TABLE
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Shipboard Interview with Jihane
By Caroline Park
Me and Jihane in India...
After our class was let loose like sheep in
a pasture to
find our own grass, I wandered around the sixth deck feeling slightly
nervous. How should I approach my
interviewee, wait, first of all, who should
I approach? After a brief stroll to the
library and computer lab area, I decided that people fixated upon their
monitors would not be great candidates. So
I did a U-turn and headed for the outside deck. That’s
where I found Jihane. With her legs
stretched out leisurely and
donned with sunglasses she was reading the Global Issues book.
I don’t know how I decided to “target” her
but I quickly approached her (before anybody else in my class could…)
and asked
her if she would mind a brief interview for a class.
She said she didn’t mind and when I showed
her the release form, she smiled and groaned at the same time saying
she was a
journalism major and she hated those “stupid release forms.” Nevertheless she willingly signed the form and
our interview began.
I asked the
basic questions first and found out that she was from Miami
and went to Seton Hall University
which is in New Jersey. When asked about previous travel experiences,
she informed me that she had been mostly around the Bahamas
and Carribean area and also
disclosed that it was because she was half Haitian and half Cuban. Getting into the discussion about SAS, she
said she first learned about the program from a casual acquaintance who
had been
on the 2004 spring voyage. Intrigued she
had looked into the program and decided to experience it herself. Even though she had not known a single soul
when she boarded the ship in Ensenada,
Jihane had already found a group of friends that she knew she would be
friends
with long after the voyage. These new
friends had “set the bar higher” for her. She
had never met such motivated, intelligent, and
ambitious
African-American women before and she said that they would often get
together
in someone’s room and talk and talk and talk. About
what? I asked. “About
everything! Politics, religion,
race…” Even though she had “dumbed”
herself down back at home in order to seem “normal,” here Jihane
revealed that
she could be her own self as she has met like-minded friends who shared
similar
ambitions.
Then she
told me about how she went to her school’s dean’s office to get her
credit
transfer approval form signed. Previously
the dean had refused but Jihane boldly marched
into his
office and told him she was doing this voyage and was not going to
accept not
getting credits for it just because some guy didn’t want to sign some
papers.
And she got it signed and approved. When
I heard this story I was blown away. It
was clear that my interviewee was no ordinary girl.
This told me a lot about her personality;
that she was determined and never took no for an answer in something
she
believed in.
After this
anecdote, I began to ask her questions about why she had chosen to do
SAS. She said that she felt SAS was
perfect for
her since this trip is all about adapting to the various countries and
cultures
we are to encounter. She declared, “SAS
is not stationary and is the perfect fit for me.” Of
course I asked her how and she recounted
her multiple experiences of moving around and having to adapt: From
Cambridge
to Miami and within Miami alone she had enrolled in 16
different
schools before high school. Her mom always wanted the best for her and
whenever
an opportunity for a better education arose, her mom moved her to the
best
schools. “Was your mom supportive of your decision to do SAS?” “Oh, very!” It
seemed to me that Jihane had an extraordinary resume of
adjusting and
adapting. No wonder she already felt at home on the ship with great new
friends.
“Which
country are you most excited about?” When
I asked her this question she immediately replied Egypt and India. “Especially India
because
before I came I saw a documentary called…” I knew what she was going to
say and
we finished sentence in unison “…Born into Brothels!”
I found out that we both had a great love for
the documentary and admiration for the woman who had made it. When I
asked her
if she wanted to do something like that later on she replied with great
candor,
“I’m a very selfish person.” But she
also said that if something like that did come her way that kindled her
passion
she would definitely change her mind.
Jihane also
told me that she was very interested in people, their lives, and their
culture. Though she had previously thought
that
everyone was very different, she now believes we are all very much
alike. “People are all the same in many
ways. We all
laugh, we all smile, we’re all human. Things
are bigger than we are, I want to see that. I
also want better understanding of the world. All
and all I hope to come back a better
person.” She also commented about
her
soon-to-come adventures, “if you’re not afraid to talk to people, you
could
learn so much from them.”
She
certainly didn’t seem the type to shy away from the people that we’ll
meet.
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