Circles and Figures

Singapore was a nice quick visit, and we will be landing tomorrow afternoon in Burma for five days. It’ll be good to experience this destination, and I’ve built it up a lot in my mind: very beautiful and exotic, primitive with lots of raw undeveloped and untouristy spots, and hot–so much hotter than Virginia in February.

The waters have been surprisingly calm as we’ve circled around Singapore heading toward Burma. Yesterday, we had a touching ceremony for Wade Lancaster, the professor who died of a heart attack in Shanghai now that his widow Jeanette is back aboard with her brother. Nearly all of the shipboard community attended a brief ceremony with poetry readings, scripture, and service with Archbishop Desmond Tutu in majestic robe. Afterwards, we filed out in silence to the fourth deck and pitched roses of different colors into the ocean as the captain steered in and infinity figure-eight shape on the waters at sunset. We really did feel like a family as Archbishop Tutu summarized our togetherness, and many of us had tears of sadness, of empathy, of remembrance for family we’ve all lost along the way.

The ceremony was also touching for Ellen and her dad on the eve of Ellen’s mother’s passing 11 years ago. She received a yellow rose, and yellow was her mom’s favorite color. It took the ship about 45 minutes to complete the infinity figure while the long procession line of faculty, friends, family, and students streamed by to toss roses into the ocean.

It was wonderful to hear Desmond Tutu speak at the service, and I had the honor of hearing him on the previous day. In Vietnam, Semester at Sea organized a day trip to an orphanage which the Archbishop joined. In discussing his experience with the visitation, he laughed his sweet, giggly high-pitched laugh and spoke of the children latching onto the students, everyone smiling and laughing. It was incredibly complimentary to hear him talk of how he was inspired by the family onboard the ship and the generosity of spirit everyone shares. This talk came on the heels of the Archbishop–he goes by Arch but I haven’t yet addressed him as such–sitting for portraits in the morning. Most of you know Jasper is very camera-shy, but he sat for our photo together and was smiling for the shot. I think you can see the excitement on my face in the photo.

Plans for arrival in Burma are somewhat in flux, and we’re arriving around 2pm tomorrow, far later than we expected. There evidently is dredging going on, or perhaps it’s finished, or maybe it’s not, and the tides come and go, so maybe the tide will be high, or maybe not. We’re thinking it may be a morning we can sleep in a bit late since class isn’t in session (either of my two classes, Jasper’s homeschooling, and the students’ classes as well) and we’ll be figuring out some ways not to arrive too early to port. Today, the crew held a man-overboard drill during the kids’ homeschooling session, and we could see everything outside the classroom/lunchroom windows. The ship slowed to about half speed, turned a full circle in the water which I’m estimating covered about a half-mile diameter, and dropped a lifeboat into the water. Jasper, with his ever-sharp eyes, spotted a life ring in the water, and we saw the small lifeboat head toward the ring which marked the location of a dummy wearing a life preserver vest. It stood out clearly in the bright sunlight, and unfortunately when the boat neared the floating body, the small waves pushed the dummy away from the crews’ reaching hands. The small boat circled around, out came a gaffing pole, and the fake passenger was aboard. Success, and the MV Explorer throttled back up to speed once the life boat was hoisted back aboard.