ship's log
This is Erika! Back in the U.S.- Here is the log, courtesy of Megan, describing our trip home on the container ship "Canmar Venture."
November 30, 2004
Ahoy! Well, I’ve been on the boat for a whole day now and I haven’t been seasick yet! We left Thamesport at about 9:00pm last night and arrived in Antwerp this morning around 8:00 am. The only heavy rolling we had was when we exited the Midway River and hit the Channel, but nothing serious. The weather is pretty foggy now, but no too rainy. I can barely see the cranes outside the lounge window.
So an introduction to the ship. It’s quite cosmopolitan. The crew is Indian (Indian food breakfast, lunch and dinner!) and the captain is Welsh. The ship is registered in Bermuda, owned by a Hong Kon company, runs the England to Montreal route, flies a British flag, operates in US dollars, the name is registered in London (meaning London is writtten on the ship) and then there’s another 2 countries somehow associated with the functioning of this ship. The most important nationality to us being Indian - fresh pompedans on the table at evey meal and side of dahl). The ship itself is 250 m long and has a huge engine. It’s actually an ice-breaker because it ships all throughout the year and the St. Laurent (takes 2 days to go down) sometimes freezes and in warmer weather like now it has to deal with icebergs that have broken off and floated free. The boat has its own water sanitation station on board so no water rationing. The ship is named the CanMar Venture. It is the flagship of a 6-ship fleet on this route. Our captain is the fleet captain. Its max speed is 23 knots and it’s a 53,000 horsepower engine.
So our plans to get a “feel” for the immigrant experience, not going to happen. We’re definitely getting a supremely cushy 10 days here. I don’t know how cruises could be better and if they are, they must be incredible. Erika and I had few expectcations so we were blown away byt he size of our cabins. i can easily do yoga with room to spare in my room. I have more drawer space and furniture than in any room I’ve ever had. It makes all of my university rooms look really poor. My room has its own personal DVD, VHS, CD players and TV plus our lounge has the same with lots of puzzles, board games, movies, Hong Kong DVDs, some books and ten years worth of National Geographic! Wow! No boredom here.
Later in the day - Erika and I have decided it’s kind of like being on a spaceship. While we’re in port we aren’t allowed to be out on deck because of all the cranes operating and cargo containers flying around. What we can see is out portholes (more like port squares) or from the bridge. So it’s like being stuck in the confines of a spaceship. And then ports look kind of space-agey because of the huge cranes. Here in Antwerp they have these 3-storey yellow truck things (called straddlers) that drive over a deposited container, pick it up and zip it off. It brings to mind the elephant walkers from Empire Strikes Back. As far as the eye can see (Antwerp is a huge port that can handle up to 4,000 ships at a time) there are mountains of containers and lot of huge spot lights that add to the effect.
Today was fairly uneventful because we’ve been in port all day. Our captain is fair tight-lipped and shy with us so we’re not getting much information out of him. I think it’s weird for all of them to have 2 young women on board. They mostly deal with 70-year old professors and military guys so they all seem kind of at a loss as to what to do with us. I’m happy that they all turned out to be quite gentlemenly. I had very stereotypical images (certainly pirate-movie born) of gross, leering sailors who would kind of scummy. But all of the sailors seem to be very polite, educated and kind men and mostly very shy of us. (Side note: becoming an cadet takes 3 years of university education, one year of experience at sea. To move up each level of officer takes more university education and certain numbers of years of experience. Many officers complain that the job is becoming so automated that it has turned into a glorified desk job.)
December 1 - Left Antwerp at 4:00pm. We left the port with 2 tug boats. Every tug seems to have a different nationality. Our 2 were German and one with horizontal red, white, and blue lines (country?). Met Antwerp’s pilot.
Peter would be happy. We’re carrying several liquid tons of Heineken beer. However (and this has the crew excited) the beer has been transported for an unknown amount of time at -23 degrees when it should be transported at +8 degrees. There is some question as to how long it was at that temperature and if it froze. The captain says we’ll know if that’s the case when and if it explodes, flooding the deck with beer. I believe the crew are all counting on a kegger tonight.
I was surprised to see how tightly the boat had to turn in Antwerp. The shipping lane was very small and we had to do a hair pin turn to get out of port. All the officers seemed very calm and collected during the procedure so I thought it must be easier than it looked. However when it was complete, they all breathed a collective sigh of relief. We are currently chugging through the river back to the English Channel at our whopping 35 mph. Makes me wonder how in the world we’ll get across the Atlantic in 5 days! The Atlantic seems a lot bigger than that.
Christopher would love being here. The captain gives commands for steering to a driver who repeats them like in submarine movies in a very strong Indian accent a la the ones Christopher is always doing. It makes for an interesting twist to the bridge experience.
Lots of interesting boats going by - including one that had massive, storey-high lettered signs saying “No Smoking” all over it. Made me wonder what it was carrying that it would need to remind its crew so boldly what not to do.
December 2, Le Havre - Were given a spur of the moment tour by the shipping agent - the kindest Frenchman, Erika agrees, we’ve ever met. Not on America bashing comment. He and generations of his family have lived here so he knew quite a bit of history. His father and grandfather were military men (WW I and II) and he, himself, served in Libya in the 1980s. His father designed a lot of the buildings and structures that were rebuilt after the English fire-bombed and almost completely laid waste to the city. It had an almost Soviet feel to it because of all the concrete monoliths - even a church that looked like something Stalin dreamed up. But interspersed in all of that were old houses that survived, adding a little history to the place.
There apparently is a major labor shortage here so there aren’t enough workers to man all the cranes. Usually there are 2 or 3 going at one time, 24 hours a day. This port definitely lacks a lot of the bustle of Antwerp which ran non-stop the whole time we were docked. Here I don’t see anything moving. So they’re saying it could even be Saturday before we leave because it’s going to take so much time to load the ship. This isn’t good for us because we can’t roam around that much while in port so cabin fever can set in really fast.
We just found out today that a lot of the workesr here don’t get off so much. I believe crew (loaders, etc) get more shore leave but officers get much less. The chief officer, Anup, told us he’s only been off the boat once in the last 5 months. Over wine (our captain is a wine connaisseru) the captain was telling us how hard it is for the men because they don’t even like shore leave as they don’t drink and don’t speak French so they can’t go to restuarants or cafes. Even if they went, they don’t like the food. So when I asked what they do I found out something I didn’t know existed: churches have seamen’s missions that host sailors, have food and phones for them to call home with. Now I don’t know if any proselytizing goes with them, but all the men were quite excited to be going there tonight. Again my stereotypes of sailors being broken down. I’d say about half of the crew are married and some haven’t been home or seen their wives/children in 10 months.
Our original steward Nick - signed off on our second day to go home for Christmas. He said that he makes more as a steward than a banker back in India. I have to wonder, though, how much these men make. If only it were culturally appropraite to ask about salary like in Kyrgyzstan. Erika and I are a little afraid we’d be scandalized at how little it is. We know they’re hired because they are cheap. I just pray it’s not too cheap. Something to look into.
Friday, 3 -
Dinner: Steak! Again tried to keep cool while consuming the most heavenly piece of meat we’ve had in 2 years. Verged on a religious experience. The captain did inform me that I could never dine with the queen because of my uncouth American method of eating. He discovered that we love cheese so he had a bunch of cheese brought on board and have enstated a cheese hour. He claims, very Kyrgyz-like, that we need “plumping up.”
Creamed Erika twice at Scrabble. 300+ points both times. Ultimate word was “lozenges” for 90 points.
Saturday, 4 - Left port at 9:00am, foggy (this after reading a book on cargo ship crashes in fog in the in the English Channel - always a smaller ship’s fault due to low visibility from fog.) Apparently there are 2,000 ships at the bottom of the Atlantic from crashes after WWII alone!
The sailors all make the process look so easy but I’m sure the steering is very difficult so I’ve developed the habit of asking how everything went. The first officer now believes that I’m just super-paranoid because I keep asking when I was really only trying to devleop an appreciation for the complexities of the job.
Finally found a large world map (have been wanting to get oriented ) that also happened to have whale migration/habitation patterns. We may intercept Humpbacks, Sperm and Right Whales, mostly along the coast of Canada. Unfortunately they’re all listed as endangered so I wonder how the viewing will be and if the ice will affect anything.
Got a tour of the technical side of the bridge from Anup (first officer) and Mark (cadet) including an explanation of how to read the charts (30 total for the trans-Atlantic journey), the radar (even picks up seagulls), throttle, how to use the GPS (accurate up to 2 meters), and about the military warning radio. On the charts, we appear to be going through submarine training areas and ammunition and explosives dumping grounds. This looks scary but there is little to worry about. We also got a tour of the deck from them. And then as the sun was setting we saw our first school of dolphins. I screamed like a child. The captain definitely thinks I’m a nutter now. Apparently you can see the Auora Borealis this far south. Anup was describing some amazing astrological events that he has observed.
Sunday, 4 - rainy, Force 6-7 winds, spent the day mostly horizontal. Erika is worse off - puked a couple of times. I haven’t had the privilege yet. All the homeopathic anti-seasickness stuff seems to be working. The sensation of being on a ship: being drunk and standing on a shifting trampoline. The officers keep rubbing it in by saying “Oh this? THIS is calm!” (which in retrospect, it was).
The captain, in a nice attempt to raise morale, informed us that the last 4 passengers were British army officers escorting stealth bomber detection technology. They were laid our for 4 days straight (though they were probably helped by copious amounts of vodka). The captain keeps railing on how he’s embarassed for his army and hopes these 4 never face a gunf ight (apparently the’re shipping out to Iraq in April, however.)
Monday, 5 - doing much better but the ship has now taken a side to side roll rather than a fore to aft tilt. Side to side is apparently more dangerous and more vomit inducing. I think I much prefer this to fore to aft, though. Now when we go over a swell it feels a little like weightlessness on a plane when it suddenly drops a bit. Once or twice is fun but multiple times in one evening is a bit rough on the stomach. This morning I was woken up by a glass of water tipping on me, inducing me to dream I had been thrown overboard (Erika and I watched “Pirates of the Caribbean” last night - probably helped.)
The captain just handed me a book entitled “100 Things to Do Before You Die.” How optimistic. It mentions the green flash business that the captain talked about the other day. It’s a phenomena that you can see on a flat horizon just as the sun sets or rises. The light refracts green and flashes that color for a millisecond. So I’m hoping to see this as it’s such rare event. But there are a string of storms off of Newfoundland making visibility low. Today is a little less cloudy. So maybe! Seeing the Aurora Borealis was also listed, so maybe, just maybe we’ll be treated to a sighting of that too! We’re about half way across the Atlantic now, the captain has just informed me.
The 2nd officer (Abi) just gave me a short lecture on why seasickness happens and the motions of the ship. Erika was there comatose on the bridge sofa and I thought she was going to be ill just watching his hand motions.
A guide to ship movements:
pitch - fore to aft rocking (bad)
yaw - side to side horizontal shift of the fore of the boat
roll - rocking from side to side
heaving - direct vertical movement of the entire ship
pounding - when the hull leaves the water and comes slamming down. This feels a bit like being mortared (or canon-balled to continue in the pirate theme?)
Also learned that few sailors know semifores anymore. They do know the distress signals but that’s about it. I asked this because I was looking at the distress signal plaque. Oddly enough the signal for “this is a highly dangerous place to be, don’t land here” is much more complicated than “come here.” You’d think to signal something so critical as “don’t come near” you’d want an easily communicatable signal so that the message is received easily. However, the signal involves mutliple hand motions and changing flags. The one for “come here” is one hand motion. Strange, eh?
Because Erika has been out of it, I spent a lot of time on the bridge this afternoon with the 2nd officer. He has the 12am - 4am watch and 12pm to 4 pm watch or the “ghost watch” because that’s when everyone else is sleeping. I think I wrote about hiim before. He’s the one with the daughter Rimchim (after the sound of rain) and a wife who is a differential calculus professor. We mostly talked about Indian politics and how hard it is to work on these ships, especially when you’re married. He’s hoping to get a shore job soon. Many men used to do this because the money was so good, but he says the rupee is getting stronger and salaries are going up so it’s not worth it. There aren’t unions for the officers and the crews rarely unionize because if they did, the Chinese would be the ones hired, not the Indians. I also can’t imagine how they would organize a strike because they are all so disconnected from each other. The 2nd officer had not ever actually been near a ship or the ocean before he finished his officer training so he wasn’t aware how bad it would be. He said it was a little better when a cargo hold was open and they could set up a basketball or football court, but otherwise it is pretty much a “nicely ammenitied jail.”
This has made me think a lot about what it was like for the sailors back in the 1500s and 1600s. Going off into the unknown, bad food, and it must have been really slow. We’ll cross the Atlantic in 5 days. It ook them months and we’re going at the stately speed of 35 mph. Not exactly what I would say is fast, but it used to take 3 months - how slow were they going or was it because they had to sail and tack to get across and it just took longer?
I have definitely gained an appreciation for what these men do witih so little thanks or recognition. Unlike the military or Peace Corps where we come out and people honor us for the sacrifice, these men give up so much and go so unrecognized. Without these men we wouldn’t have so many of the products we use today. But so few people think about the sacrifice involved in getting them.
Helpful sea weather tip:
Look at the line of the swell (called “white horses”) and then 8-12 degrees to the right and that’s the direction of the wind.
Anup had to empty the ballast tanks of all the water and take on new water because Canada and the U.S. won’t allow European water with all of its microorganisms in to port. He didn’t really understand the paranoia, until I explained the plight of Cleveland the invading zebra mussels.
Tuesday, 7 - woke by being tossed across the room. We’ve hit the edge of a storm (and if THIS is the edge, I’d hate to see the center.) The bridge is a full 2 flights of stairs up and I don’t have my legs about me well enough that I could climb up them. So I don’t know exactly what force this is. Maybe 8 or 9?
It’s not quite a “Perfect Storm” but it’s as close as I’d like to ever get. As I look out the lounge’s window the fore edge of the boat is rolling in a 45 degree + angle compared to the horizon line. Sometimes it takes all my strength to remain seated in the chair. Gazing out across the black, feroucious but beautiful waves, it looks like I’m on a peak of a range looking out across misty mountain tops. This all started at about 5 am when all my worldy goods and I were propelled across the room.
Last night over a game of Scrabble, Sushant (3rd officer) told us the worst he’d ever experienced was in a Force 10 gale and the ship was rolling 30 degrees (I swear we’re more than that). A huge roll of steel wrie down in the cargo hold came unfastened and started sliding back and forth banging into the sides of the ship. It was too large and dangerous to try to remedy so for 3 day sthey had to sail terrified it would puncture a hole in the side of the ship. Thankfully it didn’t.
If I look out the side of my cabin, it seriously looks like the waves from trough to crest are 20 feet or more tall. I really have no way of telling.
After having fun racing Erika up and dow the hall - sliding up and down - I braved the stairs to the bridge to get the morning briefing. Sushant the 3rd officer’s first words, “Carnage, absolute carnage.” This coming from the man who just the night before told us about his time in 30 degree rolls. This storm apparently took everyone by surprise last night when it hit a 3:30 am. The weather reports were all wrong. We were tyring to dodge the strom which was supposed to go NE. We altered course to SW and the storm decided to follow. Apparently at the worst of it, we were off the roll degree monitor which maxes out at 40 degrees so my estimates based on the degree of tilt in my curtains of 45 degrees were about right.
In one cargo hold there is nothing but 2 large wooden boxes. The crew thought they were pylons or something. In the middle of the night the contents burst through the boxes and slid out - some sort of steel apparati. Sushant said they weren’t rolling around like in his storybut the crew can’t figure out how to get them back in their containers and are afraid of more sliding. Apparently some of the containers on the deck have also been damaged. Anup the Chief officer is in charge of cargo so I’ll get more of that scoop during his watch. Sushant is on duty now and he’s in charge of the crew. Abi is the navigation officer.
We’ve altered course to try to escape the storm again. We’re curently heading towards Argentina at a snails pace of 14 knots. That’s better than another boat on the horizon who’s pushing on towards Montreal valiantly. However with the swell at 4 to 5 meters high and the current he’s only managing 5 knots. So the officers keep saying he’s being supremely stupid. Oh, and Sushant said it’s a Force 11, one level down from the worst. The captain keeps walking around saying “calm as a millpond.” Erika remains horizontal and groans at his attempts at light-heartedness.
The other officers said that their cabins were also pretty much as trashed as ours, especially because no one had prepared their rooms for everything to be hurtled about. Despite the captain’s claims that this is nothing, this can’t be normal. If it were the norm, things would be much better strapped down or we’d be told never to leave anything freely lying about. There are 6 glasses alone on every desk that come with the room - those are currently in shards along with 2 of my CDs. Can’t tell you how weird it is to be flying about my room with all my worldly possessions at night witht the boat going haywire and the sounds of the same chaos going on in all the cabins around with the intermittent Hindi expletive echoing through the walls.
Now the boat currently feels like a very slow roller coaster. We’ve turned west back in the general direction of N. America so we’re pitching up and down over waves with the bangs of the hull against the crests. This kind of feels like when you crest the hill of a roller coaster over and over. Walking isa bit easier - no walking up 45 degree inclines. However it’s much more illness inducing so Erika is back horizontal again after a 5-minute stint sitting up. Still, thank God, I’ve had no seasickness. Gotten myself the “praise” of being called the “ol’ seabitch” by the captain - derived from the “ol’ seadog.”
Took some photos. Hope some can depict the massiveness of the waves. Final facts about the storm: Force 11, 8 meter waves.
In the evening Sushant spent the time telling us stories of the cadet hazing when a sailor crosses the Equator for the 1st time. They have the Lord Neptune ceremony where the officers give the cadet horrendous tasks to do: runnning around naked on deck, jumping rope in a sheet, drinking Neptune’s rum (a concoction of sea water and all the condiments from the galley) out of an old boot, etc. Then they actually get a certificate signed by the captain so that on all other boats they aren’t hazed again. Though if they lose the c ertificate, they are fair game for Neptune’s torture again. Apparently Indians are fairly decent to each other but American and English sailors are really awful.
Wednesday, 8 - calm seas again. Sent off an e-mail. Erika successfully ate her 1st meal with me in 3 days. I have been eating lunch alone because most officers sleep from 12-4 or have to eat in the “duty room” if they’re wearing their soot-covered work suits. Even at dinner, passengers eat at separate table from the officers so it was just me for a while there. Erika usually made a valiant effort to come down but always bolted 5 minutes into the meal. For a while I would give up the soup course and start eating 5 minutes early in the hopes that I could finish eating before she got ill but I was always ditched at the table with the steward looking forlorn because he couldn’t get her to eat. They aren’t used to the female non-sailor appetite so they already think we eat nothing. I believe our steward Manilal (quiet, shy man who doesn’t speak much English) thinks she’s dying, in addition to the fact that she has really kept a rpone positon for 4 days. But we think she’s been almost completely cured. Still lots of horizon watching but at least she’s upright and a little hungry.
Went to see the engine. Didn’t ask too many stupid questions in a room full of engineers who were probably disappointed that the best I could muster up were “So, uh, how many pistons are there?” The engine is truly massive - probably 3 storeys high with 8 gigantic pistons. It’s so loud you have to wear big ear protectors. We were taken on a tour by Knot the engine cadet (been onboard for 2 months). Mostly we just had that dumb girl grin and that glossy-eyes look as Knot proudly showed off his expert knoweldge of the multitude of pipes, knobs, and whistles of this massive contraption. It didn’t help our dumbness that we couldn’t really hear his lecture. The most I could do was pick out words like “generator.” So for those interested, the statistics that made sense to me:
It’s a Hyundai engine (goes 10,000 hours without needing maintenance - pretty good). I asked what the best engine was and the engineer looked like he was going to swoon as he waxed poetic about the glories of a BMW ngine that could go 30,000 hours without maintenance. It used heavy ship fuel and diesel for the 3 generators and one emergency generator. We also got to see the water sanitizer that can handle cleaning 30 tons of water which is 30,000 liters of water a day, roughly 1,000 liters an hour. It does it by boiling the water and collecting the condensation. The elctrical engineer Paul was also enthusiastic about his job in the huge electrical circuit room. We both wished that we could have asked more intelligent quesitons because we got the impression we really made these guys’ day by coming down to see their work. I believe there are 8 engine workers all told.
Being down there let us see more of the lives of the crew. As I’ve said before, there is an officer’s mes and a crew mess divided by the kitchen. What I don’t understand is why the engineers don’t “merit” eating with the officers when their contribution to the running of the ship is just as significant (or more so! There wouldn’t be anything to steer fi they didn’t keep the engine going - and the engineers can do all repair work mid-voyage. They don’t need to stop in a dockyard.) I really disliked the division of the eating areas and the feeling of class it creates. I also have grown to lose my respect for the captain because of his treatment of the lower-ranking crew members, particularly the stewards. Not to sound juvenile but the quote from Dumbledore in Harry Potter rings true, “You can’t get the gauge of a man by how he treats his peers, it’s how he treats his inferiors that shows his true character.” And this captain does things that make me think of a 5-year old brat - like refusing cheese that has momentarily touched other cheese and smooshing it into the steward’s hands, screaming at the steward who can barely speak English, etc. Again, the system of class. Down in the engine room we saw more of the crew who do things like swab the decks or paint the engine. What is this life like for them? Why do they choose it over a job on shore where they would do the same thing? Many say it’s for travel, but they so rarely leave the boat. Even when they’re in port the officers have said they’re too afraid to go in because they don’t know the language so they just go to the Seamen’s Missions. They don’t really see the cultures or learn about other countries. So why the sacrifice? Is the money that much better? Are there any of the issues on board of the “untouchables” that National Geographic reported still exists? Is there any chance for class mobility for these men? Does the chance of being an officer move them up in society or earn them higher status? I rarely get to see the officers interact with the crew, so I wonder if there is any condescension due to c lass lines. The officers who share the captain’s table seem to be embarassed by his behavior towards the stewards but I could just be imaginging things.
Went on the bridge at night on the 1st completley cloud-covered night. There is no darkness as dark as the sea. I could barely distinguish between sea and sky. For a while on the horizon we could just make out the lights of a deep sea oil rig. We were told that it can withstand the impact of a 100 ton iceberg. I can’t imagine what their lives are like out there.
Thursday, 9 - still no sight of land though we are apparently in the Cape of ? We hit the end of another low pressure gale at about midnight and had some rolling but not enough to fling me about my cabin. It has calmed a bit this morning. The boat seems to be quite quiet right now. Morale is a bit low with Erika just wanting to go home. Hope she’s able to enjoy the rest of the voyage.
Today was definitely a red letter day! At about 9am during Sushant’s watch a minor course change of 5 degrees had to be made and he offered to let me do it. He could program the auto pilot to do it but they have to test the steering. So cadet Mentrek stepped up to the helm and didn’t crash into anything! Successfully called out when I had completed the manuver. Later Erika was allowed to plot our course on the hour and then we realized we were a bit off course so I got to change course again, though I way over shot it. Wasn’t such smooth transition the 2nd time, the third officer decided not to let me control the helm again.
THEN the real excitement started. There was a scheduled evacuation drill at 1600 (which Erika and I believed we were going to get hazed on for a while because of all the other hazing stories and how late it was being held in our journey.)
After sadly watching the sun set at 3:00pm (!!!) - no green flash - we went down preparing to be bamboozled about this drill.
Sure enough, at 1615 they started the whole fire drill (our steward took it so seriously that he actually looked nervous - Erika and I tried our hardest at solemnity but all the funny looking life preservers and orange suits looked too funny against all the Indian faces who looked really pained to be out in the bitter cold.) After the drill of “trying” to isolate the fire and account for all people, we were ushered to our life boat by our faithful steward. Our lifeboat consisted of the chief officer, 3rd officer and the quirky engineering crew. So it might have been a cold rescue, but at least a funny one. The lifeboat looks like a mini-submarine with tight places for 36 people strapped in like a rocket because it can roll over. There is enough water for 2 weeks and biscuits that contain our daily calorie intake, and enough gas for 8 hours and a pair of oars - Erika and I signed up for that duty.
Some of the gallows humor - Erika’s life vest was without beacon so everyone kept saying she’d be left behind. We also realized when we were boarding the life boat that all the men were carrying large organe bags. Our life boat happened to be next to the ktichen window where they were making French fries for the evening meal. We kept joking that everyone had their food in the bags (thus the smell) and we were being left to starve. Later we found that the bags held wet suits that the crew put on because the life boats are not heated and in the event that they fell in the water. However there were none for the passengers or for Sushant, the 3rd officer, who is quite tall so there were none to fit him. Erika and I even got our chance to run the engine. There are 4 back up life rafts should the lifeboats be destroyed, though life would be considerably more difficult on them. The flaw of the lfie boats - no place to go to the bathroom! Guess they assume we’d be picked up fast enough, but in a serious gale where the nearest ship might be hours away it could take a while to be rescued. Plus the only exit is a hatch so, what, you stick your rear end out the hatch while all the men look the other way?
Spent the evening attempting without success to beat Erika at Egyptian Rat Screw and then having pay back with backgammon. All in all, a fantastic day.
Friday,10 - along the St. Laurent River. We can see the lovely snow capped hills of Newfoundland and Quebec. I’m looking forward to passing one house Sushant told us about. There’s a man who’s held a tradition for 30 odd years. He’s memorized all the boats that sail these parts and as they pass he raises the flag of that country and plays their national anthem. Fort his ship he first raises the British flag and plays their anthem for the captain. Then he raises the Indian national flag for the crew and plays their anthem. What a fascinating man to meet! (he turned out to have gone south for the winter so no viewing)
We’ve been spending most of our hours on the bridge because there are so few hours of daylight. The officers have such great stories to tell. We’ve also been trying to see whales but they probably have all migrated south for the winter too. It’s -15 degrees out and I don’t blame them. We did see lots of seals lying on chunks of ice floating down the river. So it looks like this, our last full day, will be spent on the bridge too.
We’re at 49degrees N, 67 degrees W. Philadelphia’s at 36 degrees north so we wonder when the sun is setting there, 10 degrees south.
After spending 5 hours on the bridge enchanted by the lighthouse-dotted coast of the St. Laurent, we went downstairs for dinner. Our steward, Manilal, was very cute as he kept saying “your last chabati,” “your last dahl” and got a bit misty-eyed. The first officer also seemed genuinely sad to talk about us disembarking tomorrow. I really hope that we have been able to give the boat a spark of something different for a few weeks. We are truly sad to be leaving, but I hope we aren’t the only ones who have gotten something out of this experience.
We decided to head up to the bridge for one last evening visit and we were greeted with a stunning view of the coast of Quebec - a magical sight of light, Christmas trees and beautiful architecture glowing through the light snow fall. We had to drop anchor at 2:00 am because of a complete lack of visibility due to a snow squall.
Saturday - 9:00am still anchored and even more off schedule.
Disembarked at 5:00pm. The wooden boxes split in half as they were being lifted out of the hold. Not a good trip for them at all. I imagine Anup is glad to be rid of them.
November 30, 2004
Ahoy! Well, I’ve been on the boat for a whole day now and I haven’t been seasick yet! We left Thamesport at about 9:00pm last night and arrived in Antwerp this morning around 8:00 am. The only heavy rolling we had was when we exited the Midway River and hit the Channel, but nothing serious. The weather is pretty foggy now, but no too rainy. I can barely see the cranes outside the lounge window.
So an introduction to the ship. It’s quite cosmopolitan. The crew is Indian (Indian food breakfast, lunch and dinner!) and the captain is Welsh. The ship is registered in Bermuda, owned by a Hong Kon company, runs the England to Montreal route, flies a British flag, operates in US dollars, the name is registered in London (meaning London is writtten on the ship) and then there’s another 2 countries somehow associated with the functioning of this ship. The most important nationality to us being Indian - fresh pompedans on the table at evey meal and side of dahl). The ship itself is 250 m long and has a huge engine. It’s actually an ice-breaker because it ships all throughout the year and the St. Laurent (takes 2 days to go down) sometimes freezes and in warmer weather like now it has to deal with icebergs that have broken off and floated free. The boat has its own water sanitation station on board so no water rationing. The ship is named the CanMar Venture. It is the flagship of a 6-ship fleet on this route. Our captain is the fleet captain. Its max speed is 23 knots and it’s a 53,000 horsepower engine.
So our plans to get a “feel” for the immigrant experience, not going to happen. We’re definitely getting a supremely cushy 10 days here. I don’t know how cruises could be better and if they are, they must be incredible. Erika and I had few expectcations so we were blown away byt he size of our cabins. i can easily do yoga with room to spare in my room. I have more drawer space and furniture than in any room I’ve ever had. It makes all of my university rooms look really poor. My room has its own personal DVD, VHS, CD players and TV plus our lounge has the same with lots of puzzles, board games, movies, Hong Kong DVDs, some books and ten years worth of National Geographic! Wow! No boredom here.
Later in the day - Erika and I have decided it’s kind of like being on a spaceship. While we’re in port we aren’t allowed to be out on deck because of all the cranes operating and cargo containers flying around. What we can see is out portholes (more like port squares) or from the bridge. So it’s like being stuck in the confines of a spaceship. And then ports look kind of space-agey because of the huge cranes. Here in Antwerp they have these 3-storey yellow truck things (called straddlers) that drive over a deposited container, pick it up and zip it off. It brings to mind the elephant walkers from Empire Strikes Back. As far as the eye can see (Antwerp is a huge port that can handle up to 4,000 ships at a time) there are mountains of containers and lot of huge spot lights that add to the effect.
Today was fairly uneventful because we’ve been in port all day. Our captain is fair tight-lipped and shy with us so we’re not getting much information out of him. I think it’s weird for all of them to have 2 young women on board. They mostly deal with 70-year old professors and military guys so they all seem kind of at a loss as to what to do with us. I’m happy that they all turned out to be quite gentlemenly. I had very stereotypical images (certainly pirate-movie born) of gross, leering sailors who would kind of scummy. But all of the sailors seem to be very polite, educated and kind men and mostly very shy of us. (Side note: becoming an cadet takes 3 years of university education, one year of experience at sea. To move up each level of officer takes more university education and certain numbers of years of experience. Many officers complain that the job is becoming so automated that it has turned into a glorified desk job.)
December 1 - Left Antwerp at 4:00pm. We left the port with 2 tug boats. Every tug seems to have a different nationality. Our 2 were German and one with horizontal red, white, and blue lines (country?). Met Antwerp’s pilot.
Peter would be happy. We’re carrying several liquid tons of Heineken beer. However (and this has the crew excited) the beer has been transported for an unknown amount of time at -23 degrees when it should be transported at +8 degrees. There is some question as to how long it was at that temperature and if it froze. The captain says we’ll know if that’s the case when and if it explodes, flooding the deck with beer. I believe the crew are all counting on a kegger tonight.
I was surprised to see how tightly the boat had to turn in Antwerp. The shipping lane was very small and we had to do a hair pin turn to get out of port. All the officers seemed very calm and collected during the procedure so I thought it must be easier than it looked. However when it was complete, they all breathed a collective sigh of relief. We are currently chugging through the river back to the English Channel at our whopping 35 mph. Makes me wonder how in the world we’ll get across the Atlantic in 5 days! The Atlantic seems a lot bigger than that.
Christopher would love being here. The captain gives commands for steering to a driver who repeats them like in submarine movies in a very strong Indian accent a la the ones Christopher is always doing. It makes for an interesting twist to the bridge experience.
Lots of interesting boats going by - including one that had massive, storey-high lettered signs saying “No Smoking” all over it. Made me wonder what it was carrying that it would need to remind its crew so boldly what not to do.
December 2, Le Havre - Were given a spur of the moment tour by the shipping agent - the kindest Frenchman, Erika agrees, we’ve ever met. Not on America bashing comment. He and generations of his family have lived here so he knew quite a bit of history. His father and grandfather were military men (WW I and II) and he, himself, served in Libya in the 1980s. His father designed a lot of the buildings and structures that were rebuilt after the English fire-bombed and almost completely laid waste to the city. It had an almost Soviet feel to it because of all the concrete monoliths - even a church that looked like something Stalin dreamed up. But interspersed in all of that were old houses that survived, adding a little history to the place.
There apparently is a major labor shortage here so there aren’t enough workers to man all the cranes. Usually there are 2 or 3 going at one time, 24 hours a day. This port definitely lacks a lot of the bustle of Antwerp which ran non-stop the whole time we were docked. Here I don’t see anything moving. So they’re saying it could even be Saturday before we leave because it’s going to take so much time to load the ship. This isn’t good for us because we can’t roam around that much while in port so cabin fever can set in really fast.
We just found out today that a lot of the workesr here don’t get off so much. I believe crew (loaders, etc) get more shore leave but officers get much less. The chief officer, Anup, told us he’s only been off the boat once in the last 5 months. Over wine (our captain is a wine connaisseru) the captain was telling us how hard it is for the men because they don’t even like shore leave as they don’t drink and don’t speak French so they can’t go to restuarants or cafes. Even if they went, they don’t like the food. So when I asked what they do I found out something I didn’t know existed: churches have seamen’s missions that host sailors, have food and phones for them to call home with. Now I don’t know if any proselytizing goes with them, but all the men were quite excited to be going there tonight. Again my stereotypes of sailors being broken down. I’d say about half of the crew are married and some haven’t been home or seen their wives/children in 10 months.
Our original steward Nick - signed off on our second day to go home for Christmas. He said that he makes more as a steward than a banker back in India. I have to wonder, though, how much these men make. If only it were culturally appropraite to ask about salary like in Kyrgyzstan. Erika and I are a little afraid we’d be scandalized at how little it is. We know they’re hired because they are cheap. I just pray it’s not too cheap. Something to look into.
Friday, 3 -
Dinner: Steak! Again tried to keep cool while consuming the most heavenly piece of meat we’ve had in 2 years. Verged on a religious experience. The captain did inform me that I could never dine with the queen because of my uncouth American method of eating. He discovered that we love cheese so he had a bunch of cheese brought on board and have enstated a cheese hour. He claims, very Kyrgyz-like, that we need “plumping up.”
Creamed Erika twice at Scrabble. 300+ points both times. Ultimate word was “lozenges” for 90 points.
Saturday, 4 - Left port at 9:00am, foggy (this after reading a book on cargo ship crashes in fog in the in the English Channel - always a smaller ship’s fault due to low visibility from fog.) Apparently there are 2,000 ships at the bottom of the Atlantic from crashes after WWII alone!
The sailors all make the process look so easy but I’m sure the steering is very difficult so I’ve developed the habit of asking how everything went. The first officer now believes that I’m just super-paranoid because I keep asking when I was really only trying to devleop an appreciation for the complexities of the job.
Finally found a large world map (have been wanting to get oriented ) that also happened to have whale migration/habitation patterns. We may intercept Humpbacks, Sperm and Right Whales, mostly along the coast of Canada. Unfortunately they’re all listed as endangered so I wonder how the viewing will be and if the ice will affect anything.
Got a tour of the technical side of the bridge from Anup (first officer) and Mark (cadet) including an explanation of how to read the charts (30 total for the trans-Atlantic journey), the radar (even picks up seagulls), throttle, how to use the GPS (accurate up to 2 meters), and about the military warning radio. On the charts, we appear to be going through submarine training areas and ammunition and explosives dumping grounds. This looks scary but there is little to worry about. We also got a tour of the deck from them. And then as the sun was setting we saw our first school of dolphins. I screamed like a child. The captain definitely thinks I’m a nutter now. Apparently you can see the Auora Borealis this far south. Anup was describing some amazing astrological events that he has observed.
Sunday, 4 - rainy, Force 6-7 winds, spent the day mostly horizontal. Erika is worse off - puked a couple of times. I haven’t had the privilege yet. All the homeopathic anti-seasickness stuff seems to be working. The sensation of being on a ship: being drunk and standing on a shifting trampoline. The officers keep rubbing it in by saying “Oh this? THIS is calm!” (which in retrospect, it was).
The captain, in a nice attempt to raise morale, informed us that the last 4 passengers were British army officers escorting stealth bomber detection technology. They were laid our for 4 days straight (though they were probably helped by copious amounts of vodka). The captain keeps railing on how he’s embarassed for his army and hopes these 4 never face a gunf ight (apparently the’re shipping out to Iraq in April, however.)
Monday, 5 - doing much better but the ship has now taken a side to side roll rather than a fore to aft tilt. Side to side is apparently more dangerous and more vomit inducing. I think I much prefer this to fore to aft, though. Now when we go over a swell it feels a little like weightlessness on a plane when it suddenly drops a bit. Once or twice is fun but multiple times in one evening is a bit rough on the stomach. This morning I was woken up by a glass of water tipping on me, inducing me to dream I had been thrown overboard (Erika and I watched “Pirates of the Caribbean” last night - probably helped.)
The captain just handed me a book entitled “100 Things to Do Before You Die.” How optimistic. It mentions the green flash business that the captain talked about the other day. It’s a phenomena that you can see on a flat horizon just as the sun sets or rises. The light refracts green and flashes that color for a millisecond. So I’m hoping to see this as it’s such rare event. But there are a string of storms off of Newfoundland making visibility low. Today is a little less cloudy. So maybe! Seeing the Aurora Borealis was also listed, so maybe, just maybe we’ll be treated to a sighting of that too! We’re about half way across the Atlantic now, the captain has just informed me.
The 2nd officer (Abi) just gave me a short lecture on why seasickness happens and the motions of the ship. Erika was there comatose on the bridge sofa and I thought she was going to be ill just watching his hand motions.
A guide to ship movements:
pitch - fore to aft rocking (bad)
yaw - side to side horizontal shift of the fore of the boat
roll - rocking from side to side
heaving - direct vertical movement of the entire ship
pounding - when the hull leaves the water and comes slamming down. This feels a bit like being mortared (or canon-balled to continue in the pirate theme?)
Also learned that few sailors know semifores anymore. They do know the distress signals but that’s about it. I asked this because I was looking at the distress signal plaque. Oddly enough the signal for “this is a highly dangerous place to be, don’t land here” is much more complicated than “come here.” You’d think to signal something so critical as “don’t come near” you’d want an easily communicatable signal so that the message is received easily. However, the signal involves mutliple hand motions and changing flags. The one for “come here” is one hand motion. Strange, eh?
Because Erika has been out of it, I spent a lot of time on the bridge this afternoon with the 2nd officer. He has the 12am - 4am watch and 12pm to 4 pm watch or the “ghost watch” because that’s when everyone else is sleeping. I think I wrote about hiim before. He’s the one with the daughter Rimchim (after the sound of rain) and a wife who is a differential calculus professor. We mostly talked about Indian politics and how hard it is to work on these ships, especially when you’re married. He’s hoping to get a shore job soon. Many men used to do this because the money was so good, but he says the rupee is getting stronger and salaries are going up so it’s not worth it. There aren’t unions for the officers and the crews rarely unionize because if they did, the Chinese would be the ones hired, not the Indians. I also can’t imagine how they would organize a strike because they are all so disconnected from each other. The 2nd officer had not ever actually been near a ship or the ocean before he finished his officer training so he wasn’t aware how bad it would be. He said it was a little better when a cargo hold was open and they could set up a basketball or football court, but otherwise it is pretty much a “nicely ammenitied jail.”
This has made me think a lot about what it was like for the sailors back in the 1500s and 1600s. Going off into the unknown, bad food, and it must have been really slow. We’ll cross the Atlantic in 5 days. It ook them months and we’re going at the stately speed of 35 mph. Not exactly what I would say is fast, but it used to take 3 months - how slow were they going or was it because they had to sail and tack to get across and it just took longer?
I have definitely gained an appreciation for what these men do witih so little thanks or recognition. Unlike the military or Peace Corps where we come out and people honor us for the sacrifice, these men give up so much and go so unrecognized. Without these men we wouldn’t have so many of the products we use today. But so few people think about the sacrifice involved in getting them.
Helpful sea weather tip:
Look at the line of the swell (called “white horses”) and then 8-12 degrees to the right and that’s the direction of the wind.
Anup had to empty the ballast tanks of all the water and take on new water because Canada and the U.S. won’t allow European water with all of its microorganisms in to port. He didn’t really understand the paranoia, until I explained the plight of Cleveland the invading zebra mussels.
Tuesday, 7 - woke by being tossed across the room. We’ve hit the edge of a storm (and if THIS is the edge, I’d hate to see the center.) The bridge is a full 2 flights of stairs up and I don’t have my legs about me well enough that I could climb up them. So I don’t know exactly what force this is. Maybe 8 or 9?
It’s not quite a “Perfect Storm” but it’s as close as I’d like to ever get. As I look out the lounge’s window the fore edge of the boat is rolling in a 45 degree + angle compared to the horizon line. Sometimes it takes all my strength to remain seated in the chair. Gazing out across the black, feroucious but beautiful waves, it looks like I’m on a peak of a range looking out across misty mountain tops. This all started at about 5 am when all my worldy goods and I were propelled across the room.
Last night over a game of Scrabble, Sushant (3rd officer) told us the worst he’d ever experienced was in a Force 10 gale and the ship was rolling 30 degrees (I swear we’re more than that). A huge roll of steel wrie down in the cargo hold came unfastened and started sliding back and forth banging into the sides of the ship. It was too large and dangerous to try to remedy so for 3 day sthey had to sail terrified it would puncture a hole in the side of the ship. Thankfully it didn’t.
If I look out the side of my cabin, it seriously looks like the waves from trough to crest are 20 feet or more tall. I really have no way of telling.
After having fun racing Erika up and dow the hall - sliding up and down - I braved the stairs to the bridge to get the morning briefing. Sushant the 3rd officer’s first words, “Carnage, absolute carnage.” This coming from the man who just the night before told us about his time in 30 degree rolls. This storm apparently took everyone by surprise last night when it hit a 3:30 am. The weather reports were all wrong. We were tyring to dodge the strom which was supposed to go NE. We altered course to SW and the storm decided to follow. Apparently at the worst of it, we were off the roll degree monitor which maxes out at 40 degrees so my estimates based on the degree of tilt in my curtains of 45 degrees were about right.
In one cargo hold there is nothing but 2 large wooden boxes. The crew thought they were pylons or something. In the middle of the night the contents burst through the boxes and slid out - some sort of steel apparati. Sushant said they weren’t rolling around like in his storybut the crew can’t figure out how to get them back in their containers and are afraid of more sliding. Apparently some of the containers on the deck have also been damaged. Anup the Chief officer is in charge of cargo so I’ll get more of that scoop during his watch. Sushant is on duty now and he’s in charge of the crew. Abi is the navigation officer.
We’ve altered course to try to escape the storm again. We’re curently heading towards Argentina at a snails pace of 14 knots. That’s better than another boat on the horizon who’s pushing on towards Montreal valiantly. However with the swell at 4 to 5 meters high and the current he’s only managing 5 knots. So the officers keep saying he’s being supremely stupid. Oh, and Sushant said it’s a Force 11, one level down from the worst. The captain keeps walking around saying “calm as a millpond.” Erika remains horizontal and groans at his attempts at light-heartedness.
The other officers said that their cabins were also pretty much as trashed as ours, especially because no one had prepared their rooms for everything to be hurtled about. Despite the captain’s claims that this is nothing, this can’t be normal. If it were the norm, things would be much better strapped down or we’d be told never to leave anything freely lying about. There are 6 glasses alone on every desk that come with the room - those are currently in shards along with 2 of my CDs. Can’t tell you how weird it is to be flying about my room with all my worldly possessions at night witht the boat going haywire and the sounds of the same chaos going on in all the cabins around with the intermittent Hindi expletive echoing through the walls.
Now the boat currently feels like a very slow roller coaster. We’ve turned west back in the general direction of N. America so we’re pitching up and down over waves with the bangs of the hull against the crests. This kind of feels like when you crest the hill of a roller coaster over and over. Walking isa bit easier - no walking up 45 degree inclines. However it’s much more illness inducing so Erika is back horizontal again after a 5-minute stint sitting up. Still, thank God, I’ve had no seasickness. Gotten myself the “praise” of being called the “ol’ seabitch” by the captain - derived from the “ol’ seadog.”
Took some photos. Hope some can depict the massiveness of the waves. Final facts about the storm: Force 11, 8 meter waves.
In the evening Sushant spent the time telling us stories of the cadet hazing when a sailor crosses the Equator for the 1st time. They have the Lord Neptune ceremony where the officers give the cadet horrendous tasks to do: runnning around naked on deck, jumping rope in a sheet, drinking Neptune’s rum (a concoction of sea water and all the condiments from the galley) out of an old boot, etc. Then they actually get a certificate signed by the captain so that on all other boats they aren’t hazed again. Though if they lose the c ertificate, they are fair game for Neptune’s torture again. Apparently Indians are fairly decent to each other but American and English sailors are really awful.
Wednesday, 8 - calm seas again. Sent off an e-mail. Erika successfully ate her 1st meal with me in 3 days. I have been eating lunch alone because most officers sleep from 12-4 or have to eat in the “duty room” if they’re wearing their soot-covered work suits. Even at dinner, passengers eat at separate table from the officers so it was just me for a while there. Erika usually made a valiant effort to come down but always bolted 5 minutes into the meal. For a while I would give up the soup course and start eating 5 minutes early in the hopes that I could finish eating before she got ill but I was always ditched at the table with the steward looking forlorn because he couldn’t get her to eat. They aren’t used to the female non-sailor appetite so they already think we eat nothing. I believe our steward Manilal (quiet, shy man who doesn’t speak much English) thinks she’s dying, in addition to the fact that she has really kept a rpone positon for 4 days. But we think she’s been almost completely cured. Still lots of horizon watching but at least she’s upright and a little hungry.
Went to see the engine. Didn’t ask too many stupid questions in a room full of engineers who were probably disappointed that the best I could muster up were “So, uh, how many pistons are there?” The engine is truly massive - probably 3 storeys high with 8 gigantic pistons. It’s so loud you have to wear big ear protectors. We were taken on a tour by Knot the engine cadet (been onboard for 2 months). Mostly we just had that dumb girl grin and that glossy-eyes look as Knot proudly showed off his expert knoweldge of the multitude of pipes, knobs, and whistles of this massive contraption. It didn’t help our dumbness that we couldn’t really hear his lecture. The most I could do was pick out words like “generator.” So for those interested, the statistics that made sense to me:
It’s a Hyundai engine (goes 10,000 hours without needing maintenance - pretty good). I asked what the best engine was and the engineer looked like he was going to swoon as he waxed poetic about the glories of a BMW ngine that could go 30,000 hours without maintenance. It used heavy ship fuel and diesel for the 3 generators and one emergency generator. We also got to see the water sanitizer that can handle cleaning 30 tons of water which is 30,000 liters of water a day, roughly 1,000 liters an hour. It does it by boiling the water and collecting the condensation. The elctrical engineer Paul was also enthusiastic about his job in the huge electrical circuit room. We both wished that we could have asked more intelligent quesitons because we got the impression we really made these guys’ day by coming down to see their work. I believe there are 8 engine workers all told.
Being down there let us see more of the lives of the crew. As I’ve said before, there is an officer’s mes and a crew mess divided by the kitchen. What I don’t understand is why the engineers don’t “merit” eating with the officers when their contribution to the running of the ship is just as significant (or more so! There wouldn’t be anything to steer fi they didn’t keep the engine going - and the engineers can do all repair work mid-voyage. They don’t need to stop in a dockyard.) I really disliked the division of the eating areas and the feeling of class it creates. I also have grown to lose my respect for the captain because of his treatment of the lower-ranking crew members, particularly the stewards. Not to sound juvenile but the quote from Dumbledore in Harry Potter rings true, “You can’t get the gauge of a man by how he treats his peers, it’s how he treats his inferiors that shows his true character.” And this captain does things that make me think of a 5-year old brat - like refusing cheese that has momentarily touched other cheese and smooshing it into the steward’s hands, screaming at the steward who can barely speak English, etc. Again, the system of class. Down in the engine room we saw more of the crew who do things like swab the decks or paint the engine. What is this life like for them? Why do they choose it over a job on shore where they would do the same thing? Many say it’s for travel, but they so rarely leave the boat. Even when they’re in port the officers have said they’re too afraid to go in because they don’t know the language so they just go to the Seamen’s Missions. They don’t really see the cultures or learn about other countries. So why the sacrifice? Is the money that much better? Are there any of the issues on board of the “untouchables” that National Geographic reported still exists? Is there any chance for class mobility for these men? Does the chance of being an officer move them up in society or earn them higher status? I rarely get to see the officers interact with the crew, so I wonder if there is any condescension due to c lass lines. The officers who share the captain’s table seem to be embarassed by his behavior towards the stewards but I could just be imaginging things.
Went on the bridge at night on the 1st completley cloud-covered night. There is no darkness as dark as the sea. I could barely distinguish between sea and sky. For a while on the horizon we could just make out the lights of a deep sea oil rig. We were told that it can withstand the impact of a 100 ton iceberg. I can’t imagine what their lives are like out there.
Thursday, 9 - still no sight of land though we are apparently in the Cape of ? We hit the end of another low pressure gale at about midnight and had some rolling but not enough to fling me about my cabin. It has calmed a bit this morning. The boat seems to be quite quiet right now. Morale is a bit low with Erika just wanting to go home. Hope she’s able to enjoy the rest of the voyage.
Today was definitely a red letter day! At about 9am during Sushant’s watch a minor course change of 5 degrees had to be made and he offered to let me do it. He could program the auto pilot to do it but they have to test the steering. So cadet Mentrek stepped up to the helm and didn’t crash into anything! Successfully called out when I had completed the manuver. Later Erika was allowed to plot our course on the hour and then we realized we were a bit off course so I got to change course again, though I way over shot it. Wasn’t such smooth transition the 2nd time, the third officer decided not to let me control the helm again.
THEN the real excitement started. There was a scheduled evacuation drill at 1600 (which Erika and I believed we were going to get hazed on for a while because of all the other hazing stories and how late it was being held in our journey.)
After sadly watching the sun set at 3:00pm (!!!) - no green flash - we went down preparing to be bamboozled about this drill.
Sure enough, at 1615 they started the whole fire drill (our steward took it so seriously that he actually looked nervous - Erika and I tried our hardest at solemnity but all the funny looking life preservers and orange suits looked too funny against all the Indian faces who looked really pained to be out in the bitter cold.) After the drill of “trying” to isolate the fire and account for all people, we were ushered to our life boat by our faithful steward. Our lifeboat consisted of the chief officer, 3rd officer and the quirky engineering crew. So it might have been a cold rescue, but at least a funny one. The lifeboat looks like a mini-submarine with tight places for 36 people strapped in like a rocket because it can roll over. There is enough water for 2 weeks and biscuits that contain our daily calorie intake, and enough gas for 8 hours and a pair of oars - Erika and I signed up for that duty.
Some of the gallows humor - Erika’s life vest was without beacon so everyone kept saying she’d be left behind. We also realized when we were boarding the life boat that all the men were carrying large organe bags. Our life boat happened to be next to the ktichen window where they were making French fries for the evening meal. We kept joking that everyone had their food in the bags (thus the smell) and we were being left to starve. Later we found that the bags held wet suits that the crew put on because the life boats are not heated and in the event that they fell in the water. However there were none for the passengers or for Sushant, the 3rd officer, who is quite tall so there were none to fit him. Erika and I even got our chance to run the engine. There are 4 back up life rafts should the lifeboats be destroyed, though life would be considerably more difficult on them. The flaw of the lfie boats - no place to go to the bathroom! Guess they assume we’d be picked up fast enough, but in a serious gale where the nearest ship might be hours away it could take a while to be rescued. Plus the only exit is a hatch so, what, you stick your rear end out the hatch while all the men look the other way?
Spent the evening attempting without success to beat Erika at Egyptian Rat Screw and then having pay back with backgammon. All in all, a fantastic day.
Friday,10 - along the St. Laurent River. We can see the lovely snow capped hills of Newfoundland and Quebec. I’m looking forward to passing one house Sushant told us about. There’s a man who’s held a tradition for 30 odd years. He’s memorized all the boats that sail these parts and as they pass he raises the flag of that country and plays their national anthem. Fort his ship he first raises the British flag and plays their anthem for the captain. Then he raises the Indian national flag for the crew and plays their anthem. What a fascinating man to meet! (he turned out to have gone south for the winter so no viewing)
We’ve been spending most of our hours on the bridge because there are so few hours of daylight. The officers have such great stories to tell. We’ve also been trying to see whales but they probably have all migrated south for the winter too. It’s -15 degrees out and I don’t blame them. We did see lots of seals lying on chunks of ice floating down the river. So it looks like this, our last full day, will be spent on the bridge too.
We’re at 49degrees N, 67 degrees W. Philadelphia’s at 36 degrees north so we wonder when the sun is setting there, 10 degrees south.
After spending 5 hours on the bridge enchanted by the lighthouse-dotted coast of the St. Laurent, we went downstairs for dinner. Our steward, Manilal, was very cute as he kept saying “your last chabati,” “your last dahl” and got a bit misty-eyed. The first officer also seemed genuinely sad to talk about us disembarking tomorrow. I really hope that we have been able to give the boat a spark of something different for a few weeks. We are truly sad to be leaving, but I hope we aren’t the only ones who have gotten something out of this experience.
We decided to head up to the bridge for one last evening visit and we were greeted with a stunning view of the coast of Quebec - a magical sight of light, Christmas trees and beautiful architecture glowing through the light snow fall. We had to drop anchor at 2:00 am because of a complete lack of visibility due to a snow squall.
Saturday - 9:00am still anchored and even more off schedule.
Disembarked at 5:00pm. The wooden boxes split in half as they were being lifted out of the hold. Not a good trip for them at all. I imagine Anup is glad to be rid of them.
19. September, 2004
some stories from Erika:
Megan's student, Aigul, is going to the hospital. She's had a very bad sore throat. Megan was surprised to see that she had black marks all over her neck. When Megan asked what had happened, Aigul said that she'd been treated for her sore throat by rubbing a cazan over her neck. A cazan is the standard heavy metal cooking pot.
At Caroline's house- the host mother adds a tablet of aspirin to each jar of winter salad before sealing it to prevent botchulism and kill bacteria. Right.
At Loren's house- Loren's host mother told her that you shouldn't listen to doctors because they "eat shit and don't know shit." This is a direct quote. Also, you shouldn't let anyone take out your wisdom teeth because you will become stupid.
At Megan's house- Megan's host mother asked her for some antibiotics. Megan asked why she needed antibiotics, and Gulnara said it was for her dry and cracked feet. Her feet are dry and cracked because she stands in the dirt twice every day to do "abolution," a ceremony involving dumping a bucket of cold water over one's head. She has to do this standing in the dirt because she needs to make contact with the ground or risk having energy flow problems.
At my house- I asked Melice when he is getting married. He said soon. He is a little put out that my host family forbade him to kidnap his wife. He said to me, "all my classmates stole their wives, and I'm the only one who has to ask." He doesn't seem to think this is fair. He went to his chosen one's house twice this week to talk to her. They might marry at the end of the month.
some stories from Erika:
Megan's student, Aigul, is going to the hospital. She's had a very bad sore throat. Megan was surprised to see that she had black marks all over her neck. When Megan asked what had happened, Aigul said that she'd been treated for her sore throat by rubbing a cazan over her neck. A cazan is the standard heavy metal cooking pot.
At Caroline's house- the host mother adds a tablet of aspirin to each jar of winter salad before sealing it to prevent botchulism and kill bacteria. Right.
At Loren's house- Loren's host mother told her that you shouldn't listen to doctors because they "eat shit and don't know shit." This is a direct quote. Also, you shouldn't let anyone take out your wisdom teeth because you will become stupid.
At Megan's house- Megan's host mother asked her for some antibiotics. Megan asked why she needed antibiotics, and Gulnara said it was for her dry and cracked feet. Her feet are dry and cracked because she stands in the dirt twice every day to do "abolution," a ceremony involving dumping a bucket of cold water over one's head. She has to do this standing in the dirt because she needs to make contact with the ground or risk having energy flow problems.
At my house- I asked Melice when he is getting married. He said soon. He is a little put out that my host family forbade him to kidnap his wife. He said to me, "all my classmates stole their wives, and I'm the only one who has to ask." He doesn't seem to think this is fair. He went to his chosen one's house twice this week to talk to her. They might marry at the end of the month.
Erika sent me these links about bride kidnapping a while ago, and I neglected to post them until now:
Dedicated to Understanding Ala Kachuu
and Preventing Non-Consensual Marriage
from that page, you can go to different pages, such as "Benign Custom Or Savage Tradition?", Bride Kidnapping: What Makes Women Stay, or read about the actual laws concerning marriage and violence against women.
Susan
Dedicated to Understanding Ala Kachuu
and Preventing Non-Consensual Marriage
from that page, you can go to different pages, such as "Benign Custom Or Savage Tradition?", Bride Kidnapping: What Makes Women Stay, or read about the actual laws concerning marriage and violence against women.
Susan
21. August, 2004
I've been officially approved to leave this place on November 20th! That is the big news.
The boredom of this summer has finally started to get to me. I had another case of food poisoning this week, from food I ate in Talas. I'm feel very out of patience with these small trials and don't want to read another book. I'm also surprised at how impatient I feel- at this late stage in the game, you'd think I'd be all adjusted and more tolerant, rather than out of temper! It took two hours to get to Megan's, which is a usual amount of time for the trip, but I do think it is not a normal amount of time to travel just to visit one's friend. A manager from Peace Corps was here this week, and she traveled from my village to Megan's village in just thirty minutes! That means that I am spending an hour and a half sitting in a taxi waiting for it to fill up so I can leave. I also came to Megan's on the WRONG DAY OF THE WEEK. I had FORGOTTEN what day of the week it was, and came a day late! You see how out of it I am.
Three women came to my village from the "Global Program," which I think is UNICEF funded program. It does seminars on teaching techniques for teachers throughout Kyrgyzstan, and sends teachers to Bishkek. It's very popular because they give out free stuff to schools, and the teachers love to be involved, at least in part because they get to go to Bishkek for these seminars, travel to which they get reimbursed for. Rosa said that all the participants fleeced the program by grossly inflating their travel costs and pocketing the reimbursements for hotels, meals, etc. I can't say I blame them but it is another reason to ponder the cost-effectiveness of aid programs! Anyway, two of the women were Russian, and the third was Kyrgyz. Rosa hosted them for three days while they conducted seminars throughout the oblast. She invited me over one night, too. I helped with preparation a little. Nuria, another one of my favorite teachers came to help, too, so that part was fun. They were very merry, and they didn't even drink that much. It was strange to see tham all speaking Russian. I'd never heard anyone speak Russian except Rosa, during my lessons. I only lasted six hours that night. Rosa didn't go to bed all night! We talked about it the next day. She talked about how much she loves speaking Russian- she says she can express herself better- and how much she loved having these Russian women at her house. I wish you could meet her!
I've been teaching everyday my typing course. It's not very interesting for me because the kids can work through the lessons on their own, but those involved really enjoy it and want to work for hours. So I know that's good. Some teachers gave it a try, too, which was funny. I saw how much easier it is for the children to learn, compared to the teachers. They all tried to argue that it's much faster to hunt an peck rather than learn the hand positions. It was funny to see them so unsure of themselves.
I've been officially approved to leave this place on November 20th! That is the big news.
The boredom of this summer has finally started to get to me. I had another case of food poisoning this week, from food I ate in Talas. I'm feel very out of patience with these small trials and don't want to read another book. I'm also surprised at how impatient I feel- at this late stage in the game, you'd think I'd be all adjusted and more tolerant, rather than out of temper! It took two hours to get to Megan's, which is a usual amount of time for the trip, but I do think it is not a normal amount of time to travel just to visit one's friend. A manager from Peace Corps was here this week, and she traveled from my village to Megan's village in just thirty minutes! That means that I am spending an hour and a half sitting in a taxi waiting for it to fill up so I can leave. I also came to Megan's on the WRONG DAY OF THE WEEK. I had FORGOTTEN what day of the week it was, and came a day late! You see how out of it I am.
Three women came to my village from the "Global Program," which I think is UNICEF funded program. It does seminars on teaching techniques for teachers throughout Kyrgyzstan, and sends teachers to Bishkek. It's very popular because they give out free stuff to schools, and the teachers love to be involved, at least in part because they get to go to Bishkek for these seminars, travel to which they get reimbursed for. Rosa said that all the participants fleeced the program by grossly inflating their travel costs and pocketing the reimbursements for hotels, meals, etc. I can't say I blame them but it is another reason to ponder the cost-effectiveness of aid programs! Anyway, two of the women were Russian, and the third was Kyrgyz. Rosa hosted them for three days while they conducted seminars throughout the oblast. She invited me over one night, too. I helped with preparation a little. Nuria, another one of my favorite teachers came to help, too, so that part was fun. They were very merry, and they didn't even drink that much. It was strange to see tham all speaking Russian. I'd never heard anyone speak Russian except Rosa, during my lessons. I only lasted six hours that night. Rosa didn't go to bed all night! We talked about it the next day. She talked about how much she loves speaking Russian- she says she can express herself better- and how much she loved having these Russian women at her house. I wish you could meet her!
I've been teaching everyday my typing course. It's not very interesting for me because the kids can work through the lessons on their own, but those involved really enjoy it and want to work for hours. So I know that's good. Some teachers gave it a try, too, which was funny. I saw how much easier it is for the children to learn, compared to the teachers. They all tried to argue that it's much faster to hunt an peck rather than learn the hand positions. It was funny to see them so unsure of themselves.
5. August, 2004
Am having a lovely time in Bishkek- purchased some more books for school, and am
researching if it would be possible to come home by boat. Container ships have
room for 10-20 passengers and it's pretty cheap. cool, huh? I just spent three days
in Naryn Oblast, and we went to Song Kul, one of the biggest high altitude lakes
in the world. We (Karen, the woman I went to Uzbekistan with, and two other
volunteers from Naryn) slept in a yurt. It was fun, except that it was COLD, as
in it froze at night, and it rained about a third of the time. On our one longer
hike, we got hailed on three times. That's OK, this is the stuff of which legends
are made... It took 13 hours to get from Talas to Naryn, but the trip from Bishkek
to Naryn was fun. I sat in the front seat of the "taxi", with a man and his wife and
another female passenger and two young boys and lots of goods for the driver's store
in Naryn. I sat next to an enormous block of smelly cheese, and they had strapped
boxes of frozen chicken (food aid from the US that gets resold here) to the roof, so
there were lots of jokes about how the chickens were cleaning the car (melting
chicken juice coming in through the windows. yummy.) They were friendly- we stopped
to drink fermented horse milk at a road side stop. I definitely made a yucky face,
but that didn't stop them from wanting me to drink more. Apparently, it cleans your
system of "radiation." Right.
The yurt place at song kul had tourists, Germans, French, a Czech couple and a big
bus full of Dutch people who kept putting up more and more and more tents. We were
spread over a large space. I saw yaks and wild horses, and had a bath in the COLD
lake. I had an excellent time with the other volunteers and other travelers. On the
way back from Naryn I communicated with a Chinese man who had just crossed over the
Torugard pass- it was somehow a very moving experience, but I'll write about it later.
26. July, 2004
Today is the “jildik” of Azimkan’s mother. It’s the sixth anniversary of her death. I understand that if your relative lived well, you have to honor his/her memory by showing all your neighbors that you are doing well. They slaughtered a sheep, invited all the neighbors and relatives, and someone came to recite something from the Koran. Last night Keshimjan, Chinara, and I made some kattama, which is a special kind of bread made of very finely rolled layers of dough and oil. It’s yummy, in a greasy way. I gave myself a nice blistery grease burn on my palm.
In another stunning example of my capacity to integrate into Kyrgyz life, I spent most of the afternoon hiding in my locked room from the jildik. I have tried to do better at these things, but really, I go out to sit with all these strangers, or even people I’ve met numerous times, and no one talks to me except to urge me to eat more vile boiled grisly fatty sheep parts. (I know this is heresy against the doctrine of cross-cultural respect.) I didn’t escape soon enough. One man knocked at my door and asked if he could come in to my room and talk to me. It turned out he is Azimkan’s youngest brother Azamat from Bishkek, but when knocking at my door he didn’t explain this to me, so I was less than gracious to him. He was one of those who continues to speak Russian to me after multiple attempts, in Kyrgyz, to say that I do know Kyrgyz. He came in and promptly become too nervous to talk, so got rude and critical instead. After I finally got rid of him, I went outside for a minute and let my host mother, Keshimjan, invite me into the zal (the room with the party food laid out- most of the guests were still in the other room.) to sample the watermelon- she really does try to do her best by me. I tried to escape to my room before the beshbarmak was served up, but I hadn’t locked my door (I feel unfriendly locking my bedroom door behind me) and found an ancient female relative in the process of dismantling my bedclothes to use my blanket as prayer mat. She’s come to the house before; she’s the only Kyrgyz person I have ever encountered who prays to Mecca five times a day. By this point they were about to serve the sheep, and I was busy hiding my flip-flops so that the guests would stop borrowing them to go to the outhouse with, and waiting for the woman to finish praying on my blanket so I could lock up my room again, friendly or not… random passersby carrying plates of sheep flesh commanded me to the zal to eat, while Keshimjan informed them all that she would serve me my own plate in my room, foreign antisocial freak that I am (my words not hers!). So I got my own platter of sheep boiled grisly fatty sheep parts, thanks mom, but my room was still occupied by the Devout Muslim, so I sat down with my sheep in the TV room, where I was unfortunately joined by Azamat. He made the predicable comments about my being left-handed (implied- freak!) and why wasn’t I digging into my meat? I admitted total defeat, and escaped back into an earplug-sedated nap in my re-secured room. Ho hum. Yesss, cultural integration. Only 128 days left, but who’s counting….
To redeem myself a little- it is nice to have Chinara home. We chat and I am more tuned into what is going on with the family. Another perk is that she makes good food and it is served at normal times of day. She has gone to Issyk-Kol. It’s the first time in her life! Her parents almost didn’t let her go. She’ll only be gone for 3 days, but at least she’ll see the thing.
Computer/English club is going along swimmingly. Today we had to switch to English club earlier than planned, not because the electricity went out (the usual reason), but because of a wiring problem. The computer is hooked up to a power strip, but the power strip is connected to a pair of improvised wires, which are wrapped around the prongs of the cord and attached the ca. 1985 USSR power source. This electrocution hazard became a little loose today, and you could see the electricity buzzing at the place where the wires were attached.
Two of my boys are going to a boys state camp in Jalal-Abad next week. The organizers came up with some extra places, so I got to invite one more boy, Yusup, whose application had originally been turned down. I got to tell him today that he can go. That was a lovely piece of news to get to pass along.
Yusup (smiling like the sunshine): “Thank you, teacher, for the best news!”
Today is the “jildik” of Azimkan’s mother. It’s the sixth anniversary of her death. I understand that if your relative lived well, you have to honor his/her memory by showing all your neighbors that you are doing well. They slaughtered a sheep, invited all the neighbors and relatives, and someone came to recite something from the Koran. Last night Keshimjan, Chinara, and I made some kattama, which is a special kind of bread made of very finely rolled layers of dough and oil. It’s yummy, in a greasy way. I gave myself a nice blistery grease burn on my palm.
In another stunning example of my capacity to integrate into Kyrgyz life, I spent most of the afternoon hiding in my locked room from the jildik. I have tried to do better at these things, but really, I go out to sit with all these strangers, or even people I’ve met numerous times, and no one talks to me except to urge me to eat more vile boiled grisly fatty sheep parts. (I know this is heresy against the doctrine of cross-cultural respect.) I didn’t escape soon enough. One man knocked at my door and asked if he could come in to my room and talk to me. It turned out he is Azimkan’s youngest brother Azamat from Bishkek, but when knocking at my door he didn’t explain this to me, so I was less than gracious to him. He was one of those who continues to speak Russian to me after multiple attempts, in Kyrgyz, to say that I do know Kyrgyz. He came in and promptly become too nervous to talk, so got rude and critical instead. After I finally got rid of him, I went outside for a minute and let my host mother, Keshimjan, invite me into the zal (the room with the party food laid out- most of the guests were still in the other room.) to sample the watermelon- she really does try to do her best by me. I tried to escape to my room before the beshbarmak was served up, but I hadn’t locked my door (I feel unfriendly locking my bedroom door behind me) and found an ancient female relative in the process of dismantling my bedclothes to use my blanket as prayer mat. She’s come to the house before; she’s the only Kyrgyz person I have ever encountered who prays to Mecca five times a day. By this point they were about to serve the sheep, and I was busy hiding my flip-flops so that the guests would stop borrowing them to go to the outhouse with, and waiting for the woman to finish praying on my blanket so I could lock up my room again, friendly or not… random passersby carrying plates of sheep flesh commanded me to the zal to eat, while Keshimjan informed them all that she would serve me my own plate in my room, foreign antisocial freak that I am (my words not hers!). So I got my own platter of sheep boiled grisly fatty sheep parts, thanks mom, but my room was still occupied by the Devout Muslim, so I sat down with my sheep in the TV room, where I was unfortunately joined by Azamat. He made the predicable comments about my being left-handed (implied- freak!) and why wasn’t I digging into my meat? I admitted total defeat, and escaped back into an earplug-sedated nap in my re-secured room. Ho hum. Yesss, cultural integration. Only 128 days left, but who’s counting….
To redeem myself a little- it is nice to have Chinara home. We chat and I am more tuned into what is going on with the family. Another perk is that she makes good food and it is served at normal times of day. She has gone to Issyk-Kol. It’s the first time in her life! Her parents almost didn’t let her go. She’ll only be gone for 3 days, but at least she’ll see the thing.
Computer/English club is going along swimmingly. Today we had to switch to English club earlier than planned, not because the electricity went out (the usual reason), but because of a wiring problem. The computer is hooked up to a power strip, but the power strip is connected to a pair of improvised wires, which are wrapped around the prongs of the cord and attached the ca. 1985 USSR power source. This electrocution hazard became a little loose today, and you could see the electricity buzzing at the place where the wires were attached.
Two of my boys are going to a boys state camp in Jalal-Abad next week. The organizers came up with some extra places, so I got to invite one more boy, Yusup, whose application had originally been turned down. I got to tell him today that he can go. That was a lovely piece of news to get to pass along.
Yusup (smiling like the sunshine): “Thank you, teacher, for the best news!”
23. July, 2004
I stepped outside this morning to a cool breeze through the laden apple trees,
and had a moment of gratitude to have this experience. I am passing the time by
teaching a few hours of typing lessons at school. We have one functional computer
and lots of twenty-year-old non-functional computer keyboards, so the students take
turns at the computer and the rest of the time they just practice the finger
positions on the old keyboards. Half the time we don't have electricity anyway, so
it's a lot of practice. Four of my favorite boys have learned the whole Russian
alphabet. We are all very proud. Today I'm starting a new group. It's not a huge
summer project, but it is a tangible skill that could some day help keep them from
a life of fieldwork. In any case it gives them a break from their work now, and a
chance to see their friends. It gives me a reason to justify my existence here!
I'm starting a new group today.
Other than the computer class, I'm passing the time by doing lots of yoga, and
running and doing lots of exercises with a handful of tiny bedraggled neighbor girls,
who are enormously entertained by my exercises. They actually spend more time
giggling and pointing than actually participating in the calisthenics. I'm also
studying my Russian, visiting my counterpart and my Russian teacher, and taking time
to cook good food. Last night I made bean cutlets. I have good intentions to
pick up my flute every day. I visit Megan or go to the reservoir a half-hour away
in Kierovka. The reservoir is a prime swimming/beach location, with only sheep and
the occasional shepherd to bother you. I'm trying and mostly succeeding to see all
this free time as a last opportunity for such a worry-free existence. I know that
my life at home was never like this, and it will never be this way again.
Here is a bit about Uzbekistan that I sent to my parents-
It was one of the best vacations I've ever had. I went with Karen, a volunteer from
another oblast. She was an excellent travel companion. We were in Tashkent
(June 11-14), Samarkand (14-16), Bukhara (17-19), and Khiva(19-21). We traveled by
marshrutka, train, taxi (through the desert to Khiva), and flew back from Khiva to
Tashkent with Uzbek airways. First I should tell you how impressive the architecture
was. We saw many of the sites- gorgeous blue and green tiled mosques, minarets and
madressahs. It inspired me to want to learn more about the history of this area- to
try to reconcile a cultural/historical context that could create these awe-inspiring
sights, with my personal, less inspiring experiences in central Asia. The trip
provided a lot of food for thought: these cities were part of the silk road
before the 10th century (?), then several centuries of warring tribes, violence
and slavery, yet amazing art, colonization to different degrees by Russia, then a
complete reconstruction of national identity under the USSR, and now independence
and democracy.
The aspect I enjoyed most was meeting other travelers. This was probably so fun
because they were mostly Europeans, not American college student types, which I had
kind of expected. We met people who were traveling for all lengths of time, from
three weeks to a year or more. We didn't meet people who were particular specialists
in Central Asian history. I was surprised that many of the long-term travelers
didn't know very much Russian at all. How do they get by? I think people who join
the Peace Corps do so at least in part because they are indecisive, looking for some
indefinable experience that will provide a lifetime of perspective and memories; I
think people who do these six month trips through Central Asia are looking for
something, too. There was a German/British couple who does one big non-European
trip every year; some Swiss boys (one very hot Swiss boy, but very jaded) finishing
up a study program in Moscow, a man from Holland visiting Uzbekistan just to go to a
museum filled with Soviet Art in Nukus, another British guy on a two-person tour,
and another Swiss man on a long tour through Central Asia- he had even been to Talas!
When trading travel itineraries, it was gratifying to be able to one-up everyone and
say, "Actually, we've living in Central Asia for a year and a half." I'll never
again be in a crowd where I can achieve such an aura of mystique.
I really need to use this capital to my advantage while I have it, somehow. I
felt that my living experiences and their travel experiences couldn't be more
different. Uzbekistan was vacation for me and for them; I didn't stay there long
enough to have to deal with the challenges, trials, and boredom of living there,
and neither did they.
Uzbek people seemed to have more of a sense of dignity and national pride than
Kyrgyz people. More people could speak English with us. They were also more
willing to try to rip off tourists, probably because Uzbekistan is almost as
poor as Kyrgyzstan but has an actual tourist industry. The differences between
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan seemed great, until we met a large group of Uzbek
volunteers. From talking to them I learned that their experiences are very similar
to mine, in terms of cultural frustrations.
One of my favorite activities is planning my post-service trip home. I hope to
travel for two weeks, and then be home a week or so before Christmas. Megan and I
have narrowed down the list to just 30 destinations. When else will I have 6
thousand dollars in my pocket and have no responsibilities?
Ireland is on the list, in conjunction with a trip to Iceland. We'll see.
13. July, 2004
Yesterday I invited Sharon and Joe for lunch. They are the retired couple currently serving as Peace Corps Volunteers in the town of Talas. Megan came the night before to help with the preparation... After taking them on a tour around my village we served sundaes with jam and chocolate (courtesy of S.) made from the pre-made ice cream cones they sell in my store. These were only slightly melted, considering that the electricity had been out all day. Megan says that we should write a cookbook called "Martha Stewart Goes to Kyrgyzstan." Tee hee.
Tomorrow I'm going to pick apricots with Rosa, her family, and another neighbor and her family. We're going to drive there with a horse and cart. The weather has been cold and rainy for the past three days. I love the change... I am enjoying my daily clubs at school. I currently have a handful of good typists. Essengul's daughter, Gulida, has started coming. She's a lovely, lovely young woman. she's the one who's studying Japanese and also speaks fluent English. I wish you could meet her.
I'm making progress with my Russian. Every evening I'm watching a very popular Brazilian soap opera about a Moroccan/Brazilian family; I'm able to understand bits.
Did I tell you that I also helped Rosa's family weed their bean fields one evening? I wasn't a good weeder; I figure I was just there for morale. It was lovely to chat with Rosa about things. I discovered that her husband Kalik is terrified of snakes. There was one in the field and he wouldn't go near it. Rosa said she's also the one to do the mouse-killing in the house...
The "excursion" was great. My student Zamir drove the cart/rode the horse... The Kyrgyz technique for apricot picking is sending one of the boys up the tree to shake it like made. After the hailstorm of apricots has finished falling on our heads, we pick them off the ground. We picked two enormous boxes full. They will make jam with them. They only use jam to sweeten tea here. Rosa will give me some.
We took pictures including one of me looking scared on the horse. Then I amused everyone by falling into the irrigation creek. I thought I could step in it instead of hopping over it, and then help Gulikar's granddaughter across, but it turned out to be waist deep. Whoops! The two women wanted me then and there to take off my pants to wring them out so I wouldn't die of cold. It turned out to be good that I didn't take them off, because I slipped in another stream and coated my soggy self in mud. The I did take off my pants and rinsed them in the streeam. I'm so glad to uphold such highstandards of decorum and grace in front of my students. That's OK; I'm glad to be providing entertainment for the coming years of retelling this story!
Yesterday I invited Sharon and Joe for lunch. They are the retired couple currently serving as Peace Corps Volunteers in the town of Talas. Megan came the night before to help with the preparation... After taking them on a tour around my village we served sundaes with jam and chocolate (courtesy of S.) made from the pre-made ice cream cones they sell in my store. These were only slightly melted, considering that the electricity had been out all day. Megan says that we should write a cookbook called "Martha Stewart Goes to Kyrgyzstan." Tee hee.
Tomorrow I'm going to pick apricots with Rosa, her family, and another neighbor and her family. We're going to drive there with a horse and cart. The weather has been cold and rainy for the past three days. I love the change... I am enjoying my daily clubs at school. I currently have a handful of good typists. Essengul's daughter, Gulida, has started coming. She's a lovely, lovely young woman. she's the one who's studying Japanese and also speaks fluent English. I wish you could meet her.
I'm making progress with my Russian. Every evening I'm watching a very popular Brazilian soap opera about a Moroccan/Brazilian family; I'm able to understand bits.
Did I tell you that I also helped Rosa's family weed their bean fields one evening? I wasn't a good weeder; I figure I was just there for morale. It was lovely to chat with Rosa about things. I discovered that her husband Kalik is terrified of snakes. There was one in the field and he wouldn't go near it. Rosa said she's also the one to do the mouse-killing in the house...
The "excursion" was great. My student Zamir drove the cart/rode the horse... The Kyrgyz technique for apricot picking is sending one of the boys up the tree to shake it like made. After the hailstorm of apricots has finished falling on our heads, we pick them off the ground. We picked two enormous boxes full. They will make jam with them. They only use jam to sweeten tea here. Rosa will give me some.
We took pictures including one of me looking scared on the horse. Then I amused everyone by falling into the irrigation creek. I thought I could step in it instead of hopping over it, and then help Gulikar's granddaughter across, but it turned out to be waist deep. Whoops! The two women wanted me then and there to take off my pants to wring them out so I wouldn't die of cold. It turned out to be good that I didn't take them off, because I slipped in another stream and coated my soggy self in mud. The I did take off my pants and rinsed them in the streeam. I'm so glad to uphold such highstandards of decorum and grace in front of my students. That's OK; I'm glad to be providing entertainment for the coming years of retelling this story!
17. June, 2004
Greetings from Bukhara! It’s 100 degrees, but we are seeing the sights and having a wonderful time. Last night we took the train from Samarkand, it took 7 hours and the Soviet-designed train didn’t have any windows, so it was rather a trial. We spent 3 days in Tashkent, where we stayed in an acquaintance’s apartment. We saw a production of “the barber of Seville” at the opera house for fifty cents, and saw a few mosques. We stayed in a lovely B and B in Samarkand, and the architecture was stunning. There is much to see and do here, we are staying with a PCV, a retired college professor from PA! His experiences seem in many ways similar to ours… We hope to travel to Khiva the day after tomorrow, if we can find a way.
Greetings from Bukhara! It’s 100 degrees, but we are seeing the sights and having a wonderful time. Last night we took the train from Samarkand, it took 7 hours and the Soviet-designed train didn’t have any windows, so it was rather a trial. We spent 3 days in Tashkent, where we stayed in an acquaintance’s apartment. We saw a production of “the barber of Seville” at the opera house for fifty cents, and saw a few mosques. We stayed in a lovely B and B in Samarkand, and the architecture was stunning. There is much to see and do here, we are staying with a PCV, a retired college professor from PA! His experiences seem in many ways similar to ours… We hope to travel to Khiva the day after tomorrow, if we can find a way.
26. May, 2004
Hello from school! I’m writing this letter with no less than five students looking over my shoulder. They are intrigued by my typing skills. I’m here because there’s no electricity at home, and I really wanted to write you a letter. Jusup, Kubanichbek, Jazgul, Nazi, and Akyljan say hello!
Yesterday was the “last bell” ceremony, which is the equivalent of graduation. It was my second (and last!) last bell in Kyrgyzstan! It is strange to think that I won’t see those eleventh graders again in the fall.
I had a very interesting discussion with my host father yesterday. It seems that the argument about the state’s role in providing its citizens with work/food/shelter is universal. I’ve mentioned before about the passivity and defeatism I often see, and the yearning for the older days and the good times of the USSR, when life was easy and everyone had a job, etc. My host family does not fit into that category. They are definitely entrepreneurs.
I asked about why the electricity had been cut. It turns out that one of my neighbors owes 6,000 som in electricity! That amount is impossible to pay. I asked how much it would take to get the electricity turned back on within our power grid, and he said it would take just 100som, or $2.25.
We talked about how before the 1960s, there were actually four villages in the general area of my village now. My current school (which was built in the 40s) was the center of all of these villages. Then, the Soviets introduced some collectivization schemes. The four villages were torn down and rebuilt at the present site. Incidentally, that’s why my school is now at the very edge of the village, and very inconvenient for many students, some of whom walk up to an hour to get to school. Anyway, the importance is that when independence came and the land was parcelled out to the villagers, many ended up with bits of land that are far away from their houses.
Getting back to the electricity- my host father said that he paid the electricity people with grain and potatoes. He always pays on time. He had purchased grain wheat from farmers for 1,500 som, and then sold it to the electricity people for 3,500. He could afford to wait for the price to go up. He said that others accuse him of being greedy. After all, not only does he have two stores, but he also keeps a bunch of sheep and cows, and all his land is productive. So is he greedy, or is he entrepreneurial? I would tend to say entrepreneurial, but certainly his current advantages allow him to continue to capitalize, something that will neve happen for the people whose fall harvest is basically already promised to the electricity people. He says that many people are lazy, and that they allow their land (if it’s far away) to lie fallow rather than farming it. I don’t know what I think. It’s definitely food for thought.
Hello from school! I’m writing this letter with no less than five students looking over my shoulder. They are intrigued by my typing skills. I’m here because there’s no electricity at home, and I really wanted to write you a letter. Jusup, Kubanichbek, Jazgul, Nazi, and Akyljan say hello!
Yesterday was the “last bell” ceremony, which is the equivalent of graduation. It was my second (and last!) last bell in Kyrgyzstan! It is strange to think that I won’t see those eleventh graders again in the fall.
I had a very interesting discussion with my host father yesterday. It seems that the argument about the state’s role in providing its citizens with work/food/shelter is universal. I’ve mentioned before about the passivity and defeatism I often see, and the yearning for the older days and the good times of the USSR, when life was easy and everyone had a job, etc. My host family does not fit into that category. They are definitely entrepreneurs.
I asked about why the electricity had been cut. It turns out that one of my neighbors owes 6,000 som in electricity! That amount is impossible to pay. I asked how much it would take to get the electricity turned back on within our power grid, and he said it would take just 100som, or $2.25.
We talked about how before the 1960s, there were actually four villages in the general area of my village now. My current school (which was built in the 40s) was the center of all of these villages. Then, the Soviets introduced some collectivization schemes. The four villages were torn down and rebuilt at the present site. Incidentally, that’s why my school is now at the very edge of the village, and very inconvenient for many students, some of whom walk up to an hour to get to school. Anyway, the importance is that when independence came and the land was parcelled out to the villagers, many ended up with bits of land that are far away from their houses.
Getting back to the electricity- my host father said that he paid the electricity people with grain and potatoes. He always pays on time. He had purchased grain wheat from farmers for 1,500 som, and then sold it to the electricity people for 3,500. He could afford to wait for the price to go up. He said that others accuse him of being greedy. After all, not only does he have two stores, but he also keeps a bunch of sheep and cows, and all his land is productive. So is he greedy, or is he entrepreneurial? I would tend to say entrepreneurial, but certainly his current advantages allow him to continue to capitalize, something that will neve happen for the people whose fall harvest is basically already promised to the electricity people. He says that many people are lazy, and that they allow their land (if it’s far away) to lie fallow rather than farming it. I don’t know what I think. It’s definitely food for thought.
