Rock On, MICE!

Yesterday afternoon, the Mobile Interactive Computer Ensemble (MICE) made the most of our brief stop in Singapore and arranged an international concert with students at the National University of Singapore. Dubbed “an international drive-by concert” by MICE’s director, Professor Matthew Burtner, the performance took place while we were anchored and being refueled off of the coast of Singapore.

The performance, which was broadcast through Singapore by the National University of Singapore’s radio station, NUS Radio Pulze, was comprised of four pieces. Before the show began though, Professor Burtner introduced listeners to MICE’s unique style of music and all of us in the Union got to say hello to our counterparts at the National University. Matthew described the performance to the audience as “sound-art pieces that explain the natural environment around us and human interaction with it in new ways.”


First up was Kañja, which had been recorded while the MV Explorer was sailing across the Indian Ocean from East Africa to India. Next was an ensemble for percussion, saxaphone, and computers entitled That which is bodiless is reflected in bodies. The third MICE piece was Sandprints, which MICE performers recorded during our visit to Namibia.

The grand finale was Singapore Beacon, which was specifically designed for this visit. The technology was initially developed by a UVa grad class under Professor Burtner’s direction and was adapted by MICE for this performance. Anyone who was able to download the software created by MICE before the show was able to participate. It basically worked like a computer game. When Matthew gave us the signal, we started the program, which transformed our laptops into instruments and us into musicians. Our computers emitted a beep, or beacon, which we controlled through the MICE program. As we adjusted the tone and pulse, the sound changed and we could explore different pitches and rhythms as we wanted. It was a great experience and thoroughly enjoyed by everyone!

Literature Around the World

Another course aboard the MV Explorer that takes advantage of our unique journey is Professor John Serio’s International Short Stories class. Professor Serio (full bio) is a specialist in modern American poetry and a full professor of Humanities at Clarkson University. He has been the recipient of several NEH grants as well as two Fulbrights, one to Greece and one to Belgium. He is returning to the ship after his first voyage during the Spring 2005 semester.

By reading, discussing, and comparing short stories from around the world, his students are learning about history and culture through a literary lens. The stories often provide a great introduction to the culture and history of the countries we will be sailing to. I read the assigned stories before we arrived in Chennai and I completely agree with Serio’s students. The short stories introduced me to the Indian caste system and tradition of arranged marriages and served as great complements to the pre-port briefings.

Perri Prigoff, a student at Boston University and one of Professor Serio’s students, told me that the stories in class “have introduced us to India and lesser known aspects of some ports’ cultures.” She continued to say that the stories “provide further insight into what we don’t normally see… they show us something more.” When I asked Perri what she felt set this course apart from a similar class offered back at home, she responded, “At home, you’re so far removed from what you’re studying that it doesn’t hit home and it doesn’t seem like its real.” On the ship, students had the opportunity to learn about the caste system and the cultural and social norms of India, and then step into the streets of Chennai, Delhi, and other places and see for themselves how their class studies portrayed real life.

A visit to a port represented in a story can also reinforce what was discussed in class and many times will add new perspectives. Professor Serio told me that his class intertwines different literary elements with discussions of analysis of cultural norms, traditions, and religion, which are an important aspect of revealing the themes of the stories. The class also reflects lessons learned in global studies and other courses because of the necessary background to understand the various settings of the stories. While you can learn the literary aspects of these stories anywhere, there really is no comparison to seeing for yourself what the various authors are discussing and trying to capture in their work.

RIDE

India was not easy. I have never been in as polluted in environment, seen such abject poverty, or been in a city that seemed as chaotic or foreign. The air was grimy and after just a few minutes outside, you began to see your clothes blacken from the coal and soot in the air. Beggars lined the roads and sometimes seemed to come at you from every direction. Little things suddenly seemed complicated. When trying to cross the street, you felt like you had stepped into a game of Frogger, darting auto-rickshaws, cars, bicycles, and trucks that seemed to weave around one another and zip by without any discernible regard to traffic rules. Even settling on a restaurant to grab a quick bite to eat could prove problematic since health standards and foods in India are so different from what we are used to.

Despite the challenges though, India was incredibly rewarding. In no other port have I experienced more genuine warmth and hospitality from my hosts. The welcoming that Semester at Sea Voyagers were given wherever they went was truly incredible and I have never been received with more energy, enthusiasm, and excitement than I was on my SAS service-visits in India. As much as Chennai could be frustrating and disheartening at times, you would more often find yourself being invited to someone’s home for dinner, answering friendly questions about life in the United States or receiving assistance from complete strangers. I often found myself returning to the words that our Indian interport lecturer, Dr. Hamsapriya, said to me and that I reported in an earlier post. “For those on the trips that involve human contact, they find that people are very open, generous, friendly, and go out of their way to do things for students.”


During our post-port reflection session yesterday evening, the general themes of kindness and hospitality were juxtaposed with the poverty and a general difficulty of being able to mentally digest what was seen in India. Through all of the experiences that were recounted by students and shared since our return to the MV Explorer, the question being grappled with by all is, “What now?”

How do we help? Can we help? Towards the end of post-port, one student pointed out that learning from each other and spreading awareness is the first step. The first experience that I would like to share is an overnight service project that I participated in with about 25 other SAS voyagers. The trip focused on learning about child labor and life in rural India.


On our first afternoon, we traveled to Kanchipuram, located about two hours away from Chennai. Our first stop was a school operated by the Rural Institute for Development Education (RIDE) that serves as a “bridge school,” which transitions children out of labor and into school. To give you a brief background on what I found to be a remarkable organization, RIDE was founded in 1984 as an NGO “dedicated to empowering poor and disadvantaged residents of rural Tamil Nadu (the Indian state Chennai is located in) to improve the quality of their lives,” as described in their mission statement. The organization's motto is “Help Others Help Themselves,” and it operates under the concept that “people cannot be developed but they can develop themselves, if they have access to education, counseling, guidance, resources, and opportunities.”

RIDE uses a two-pronged approach to address poverty and child labor in Tamil Nadu. First, there is the education of children, which we witnessed at the Bridge School. We received an incredible welcome from the students, teachers, and director of RIDE, S. Jeyaraj. As we were led into the school compound by a swarm of excited children who were singing and excitedly running all around us, Jeyaraj began to explain how RIDE strives to empower children and families through education. The impact that we could make began to sink in when we were led to the first school building, where a sign hung outside, “Donated by Semester at Sea, USA.”


RIDE is able to fund two thirds of the education of all of its students and parents cover the remaining the costs. From what we could see, the children have quite an extensive curriculum. During presentations they made for us, the Indian students covered topics such as their national freedom fighters, world history, the planets, solar and lunar eclipses, and the composition of soil. The students also spoke great English and it was wonderful to see what they were learning.



In addition to these students, who had been fully rescued from child labor, we met a second group of children who were not as fortunate. These kids, ranging in age from 5 to about 10 years old still work in stone quarries, and had put in about six hours of work earlier that day. They attend classes when they can sneak away and RIDE even offers courses and lunch at the quarries when possible. I had trouble imagining what kind of work they could even be doing at a quarry, and I learned that they are used to hammer larger stones into gravel, which is then used for building roads and sometimes in construction projects. Those that are strong enough also carry the smaller loads at the work site.

In most cases, the entire family works at the quarry together – parents and children. There is just no other way to survive unless the entire family is earning money. Some opted out of government schools, where beatings from teachers can be a regular occurrence. The second part of RIDE’s education program, in addition to the Bridge Schools, is the education of villages on consumption, conservation, agriculture, and money management. This is what allows parents to remove their children out of the labor sites and send them to school.


During our second day with RIDE, we visited a village where child labor has been completely eradicated thanks to the organization’s work there. It is estimated that in the past 10 years, child labor in Kanchipuram has been reduced from roughly 40,000 to 4,000. Although these results are incredible, child labor in India is still pervasive throughout the country and continues to be a problem. The village that we visited is an example of how program’s like RIDE can succeed in implementing a solution.


Jeyaraj explained that as the villagers learn to conserve their resources, both natural and monetary, their lives begin to improve. RIDE taught them how to farm sustainably, create their own fish stocks, and set up small businesses and save money. Now, instead of working in the silk looms or quarries for a pittance, most villagers operate their own looms, work in local factories or for multi-national corporations such as Nokia, or farm.

If you would like to learn more about the Rural Institute for Development Education, please visit their website at www.rideindia.org.


Photo #3 by SAS Photographer John Weakley

Article that appeared in the Indian Express

"Painting a new life for slum children"

By Express News Service, 06 Mar 2009 02:48:00 AM IST

Link to Original Article

CHENNAI: For the 450-odd students of Ananthanayaki Primary School, nested amid the shanty town of Vyasarpadi in north Chennai locality, it was nothing less than a pleasant surprise to have foreign students among them.

Around 25 students, reached the city on Thursday in a ship, MV Explorer, as part of their ‘semester at sea’ programme and visited the government-aided primary school and spent a few hours with the students.

During their stay, they also painted 14 classrooms as part of their project work on shore and entertained students with the skills acquired on board.Speaking to Express, K Chinnaswamy, Headmaster of the school, said, “Most of our students, who hail from economically poor background, enjoyed the presence of foreign students and greeted them for being here.” Besides students themselves, it was a surprise for people living along the school premises. They thronged the (school) venue to see them doing painting work and even tried to exchange words of courtesy to student visitors from the US. Mark Lazaroff, the ship’s communication coordinator and who accompanied these 25 students to the school, said, “It was a nice experience for students, since most of them saw India for the first time.”

Ananthanayaki Primary School was established in 1974 at Vyasarpadi to cater to students living in hutments and belonging to the economically weaker sections of society. After having students’ strength in double digits for the first few years, now it has a healthy 400 plus.The ship, Explorer, along with 780 students arrived in the city on Thursday on a five-day visit, and its last port call was at Port Louis, Mauritius. Besides visiting schools and orphanages during their visit, these students are expected to undertake 50 field trips during their stay.

Chennai, India

This morning, the MV Explorer arrived in Chennai, India. Formerly known as Madras, Chennai is the capital of one of India’s 28 states, Tamil Nadu. With a population of roughly 8 million inhabitants, which is about the same as New York City, it is India’s fourth largest city. Chennai is sometimes known as the “Detroit of India,” due to the fact that it is responsible for roughly 60% of the country’s auto exports. It is also India’s second largest exporter of software and information technology. The city is also an important cultural center. It is home to India’s second largest film industry, Kollywood, and Chennai is the site of some of India’s best dance, theater, and art festivals.

Semester at Sea Voyager’s have been privileged to have three wonderful interport lecturers with us since Chennai, who have been introducing us to Indian culture and history. Sneha and Anusha, two Indian university students have been on board the ship as well as Dr. Hamsapriya Srinivasan, an Indian professor in political science.

While this was the first voyage for Sneha and Anusha, Dr. Hamsapriya has been a part of the SAS community for the past twenty years. Her first contact with Semester at Sea was when she was invited by the U.S. Education Institute of India to give a lecture to visiting SAS students. Afterwards, she tagged along with others and visited the ship. The next day, she hosted around 30 Voyagers for lunch and showed them around Chennai. Every year since then, she has helped organize trips for Voyagers on their stops to India, briefed them when they arrived, and she has been an interport lecturer twice.

Dr. Hamsapriya is also an avid supporter of the mission of SAS, and told me that it, “scores hands down on any other education program,” when I asked her how she felt it compared to other study abroad options. India is often cited by Voyagers as the port that impacts them the most during their journey. This will be my first visit to the country but Dr. Hamsapriya conveyed to me that, “The sites, sounds, smells, and crowds hit people as soon as they’re off the ship…but for those on the trips that involve human contact, they find that people are very open, generous, friendly, and go out of their way to do things for students.”


Semester at Sea students also were very interested in talking to Sneha and Anusha to learn more about the lives of Indian university students. They learned that education is extremely important here and is compulsory beginning at age three. Schools are free until you reach the university level and even then, the government provides loans and scholarships, which make the costs extremely low. The two girls were also quick to point out that on average, females in India score much higher on the national exams than males.


Photos by SAS Photographer John Weakley

Vicarious Voyage

In addition to the friends and family members of the Voyagers aboard the MV Explorer, there are hundreds of school children across America and some others around the world who are following this semester’s voyage as well. They are part of Semester at Sea’s Vicarious Voyage, which pairs up classrooms of K-12 students with students, staff, and lifelong learners aboard the ship. It is a unique opportunity for us with SAS to share our experiences with others back home and it offers the students we are corresponding with a far more intriguing way to learn about the world than textbooks can provide.

Classrooms participating in the Vicarious Voyage program range from inner city New York to rural Virginia to the California coast, second grade through seniors, and include ESOL (English as a Second/Other Language) learners of all ages, art classrooms, Teach for America classrooms, Gifted Education programs, and two international classrooms in Thailand and Okinawa, respectively. The SAS Voyagers participating in this program exchange postcards, letters, and emails with their selected classrooms throughout our journey.

SAS Voyagers also send cultural packets to their classrooms that contain interesting items that will help explain the people and cultures of the countries that we are exploring. Amber Tullos, an SAS student from the University of Oklahoma has been corresponding with 21 students in a third grade class at O'Hara Elementary School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At our first “packing party,” where participants in Vicarious Voyage gather together to send out their cultural packets, Amber decided to include newspapers, postcards, maps, and other items that would help, “broaden their understanding of different cultures,” as she told me. She also put together a CD with videos and pictures taken in port, which is something that many of the SAS Voyagers I spoke with are doing. They find it a great way to make their exchanges more personal and the added media provide a great visual accompaniment that will allow Vicarious Voyagers to see more of what we’re seeing than ever before.

Below is a video of our first packing party, enjoy!




Created by SAS Staff Video Producer, Jerry Pratt

Giving Back

An often overlooked but very significant component of Semester at Sea are the service opportunities provided through the International Field Program and some of the independent service projects that students undertake on their own. In most ports, there are often numerous chances to contribute in some way to the local population. Many of the students I have spoken with are continuing the charitable efforts that are part of their normal schedules back home while others are volunteering for the first time.

Why are students choosing to visit a hospital, or an orphanage, or distribute food to the hungry instead of visiting a famous site or maybe visiting a museum? Here are some of their answers:

“To do something beyond yourself.”
“Because we all need help at some point.”
“For a reality check.”
“For the gratefulness in the eyes of those you have helped.”

Two of the most recent projects that Voyagers participated in were Operation Hunger in Cape Town and a visit to the SOS Children’s Village of Bambou in Mauritius.

Operation Hunger
The Townships of South Africa are home to millions. It is estimated that approximately 10,000 people arrive in Cape Town from the Transkei and Ciskei every month in search of work, that in most cases cannot be found. When they arrive, they squat land in the Townships and build shacks out of tin, plastic, cardboard, or any other materials that they can find.

Operation Hunger works to combat malnutrition and promote the dissemination of knowledge about poverty and malnutrition in South Africa. Its integrated development program includes locally managed growth-monitoring programs, targeted food support, water supply, sanitation facilities, health/hygiene education, income generation and livelihood programs, agriculture and food production. Two groups of Semester at Sea Voyagers participated on a program with Operation Hunger on consecutive days in South Africa.

The principal activity of the Voyagers was to help Operation Hunger staff ascertain malnutrition levels by taking weight and arm measurements of Township children and recording the results. The group was so touched by the children they encountered that during the bus ride home, they started a collection amongst themselves and put together over $300 to purchase toys for the Township’s children. These Voyagers also began planting a nursery, which the second group completed. The hope is that the residents there will be able to take these plants once they grow and start their own gardens.


The participants of the second SAS Operation Hunger group were the lucky ones who actually were able to hand out the toys purchased the previous day. After putting the finishing touches on the nursery and taking the malnutrition measurements, the SAS Voyagers spent hours playing with the children as the Operation Hunger staff tabulated the recordings taken by SAS.

After all of the calculations were completed, everyone went to a soup kitchen where the children were to receive their meal, which normally consists of a soup with additional vitamins added in. However, the Semester at Sea Voyagers went into a store and literally bought every loaf of bread available and then took food from their own lunches that they had brought with them to make sandwiches for the children. In the words of Adrienne, a student from UCSD who was there that day, “The smiles we helped put on these kids faces were amazing. All we were doing was playing with them and it brightened up their day…it was completely life changing.”

SOS Children’s Village
The first SOS Children’s Village was opened by an Austrian medical student, Hermann Gmeiner, in Austria in 1949. Today, there are SOS Children’s Villages in more than 106 countries and they provide homes to approximately 50,000 needy children. The Village that the SAS students visited in Mauritius can house up to 120 children and consists of 12 family houses, homes for the Village’s director and the SOS “mothers,” who help to take care of the children, a staff house, a community hall, an administrative building, and classrooms. The children who live here are for the most part “social orphans,” meaning that they have parents who are either in prison or incapable of providing care for a number of other reasons. About forty SAS Voyagers participated in this service project. They met with the administrators of the program, toured the Village’s facilities, and then spent time interacting with a number of the children who live there.