Onboard the Nippon Maru - Jan 18, 2006

8 floors, 2 theatres, piano lounge, swimming pool and a bar...

As soon as we got onboard the Nippon Maru, our cruise ship, I started noticing participants that I hadn't seen before, and realised the strength of this unique model of an exchange program:

acting as a confined space, the ship keeps everyone in what is essentially one giant room, and as such becomes a smaller model of the world.

We're stuck in this thing together, and our well being depends on each other - there is no such thing as independence, and to function we have to learn the meaning of the word interdependence.

For the record, the delegations participating in SWY 18 are:

• Austrailia
• Bahrain
• Brazil
• Canada
• Greece
• India
• Japan
• Kenya
• Mauritius (near Madagascar)
• Morrocco
• Sweden
• Tonga (near Fiji)
• United Arab Emirates

There are 120 Japanese youth on board and 12 from each other delegation (in total, 150 non-japanese participants, meaning 270 participants in all) with ages ranging from 18 - 31.

It's worth noting that our national leader was overwhelmed with comments about how good-looking the Canadian delegation was after our welcoming reception in Tokyo, and I think we've even got the Swedes and the Greeks beat.

The working language on board is English (or, as often heard, Engrish), although there are less than 20 native english speakers here.

One of the first things we've noticed is that it's difficult to find alone time here. While there's a variety of rooms and different types of spaces, there's no retreat that is really your own, other than the mattress on your bed and the shelter your blanket provides. There are 3 people per room, and I am with Daisuke from Japan and Toti from Tonga. Daisuke works in multimedia and as a lighting technician for film, and Toti is the strong but silent type with a fondness for an early morning cup of sake.

One of my favourite moments so far was helping Daisuke understand a t-shirt of his, which was for a mock septic tank company. Although he knew what a septic tank was, my explanation of the phrase "We're # 1 with your # 2" helped bring new meaning to the shirt.

As a confined space, away from all of our normal distractions and indulgences, it's clear that the Nippon Maru is a tremendous opportunity for personal development and transformation. Within hours of getting on board healthy thoughts of finally finding that productive morning person I know is hidden somewhere deep inside of me started to emerge...

As part of our responsibility to contribute to the Nippon Maru experience each delegation is responsible for putting together a national presentation that covers the history, culture and current issues of their country. In an effort to get things out of the way we signed up to do ours within the first week, right after Japan and Austrailia. With a full-sized theatre hall and all of the lights and stage equipment that come with it these are big-scale productions, and preparing for the presentation in the limited free time we have has put a lot of stress on our Canadian delegation, which has lead to our second big crisis.

Over 350 people applied for the 12 spots on the Canadian delegation, and as a result we've got some very talented and strong leaders in our delegation - leading to what I call "too many leaders syndrome." The stress of organizing our presentation, along with an unfamilliar environment full of strangers, 2nd languages and cultures entirely different from our own has lead to misunderstandings, hurt feelings and anxiety about the next 43 days we'll spend together.

On a personal level I'm doing fantastic - having been in so many similar situations previously I've made excellent relationships with everyone in our group, and have found a good place as a stabilizer of our dynamic. Yesterday we had a 'lay-it-all-out' session that went late into the night. Our national leader was bed-ridden with sea-sickness, which meant we had to resolve unspoken issues on our own. Mom would have been proud of my peacekeeping contributions. In particular everyone really liked an analogy I made of building muscle: only after you've torn the tissue apart from every possible angle does it get stronger and grow tight.

As I write this our first 24 hours sailing on the sea are coming to a close. We've been sailing relatively close to land up until now, following the outer coast of Japan on our way to India with a stop in Singapore in 6 days. I'm looking out the window and all I see is water as far as the eye can reach. I feel good about this ship, about our delegation, and I know it's going to be very difficult to eventually step back into the world we once knew.