; and rose hill, mauritius, hip hop (and hip hop soul) is heard from cars, homes and merchants, even on board the ship, where the mostly filipino crew, controls the music in the faculty lounge and on the pool deck. however, marley is playing now in the faculty lounge. back in the day, when i traveled outside the western u.s., (especially in the south) when i said i was from california, people would immediately think and ask about the legendary glamour of hollywood. in cape town when i said i was from california, i got a big grin and a reference to tupac. youth have more power than they realize. their perspective on the world is more highly regarded than bush’s or condi’s. however, obama is making quite an impression abroad. not surprisingly, the "two thirds world" would easily vote him into the white house, but i'm digressing.

in the brief time we’ve been in mauritius, i’ve spent a day, with others, getting the lay of the land in the area around the ship – walking the waterfront, business district, chinatown, and central market in blazing heat and humidity (we got spoiled by cape town’s mediterranean climate). day 2 prof. judyie and i took the bus to rose hill, considered mauritius’s most dynamic community, to see how average mauritians live. we had lunch at the new york café; visited a public library; government offices; an art gallery that unfortunately had no exhibition up; open air markets, retail stores (came close to getting a usb jack for my camera, but no luck), and what i’ve loved doing ever since living in brooklyn and going on the annual neighborhood house tours, walking neighborhoods and looking at residential homes. i have to give a big shout out to harriet now, she’s a huge (way bigger than i) house tour enthusiast as well.

day three i spent the day at the royal botanic gardens in pamplemousses, which is in the north (rose hill is south of port louis). this time i went alone. on the buses you don’t pay the driver when you get on. you sit, then someone comes around, takes your fare, gives you change, if necessary, and a ticket (looks like it was memographed) generated from a small portable fare box that information of some sort is entered into, amount or destination i think. the north seemed more rural and traditional (more roadside vendors and small scale agricultural productions), the south more modern (more brick and mortar retailers).

the gardens were a lovely place to spend the morning, after having a chocolate crepe at a tiny mall café – pamplemousses’s attempt at creating a tourist economy - across from the garden. the modern mini mall seemed out of place, especially its five star bathroom (it took me a few seconds to figure out how to turn on the intricately designed waterfall like facet in the bathroom.



entrance to the garden is free, but you can hire a guide to give you a tour. this is encouraged, but i was low on rupees and it’s much more economical (no matter the currency, regardless of the exchange rate, i seem to go through it fast) and sensible for groups. also, i was there, in part, to find a quiet place to start a new book – graham greene’s, the quiet american. thus, i can’t tell you much about the history, mission, or horticultural aspects of the place other than my observations that trees were featured more than plants (there was a section for medicinal plants), especially palm trees, many many varieties, most of which i’ve never seen before. the occasional display of flowers and plants included some commonly found in southern california, like hibiscus, birds of paradise, cannis, and some bower like vines.





also prominent were many strangling fig trees (above photo is just one type), which i first encountered in beechwood, australia (nsw), and a variety of which i saw in old san juan. the lotus were also quite cool. the photos i took will be more informative than my observations. one notable observation, not captured on film was that many of the trees in one section were planted by royals, military officers, and other leaders. princess margaret, indira Gandhi are two that come to mind. this was the most british aspect of the island that i’ve seen, other than the english language signs everywhere.





what i didn’t see in mauritius were any beaches, and the resorts on the other side of the island, where most students rented villas, so that they can get drunk without adult supervision. i love beaches, but i was born and raised on the california coast, and have visited beaches in the caribbean, latin america, south america, turkey, greece, and australia. with regard to beaches, i don’t expect to experience anything i haven’t already.

if i come back to mauritius, i look forward to visiting some of the communities i passed on the bus.

renewing my vows

for the first time in awhile i woke up rested with nothing that i have to do - always my favorite days no matter where i'm at. since most of the rest of the ship is in the same boat - no pun intended - getting up at 8am (first time in a while that i've been up early) one gets to enjoy a quiet morning, in the dining hall, computer lab, and on the decks, even the pool deck which is usually swarming with students. i took advantage of the time to work online at a speed faster than when 700 others are slowing down the limited satellite connection. since then i've been sitting outside immersed in the music world of (scott) joplin's ghost, big blue sky, mild temps, low humidity, calm waters and inhabited land in sight. it's absolutely beautiful, and more importantly, with students still sleeping, absolutely peaceful. wish you were here.

my mauritius field trip was canceled, but we will be getting in earlier than anticipated, 1200 instead of 1600. during our 2.5 days in mauritius, i hope to visit chinatown, the botanic gardens, and rose hill, a community outside the tourist zone, too see how the locals live.