Semester at Sea Fall 2006 Voyage  

• Home
  
• Lara's Bio
  
• Multi-sited Ethnography: English Language Acquisition
  
• Life Herstory Interview
• Hawaii: Surfer Boys
  
• Japan: Saki Balm
  
• China: Migration as a Hobby
  
• Vietnam: Balancing a Language Barrier
  
• Burma: Juvenile Multi-linguists
  
• India: Princess of Erode
  
• Egypt: Belly Dancing Double-Standard
  
• Turkey: Turkish Delights
  
• Open Letter

Dear fellow anthropologist, class member, prospective Semester at Sea student, and/or FSU Anthropology Department checking to see if I actually did any work in my absence,

            There is nothing like ten countries in 100 days. There is nothing like riding broken bicycles through inches of mud in a village outside the Mekong Delta, bathing in the Irrawaddy in a longyi borrowed from a newfound friend, stumbling onto a hostel balcony at 5 a.m. to listen to the Muslim call to prayer, missing your stop on an overnight train ride because the Indian sleeper trains are just that sleepy, galloping through the Sahara by moonlight on a pure white Arabian, waking up to mischievous grins, nargile smoke and Turkish pancakes, or the thousands of other things that could never fit a description on this website.

            I initially approached this journey with a strict daily plan to assure I saw everything, accomplished specific goals, and documented every inch and second. Needless to say, that’s not even a thing. It didn’t take long before I began to regard this whole adventure as a wonderful and tumultuous crash-course in international travel. I crash and crash and crash on the way to wherever it is that I think I’m going, and end up somewhere else, for better or for worse, before finding myself in a better spot than I could have ever picked.

            So for all things worthwhile in this old earth, for your own sanity, for the love of Buddha, and for the natural yearning for all things that are beautiful, seek the world and everything in it. Any way that you can.

Peace,
Lara Calloway