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Today was such a special day: our Global Studies lecture was given by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Global Studies is the one course on the ship that everyone is required to take. It begins everyday A and B day at 9:20am. When the students and faculty heard that Arch was going to be giving the lecture on a combined class day, they started sitting outside in the hallway about an hour in advance to make sure they got a good seat. I guess we have to tell you that we were also part of that group... actually, we were the first in line on our side of the Student Union.
The Union only seats about 350, but I think we must have crammed all 600 students into the room. They were sitting on the stage, in the aisles and in laps - it was beautiful, energetic chaos. We will try to post some of the videos when we have good internet connection in South Africa.
Arch had many wonderful things to say and the room was so wonderfully quiet while he spoke about apartheid and his journeys in Africa. Again, we feel so lucky to be part of this voyage. One of the things that he said that resonated with us the most was "God has no one...God has NO ONE" and then he pointed at the audience and said "except you. God has no one to help him but YOU. And God is saying PLEASE HELP ME. Help me feed this child. Help me make sure everyone has a home. Help me!"
I mean, WOW. It was such a moving 90 minutes. He also took questions, and there were some very interesting questions about how he has kept the joy in his life through his years of struggle, etc. But the last question was simply "What is your favorite color?" Well, Arch just stared at the boy that asked the question for about 10 seconds and he said "my favorite color is the color you are." and then he just laughed and laughed. The Arch laughs at everything - it doesn't matter if it is "appropriate" or not - he just laughs!
Tomorrow we arrive in Cape Town and we will be getting up at 5am to watch the sunrise as we are led into port. We are soooooo excited. We leave for our 3 day safari at 8am - I sure hope that we get to see some animals tomorrow!!!
Fun Facts:
-Tomorrow morning the immigration officials need to see every single person on the ship with their passports before anyone can get off the ship
-Officials will bring on police dogs and do random searches of rooms... ooooh, so exciting!
-We are currently 6 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time
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Jack Enjoy!Enjoy!Enjoy! n Love, Dad