We were lulled by the gentle rocking of the ship over night to Encinada and another beautiful day. We disembarked to avoid the 650 or more students who had been bussed from San Diego and were dragging luggage aboard, trying to get to their cabins before they, like us in the days before had to attend multiple meetings and try to get oriented. They had been traveling and were already exhausted, yet they were trained in shipboard safety and had a safety drill (and we all stood on the deck for over an hour) and had to figure out their schedules, the common class requirements, the port experiences and selections—and get settled and meet their roommates! I felt sorry for them but they were still full of high spirits and were friendly and fun.
Meanwhile in Encinada, Tom and I with another couple, Val and Roger Vetter who are ethnomusicologists from Grinell, Iowa, , went to explore. We found a church festival and Roger donated money to the car raffle instead of buying tickets and astonished the young woman who couldn’t understand our less than rudimentary Spanish. The church was packed with it seemed the 7th mass of the day and all the parishioners were dressed in Sunday best. We didn’t interrupt the service but wandered down the street to find lunch. We found a restaurant just down the block and by pointing at our neighbor’s plates ordered what turned out to be wonderful meals—chicken mole, salads, rice, refried beans and grilled huge shrimp wrapped in bacon. Mui bueno! (an example of our less than rudimentary Spanish)! It must have been a sports restaurant as the family beside us watched and laughed at what surely were reruns of 1950s World-wide Wrestling. The two small boys giggled throughout and ate very little of their food.
After excellent service by every waiter in the place we said our “Adios’s” and strolled down to the ocean toward Sunday holiday markets and entertainments. We walked through the (odiferous) fish market and saw piles of silvery fish, rows of jumbo shrimp, scary looking eels and huge squid tentacles. Outside, whole families, groups of flirting teens, and old people with canes thronged the market booths of beads and belts, of sea shells and scarves, of masks (of wrestling heroes) and make-up. One stand sold Mexican honey.
We returned to the ship a bit sunburned and tired with just a taste of Mexico and its flavors tucked away.
On Monday, students were busy with more meetings---and many of us on the ship were busy (including me but not Tom) dealing with sea sickness! And the seas had been very calm although our stomachs weren’t believing this. With wrist bands and a kind of Dramamine and our new “pulsing” wristbands most of us had just this day of misery and were feeling better by today, the first day of classes. Tom taught two of his classes today: Coming of Age Literature (of the countries we’ll visit) and Intergroup Dialogues—the premise of which is learning about oneself’s ethnic, racial, religious, and value-laden identity before one can understand those who are “other” than ourselves. He was pleased with both. Tomorrow the real test comes: can we successfully collaborate and teach a creative non-fiction course?!! Today I sat in on two courses that I’ll be auditing: The Anthropology of Religion (I know, I know—can you believe it?!) and an Asian Art and Architecture course.
For my museum friends and others who are interested., before we sailed my sister-in-law gave me a copy of the Los Angeles Times that had a pretty large article on the opening of our glass pavilion. Part of it stated “…there is strength in the pavilion’s restraint and an undeniable perfectionism. Architecture like this is a high-wire act….though fixed in place, (the panels of glass )are slotted into serpentine tracks that run along the ceiling and the floor. Though fixed in place, they appear, in a stunning visual trick to have been pulled through the building like curtains….even the smallest amount of color thrums in these surroundings.” Please let me hear from you all about the new building and your beginning docent work either on our blog or on my regular email. I can’t answer you all separately because we have limited internet time but I do want to keep up with goings on in your lives! This goes without saying about our other friends as well! What’s happenng? We want to keep up.
I’m missing everyone but each day is more and more exciting—and it’s still a bit surreal to be on this ship with others to take care of our cleaning and cooking—and to be traveling to so many ports in far-flung places of the world.
Tomorrow is Wednesday—and we’re turning our clocks back for the first time tonight –with many, many more time changes to come. We reach Hawaii on Sunday. So Aloha. D.
