Well, I've done it again, I don't even know how long past the new deadline for column submission, with an empty head. It's currently 3:09 a.m. in Chennai, India, and I've got a 9 a.m. flight out to Delhi. No sleep for Erik tonight; in fact, I've received far less sleep on average here than I did during any semester at my high school (TJHSST, you know damn well what it is), or any of my five semesters in Charlottesville. And you know what? I love it.
Anyway, you're probably confused by the title. I am too. Actually, it's a terrible pun on Doxycycline, one of three malaria prophylaxes taken by students aboard the MV Explorer, along with Larium and, my boy, Malarone. I promise I'm going somewhere with this. You see, many countries we've been to so far, including this one, have water supplies that are substantially less healthy than our own. What this means is that, even though the locals can use the water for whatever they want (soda, beer, cookies, etc.) and not get sick from it, our immune systems are woefully unprepared for what it will do to us, which most commonly includes giving us Traveler's Diarrhea. I'm going to bypass the poo jokes here because I still swear that I'm taking this rant somewhere.
We have these things called "pre-port," held the night before we arrive in any given port. Among the horror stories of terrible things that happen to people who act negligently or stupidly at these ports (which I wish were more of a deterrent to these stupid acts taking place than they are), we also always have at least 20 minutes of the ship's resident physician telling us about everything we have to do to keep from getting any sort of dreadful affliction from local food, water, wild animals, domestic animals, beggars, taxicabs, payphones, bread boxes or basically anything else we could conceivably come into contact with. On the whole, this is good advice. Unfortunately, this is inevitably counterbalanced elsewhere in the pre-port lecture by reminders that we should be open-minded travelers and at all costs avoid being "Ugly Americans." You know what the term describes, because most of us who have traveled abroad are guilty of it on some level:
-- "Woo! Spring Break!"
-- "This food is gross! Where is the local McDonald's or Subway?"
-- "These indigenous people freak me out and their customs disturb me! Please return me to the sanctuary and relative comfort of my four-to-five-star hotel!"
All too often, these warnings not to eat or touch anything (and the paranoia instilled in us by the State Department officials who come speak to us the next day about local hazards for rich white tourists) do not mesh well with shunning this "Ugly American" look. It's a dilemma, to be sure -- we don't want to tarnish the already heavily-marred international view of Americans, but we also don't want the gout, runs, Chikungunya or other exotic diseases I can neither spell nor pronounce correctly. I can't tell you how many times I've had to turn down delicious-looking local food during the past six weeks due to my blasted, weak immune system and looked like a closed-minded jerk because of it. Maybe it's paranoia, but this is an issue I've oft-dealt with mentally since we departed Nassau.
Although, perhaps I'm overreacting; after all, we can still speak and spend time with locals, we can still go cage diving and bungee jumping and skydiving and salsa dancing and yoga (what is the verb for yoga?) um....-ing. It's simply a dilemma that we must wrestle with. It is the top priority of the staff, faculty and crew to make sure that we're safe while in port and a secondary one to ensure that we have fun and learn. I guess.
But then people get robbed. People get beaten. Things happen and kids get angry and bitter that they were taken advantage of, even if they might have sort of been asking for it, even if they were being obnoxious and ignorant and "flaunting their assets," a term that the executive dean often likes to use with respect to ill-advised behavior in port. What happens next, dear reader? The beat goes on: we don't like them for what they did to us, they continue to dislike us since our behavior substantiates their previous impression of Americans, and they tell us that to be safe is to practice paranoia primely.
How'd you like that alliteration there? Oh geez. 3:44. Geez. Hey, you get my point, though. I'm not proposing a solution, just pointing out a problem. There will be time for solutions when I get home in six weeks. For now, though, I am in India, and I have some exploring to do.
Erik's columns runs whenever it washes up in a bottle. He can be reached at silk@cavalierdaily.com
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