bon voyage

We have set sail! After getting all of the students on the ship and getting all of their family members off, we left the Bahamas, and as we sailed away, the sun set behind us. It was amazing! I have just completed my first meeting with my sea, the Baltic Sea. I know people find this hard to believe, but I get really nervous about these things and worried that the students won’t like me, but I think the first impression was a good one. I am definitely excited for this experience. It really will be a challenge to go back in time and step away from being in my typical Residence Director role and move toward being in a role more similar to an RA. And with 76 residents, I’m freaking out about knowing their names soon enough!

These were all the highlights of my day. The low light was an interaction I had with a resident with extreme racist views and opinions. This student is a white student who was paired to room with a black student. The white student came to me in tears because she said she could not live with “one of those people.” We had a long conversation, where she shared many of her reasons why she had this feeling, none of which she could articulate better than, “I just can’t.” She ended up talking to my supervisor and the deans of the voyage, but after this interaction, I was left with this very saddened feeling. I know that racism and sexism and heterosexism and classism are all a prevalent part of our world, but I am fortunate enough to spend most of my time around people who are eager to educate themselves and others in an effort to break down these biases and move toward more understanding. To come face to face with such blatant hate and prejudice was disheartening…even frightening. Of course, as I type these words, I can hear my grandmother sighing in frustration and calling me a damn liberal, but that’s okay. She can think that. I’m okay with being a liberal if it means caring about these causes and trying to make a difference, even if a small one, so that when Kayla grows up, she’ll live in a world with a little less hate. This student was given the option of not sailing with the voyage (which she claims no one told her would be a cross-cultural experience…one where she’d have to interact with people from other cultures!!) She chose to stay, and I really hope this experience leaves some kind of positive impact on her.

But enough of that. I’m, unfortunately, sure that I’ll come across lots of these types of situations that impact me in similar ways over the next 100 days. For now, I am going to focus on the fun of sailing toward Venezuela, on my second leg of my voyage around the world.