November 18 -- Istanbul, Turkey

hello everyone,

Sorry it has been so long. I wrote this before Egypt but here it is anyway.

Dear Friends,

I’m leaving for Cairo in about an hour, so I figured I should use this time to write my mass email, and hope that I can send it from my hotel.  We’re going to see the pyramids!!

It’s been a long while since I’ve written and I don’t know if I can recount everything that’s happened since the first day in India, but I’ll try to give you the highlights.

India was intense.  I don’t think I ever felt comfortable there, except when I was on the ship or visiting someone’s house.  It was hot, polluted, smelly, and dirty.  But it was worth all the discomfort.  I think India is the most fascinating country I’ve been to, and I’d like to come back again – not as a tourist – but as a journalist.

Shortly after we arrived, we joined a field trip to go visit the slums of Chennai, where a lot of Dalits (Untouchables) live.  It was surreal to see mud huts in the middle of a city.  Children went with minimal clothing and trash was strewn all over the place.  But they welcomed us in the most elaborate way.  They even had a small marching band that led our group through the slums.  It was like nothing I had ever imagined.  We spent the afternoon chatting with the residents who all welcomed us into their tiny homes and couldn’t have been more friendly.  The women there spend each day carrying coal ash from railway yards, making 50 cents to a dollar a day.  And that’s their only source of income.  The children don’t go to school because their parents don’t see why they should.  Instead, they stay at home and take care of younger siblings.  You wonder how they will ever climb out of poverty.  Many of the children performed for us, one of them even danced to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”  In India, anything can happen.

The next day, we drove two hours out of town to spend a night in a Dalit village.  It was the first time they had hosted foreigners so all the villagers were excited and couldn’t get enough of us.  Every family, it seems, performed a welcoming ceremony for us – putting flowers around our necks, and dotting our foreheads.  The kids followed us everywhere.  After several children danced for about an hour or so, we did the hokey pokey for them and then retired to our sleeping quarters, which was no bigger than 12 ft by 12 ft.   Thirteen of us tried to squeeze in there and we barely fit.  It was so hot that few of us could sleep, and we spent much of the night talking and picking bugs off of our bodies.  It really makes you appreciate what they go through day after day.

The next morning, the villagers took us on a tour, showing us their rice paddies, their water supply, their half-built school, etc.  We got the sense though that they’re better off than most Dalits in India.  These Dalits are farmers, not toilet cleaners; they get along with the caste people, they can walk on their neighbors’ land, even though they seemed a bit resentful of what the caste people have – satellite TV, telephones, etc.  They’re poor, but they can sustain a living, unlike many of the Dalits in urban areas.

We spent the next few days in Chennai, talking to mainly upper caste people about the whole caste system.  I got the sense that many of the educated Indians think the caste system is “bullshit,” but they think it will always be there because it’s such a big part of their cultural identity.

We also attended a Hindu wedding and shot a story about arranged marriages, which I think will make a fascinating topic for kids.  The Indians simply have a different conception of love or when love should occur in a marriage.  The couple that got married barely knew each other, but we’re told they like each other a lot.  If you watch our story, you’ll see what a Hindu wedding entails.  It’s really elaborate and a lot of fun at the same time.  I think we should all have weddings like that.

I made the mistake of visiting Mother Theresa’s orphanage on the last day.  It depressed me.  The facilities are adequate, but I saw many disabled children who are paralyzed and couldn’t do anything but lie on the floor all day.  You don’t even know where to begin to help them.  You can’t even play with them because they don’t really respond.  I took one girl for a walk around the room and she struggled the whole time because she could barely stand up.  I don’t know whether she enjoyed that walk or found it to be torturous. I think I came away having the greatest admiration for the women who work there day in and day out caring for these kids.  They were full of smiles and tended to the kids cheerfully, encouraging us to feed them and play with them.  I don’t think I have it in me to do what they do.

I was eager to leave India, even though I think Indian people are the friendliest of all.  I just wanted to be surrounded by clean air again, and not be so on edge the whole time.

We left Chennai on November 1, and began our 11-day stretch at sea.  That seemed like forever but here we are, in Egypt already.  We tried to catch up on our work, but didn’t get as much done as we had hoped even though we worked the whole time.  And then we found out that the Vietnam piece we sent from India didn’t get there.  In fact, the packet is still sitting in India, the last I heard.  We might miss a couple of airdates, but keep watching.

The reason I’m writing this email, though, is to let you know about an incident that happened on November 9…

Right around midnight, we heard an announcement on the loudspeaker, “MISTER MOB, MISTER MOB…” which is the code for man overboard.  Those of us who were awake ran to the back of the ship and found a few students in hysterics.  A student had lowered himself down the side of the ship and fell into the water.  (We later found out that he was trying to touch the water.  He was drunk, of course.)  We could only see lights from the life rings that some students through over, but not the student himself.  Immediately, the ship started a “Williamson” turn to get itself back to its original location, but the process takes half an hour to complete.  We all gathered on the starboard side to start looking for any sign of the student, but it was a moonless night and we couldn’t see anything.  Deep down, I think all of us believed he was dead.  Several students were crying, but most of us were just numb.  Most of us had never been in a life and death situation, and we never thought anything like that would ever happen on our voyage, especially since we’ve been warned repeatedly that going overboard is the absolute worst thing anyone can do.  The first thing that came to my mind was of course, should I get my camera.  It was a tough call and I debated that question within me for several minutes, and in the end, I chose not to.  Even in hindsight, I’m not sure whether that was the right decision, but I’m comfortable with it.  I think at that moment, I just couldn’t tear myself away from the situation to assume the role of a journalist.  I wanted to be just another member of this community, doing my best to help the crew find the student.

We passed one life ring after another, but nothing.  After we passed the last one, the ship came to a complete stop and that’s when we heard faint cries for help.  Miraculously, he was still alive – without a life ring or a life jacket.  The crew lowered a lifeboat and retrieved him from the water.

We were happy that he’s alive, but we were angry at the same time that he put us through this.  It was really hard to know how to feel.  How can anyone be so stupid, and so selfish!  He risked not just his life but the lives of the crewmembers who went out to save him.  And some of the younger kids (the faculty brats) were a bit shaken by the whole thing.

The student didn’t help the situation either.  From what everyone has told me, he doesn’t regret what he did and refuses to apologize to the shipboard community.  He told one of his friends that it’s worth the $20,000 that he spent to come on this voyage.  Who knows what’s going through his head.  We’re just glad he’s being dismissed and will be sent home from Egypt.

I think he just doesn’t realize the magnitude of the situation, or how lucky he was.  The captain and crew told us later that none of them, in all the time they’ve been at sea, have ever seen or heard of a successful rescue at night.  I just hope this incident doesn’t give anyone false hope that going overboard is no big deal.

And I hope this incident, significant as it is, won’t eclipse our other memories of being at sea, because it’s not what the voyage is about.

Charles