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April 6, 2005 |
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A Life-Altering Experience: By Blythe Wyatt (a member of the CUA class of 2006, writing this in mid-voyage) "Some experiences simply do not translate. You have to go to know." Ever since that July 2004 Metro ride when a student described her Semester at Sea experience to me, I knew it was a study-abroad program shaped specifically for me. Visiting nine countries — South Korea, Japan, China (and Hong Kong), Vietnam, India, Kenya, South Africa, Brazil and Venezuela — by way of a ship inhabited by some of America’s brightest professors and students. How could I pass up an opportunity to see the world at the age of 21? Semester at Sea is a program created by the Institute of Shipboard Education, run through the University of Pittsburgh.
The hard work paid off. I was accepted and signed up for the following classes, each of which is focused on the countries we were to visit: Animal Behavior, Women and Literature, History of Modern China, and Global Studies (the latter being a required class that presents the history of each country we would be visiting). I settled in nicely on the ship in mid-January and, according to our itinerary, we would be at sea for two weeks before we reached Korea. But the sea held some surprises since we were heading through what some consider the roughest winter waters of the world — the northern Pacific Ocean. A few days after our departure from Vancouver, we were dodging thousand-mile-wide storms and waves that tossed our cruise liner around like a plastic toy tugboat. Talk about seasickness! For two weeks straight we were not allowed outside because it was too dangerous. Nights were something that none of us looked forward to because of objects crashing and falling, drawers and doors slamming open and shut. At 3 a.m. on the morning of Jan. 27, the wind raged at more than 116 miles per hour as we crossed the international date line. At that hour, a wave more than 50 feet high hit our ship with such force that it blew out the bridge window in front of the captain’s chair and killed electrical power throughout the ship. The engines failed and our ship was forced to send out a call of distress to the Coast Guard and to merchant ships in the area. When the wave hit, its force was strong enough to put our very large cruise liner at a 45-degree angle. When this happened, it threw most of us across our rooms, along with everything else that was detachable. Anything and everything in drawers and on shelves was thrown as the boat began to “roll.” It was extremely terrifying. Afterwards everyone sat jam-packed in the hallways and the open foyer in our life jackets, waiting for what the next step would be. There were only a few minor injuries, and students, faculty and crew pulled together to make the experience as nonfrightening as possible. The ship had sustained too much damage to continue to Korea and we sailed south to Honolulu for damage assessment. The media coverage waiting for us to reach Hawaii was extensive. “Good Morning America,” “Inside Edition,” CNN, ABC, and others covered our experiences. Our unexpected two weeks in Hawaii was a time of de-stressing after the terror of the stormy days leading up to “The Day,” as we all call it. But the ship was soon repaired and the Semester at Sea organization decided to delete Korea and Japan from our itinerary because of the time schedule and fly all of us from Honolulu to China, China to Hong Kong, and Hong Kong to Vietnam. Then the ship met us in Vietnam to continue the rest of our voyage by sea. Trying to explain to family and friends about the storm and about my experience in each country we’ve visited so far is quite a challenge. How do you explain what it feels like to be on a liner that seemed ready to roll onto its side? How do you put into words that initial step onto China when you realize that you are now halfway around the world? How do you explain the colors and sounds of downtown Hong Kong? How do you put into words the worst of smells and best of colors of India? How do you describe the pain of sitting in a makeshift palm hut with a woman who just lost her entire family to the tsunami? How do you put into words the love you feel in an orphanage for mentally disabled children in China? The answer is simply that you cannot, and will never be able to completely.
What I am learning from this trip is appreciation, a humbled respect for the awe of how small we are in this very big world. I have made friends and become part of a family in India. I have played peek-a-boo in an orphanage with mentally disabled children. I have had an intellectual conversation with female doctors in Shanghai concerning China's one-child policy. I have cried the hardest; I have laughed the hardest. I have found lifelong friends on this boat. I have been terrified to the point of fearing for my life. All of that has added to my learning. More than anything else, I am gaining a new appreciation for my life as a whole — including all of my freedoms as an American woman who can make her own decisions. I passionately feel it is vital for people my age to step outside of our comfort “bubbles” and see the world in the context of how others live, not how we think others live. We need to see just how small we are in the context of the billions of other humans out there. We need to see how people survive and how families live and work as one solid, unbreakable unit. We need to step back and, in silent gratitude, come to cherish and be thankful for our freedoms and the abundant life we very often do not realize we have. When I return home, I will return to my normal everyday life — an apartment, my job and classes. Within I will be different. I will see something as small as a clothing tag that reads “Made in China” and it will remind me of my time in Shanghai. I will hear a song played in a bar and it will bring a smile to my face because it will remind me of my good friend, Rabbi, in India and the night in Chennai I spent with her and her friends. My time thus far on Semester at Sea Spring 2005 has opened my mind to different cultures, philosophies and worldviews. I believe that travel dissolves the stains of prejudice that infect our hearts and societies. Any money spent on travel is money well spent on an education that I will never receive from a book or in a classroom. And I don’t plan on stopping now. There is still so much more of the world I will see in this lifetime. My heart has grown and my mind has expanded. I am forever changed as an American, a student, a woman and a human being.
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