Life while at Semester at Sea

It’s now been 19 days since I joined Semester at Sea, arriving in Salvador after 21 hours of travel to board the ship and find my room, 8029.  I love my room, with its rose-colored floral carpeting, twin beds with their own brilliant white duvets, large windows looking to the sea – that open onto the vast Atlantic Ocean.  I am finally crossing the ocean, something I have wanted to do ever since my mother recounted the story of her friend who used to regularly cross the ocean on cargo ships.  

There are two parts to this voyage:  on land and at sea.  Upon arrival in Salvador, Bahia in Brazil, I joined a small community of people that had not departed on overnight excursions.  I found my room and then promptly went out into the port where I stumbled upon a bi-lingual tour guide with whom I did two full days of excursions.  This was an excellent find because otherwise I was mostly on my own, in a strange city, in a country where I do not speak the language and where we were frequently warned about abundant dangers.  It was actually quite lonely, but to catch you up, I enjoyed connecting with the capoeira culture here, including meeting a 90 year old mestre and watching him teach class on evening, admiring statues of very famous mestres in the main square by the port, and watching local capoeristas dance, even dancing with them.  

Ship life is a completely different thing. Everyone is on board and has chosen their people with whom they will generally share their meals and will plan activities in the next port.   I would never advise a solo traveler to join mid-voyage like I did, but here I am.   The components of ship life are….eating, going to classes and participating in a myriad of activities in the evening, including special presentations, movies, talent night, happy hours, etc.  I am taking Global Environmental Politics, Books without Borders, Global Cinema and Global Core, the last being highly disliked by almost everyone.  I wanted to start reading more intensively in life so the Books without Borders is great..although I admit to punting today’s class as I am kind of overscheduled today.  Global Film is great.  The students in the classes are generally engaged and have many interesting things to say, which is cool.  I guess I’d call myself a Floater, since few of my appeals to be included with other groups have succeeded, I have taken it upon myself to invite someone new to join me at lunch and at dinner for a 1:1 conversation.  I have had breakfast twice with a group that I like and I was so touched that one of them said they missed me this morning.  That was the first time that someone expressed that sort of sentiment. 

My favorite person on board is Samantha, a solo nomad traveler who has truly inspired and encouraged me to just do what interests me on my own, which is pretty much what I’ll be doing in Cape Town.  At times I feel brave and strong, other times I feel discouraged and lonely, but that is life and there are lessons to be learned, forced reflections and stepping out of my comfort zone.  I miss home but have no regrets.  

Dancing on one foot

 he’s lithe and alive, slender and spinning

young and supple, a smile that stuns a world

that finds itself applauding while still unsure of 

such insistent gaiety, enduring truth telling

he will be heard, he will be seen

the lame foot that finds a way to dance even as

tears may stream behind closed doors yet he 

steps out in the sunshine on deck 10 the wind 

whipping against his baggy trousers, the thin fabric

of his T-shirt billowing like a sail to dance

as if his life depended on it

we watch from below our silence

Only broken by his exuberant cries of 

delight – freedom!

Looking through the slats at South Africa

 

her story was South Africa, her movements unsteady

through the slats, I see the horizon rising and falling

the roll and pitch of the ship propelling us 

towards that land of Apartheid, an impossible past

where black or colored could only watch/live/endure the world

through slats of imprisonment only their horizon never shifted

not a voyage of discovery and privilege

from her a story of maps of the land extraction tourism crops

to us, the listeners, our stomachs churning in the roll and pitch

of exposure we could not want to know would not want to believe

the pitch and roll, the splash of the waves against the hull,

the propellor, the endless whir of history that still churns their lives 

butter cut by metal blades only to be spread as the other permits

to her, home, this magnificent place is complicated

I only see the horizon pitch and roll through the slats 

my stomach rises to my throat

Global Core: a Class

he said to write without thinking but 

it was so cold in the soft red plush chair in the Union, 

what Union, I asked Gabi one of the

two blonde girls, and the one in front with three sets of gold earrings reflecting squinting light into my half-closed eyes

the 3 am awakening from sleep disrupted by the sun which promised to erupt soon from the open sea, that same sea which has been calling to me all these years into this particular abyss 

one can be solitary but not alone, surrounded by others

and deeply lonely

she cried every day, but the other man, Floyd

rolled his head back with laughter at the idea, 

his eyes half closed not from fatigue but amusement

done following instructions my pencil follows the line

of her neck, the shape of her earrings 

I turn towards her 

she is waiting to speak 

 

Searching amongst the dead

 she was looking for her sunglasses 

my eyes blinded by solid gold, the dead man

on the cross, the little white man holding a small black baby, what was that in this land

the Senegalese man told me that Brazil is the most racist country in the world and it wasn’t long ago

he only left in 2024 

so many white men, they call them Popes, lining the hallway, and more downstairs in the crypt, the sharp bitterness of death lingered in the air

i tasted it on my tongue wondering at its enduring odor, the power of the papacy

she was sitting dejectedly in the pews without her sunglasses, only the reflection of gold in her eyes, the sorrow of it all

 

Making my own plans

Of course this would happen that I would find myself on my own 

the new arrival, the stranger

the others having formed their groups, made their plans

in spite of their insistence

shrill at times that everyone is so friendly

it is easy for them to say a welcoming word yet turn away 

the stranger can be invited by someone else

their friends secure in their pockets

I am the invisible guest, so I 

find a tour guide on the street, unlock a bike

and just go, tears streaming from my eyes

I say they are from the wind 

 

Meeting Mestre Curió in Salvador, Bahia

that sunny, hot afternoon

we timidly walked into the capoeira studio, towards the back, into the darkness

where a small man was seated at a table, his arms resting on his canes, 

a serious, neither welcoming nor unwelcoming presence, this was the Mestre

we were seeking, Mestre Curió, the man who was the Master, shrunken 

but commanding in presence, a smile only arriving after a 

T-shirt purchase, excited exchange about capoeira.

And later that night, when we returned, (yes, it was the same Bahian man, Clodes, with the 

big smile who collected me once again at the terminal) he motioned us 

to sit, sit over there, sit and watch him, now the commander of the stage,

in a well lit studio, barking orders at his students, some graceful and skilled, others 

stumbling as beginners do, but as we rose to depart, weaving between his students, 

he looked at us with disappointment that we would dare to leave before he showed us

how this was done, that the other mestre in the adjacent room did not

know how to do it the right way, and how could we leave and I hesitated

eventually slinking into the night 

his look turned to disdain, then dismissal.

one does not walk away from a Mestre.