Class Day "B9" at sea

Today is class meeting day "B9."

On the agenda for me is the following:

• Sit in on the Global Studies core course that the entire ship "shuts down for" daily - it is held in the Student Union area of the ship with the lecture being broadcast on the closed-circuit TV system of the ship to the various satellite classrooms on the ship for those students who can't fit in the Union (Time:  0920 - 1040)
• Teach "Cinema and National Identity" (Time:  1415 - 1530)
• Captain's Dinner (Time: 1930 - 2230)

Update:

The main thing of note today was that I got to go to one of the "captain's dinners" that is held for staff/faculty/lifelong learners.  Essentially a group of about 20 or so got invitations on their doors about two days ago and we had to RSVP by yesterday.  I had already heard about these dinners from some other people who have attended the first two or three that were already held prior to South Africa.  Apparently, you get a six or seven course meal, tons of silverware laid out next to your plate and you get served white wine with the appetizer courses and red wine with the main course.  They give you an assigned seat and there are several different tables set up, each one with one of the main crew (ie. one table had the captain at it, another had the staff captain, another had the chief security officer, etc.)

At 7:30 pm, those who were invited were told to meet up in the faculty/staff lounge and the bar was open (ie. free) for us at that time.  After about a half an hour, we were told we could go down to dinner which was being held in the fifth floor dining room.  I went downstairs with everyone else and found my seating assignment.  I was seated with Kristen (the assistant field office coordinator), Matt (the IT coordinator), Erika (one of the resident directors) and Bob (one of the business professors).  The crew member at our table was Stefan, the hotel director on the ship.  From what I gleaned over the course of dinner, he is from Hamburg, Germany, and lives in Bangkok, Thailand, when he is not at sea (crew members go three months at sea and then have three months off).  He is married to a Thai woman and has a three year old daughter.  This seems to be typical of the crew in general - guys who are married to women from different countries and who leave behind young children without a ton of remorse.

My table at the captain's dinner (left to right:   IT coordinator Matt, me, resident director Erika, ship hotel director Stefan, assistant field office coordinator Kristen, business professor Bob)

At any rate, dinner was ok.  The first course was melon with ham that was like proscuitto.  Next we had French Onion soup and then a Caesar salad.  After that, we had the main course - a choice of beef wellington, some kind of fish or an eggplant dish.  I chose the eggplant which was pretty good.  The beef wellingtons that were served looked huge and everyone said they were good.  After that came dessert - a chocolate creme brulee.  By the time dinner was over, some people headed back to the faculty/staff lounge and two of the crew members (a Greek guy named Kostas who is the staff captain and an Italian guy named Mario who I think is the chief of engineering). 

Some of the staff people up in the lounge tried to extend the invitation to Kostas and Mario to come to the "Dalit Village" parties and told them that no one would find out (in the Voyager's Handbook we all receive it explicitly states that there is not to be fraternizing between crew and passengers).  

In the Faculty/Staff Lounge on the ship (left to right:  Global Nomads Group editor Joanna, ship staff captain Kostas, assistant field office coordinator Kristen, IT coordinator Matt, nurse Emily, ship engineer Mario, Drew, Global Nomads Group director Mark, resident director Matt)

I was really surprised when these guys actually took people up on this offer.  People started going down to the Dalit Village for an after party and Kostas and Mario followed right along.  Some of the staff people seemed really impressed with themselves that they managed to get the number two and three guy on the crew to join them.  It felt weirdly inappropriate to me though - especially when some people started sitting on their laps and they started dancing with people like Kristen (the assistant field office coordinator) and Emily (the nurse).

in nurse Emily's cabin (clockwise from front:  Global Nomads Group director Mark, resident director Lesley, IT coordinator Matt, ship engineer Mario, nurse Emily, Global Nomads Group editor Joanna, resident director Drew, assistant field office coordinator Kristen, resident director Matt, video editor Jon, me)

ship staff captain Kostas and nurse Emily dancing in Emily's cabin

I basically just stayed for a little while and watched, but I wondered about how faithful these crew members are to their wives.  I suspect the trend is that they aren't and that what their wives don't know won't hurt them.  Apparently the captain of the ship is on his fourth wife and has four children - some of whom he doesn't know.  Someone said that he phrased something oddly when referring to one of his wife's deaths - he said he "acquired children" following her death.  I think he was referring to children who were his own, but to use the term "acquire" to describe getting custody of children seemed very odd to those relating this story.  Needless to say, I doubt these crew members are the best fathers in the world.