Home is Where the Heart Is

“The journey ends, the traveler goes home, the book gets written. The result, the travel narrative, implies that it has fixed the place forever. But that is a meaningless conceit, for time passes, the written-about place keeps changing. All you do as a note-taking traveler is nail down your own vagrant mood on a particular trip. The traveling writer can do no more than approximate a country.” (Theroux, Dark Star Safari, 2003, p. 347)

Travel changes us. We go away for a long time, and we return different. Paul Theroux eloquently said, “You never come all the way back.” We have traversed the world across 10 ports, 3 oceans, 100 days, and 24,000 nautical miles. We left from Nassau in the Bahamas to arrive back after a gentle ride across the vast Pacific Ocean in San Diego, California, U.S.A after three and a half months. We have seen so much, the sadness of despair and poverty, our common humanity, the luminous and the mysterious. So much is hard to comprehend and make sense of. The clearing and warming air as we return to California reflects our processing of this voyage as we think back to our random adventures. Our return will be a celebrated homecoming with friends, families and well-wishers announcing our arrival at the American dock.

Our lives are different around the world. Despite the greatest differences the world over, there are many more similarities, as the old cliché reminds us. With different languages, customs, beliefs, behaviors and religions, it is easier to see the variations than our commonalities. But I savored in the humanity—the base human feelings and emotions that are what make us human. Over the course of this voyage, I swapped stories with the Brazilians, drank with the Indians, cried with the Vietnamese and laughed with the Japanese. Underneath our superficial differences, we are one people, one humankind. I tried to blend in and mingle with locals. Indeed, my favorite experiences were not seeing the Taj Mahal or visiting the Great Wall of China or even my African Safari in Kruger National Park, but the people I met along the way. The memorable parts of this journey around the world were the Olympic Committee men in Puerto Rico, Marcelo and Fabio in Rio, Mary-Anne and the Safari bunch in South Africa, the staff fun and craziness in Mauritius, my student friends like Cade and Heath in India, Tin Wein, Sanda and Johnny in Myanmar, Mr. Binh in Vietnam, my Chinese companions on tour in Qingdao and Hirohito at the baseball game in Japan. This is the part I will try never to forget.

Many of us struggle to make meaning from this experience. Where do we go from here? The hardest part is assimilating all of the information, the people and the places from around the world into a new understanding, a new way of seeing our lives and the world. Do we accept our meaningless small role in the world or fight to make a difference? What is the impact of a voyage like this? How have we been altered—our goals, our dreams and our lives? We must give ourselves time—there is no possibility of understanding the richness and power of this voyage in a mere 3.5 months. How much time will it take—a week, a year, two, a decade? Will we forget this bonding experience with new and old friends? How do we share with others who have not experienced and gone through what we shared?

Students are anxious about answering the “question” when they return, having a hard time explaining “how was your trip?” No one word can convey the meaning of the last three and a half months, but we all will try. The stories from this trip won’t come like an avalanche all at once, I explained, but rather triggered with a smell, a memory, a photo, a trigger, a spark. You don’t have to tell it all, I told some students last night, talk about the important, the meaningful, and above all, take your time.

Indeed this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. The reality is that the complexity of life aboard this ship and the adventures over the past four months are indescribable. Rather than failing to give meaning to this in-depth journey, I prefer to break it down to five major components: the shipboard community, the travel, the academics (and for me, the learning and professional experience), the people, and the adventures. Each component reminds me of the good times, the challenges, and the complexity of a voyage that will not and cannot be replicated on land. One student told me about his trip to the War Remnants Museum in Saigon, Vietnam. He was looking at a horrible picture of a soldier grinning as he held up the body of a child, blown up after an attack. “We never smiled,” a older American said standing aside, knocking on his hollow foot. The African American man was a Vietnam Vet who had lost his leg in war. “There were atrocities on both sides,” he reminded the student. This is but one adventure and story of the powerful learning during the course of this voyage.

The world is a busy place. Some of our problems seem so minute and inconsequential compared to the complex widespread issues that are affecting our planet—poverty, racism, healthcare, politics, freedom, war, hatred, etc. I will leave this voyage with not answers, but questions. I will continue my learning and processing, and someday, maybe one day, I will be able to contribute to a solution or two.

I have so many stories that never made this blog. I ask for my friends’ and families’ patience as I continue to process and understand. I know it will take time. All over the world, I tried to explain the complexity of Semester at Sea. Across language barriers, I hoped to convey the power of learning in and outside the classroom. But I’m not sure of my success. Indeed, I have learned so much from this trip, and those that know me know that I have an insatiable appetite to continue my education formally and informally. I’ll try not to bore you with the all of the reflections and recollections over the next few months, trigged by a smell, a sight, a memory.

“The future of humankind,” H.G. Wells said, “is increasingly a race between education and catastrophe.” Through education, the world may be different. We may inspire people to change the world, make a difference on this planet. This is indeed an educational voyage beyond compare, and I hope all travelers learned as much as I did about myself and the big, wide world. There are 192 countries around the world with countless languages, cultures, practices and beliefs. This has been just a tasting—a powerful spark and poignant reminder of the power of travel. Old reminders of this voyage will exist forever, like the smell of Purelle, the music from around the world, and the 1,000 pictures I snapped. Other reminders will be only temporary—the ship’s terrible coffee, the community college topics, the jokes that seemed funny on the ship, but hopefully not the faces and stories of students, adult passengers, staff and faculty. The old cliché reminds us that while the brave may die, the cautious never live. “You miss 100% of the shots you never take,” Wayne Gretsky said. For many people, the possibility of leaving one’s career, loved ones, life, and stable consistency is very scary—this is an opportunity that is out of reach for many folks for different reasons. But Semester at Sea has been an amazing reminder and experience to take chances, and for me, to live each day to be the biggest adventure of your life. Thanks ISE.