The Education of Little Tree

Right now I'm reading an autobiography about a cherokee boy (Little Tree) who was brought up by his grandparents in the Appalachian mountains during the Great Depression.

So far it's all been told from the perspective of a 5 year old as he helps his 70 year old Granpa hide their whiskey still from the law, learns to stop hitting his chin while plowing, cusses with granpa while granma is away...

The book gives you the wisdom of a 70 year old as seen from a 5 year old's perspective. The reading level is considered "Young Adult" so it's a very smooth read, going into detail on some things but keeping things rolling fast enough to hold your attention.

In one of the adventures I just finished Little Tree finds himself 'slickered' out of a hard earned 50 cents when he buys a sick calf from a man claiming to be a christian.

After the calf dies, he has dinner with Granma and Granpa:

While we was eating, Granpa looked at me and said "Ye see, Little Tree, ain't no way of learning, except by letting ye do. Iff'n I had stopped ye from buying the calf, ye'd have always thought ye'd ought to had it. Iff'n I'd told ye to buy it, ye'd blame me fer the calf dying. Ye'll have to learn as ye go."

"Yes, sir," I said.

"Now," Granpa said, "what did ye learn?"

"Well," I said, "I reckin I learned not to trade with Christians."

Granma commenced to laugh. I didn't see hardly anything funny atall about it. Granpa looked dumbstruck; then he laughed so hard he choked on his corn bread. I figgered I had learned something funny but I didn't know what it was.

Ship For World Youth (SWY) Photo Gallery

Hello everyone, welcome to the start of my posts about the Ship For World Youth (SWY) program.

> Enter the SWY18 Photo Gallery <

I am currently in Edmonton, with plans to move to Victoria (British Columbia) by the end of the month.

There are many more SWY stories and photos coming, so be sure to bookmark this blog and check it every day!

For all of the Canadians between 18 - 31 years old reading this, keep in mind that Canada has been chosen to participate in the next SWY, early 2007...

Ship For World Youth (SWY): The basics...

The Nippon Maru , otherwise known as the Ship For World Youth (SWY)

It's difficult to comprehend, but throughout the past 2 months of the Ship For World Youth program I've had no internet access.

No internet access, that means none. Not even one single text message. Our free time at ports of call (Japan, Singapore, India, Kenya and Mauritius) was extremely limited - we're talking 2 hours in each city - and I simply couldn't spend this rare time documenting the adventure instead of living it.

Because of this there's a big discrepancy between what I know about the adventure I've just returned from and what everyone else knows - people know that it was action packed, that I was busy every second of the day, but they don't know what exactly I was so busy with.

Thus, I've got to fill you in on a few of the basics before we can proceed to details and images that have filled my past few months. This post may be kind of dry, as it explains all of the basics of the Ship for World Youth program, but it will help put some of the other SWY related posts in context.

First off, each participant is known as a PY - Participating Youth.

There are JPYs, OPYs, and XPYs - Japanese, Overseas, and Ex-Participating Youth.

The ship had 120 JPYs and 150 OPYs, the overwhelming majority of participants being female.

The purpose of the Ship for World Youth program, aside from public diplomacy for the Japanese government, was to "promote mutual understanding" between different cultures and broaden international horizons of participating youth, and that it did.

Each PY is assigned to one of each of the following:

Course discussion - seminars / workshops on topics such as Economy, Education, Youth Development, Volunteerism and Environment.

Letter groups - groups having one member from each overseas delegation for various activities and administrative functions.

(holding a tennis ball between our foreheads - a letter group activity)

Letter groups met each day and took turns coordinating the daily wake up call, morning assembly, and night patrol.

I was in L grupu. Leadership, Life, Love.

Club activities - clubs coordinated by PYs and held during 'official time' - the majority of these were focused on dances from different cultures, including Japanese Geisha, Soran and Sansa-odori, Polynesian and Mauritian dance, and Japanese drumming.

I joined La Faya, the Mauritian club, and learned to swing my hips like you wouldn't believe.

In addition to course discussion, letter groups and club activities there were:

Voluntary activities - diverse workshops, seminars, films and activities coordinated by participating youth and held on our own time.

Through these I learned about Sho-doh (Japanese calligraphy), photography, group facilitation, trauma psychology, crosscultural sexuality, philosophy for children, the atomic bomb and its aftermaths, yoga, bahraini weaving, the list goes on...

and

Delegation responsibilities - Delegations from each country were responsible for a national presentation and an official party.

Leo (Brazil), Adam and Carlo (Brazil) at the Canada party

The national presentations were very large undertakings, more like shows than presentations. The parties were usually held on the pool deck, with free alcohol, food and dance and games.

The Ship we were on, the Nippon Maru, had 7 floors and was nicer than I expected...

Among amenities were a pool, observation decks, bar, piano lounge, sportsdeck, japanese room, library, store, a 2 story concert hall complete with fancy lights, the grand baths (more on these later) buffet style dining room (unlimited ice cream each lunch) and a stadium-seating style theatre.

(L-grupu celebrating a birthday in the dining hall)

Daily life on the ship...

Started with a wake up call broadcast over the ship radio by a letter group (or sometimes pounded into your door by a letter group) at 7:30.

Breakfast is served from 7:45 - 8:30, and generally slept through by the majority of participants. We eat in a buffet-style dining hall, and the food overall is pretty good for what you can expect on a cruise ship, though 5 out of the 6 selections were usually fried, as they were feeding 300 people 3 times a day.

After the morning wake-up call, the letter group on duty is in charge of creating a Morning assembly, just like elementary school with all of us in the dolphin hall and lined up in tidying little rows. Aside from raising a flag and singing the national anthem of one of the participating countries, they can do whatever they like - play games, do excercizes, break ice, watch videos or slideshows...

(Dolphin Hall - where we had our morning assembly)

Morning Assembly starts at 8:45, and if you aren't there by 9:00 your AGL (assistant group leader) has the undesirable task of waking you up - they did this every morning to make sure no one went missing over night. Marika and Papa, my two AGLs, had this undesirable task on a few occassions. Did I mention I sleep in my underwear?

After morning assembly the schedule for each day would vary, but usually we would do something along the lines of course discussion - for me, Economy. Course discussions were sometimes difficult because of the range of language skills but we played a couple of cool games in my course, which I'll talk about later on.

Following course discussion we would have 2 hours for lunch - most days I would spend the first hour in the pool upstairs and then tanning outside, and then go to eat. If we were lucky there was pizza, and every day there was unlimited ice cream.

After lunch I'd head outside onto the 4th floor deck, an oval that goes around the perimeter of the boat, and share a few Salem lights and lighthearted moments with my smoking friends...

On the 6th floor sports deck

Stomachs and lungs full, it would be time for a club activity. 3 hours of drumming and dancing with the Mauritians for me. I learned to play the "marvanne," a washboard type instrument that has beads inside of it that sound like waves on a beach if you tilt it just right.

After this we would have a letter group meeting, for administrative & social purposes, at the end of which an announcement about "Time Collection" would come on - the Japanese always mix up L and R, so the time correction announcement came across as "time collection."

Everyday the announcer would make this same mistake, so it became a bit of a running joke, culminating in the appearance of The Time Collector at a costume party.

Then came supper, again more fried things but sometimes cool stuff like sushi or spicy french fries... Always a piece of fruit and some kind of square or cake for dessert. Water, coffee & tea to drink. Round and square tables, silk green tablecloths, easy-listening music, constant philipino staff in the background, waiting for a chance to steal your tray away as soon as you leave to refill your tea.

Following supper I'd head to the grand bath, stopping only to whip friends in the hallway with my towel, just in time to watch the sun set out the window as I had my daily cleanse and soak.

(sunset in the middle of the indian ocean)

Evening was generally our free time on the ship, yet there were so many different clubs and presentations and rehearsals and meetings and people that you never really had an evening off, and never really wanted one either.

After going to a presentation, or having a delegation meeting, or watching a film, or teaching an English class it'd be time to hit up the piano lounge, have a few bottles of Asahi and perhaps some sake leftover from a sake tasting, chat things up, eat bland potato chips and dance the night away, smack in the middle of the ocean.

Jenny (Sweden) and Sofia (Greece)

Japan Night and Baraka

January 29, 2006

Earlier this week my letter group came up with a Japanese name for me that's pronounced "Adamu", and consists of three symbols: Asia, Sail, Dream. We were sailing off the coast of Taiwan when they gave me that name - how cool is that?

Yesterday I went to the Sho-Doh club - Japanese calligraphy using brushes and charcoal ink - and one of the girls made me a sign with the symbols for "adamu" on it.

As of yet I have no tattoos, simply because I could never come up with anything worthy of my skin, but I think I've now found a strong candidate...

After Singapore our schedule on ship calmed for a few days, giving us a bit more of a flexible schedule.

The pool has opened on the 7th floor, and each day before lunch I go for a dip, then gaze up into the blue sky while tanning on the deck and thinking about how unreal this all is.

Although the pool is nice, the Grand Bath is truly something else.

Part of Japanese culture is a love of bathing - in their houses they have a special bath / shower room where you have a shower on a hose and a stool to sit on while you wash and rinse yourself, and then get into the tub to soak for a bit.

The reason you wash outside of the bath is because the next family member will be using the same bath water to soak in once you're done.

The Grand Bath is essentially a larger version of this, with separate baths for men and women.

You come into one room, undress (yes, completely) and go into a room that has a series of stool / shower stalls, two hot tubs, and a door to a very hot sauna.

Aside from being a far superior alternative to the tiny, smelly shower in the airplane-sized washroom in our cabins, the grand bath serves as a unique place to socialize.

The altered blood pressure from the heat, the literal nakedness and seperation from the opposite sex work together to bring out things we don't always hear from the usually shy Japanese participants. Like songs.

In addition to a national presentation, each delegation onboard throws a party separate from the presentation which usually involves food, alcohol, and dancing.

Lots, and lots of dancing... in fact if anything that's what I'd say is our number one means of passing time onboard the Nippon Maru.

Last night Japan had it's party, with sake and plum wine, along with rice cakes (a chewy, gummy snack served covered in peanut dust), japanese guitar and many other edible and auditory treats.

As the formal part of the party was winding down a friend asked if I was going to come watch a movie playing downstairs, called Baraka.

Those that know me well can probably guess my answer: I can rent a movie any time, why would I bother watching one now?

Had the friend not been a rather fetching blonde I would have stuck to my guns, but a few minutes later I found myself in the theatre, mesmerized.

Baraka is a feature length film without dialouge or commentary - simply sounds and breathtaking images from every corner of the globe. And when I say breathtaking I mean you'll find yourself gasping for air as you soak it in.

What made my experience so unique that evening however, was something that I nearly overlooked - if I would have just rented the movie at home I would have missed the experience of taking in these images in a roomful of people who actually knew what I was seeing.

This was shown through subtle ways - a single pair of hands clapping in the bottom of the theatre as a man jumps in a trance on the screen. The tribes in the film, the intricate insides of mosques, the sacred scenery - new and unbelievable to my eyes, but home to my companions.

It was quite something to have friends around to ask about what I had just seen immediately after the film.

After Baraka I went back up to the piano lounge and enjoyed a few bottles of duty-free Asahi (Japanese beer - by the way alcohol is duty-free on the ship), danced up a storm and then headed out the sports deck where I found 5 of my favourite Japanese friends singing japanese songs, as if they were gathered around an imaginary campfire...

After watching and listening to them for a while they started signing english songs so I could join in. Once we ran out of Abba and the Beatles we ended up singing songs I sang in kindergarten and haven't used for over a decade - head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes...

If you're happy and you know it clap your hands.

Snap shot of an evening on the ship

Jan 26, 2006

It's 10 pm our time and I'm writing from the 7th floor of our ship in a view point called the Sky Veranda.

Through a set of doors from the room I'm in is the pool deck, where people are practicing Japanese drumming.

On the 6th floor is the Piano Lounge which also doubles as our bar, on the 5th our advisors are having a lively meeting while the Brazillians rehearse their national dance...

On the 4th floor is the Dolphin Lounge, where I just came from, and witnessed an utterly mindblowing piano solo as part of an exhibition of various music and dance talent on our ship called "No Music, No Life" - I never knew fingers could move so fast.

The 3rd floor has all of the girls cabins and the grand bath, where people bathe and then soak together in the nude, and on the second floor there are people dancing Capoeira in a small foyer in front of our dining hall.

On the first floor, which consists solely of storage rooms, the participants from Bahrain are making some sort of crafts in the hallway, presumably to give away to us all at some point.

The talent and human resources on this ship are simply amazing.

On Monday I had lunch with a life coach to learn about her trade, today I lunched with my economy advisor, Tadashi Yamada (published in a collection of the 40 most globally influential essays on economy), and last night I drank beer with a girl from Austrailia about to embark on a PhD in Clinical Psychology, specializing in trauma.

Today we spent time our time in free discussion and sports and recreation.

I chose "love" as my topic for free discussion, and found myself in fast paced discussion with Asha from Kenya, Jimmy from Mauritius and Victoria from Tonga.

The sports and recreation segment more resembled an elementary school's version of track and field - we played games where one person was blindfolded, and our team had to tell him where to sit so that he could squash a balloon.

In "The Clothesline" we had to see how long of a line we could make simply by tying together pieces of our clothes - Sara from Sweden gave us an extra edge by adding her shirt to the line.

Everywhere you go, every corner you turn, there’s someone to say hi to, someone’s hand to shake. In total we’ll spend 43 days on this ship - 6 weeks - but when we leave we’ll have lived far more than 43 days.

Time here is somehow accelerated, we’re doing so much more in a given day, interacting with each other so many more times than we ever possibly could if we were on land.

There’s a small gay community that’s starting to develop, making people from the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain nervous.

Last night we gave the Canadian National Presentation and literally blew everyone away.

Seriously, the show we gave was near broadway quality, thanks in no small part to Mylene from Quebec (who has performed with the Cirque du Soleil). People were crying, telling us we moved them even more than the surreal presentation Japan’s 120 delegates delivered.

I’ve had at least 3 people tell me how much they want to move to Canada, now that they understand what multiculturalism is all about. Pretty good for 12 people who were strangers less than 2 weeks ago. (If all goes well I’ll be able to bring home a video of this)

Aside from the other Canadians I’ve connected particularly well with the Swedish delegation - they think it’s the Norwegian blood circulating my system, and I’m not inclined to disagree.

Tomorrow we spend the day in Singapore while the ship refuels, and then set sail again for Chennai, India.

Tonight all of the external doors are locked and lights are shut off, as we sail through a small corridor ridden with pirates, on our way to India from Singapore.

I’m looking forward to lying on my bottom bunk and being gently rocked to sleep by the waves.