My face was drenched with tears and the short gasping noises I was making— in my failed attempts to stifle my crying —were in fact telling on me. Seated on a packed airplane mid-flight, I turned my head toward my window, snapped a picture and breathed. My flight from New York was about to land in Vancouver B.C.
I was 20yrs old, a Harlem New York City girl, a senior in college, and heading to Vancouver to board a massive seafaring vessel on which I would spend the next three months. I’d begged my mother to let me go on this semester at sea— which was, in fact, a liberal arts study abroad program housed on a ship that circumnavigates the world while teaching college courses and porting in cities around the world... literally.
My feelings were complicated. I was excited, wildly curious and so ready to see the world on its own terms and mine. Yet I was also feeling overwhelmed by all of it too. What in the actual world had I gotten myself into?
my semester at sea
Vancouver B.C. · Kobe, Japan · Keelung, Taiwan · Hong Kong · Macao · Penang, Malaysia · Chennai, India · Pondicherry, India · Cairo, Egypt · Odessa, Ukraine · Moscow, Russia · Split, Yugoslavia · Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia · Cadiz, Spain · Seville, Spain · Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Alas, together with a few hundred strangers our ship set out from the port of Vancouver and headed westward around the world. We had class lectures every day while at sea but in port our “field study” began— which could be in groups, alone, organized or improvised. As long as we wrote our papers and did field research, we were mostly left to our own devices in port.
In Kobe Japan a couple friends and I slept in a dojo with local students— hanging out all night long eating local snacks and sharing experiences. In Chennai India, some of us sat down with a group of peer women college students who were detailing their resistance efforts to the caste system. At the American Embassy in Chennai, I voted in my first-ever U.S. Presidential election— an amazing feeling!
When arriving in the port city of Odessa (Ukraine), I flew to Moscow with a few other students and chaperones.
Moscow felt other-worldly in ways that were hard to describe. A friend and I moved through Red Square, a rather sparse mall, stopped for a meal and meandered through the streets.
At some point, a couple of us happened into a smattering of mingling locals and across the room I saw a Black woman with something of an afro. When I moved in her general area, I could hear her speaking Russian with those around her naturally. Ever curious, I hovered close by to see if I might be able to say hello when their conversation lapsed. She seemed off-put at first. (I mean, I WAS hovering :). I wasn’t cool about it nor casual either. I was so clearly a stranger and so openly excited to connect. She obliged! We did our best to speak across the chasm of our differing primary languages —an African-American and an African-Russian. We didn’t snap a picture nor linger in conversation for long. For me, it was a cultural touchstone moment, a brush with the Diaspora and a reflection of all of our shared humanity. We (people of African descent) are everywhere… almost.
By this point in the journey, I’d grown more accustomed to navigating what certainly appeared to be homogenous societies. I almost envied the experience of seeing images of one culture everywhere you looked— in government, on television, on billboards, in stores, walking down streets. I was fascinated by the newness of it. But seeing people of African descent always made me want to hug and high-five :).
My experiences overseas— delving into unique expressions of beauty and culture, exploring societal structures, living at sea, wrestling with seemingly worldwide caste systems, asking myself hard questions, shaping my beliefs, eating new foods, broadening my understanding... It all changed me.
I returned to my college campus in Middletown CT and walked through the remainder of my senior year on the sheer giddiness of this entire experience and carrying an insatiable drive to keep learning.
In that spirit, after graduation when I returned to New York, I made an appointment with a Harlem barbershop and asked them to buzz cut my near-shoulder length hair down to its coiled roots.
I felt freer. Liberated from the singular way I’d shown up in the world for so long. It was odd. I had traveled all around the world and one of my most compelling discoveries was a clearer sense of myself; and also that no matter what… no matter where… no matter who… We were all much more alike than we were different. Also, the world felt like a much more intimate place than I’d ever imagined.