8/13
In Global Studies this morning, I learned that the tallest building in the world is in Dubai. It is so tall, that Dubai passed a decree requiring the people living in the top floors have to keep a total 4 minute longer fast than everyone else (two more minutes in the morning, two more in the evening) because they can see the sun longer.
Traveling in Morocco has definitely sparked the most conversations among the students about differences between the US and where we just were. I talked to several people about how incredible it was to literally see an entire city shut down for fifteen minutes or half an hour at 7:30 when everyone breaks fast. Or watching the 5th prayer of the day at night in Marrakesh: hundreds of people all crammed into a specified area and bowing in unison outside the mosque in the main square. Or the giant laser beam pointing toward Mecca that comes out of the minaret of the Hassan II mosque to point the direction of prayer for all the people praying outside who can’t see the mihrab inside the mosque. Or the crazy driving and complete lack of lane divisions, or even of divisions between auto and pedestrian traffic. Or all the children in such poverty that they literally come up and take a half-finished bottle of coke out of your hand to have something to drink for the day.
Also, my roomie’s taxi driver was questioned at a government checkpoint whether or not he had eaten because he looked too happy. People are expected to be irritable when fasting all day (including from cigarettes), and they were somewhat…but not as bad as I would be! We saw several arguments breaking out between taxi drivers (including several of our own), lots of honking of horns and even a few fights in the streets. But I really am amazed at how strictly the majority of Moroccans were adhering to Ramadan…daytime fasting for an entire month would be so difficult.
8/14
We gain another hour tonight! This morning the sea was pretty rolly, but it’s flattened out now, so nobody is really seasick anymore, which is nice. Everyone has a bunch of homework in the next few days since all the classes are wrapping up, so it’s a little odd to actually see the library and other public student areas full of students studying and the top decks almost empty of sunbathers.
I’ve heard from several people that many women in Islamic countries like Morocco feel very uncomfortable when they are not wearing their accustomed covering, and after being in Morocco I can understand why. If I had been in the full long, tent-like dress, head covering and possibly face veil I would have been harassed way less, although I think that would be more because I wouldn’t look like such a foreigner than because I was dressed more conservatively. I can also begin to see how American culture would seem horrifying to a Moroccan or other devout Muslim in a strict Middle Eastern country: we drink, we show our skin, we don’t pray (or if we do it’s not nearly enough and done incorrectly), we eat pork, we don’t fast… It’s a strange feeling to look back at my culture from such a different perspectives and begin to better understand the tension between the Middle East and the West.
8/15
Today we had a BBQ for dinner…everyone went crazy because we had ribs for dinner. After days of chicken and pasta, ribs becomes the food of the gods. Tomorrow is our Global Studies final, so people are studying. It’s getting a little sad since everyone knows we only have five more days left on the ship, which means we only have five more days to spend with people we’ve gotten so close to but will (for the most part) never see again.
8/16
Global Studies final…people studying for exams. It’s all overcast and windy so nobody is tanning on the 7th deck.
Throughout this trip, the issue of identity has been surprisingly prominent. In Barcelona, there was the palpable conflict between Catalyunans and the other Spaniards as well as the juxtaposition of a strongly Catholic past and architecture with a more secular and modern future and present (the young Spaniards in Barcelona were probably the most edgey-bohemian stylish people I’ve ever seen…I could never pull of the clothes, shoes, piercings and tattoos that these people look fantastic in).
In Naples, traditional people and ways of thinking and carrying out government run up against reality as trash piles in the streets and potholes go unfixed because the government is ineffective. The people of Naples will have to change if their city is going to survive, so either way their identity will have to change, I just hope that isn’t by its ceasing to exist.
In Rome, the seat of Catholicism, I saw the Jewish minority through their museum and so many other people who would certainly not define themselves by the Vatican, so the identity of the people in Rome should really not be so dominated by the little city within its boundaries.
In Croatia, the Roman Catholic Slav population seems fairly homogenous, but this strong identity came at a bloody and destructive cost of the wars in the 1990s. Ethnicity, religion and identity are still a flashpoint in that area of the Balkans.
In Greece, I found the conflicting identities of what it meant to be Greek very clear: on the one hand the more liberal, secular aligning themselves with ancient, classical Greece and claiming that for the county’s heritage, while the more conservative, Orthodox Christian Greeks saw their more recent history, especially their religion, as being more representative of what it is to be Greek.
In Bulgaria, recovery from Soviet domination and a fierce reclamation of their traditional past to help forge a new a better, more progressive future seemed to motivate the search for identity.
In Turkey, again there was an conflict of identities I found very interesting. Perhaps the most classic example in the word of east meets west with the city spanning both the European and Asian continents, Istanbul layers an ancient Roman and Greek Orthodox distant past with the Muslim Ottoman Empire history with the recent modernization of Ataturk to yield a modern city that it both Islamic and Western.
In Morocco, Islam was extremely pronounced and could make the identity seem uniform, but underneath the façade, Moroccans still have heavy influences from their time as a French protectorate: upper class children don’t learn to speak Arabic (only French) until they are taught in schools, and I saw more French food in restaurants in Casablanca and Marrakesh than Moroccan.
But I could leave each of those conflicts, ongoing for the people of each country, when I went back to sea to head for a new port. I couldn’t step away from thinking about my own identity. Had I left the person I knew behind when I flew out of LAX to the Bahamas? When I left my home and my school, from all the things I refer to when I explain who I am, was I still me? What happens to identity when it is stripped of its context?
I may not be able to answer that second question, but I can tell you that in my case, removing my context—all the crutches I leaned on to help explain who I was: Stanford student, from Laguna Hills, Human Biology major, Tridelta, friends to these people and family to those—helped me rediscover who I really am. It was when I didn’t have all the things that make me feel comfortable that I had to know who I was and what I wanted. I found, not lost, my identity when I became a traveler.
8/17
Done with exams! Everyone had bought maps of the world and is having everyone sign them high school yearbook style. It does feel a little like the end of senior year…I can’t believe we only have a few more days on the ship! Tonight is the crew talent show, which I’m excited for, and a pre-port for Boston, which is just about logistics of getting everyone off the ship. Unfortunately, my sea is the last to disembark in Boston…but my flight isn’t until 6:30 pm, so I’ll still make it.
The preport tonight was hilarious…the first part the student life staff put on a satire cultural preport for Boston that made fun of all the people who normally do preports for the other countries.
8/18
Today feels a lot like the end of senior year in highschool. Everyone has giant maps of the world or notebooks that they are running around getting all their friends to sign. Fitting that the SAS “yearbook” would be a map of the world.
Tonight was the Alumni Ball, a dinner followed by a dance where everyone got dressed up and took pictures homecoming style. It was really fun…kind of a last hurrah SAS Summer 2011 hurrah.
8/19
Today right after dinner I FINALLY saw a whale! It may have taken the entire trip, but I saw it J It was pretty small, so I think it was a minke whale, but I’m not totally sure. It was pretty close to the ship, and I saw it spout several times and even saw its tail.
I had to have my luggage all packed up and delivered to Tymitz Square (the main square on the 5th deck) today at 1pm, so from then on my room looked very sad and naked. I’m amazed I fit everything in the same bag space as I came here with…it just didn’t seem like it was going to be physically possible. Rolling clothes really helps things pack tight.
Tonight there was another dance (the Boston Tea Party Dance), but it wasn’t as much fun as last night. I stayed up almost all night today getting friends to sign my map and getting in the last few hours of reminiscing. I slept maybe 45 minutes or so and then got up to see one last sunrise from the ship (unless I come back for another voyage, of course).
8/20
Last day on the ship. We were notified a few days ago that the top 10 Global Studies grades would get off the ship first…and turns out I’m one of those people, so I got off as soon as US immigration cleared us all through customs. To be honest, when I took that first step officially off the ship and onto the steps leading down to the Boston passenger terminal, my eyes started tearing up and part of me wanted to go stow away somewhere on the ship and stay for the next voyage.
But I am happy to be going home to see my family and friends, and I am so excited to get back to Stanford…I miss everything about it :)
When I first came on the ship, I heard plenty of people (and plenty of advertisements on the website) say that SAS will change your life. I was like yeah, yeah whatever; it will be a fantastic growing experience but it’s not actually going to change who I am or significantly impact my future. SAS changed my life for the better. I honestly believe that because of this summer, I will be able to do things I would have never seriously considered before. I wouldn’t be who I am today without SAS.
So thank you, Mom and Dad, and SAS, for giving me the world.
Gracias por darme el mundo
Grazie per avermi dato il mondo
Hvala vam za davanje mene na svijetu
Σας ευχαριστώ που μου δώσατε τον κόσμο
Благодаря ви за предоставената ми света
Dünya bana verdiğiniz için teşekkür ederiz
أشكركم على إعطائي العالم
Merci de me donner le monde
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