Training, Training, and More Training

It has been 3 days, and we have not had a minute to think... The Scholar Ship staff has prepared such an extensive training program for us that my eyes are glazing over (on top of still being jet legged:(

Certain aspects of the training are just fascinating, as we start learning about this unique opportunity that we got to build a community for 4 months that has its own intention and moral compass with a strong value system supporting multi-culturalism. We are slowly grasping the responsibility of not just having to teach our students, but also shape their grasp of a more compassionate and cooperative attitutde towards the world...

The IRC's (who seem to be much younger than most of us, the teachers), are bringing in a much needed infusion of high energy while we start fading a bit from the building pressure of knowing that our students will be here in a few days and we have got to prepare fantastic lesson plans for them to be able to incorporate theorty with group interactions coupled with experiential learning and topped with strong ties into the facts about the countires we will be visiting!

The staff had an evening yesterday where we started slowly sharing some of our personal background and motivations leading to our work on the ship. Most of the people talked about being "global nomads" who always walked the fine line of living among multiple cultures and trying to fit in, while not really wanting to be tied down to one cultural self-definition.

We have people here that have lived on sailboats, survived revolutions, explored the rain forest, and served in hidden corners of the world in the Peace Corps. All the colors of the world are represented, and togehter with the international crew memebrs (mostly greek but also many Asians), this is going to be one hell of a floating global village:)))