the archbishop & gloria

Sitting at breakfast this morning, there was the Archbishop. Just standing there walking through the cafeteria line. I'd comment that one of the crew took his tray and walked him to the table, but they do that for us as well. For a little while, he was sitting there alone until people started to notice and came up to introduce themselves and join him. He has an amazing laugh, you can hear him from afar on the ship. The library/computer lab area is a mezzanine above the area called "Purser's Square" where the reception desk is and the administrative offices. (It’s a circle, not a square, but nevermind that little detail.) It's a little echo-y, so you can hear what's said above from below (if your voice carries, like mine definitely does!) or vice versa. The Archbishop's laugh definitely carries. It’s raw & joyful. Leah Tutu will also be here for part of the voyage, but she won’t be boarding until Cape Town, as she is recovering from knee replacement surgery. We didn't see him in the library today, but I imagine we will. The fancy reception/dinner was tonight. I'm sitting in the computer lab and watching the fancy-dressed people tour the ship as I write ....

today we were anchored, as opposed to puttering. We just sort of hung out in the middle of the blue, blue water.

Our workstudy students started and that was fun, if chaotic. We taught them to configure their laptops so that they could help others. Then, Sherri took 3 of them and showed them basic library operations and I took the other two and we scanned course reserves in the multimedia lab for faculty who didn't submit requests up-front through UVA. The multimedia lab is very swanky -- there will be a professionally-done voyage video and the yearbook, etc., created in the lab. High-end computers with rolling chairs. I comment on the rolling chairs because Erika told me that the reason we don't have rolling chairs in the library was that this is a moving vessel ... But, the swanky multimedia lab does have rolling chairs. They also have carpet, which I imagine helps. The scanning is slow going, but progress is being made from the stack of books we have been given. We've also been sending article requests back to UVA for scanning & will continue to do that as well. The reading for these classes is quite impressive. Both quality & quantity. The class list is available here. There are a whole bunch of classes I wish I could take. There are a good number of classes with a gender studies/women's studies emphasis, there are two travel writing classes I would love to take -- especially with all the blogging -- Writing about Travel and Expository Writing: Culture and Ideology of the Physical and Mental Traveler, and some really interesting religion classes, including Spirit Possession and Ethnography and Mysticism and Religious Experience.

I thought I’d start telling you about some of the people aboard. First off, there’s Gloria who is an anthropology professor. She worked in Vermont for many many years, but now she is living in Pittsburgh where her son & daughter-in-law will have a second baby while Gloria is at sea. She is from southwest Philadelphia, where her father pushed a fruit cart, but she left when she was 19. Gloria does research consulting & teaches as an adjunct at Pitt. She has done much of her research in Panama and for SAS, she is teaching Field Research Methods, Gender, Class, Race-Ethnicity, and Social Change, and Development: Local to Global Perspectives. Gloria lost a box that was shipped to us in Fort Lauderdale and arrived at the warehouse but not to the ship. She lost several precious books – both personally & those needed for class – so we’re trying very hard to help her reassemble materials. She also lost a towel (blanket?) that she took to the field for every project she’s ever gone on. She’s obviously very sad about that, but says she’ll get over it. We know that boxes that miss one port sometimes make the next, so there may also still be hope. Gloria journals when she’s in the field and she has about 70 people on her email list. A few of them have been published. Although she is not one of the travel-writing professors, I’m taking tips from her as well. I also want to be added to her email list!