Day 53--In port, Port Louis, Mauritius

17 October. In port, Port Louis, Mauritius

Lots to catch up on. Though, in another sense, not much. We sailed from Cape Town into the roughest seas we’ve encountered since leaving Norfolk. We were advised to batten down everything in our cabins that could be battened down, and this time, it was no false alarm.

Almost as soon as we cleared the harbor, the ship starting rolling what seemed like 15°-20° port to starboard as large swells came rolling in from the southwest. They continued all night as we rounded Cape Horn and turned back to the northeast around the coast of South Africa. Sleeping was like being in a crib, certainly a different experience but also rather soothing. I didn’t hear anybody complain the next morning about sleeplessness, even less about seasickness. I guess we all have our sea legs after 6 weeks or so aboard the boat.

The rolling swells continued for the next 3 days as we continued around and up the coast of southern Africa, hugging the coast the entire time to minimize, as much as possible, the effect of the waves. Meanwhile, classes went on as usual, an interesting experience. My three classes are conducted in two classrooms. One is adjacent to the piano bar, with windows that look out onto the tops of the 5th deck lifeboats, not an especially interesting view—reassuring perhaps, but not interesting. The other classroom, where I have my 8am public speaking class on “A” days and my 1500 (3pm) business communication class on “B” days, sits just off the garden lounge on the 6th deck and has a wall of windows looking out the port side onto an unobstructed view of the water. So a rolling ship is a distinct distraction.

What’s more, as we sailed along the coast of South Africa, we were joined by several pods of whales—either right whales or humpbacks, I couldn’t tell which. But whatever family they came from, they seemed to delight in putting on a show for us, and for two days, a glance out any window would almost certainly see a couple of whales either breeching or leaping to get a better view of the ship. Between the rolling swells and the leaping whales, concentration in class took a hit.

On the third day out of Cape Town, we turned away from the African coast and headed east northeast toward Madagascar and Mauritius. The whales stayed behind.

Besides prepping for and conducting classes, I spent the 6 days between Cape Town and Mauritius grading papers. First, I finished looking at the 28 good-news memos my business comm. students had submitted the day before we arrived in South Africa. I had to get them back quickly because they had another paper due on the day before arrival in Port Louis, so they needed feedback to build on. Then I tackled the 3- to 4-page papers of my intercultural comm. class—30 of them, minus a couple who, for whatever reason, decided not to turn in a paper.

The quality of the papers ranges from pretty good to dismal. The assignment for the business comm. students was to write “a memo for the boss” announcing construction of a new health club for employees. The papers weren’t bad, largely because, in the assignment sheet, I had given the students all the content they needed to write the memo. All they had to do was organize it, decide what to include and not to include, and put the memo into language that a human being could understand. They seem to be getting it.

The intercultural papers are another matter. The assignment was challenging: to defend or criticize the Hofstede approach to the study of cultures, an approach we’ve been examining since leaving Morocco. I gave the class several pieces of reading to draw on, including a criticism of Hofstede and a defense. So I thought, with the jump start, they’d be able to find something worthwhile to write about. A few hit the mark. But many just didn’t seem to get the idea of criticism much less what it takes to write a persuasive paper.

I’m concerned about the quality of writing I’m seeing and what it means for this generation of college students. I’m even more concerned about the quality of thought—or lack of it—that I’m seeing. The students from the top-tier colleges and universities (Stanford, Dartmouth, Miami U.) do noticeably better, as do those from some lesser-known schools that must emphasize writing. But many students clearly don’t have much experience putting together a college-level paper. I’ve asked a couple of them what kind of background they have in composition, and many—an alarming number—say, “not much.”

It seems that many colleges are offering “humanities” courses, where students are assigned oral reports, complete with PowerPoint slides. But they have few written assignments. I hate to think that faculty at these schools are backing off the writing assignments because they’re time-consuming to grade. But I don’t know what else they could be thinking. The other faculty members onboard who are reviewing student writing—including Jahan Ramazani, former head of the English department at UVA—are seeing the same stuff from the onboard students. “Dismal” is the word.

We arrived at Port Louis, Mauritius, Thursday morning. When I woke at 7am and looked out my window, I saw the coast of the island off the starboard side of the ship, shrouded in early-morning haze, and silhouetted by the rising sun. The mountains of Mauritius rise sharply to very jagged peaks, some coming almost to a point some 3,000-or-so feet above sea level. Looking at the island get closer, I was reminded of the song “Bali Hai” from “South Pacific.” Any production of the shown could use the picture I saw—and took—for backdrop as Bloody Mary sings “Bali Hai may call you, on the wind of the sea . . .”

Mauritius reminds me of the Big Island, Hawai’i. It’s volcanic, although the caldera that accounts for all its lava rock is long extinct. The mountains fall sharply from their peaks, then, about 1,000 feet above sea level, begin a gradual slope to the Indian Ocean. The island is ringed by one of the largest continuous coral reefs in the world, and the reef encircles an ultramarine-blue strip of ocean that looks just like the color of the Pacific off the Hawaiian Islands. Mauritius is a major vacation destination for Europeans, South Africans, and Australians, so the beaches, like Hawai’i’s are lined with luxury hotels and golf courses.

It was at those golf courses that I spent almost the entire 3 days on the island. Thursday afternoon, Jim Cooper, Bob Chapel, and I were joined by Doctor Dave Stonington at Le Paradis resort & golf club at the far southern tip of the island. Le Paradis is the oldest course on Mauritius and sits on a peninsula jutting out into the Indian Ocean. The course runs around that peninsula, with lava rocks, inlets, and beaches lining almost every hole. Very pretty—looked a little like the pictures I’ve seen of Pebble Beach, though not as rugged. We played 18 holes at Le Paradis Thursday afternoon, and my streak of lousy golf continued, though a lousy day on the golf course still beats a day at the office or in a shipboard classroom.

Friday, we played 36 holes at Tamarina Resort, a very new (3-years-old) course that is an interesting layout, spectacularly landscaped, and just plain fun to play—a place that required lots of strategy, not just power and putts. We—Jim, Bob and I—enjoyed it so much, we cancelled our Saturday tee-time back at Le Paradis and booked a 9:20am tee time at Tamarina. This morning, we went back there with Charlie Morris for our final Mauritian round. Again, my play was awful—I’m starting to think I’m really not very good at this game—but we enjoyed the views, the excellent conditions (lots of jokes comparing Tamarina to Achimota in Ghana), and the breezy but beautiful weather. A good time.

We were back to the ship by 3pm, and at 6pm, the crew buttoned up the gangplank with everyone onboard. Many of the students had banded together to rent villas on the beach for the 3 days, and they stayed on those beaches until they had just enough time—just enough—to reboard by the 6pm “ship time,” the time after which the captain can sail whenever he puts his mind to it. At 5pm, 400 students were still unaccounted for onboard. By 6pm, all were on the ship, many obviously having enjoyed more than a few draughts of the excellent Mauritian beer, Phoenix. The dining room and deck were noisy places at dinner.

It’s now Saturday night, and we’re back on the move, now heading for Chennai, India. Tomorrow and Monday are regular class days. Tuesday is what’s called “Sea Olympics,” when the various hallways onboard, called “seas,” compete against each other in picnic-type games for honor and glory. I’m looking forward to the day off.