And now a word from my wife...

Here are some wise words from Janna, who has actually been on the ship more than I have!!

I wanted to share with you a number of books I am bringing to the ship or already have there. This way we can share reading them and you don't have to bring duplicates.

How I First Believed - Wally Lamb
House Rules - Jodi Picoult
Piano Teacher - Lee
Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Diaz
Mudbound - Jordan
Inheritance of Loss - Desai
Away - Amy Bloom
Constance and Faith - Routledge

And some notes about my experience on the ship -

I use lots of magnets, ones with hooks and ones with clips (good for pictures)

I bring extra hangers - plastic ones are good, and you can leave them there, since they don't cost much (a couple dollars for a dozen)

A shoe holder that fits under the bed - also easy to leave there instead of having to ship home.

Several small plastic boxes or baskets to hold makeup, toiletries, etc.

I have a great plastic holder with thirty or so pockets on both sides, that hangs up - perfect for jewelry and earrings.

Remember - don't bring anything you can't ship home from San Diego - if it is not worth the cost.

See you all very soon!

Jamaica Kincaid, "A Small Place"

"A Small Place," by Jamaica Kincaid.

Here are some possible questions to ask yourself as you read the book. Some of them might serve to stimulate discussion with your group. (Note: "Antigua" is pronounced "An-TI-ga"]

What are the major and recurring themes of this book? (colonization, slavery, tourism, identity, corruption)

Kincaid is very harsh on the British (pp. 23, 24, 35). Why?

She seems angry. Why? Are her emotions justified?

What is a tourist? She has an opinion on p. 14. Do you agree? What does a tourist see as opposed to what the native sees?

How does Kincaid's knowledge of the history of Antigua inform/color her views?

Is she anti-American? Anti-British? Anti-Antiguan (she is harsh on corruption and incompetence). Where does Antiguan corruption and incompetence stem from?

What role did slavery play in the formation of modern Antigua (pp. 10, 14, 27, 34, 37, 43, 51, 54, 55, 80)?

Who is the audience for this book (p. 3)?

Is tourism more important than education, medicine, public works? (p. 3).

Does the initial/superficial beauty of Antigua blind visitors to more stark realities? What do we see? What are we trained to see? What do we want to see?

You are a tourist: "the thought of what it might be like for someone who had to live day in, day out [...] must never cross your mind" (p. 4).

Do tourists get different treatment at customs (p. 4)? Does race play a role in that?

Taxi driver cheats and speeds. What does this say about local standards and respect for the law?

Corruption: good cars, bad houses. Why? "The two main car dealerships in Antigua are owned in part or outfight by ministers of government" (p. 7).

"Repairs are pending": sign on the library since 1974. Why is she so upset that it has never been fixed? What does it signify (p. 42)?

Books explain how the West got rich (ingenuity, not slavery). History is written by the West (p. 10).

Who dominates? Corrupt ministers, foreign capitalists, drug smugglers.

What happened when the Queen visited (p. 12)?

Do tourists see any of this? No. What do we see? Sun, beaches, water, quaint natives (pp. 12-13)

Whom do tourists meet? People like themselves (p. 13): "you see yourself"

Privilege vs. poverty (pp. 15-16).

Is the West superior? More organized? More entrepreneurial (p. 17)?

How do natives regard tourists (pp. 18-19)? Is this accurate? Fair?

How does commerce/colonization change a place? (p. 23)

Horatio Nelson. What do British history books call him? What does she call him ("an English maritime criminal" p. 24). How can our views be so different? (p. 6)

Divergent customs: "There were laws against abusive language. Can you imagine such a law among people for whom making a spectacle of yourself through speech is everything?" (p. 25). Do you have any examples of this from your experience? Will we experience similar situations or circumstances?

Why does Kincaid call the English Princess "putty-faced" (p. 25)? And "this Princess person" (p. 27)

Two important questions: (p. 26)

What does she have to say about the Mill Reef Club? (p. 27)

Who are the Western role models she experienced? Bankers, Mill Reef Club members (you're black), doctor (you're dirty), teacher (you're monkeys)

How do people behave when they are away from home? (p. 29)

"The England that, no matter what we did we could never be of" (p. 30). What does she mean?

She has a very negative view of England (p. 31). Why? She speaks of (elegant) English, but seems to resent it (p. 31). Why?

Rage. (32). Should she just get over it, and move on? (p. 34). Can she? She provides a partial answer on p. 54: can you find it?

When "this Princess person" comes to visit Antigua, what happens? (p. 33) [Potemkin Village]

"You distorted or erased my history and glorified your own" (p. 36). Is this just an Antigua-England issue?

What did the English think about the locals? (p. 36)

Why does she say that people like her are "shy about being capitalists" (pp. 36-37)?

Can cultures connect on an even footing? Or, are dominance, superiority and oppression inevitable?

"The people at the Mill Reef Club love the old Antigua. I love the old Antigua. Without question, we don't have the same old Antigua in mind" (p. 44). Meaning?

The residue of colonization and slavery: "She is notorious for liking Antiguans only if they are servants" (p. 47). "my girls" = women.

What is culture? (p. 49)

She writes, "these poor sap countries like Antigua" (p. 52). Is she being serious? Comic? Ironic?

What are the consequences of slavery? (p. 55)

Identity: who is she? Does she know? (p. 57)

What does she have to say about the Swiss and Swiss banks? (p. 65)

She raises issues and questions about a place that a tourist cannot see or know. What goes on below the surface of that sun-dappled water?

"Antigua is too beautiful" (p. 77). Meaning? Is it real? What do tourists see (p. 78)? Why does she call it a "prison" (p. 79)?

Antigua = 9 miles x 12 miles

"...settled by human rubbish from Europe" (p. 80)

Faces and Names

Here is a picture with some faces attached to names you've heard -- and with whom you'll be traveling in the Fall.
From left to right:

ADAM SEID (on board, our Registrar/Assistant Academic Dean)
MICHELLE HURST (ISE)
ROSALYN BERNE (ISE)
GUESS WHO!
JANNA GIES (on board)
John Mayhood (former traveler)
Mary Johnston (head of the amazing Semester at Sea librarians)
Liz Gushee (Summer '08 librarian)
Kathy Soule (Fall '07 librarian)
CHRIS RUOTOLO (on board; our librarian)
GRIFFIN BRENNER(on board, in his mom Chris's arms)
Rebecca Papert (Summer '10 librarian)
Cathy Palombi (Fall '08 librarian)
LANCE BRENNER(on board, father of Griffin)

The countdown begins...... TWO MONTHS FROM TODAY we sail away from Halifax!

Really cool banner

Rocky Rowedder created this really cool Flag Banner for our voyage. Thanks, Rocky!

What does Archbishop Tutu do on the MV Explorer?

Rocky Rohwedder, a serial Semester at Sea faculty member (and one of our Fall 2010 colleagues, I'm very pleased to report) has sent this link, which you will enjoy. It's a Cultural Preport -- a performance of an invented song in which the "Arch" (as Rocky calls him) sings and dances (well, sings and jumps around). Check this out!

(cut and paste):

http://web.mac.com/matthandley/iWeb/Handleys%20go%20Global/Podcasts/E3C7BF63-6C7E-452C-9872-73341522E50D.html

What to Take?

The handbook gives you good guidance as to what to bring with you, but there are a few things that our experiences have suggested might be useful. But don't pack too much! Remember: storage space is limited, and dress on the ship is aggressively casual. There is a small store aboard, and there are always opportunitites to pick up things in ports. Herein, our personal and limited list of things that you might want to bring with you:

ziplock baggies
Off!
Pepto Bismal
sunscreen
pens
Sharpie
scratch paper
French press coffee maker
travel coffee carrier/mug
coffee
work-out clothes
corkscrew
magnets (no tape allowed on walls)
masking or box tape
fold-up umbrella
gifts for children in countries: stickers, balloons, crayons, etc.
European two-round-prong plug (your cabin has normal outlets; the rest of the ship is European)
extra passport photos (for Cambodia visa, for example)
scissors
thank-you notes/notecards
stuff for the auction
3 1/2-months' of meds (your doctor will authorize it)

Don't bring a ton of clothes; you can have stuff washed for $7 per bag (ironing is slightly extra; no dry cleaning). Ship life is casual. It's COLD in the Union, so bring a sweater or sweatshirt (or buy one of the Semester at Sea products on board). There are two dress-up events (business casual: Captain's Dinner and Alumni Ball).

And now, wise tips from previous voyagers:

Itty Bitty Book Light
Travel alarm clock
Small binoculars
Plug-in night light
$50-$100 in local currencies (avoid long lines of students at ATMs)
suction hooks for back of bathroom door
empty light-weight duffel bags for trip home
hand sanitizer
small toilet paper for in-country use
small first aid kit
Woolite
external hard drive to back up (if your computer crashes, you lose everything!)
zip drive

Clothing note: on the fall 2009 voyage, China was COLD (very cold).

Visas

Now's the time to get cracking on the visas. The information you need is posted on line at:

www.semesteratsea.org/voyages/fall-2010/fall-2010-visas-inoculation-travel-documents-and-ship-locations.php

Country Readings

You have sent in some terrific suggestions for readings about the countries we will visit. This is a short, non-comprehensive, and completely arbitrary list of possibilities, but they might be useful to those of you who would like to have some fun things to read.

SPAIN: John Hooper, The New Spaniards
Penelope Casas, Discovering Spain: An Uncommon Reader
Mark Williams, The Story of Spain
George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia
Miguel de Unamuno, The Tragic Sense of Life

MOROCCO: Elizabeth Fernea, A Street in Marrakech

GHANA: Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah
Ama Ata Aidoo, Changes: A Love Story
Bruce Chatwin, The Viceroy of Ouida

SOUTH AFRICA: Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country
J.M. Coetzee, The Life and Times of Michael K
Breyten Breyenbach, The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist
Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela
Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness
Rian Malan, My Traitor's Heart

MAURITIUS: J.M.G. Le Clezio, The Prospector

INDIA: Julia Gregson, East of the Sun
Amitav Ghosh, The Glass Palace
Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies
E. M. Forster, A Passage to India
Mahatma Gandhi, Autobiography
Chetan Bhagat, One Night @ the Call Center
Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance

SINGAPORE: Catherine Lim, Little Ironies: Stories of Singapore
Catherine Lim, Following the Wrong God Home

VIETNAM: Robert Stone, The Dog Soldiers
Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carrie
Frances Fitzgerald, Fire in the Lake

CAMBODIA: Loung Ung, First They Killed My Father
Chinrathy Him, When Broken Glass Floats

CHINA: Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
Li Cunxin, Mao's Last Dancer
James Clavell, Tai Pan
James Clavell, Noble House
Dai Sijie, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
John Hersey, A Single Pebble

JAPAN: James Clavell, Shogun
Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword

HAWAII: James Michener, Hawaii

General: Paul Theroux, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star
Pico Iyer, Falling off the Map: Some Lonely Places of the World
Pico Iyer, Sun After Dark: Flights into the Foreign

Department of Wise Advice

Teaching on a ship is a challenge, but once you are acclimated and have integrated yourself into the wonderful shipboard community, the rewards are great. Here are a few tips to think about, culled from many travelers and many nautical miles:

1. Be rigorous, but reasonable. Students will work hard, but they can't have the same focus they do on a land-based campus (the ship rocks, they're reading on computer screens, flying fish zoom by at intervals.....). And remember: 20% of the grade is fieldwork.

2. Integrate your classwork with field experiences; think ahead and recap when appropriate.

3. Mix it up. Enjoy your meals with a mixture of faculty and staff colleagues, student, and lifelong learners.

4. Sin on the side of generosity.

5. "Assume positive intent."

6. Don't gossip or fan the rumor mill.

7. Stay open to change, opportunity, challenge. The WORD is ... "flexibility."

8. Reflect often on your experiences.

9. Remember: everyone is nervous, afraid, wondering what will happen. Be warm and welcoming to all.

10. Enjoy every second of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

A Typical Day on the MV Explorer

"What happens on the Explorer?" "What will we do all day?" "How will I fill my time?" Such questions come up frequently, so I thought I'd take a stab at outlining what might look like a typical day. (Note: everyone's day is different; the range of activities is amazing, and you will follow your own interests for clubs, lectures, classes, recreation, and down time.) Time goes by very quickly!

6:00-. Coffee and hot water are available in the Glazer Faculty Lounge. The Faculty Lounge is off-limits to all students and children at all times (except for special events).

7:00-8:30. Breakfast buffet.

8:00-5:30. Classes (75 minutes each), alternating on A/B days.

9:20-10:35. Global Studies. EVERYONE IS REQUIRED TO ATTEND GLOBAL STUDIES. Following Global Studies, the day includes study and reading time, classes, meals, exercise, meetings, rest.

11:30-1:30. Lunch.

You will need to sign up to use the exercise equipment; faculty can sign up the day before, and there will be a Faculty Only (morning) exercise time set aside.

5:00-6:00. Glazer Faculty Lounge open for cocktails. We often have other events at this time: receptions with the Life Long Learners (LLL), faculty meetings (these will be few and far between, unless you demand otherwise), etc.

5:00-8:00. Student clubs and meetings; other assorted programs.

5:30-7:30. Dinner.

8:00-9:00. Explorer Seminars. There will be multiple and overlapping lectures, presentations by Interport Lecturers, and optional activities. Two nights before arrival in a port there will be a Cultural Pre-port presentation; the night before arrival there will be a required Logistical Pre-port presentation (health and safety issues, etc.).

9:00-11:00. Designated Study Area for students (ie, quiet space for study and reading); probably the Aquamarine Dining Room.

9:00-11:00. Glazer Faculty Lounge open for faculty/staff, LLL relaxation and socializing. Bar closes at 11:00.

11:00--. Fall into bed exhausted, wondering where the day went, how it sped by so fast!

Important Dates

Here is the NEW and REVISED Academic Calendar for the Fall voyage. We have tried to eliminate most of the split ports (A-B days) since Singapore was added (didn't succeed for all of them, but this is a vast improvement). Please take note. I've also included on-board time and the orientation period.

Common Reading

I will be asking all voyagers --faculty, staff, students, lifelong learners -- to participate in a Common Reading experience, designed to set up the ways in which we will (I hope) become less like tourists and more like educated travelers on our journey around the world. Jamaica Kincaid's luminous short memoir called "A Small Place" (81 pp.) addresses the issue of how countries are viewed by visitors/tourists and how they present themselves to non-natives. This is in part the theme of our voyage (see below) so I think her book will enrich our experience. It's easy, it's fun, it's wonderful. Please get a copy and read it.

Amazon has new and used copies starting at $2.00. Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/Small-Place-Jamaica-Kincaid/dp/0374527075/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270206359&sr=8-1



IN ADDITION, you know that Archbishop Tutu will be on the voyage. His new book, "Made for Goodness, and Why This Makes All the Difference" (written with his daughter, Mpho Tutu, is a thoughtful and moving meditation on the human condition. I am sure that the Archbishop would be happy to talk with any of you about it (and sign a copy) if you're interested.