Lesson 1: whenever you do something major and then pack lots of bags with stuff worth a lot, both monetarily and personally, count your bags and make sure you have them all.
I’m writing out this blog on a legal pad because I left a bag at the pier and Matt ended up taking it b/c it was mixed in with his stuff and that bag happened to have my laptop in it. Fortunately, we were able to meet up and I was able to get the bag back.
Lesson 2: Numbering the lessons I’ve learned from this voyage is impossible.
109 days, 12 countries, 1 world
Just under four months ago, I set out on a journey, a voyage on a ship, not a cruise on a boat. When I left home, I had no expectations. I had no true knowledge about the places I would be going, I wasn’t sure how I would communicate with people both at home, on the ship, and in the countries, I didn’t know if I’d make friends, how I’d fit in, how to deal with time changes, what it was like to not have constant internet for three and a half months, how to tell friends from home you’d talk to them about once a month and if could only be five minutes, how to barter, what it was like to see an active volcano, how wealth and poverty are the strangest of bedfellows, what love means, what seeing someone from home in the middle of my voyage would feel like, what stepping off the gangway of what had become home for the final time in four months, what it would mean to go around the world.
How do you tell someone what it felt like to sail around the world? Truth is, you can’t. Unless you have been that and done it, the words won’t sound right, the smells won’t be there, the pictures won’t do it justice. But, we try. That’s what I am going to do. The voyage isn’t over, the voyage is just beginning. Sure, I may not be on the MV Explorer anymore, but I still have work to do. This blog won’t simply come to an end b/c I am home. I’ll do my updates on Asia and finish up loose ends (something to do with my boredom.) I want to teach and show people what I did. I’m also going to keep the blog going so that everyone will know what I’m up to. I’m going to be getting involved in the non-for-profits soon which will be an interesting learning experience. I’m also thinking of trying to get involved with student government at my school as well as with the local government to start change. Changes need to be made not just around the world, but also in our own backyard and we can be that change. As a great, yet very humble man once told us during a talk on the ship, “Continue to be idealistic, dream, dream, dream the craziest dreams.” Thanks Archbishop Tutu, I plan on doing just that.
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