SEMESTER AT SEA - FROM
MIAMI TO CUBA
Email #1 - January 29,
2002
This
is the first in a series of reports about my experiences teaching in Semester
at Sea, on a semester-long voyage around the world. I am emailing by satellite from the ship as
we go around the top of South America on our way from Cuba to Brazil. This
report summarizes my experiences in Miami Beach, boarding the ship, the
Bahamas, Cuba, my classes, and shipboard life.
MIAMI
BEACH
My
wife, son, and I flew from Los Angeles to Miami on January 15. We had six large suitcases in addition
to our carryon bags, since I had to bring teaching materials in addition to
clothing and medicines. So we rented a minivan instead of our usual car and drove to
south Miami Beach where we stayed in an inexpensive International Hostel.
The
next morning the deadbolt wouldn't retract so we were trapped in our room.
Fortunately, I had a "Swiss" army knife that I had bought in China
which had a Phillips screwdriver so I was able to take apart the lock and open
the door.
We drove an hour north to see Fort
Lauderdale and walked along the beach where thousands of college students
usually party during spring break.
But in January the beach was almost deserted, except for a young woman
walking in the surf in a bikini talking on a cell phone.
We
found a Borders bookstore where my wife bought some more Harry Potter books and
I got more guidebooks, and then found a Walgreen's which had collapsible deck
chairs, AA batteries, and other last minute things on our shopping list. We drove back to Miami and found the
port where the ship would be, then had dinner at a great deli on 8th and
Washington in Miami Beach.
While
my wife and son went to bed, I explored Miami Beach and found an internet cafe
and a disco called Club Deep. The
streets and disco had fewer people than I expected but I had a great time
anyway.
BOARDING
THE SHIP
We
boarded the ship the next day (January 17) and met the other faculty, staff,
their dependents, and the Work Study students who were helping to convert the
ship from a holiday cruise ship to an onboard campus (setting up the bookstore,
library, computer center, etc.).
For four days we had Orientation meetings to
discuss various aspects of the program, and how best to incorporate into our
classes the fieldtrips we had arranged in the 10 ports we would be
visiting. I was very impressed with
the other faculty -- all interesting people with international experience. I was also impressed with the
staff. I quickly became friends with
many of the others on board.
The
ship stayed in Miami for a couple of days, so on Friday night a group of us
went to Miami Beach and found a street festival with artists' stands, bars, and
live music in the street. Saturday
night we walked to a shopping complex called Bayside, and then returned in time
to celebrate as the ship left the dock.
It was like New Years with everyone cheering and waving at strangers on
the shore.
THE
BAHAMAS
The
next morning (January 20) we were in Nassau. Several of us walked around the town up
to Fort Fincastle on the hill.
There was a striking contrast between the former colonial homes and the
poverty of the descendents of former slaves. Since it was Sunday, downtown was
virtually deserted. Across the Bay,
however, there were many people at the Atlantis luxury hotel and casino, where
we went in the evening to explore and have a drink. The walls of the sunken restaurant were
huge aquariums. I wondered which of
the young people in the casino would be my students on the voyage.
Earlier
that evening there had been a reception for students' parents so they could see
the ship and be reassured by the Captain that safety was his primary
concern. The next morning the
students boarded the ship. As they
checked in, I handed out a questionnaire as part of my cross-cultural research
on attitudes about gender roles, which gave me a chance to see most of the
students.
Also boarding the ship was a professor from the University
of Havana who would travel with us to Cuba and lecture to us about her
country. She was a psychologist
interested in gender roles, and we quickly became friends. She plans to translate my gender roles
questionnaire into Spanish and distribute it to her students. Accompanying her were two students and
two graduates in international relations who came aboard to be resource persons
and process our visas. I spent a
lot of time with them on the ship and later in Cuba.
Our
shipboard community had now grown to include 30 faculty, 36 staff, 44
dependents, 614 college students, 26 senior adults, and 197 crew (cabin and
dining stewards, engine staff, etc), plus our 5 Cuban
guests who would sail only to Havana.
It
was bittersweet as we left Nassau, with students feeling both excited and
apprehensive about the voyage around the world, and parents running alongside
the ship on the shore until they came to the end of the dock and we sailed
away.
CUBA
We
spent the entire next day from 8 AM to 10 PM listening to lectures about the
history, politics, economics, and music of Cuba to prepare us for our
visit. When I woke up at 7 AM the
next morning we were docking in Havana!
We
loaded into air conditioned tour buses and went to the University of Havana for
a welcome reception. After several
speeches, we had an opportunity to meet with Cuban professors, and so I met for
an hour with two economics professors.
Many of the students used the reception as an opportunity to meet Cuban
students, with whom they would hang out, tour the city, and go to nightclubs
during the rest of the stay.
There
were various fieldtrips and tours for which some of us had signed up. My wife
and I went on a tour of the city which included the Capital building, a book
market, and other sights. We ended
up at a hotel where Hemingway had stayed, and had his favorite drink in a bar
on the roof (rum, mint, lime, sugar, and soda).
That
night there was a free concert for us, University of Havana students, and local
high school students. It was in an
outdoor amphitheater in a park not far from the ship. Before the live concert began, Cubans
were dancing in the aisles to recorded music and of course I joined them. We
sat down when several live bands played, including a recent winner of the Latin
Grammy awards. But eventually many of us stood up and danced again!
After
the concert two of my Cuban friends took me and three students to a nightclub
called Casa de la Musica, where we heard two more
live bands perform. Meanwhile my
son went with some American and Cuban students to a disco and didn't get back
until 5 AM!
The
next day, my wife and I went on a fieldtrip with a religion professor to a
Santeria church and museum. Santeria is a fusion of Catholicism with the
religion of the Yoruba who had been brought from Africa as slaves. To convert the slaves, they were told
that their African gods corresponded to Catholic saints. This brought them into the church, but
also allowed them to continue to worship their own gods by calling them
Catholic names. That evening everyone went to a game of baseball, which is
extremely popular in Cuba.
The
following day my wife and I went on a fieldtrip about the educational system in
Cuba. We rode a bus out to the
suburbs to a model elementary school.
We talked with the teachers and then the students performed dances for
us. We then went to an elite high
school which was a boarding school for teenagers from all over the province. There is one in each province. They have
to pass exams at high levels to enter, and then 95% of them are admitted to the
university where their education is free.
When
we returned to the ship everyone boarded buses and had a police escort to a meeting
with Fidel Castro, which had been arranged by the former US ambassador to Cuba
who was on the voyage with us.
Fidel gave a short speech, and then answered questions but spoke more
than an hour answering each question, for a total of 4 hours! This is the fifth semester that Semester
at Sea has gone to Cuba, and the third time that Fidel has spoken to the group.
Afterward there was a reception with a buffet dinner and a live band for
dancing.
On
our final day in Cuba, my wife and I went on a fieldtrip to the Bay of Pigs,
where CIA-trained Cuban exiles from Miami had invaded Cuba in 1961 in an effort
to topple Castro. They were
defeated, and Castro turned to the USSR for support and subsequently declared
that Cuba was a Communist country.
Near the bay was a marsh where we took a boat ride and stopped to see
some crocodiles. That afternoon we
went to a farewell reception sponsored by Fidel where we listened to great live
music and said goodbye to our Cuban friends.
As
we sailed away from Cuba that evening, many of us were sad to leave our new
friends. I consoled some students
by telling them that (1) we can keep in touch with our Cuban friends by email,
(2) we have new people to meet in 9 more ports, and (3) we have Semester at Sea
friends continuing with us on the ship.
MY
CLASSES
The
next morning we all met in the CORE course for a
debriefing on Cuba. CORE is a world geography course that everyone on the ship
attends, which provides background on each of the ports we visit. Two professors lead it, but various
faculty members on the voyage contribute lectures, and there are also Inter-port Lecturers who come on board one port ahead and just
sail to their home port, as did the psychologist from the University of Havana.
In
the afternoon there was an open house in which
students could meet professors to talk about adding their courses. Forty-five students wanted to add my
psychology courses! The classes had been closed at 35, but I ended up letting
about 10 more in each class to accommodate graduating seniors and to increase
the diversity of those in my classes.
I
am teaching three courses: Social Psychology, Diverse Identities, and Gender
& Close Relationships. For each
class I am having students write up a one-page report on their observations in
each port. The first class meeting
we reviewed the course syllabus and spent the rest of the period discussing our
observations of Cuba. The second
class meeting I began lecturing on the course material. My goal is to provide conceptual
frameworks to help students understand and interpret what they experience in
the ports.
Students
take three courses in addition to the CORE course. Each class period lasts 75 minutes. Classes meet any day of the week that we
are at sea. When we are in port we can
go on fieldtrips or travel on our own.
SHIPBOARD
LIFE
The
ship has 8 decks. The faculty,
staff, and senior adults are on the top three decks. The students are on the third through
eighth decks. My wife and I are on
the third deck in a room about 12 feet by 14 feet which has a king-size bed,
two night stands, a sofa, an end table, a small coffee table, a double dresser,
two small closets, and a private bath room with toilette, sink, and tub with
shower. Cabin stewards make the bed and change the towels every day. There is a square window about 2 feet x
2 feet. My son, who is a college student, is in a room with other college
students.
On
the fourth deck is the Union, which has chairs in a circle for several hundred people surrounding a circular dance floor. It is used for the CORE course,
community college, dances, and other events. Community college is a series of
non-credit lectures. The first one
was on Safer Sex presented by an Inter-port Lecturer
who does research on prostitutes in the Caribbean. After her lecture
I conducted a drawing for ten Semester at Sea t-shirts using tickets I had
handed out when students returned my Gender Roles Questionnaire.
Beyond
the Union is the Harbor Grill which serves meals and which opens up to the
outdoor deck area surrounding the swimming pool. The day after we left Cuba, students
began swimming and sunbathing there.
Behind the Union at the front of the ship are the library, computer
center, and Internet cafe. On the
fifth deck is another dining room.
Part of that dining room is walled off to make two classrooms. There are six additional classrooms on
various decks around the ship.
The
daily schedule is as follows:
7:00-8:30
breakfast 8:00-9:15
period 1
9:20-10:40
CORE 10:45-11:30
period 2
12:00-1:30
lunch 11:35-12:50
period 3
12:55-2:10 period 4
2:15-3:30 period 5
3:45-4:50 period 6
6:00-7:30
dinner
8:00-9:00
community college
9:00-
11:00 meetings, programs, dances, etc.
In
addition, there is a happy hour in the Union from 5:00-6:00 PM during which
students can buy beer or wine. The
Harbor Grill sells beer and wine to students from 9:00-11:00 PM. Students are not allowed to bring
alcohol onto the ship or have alcohol in their cabins. There is a full bar in the Observation
Lounge on the top deck which is open only to faculty, staff, and senior
adults. The first night that
alcohol was available, after we left Cuba, it was very crowded, but since then
only a few students have been drinking since they all have homework now.
Students have to have higher than average GPAs to participate in the program,
so they are generally very good students.
[Later in the voyage I conducted an alcohol survey, and learned that
students consumed no more alcohol during the voyage (on the ship plus in port)
than they had at their campus the semester before.]
The
great thing about living on a ship is that it is very easy to meet people and
interact with them often, especially at meals. And the ship is full of
interesting faculty, staff, and students. Some students have told me that they
never see their professors outside of class back home.
However, those who wish solitude have a difficult time finding it, and
after students form couples and then break up it will be difficult for them to
avoid seeing each other! The
"eleventh" culture, besides the cultures of the 10 ports, that we
will be discussing in my classes is the ship! Each voyage develops its own culture
which is different from life on campuses back home. There usually are about
twice as many women as men on Semester at Sea voyages, but on this voyage 73%
of the students are women. That sex
ratio should make for some interesting dynamics.
Needless
to say, I am enjoying the voyage very much. Cheers! Chuck