Day 87 – Nov 22nd (Take Two)

Nov 22nd

World Food Summit
After not sleeping late on the one day off from classes (and enjoying a delicious BBQ lunch), I got up to research Namibian imports/exports and trading partners for the mock UN General Assembly. Unfortunately, my developmental econ professor made it extra credit and me being the big nerd that I am decided I had to do it. So, we each had to dress “business casual,” which resulted in most boys wearing their tailor-made suits from Vietnam, or “cultural costumes,” which resulted in most people dressing in exaggeratedly ethnocentric outfits. For example, the U.S. rep wore a suit with a superman costume peaking though his unbuttoned shirt. After presenting our countries basic economic conditions and response to the mock food crisis, we adjourned to classrooms to discuss the problem: a rice crisis has wiped out 75% of world rice production in places like Southeast Asia, the U.S and Brazil. The African nations of South Africa, Namibia (me!) and Nigeria formed a nice little nugget of love in order to solve the world’s problems. From our research, we discovered that new research can make West Africa more efficient in producing rice than the main producers in Southeast Asia. Of course, there wasn’t much else we could do to solve the short-term problems, so we just hung out. My main point stemmed from the legendary Maria Antoinette: “When you don’t have rice, eat oysters!” (One of Namibia’s main exports is oysters.) South Africa crudely shared that they have no real resources to provide, but what they do have is AIDS and that can reduce the world populations that are suffering from hunger. In the end, Germany approached me (Namibia) to offer machinery to develop the rice production that could potentially overtake Japanese rice production (for the cost of control, of course). However, I remembered from Global Studies that during German colonization in the mid 1900s, Germany had massacred over 50% of Namibia’s indigenous people. So, I kindly told them to back off on their neo-colonial principles. After reading proposals and voting, the UN General Assembled adjourned from the Union.

Students for Service Auction
In order to donate money to various charities that we had visited on our trip, Students for Service organized both a silent and live auction to raise money. Some of the items included:
- Sea Olympics du rag worn by Ed Sobey
- Special dinner with the Captain
- Jesus painting from the crew talent show
- Breakfast in bed served by your LLC (resident advisor)
- Photo of the Explorer signed by Desmund Tutu (from his visit)
- Bob “The Voice” ring tone or voicemail recording
- First person off the ship in Miami
The auction was a great success and raised over $16,000 from students, faculty and life long learners. I was very surprised at how much some students paid for various things. One drunk kid won a $450 bid to throw a pie at Professor Schoppa’s face. Other students dished out $100-$200 on pictures of Fidel Castro or to be serenaded by Tien. I don’t think they really understood that it was real money they were bidding, or maybe they just didn’t care that it was their parent’s money.

Solved: The Dying Cow
Julie and I have been hearing this horrible squealing noise outside our cabin window for some time. It mostly only happens when we are at sea, but we have managed to adapt and sleep through it. The only times we ever noticed it was when anyone would come in the room and say “OMG! What is that!?” Today, Julie came in the room and off handedly told me the Security Officer was in the hall. Determined to get to the bottom of this mysterious sound, I jumped up, grabbed her and we headed out to chat with him. He asked if the “noise” sounded like a crying dog and then chuckled while explaining it was the stabilizers under the ship that keep it from tipping over. Apparently, the officers that sleep on the second floor have it much worse, since they sleep right on the other wall from it and have to sleep with ear plugs to get through the night. Reassuringly, he told us the problem was being fixed by mechanics as we spoke.

Highs and Lows
My “high” was watching Sex and the City with Julie before bed. My “low” was finding out the mysterious dying cow sound was nothing more than ship stabilizers. (When people come in the room, I might still tell them it’s the kitchen staff killing dinner.)