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Crash course in Western Civilization, Part 1

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Wow! As much as I like a good adventure the past month I have been on a sensory overload. We have had some 20 ports of call in a one month period. My brain as well as my feet are tired. There were many changes from our originally announced itinerary because of weather but given the geography, good substitutions were found that provided much food for thought. I have taken literally hundreds of pictures and have little time to go back and curate them and to eliminate the many whoops, duplicates, and the what the hecks was I trying to capture.  I did a quick review of the photos to help jump start my thoughts for this post and I was struck by the scale of the structures that have survived over the millennia. I did manage to get off a short Facebook post which I entitled: Myths, Legends, Gods, Goddesses, Saints and Emperors, Oh my……These were centered in the eastern Mediterranean Sea in an area where we have not spent much time previously so this was almost all new to me.  There w...
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Thoughts on Women’s Work and Four Ports of Call

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Since I’ve last posted we have had port stops in Namibia, Cape Verde, Madeira, and Gibraltar. We have gone from far southern Africa up to the Mediterranean. My “common” cold really took it out of me, and then I shared a bit of it with Gary, so I took almost a full week to lay low to recuperate and try not to spread it further on the ship. Luckily we had a nice long stretch of sea days and as active as I am in general, I can also do little to nothing with relative ease. It provided time to think about the living conditions we saw, mostly at a distance, in Africa. So far in no place we have stopped has the disparity between the haves and have nots been so clear as the stops in Africa.  Beside really making an effort to learn as much as possible about the culture and history of the places we visit, I try to support local people as directly as possible. I’ve been thinking in particular how to support women because in general they have lower incomes, less capital and less access to cred...
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Life aboard a giant floating petri dish and 2 quick stops in Africa

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  Before Gary and I boarded the ship, knowing we would be in a mostly enclosed giant can sharing the space with at least 3,000 of our new closest friends we took all the health precautions we could. We updated every vaccine; Covid, Flu, and RSV, and we brought a small stash of some of the over the counter medications we use at home to treat minor ailments. We are apparently in relatively good health for people our ages, but now with ancient immune systems, we no longer bounce back from even minor ailments, we seem to crawl back. We are fastidious with hand washing, which is strongly encouraged, and because we have an understanding of the potential seriousness of shipboard contamination especially with noroviruses/intestinal ailments.  I developed a very irritating cough that is exacerbated when I lie down. So not only was I losing sleep, but Gary was too since I have nowhere else to go. For several nights I took the cough medicine we brought from home and tried my best to slee...
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