Home again. And what a surreal feeling it is. The town that grew me and configured a mindset within me that would one day be challenged and questioned, welcomes me back once more. But this time I am not returning from university in California. No, for the past four months I have been circumnavigating the globe on the MV World Odyssey. I know, it’s a statement that makes you doubletake for a moment. I even still do it.

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I have had a hard time wrapping my head around it, even during the months I was preparing for the journey: filing visa paperwork and trying to shove all my necessities for four months into two rolling duffels. I didn’t truly gauge what I was even getting myself into. Heck, I barely knew what countries were on the itinerary. But something I cannot fully explain told me that it was the next step in my life. Then and even today, I cannot really conceptualize how much this trip has caused tidal waves in my very being, my perception of the world, and the values I hold closest. Maybe years from now I will better understand how this voyage has shifted my life. But right now, I keep getting the single questions: “What was your favorite country?” and “Do you feel different?” I am baffled at these inquiries. I stumble and hesitate in my reply because I have so much to say, but words will never be enough.

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I can tell stories to my heart’s content, like how my first collision with a language barrier at a train station in Kobe, Japan, taught me that it takes courage to ask people of a different tongue for help, or when our foreignness was so apparent, a woman approached us and said, “I speak English, how can I help?” I saw kindness in the Chinese vendors who hiked six miles with us to hold our hands and make sure we didn’t fall, in the Cambodian children who asked my name and took selfies on my phone. I saw it in the Ghanaian locals who paid for our taxis and made sure we were safe, in my Vietnamese tour guide who bought us street food and promised us unequivocally that it was not going to make us sick. I had so many encounters of pure humanity, there are too many to count.

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Places I witnessed gave me realizations in the moment that I knew would stay with me for the rest of my life. For the first time, I saw adverse poverty at the Floating Village in Cambodia that made me put my camera away and brought tears to my eyes. I encountered racial tension in Ghana. I saw a water shortage in South Africa and women in India fighting for equal rights. On more than one occasion I recognized the power and necessity of silence. The act of listening without judgement and without preconceived notions is such a vital attribute to gain.

I also found friendship. I found it on the Great Wall of China with a cold wind blowing in my face and in a hot air balloon over hundreds of pagodas in Myanmar. It came to me in the time I needed it most in the form of movie nights where ten girls crowded into a small cabin on the third deck, or when the ship headed into a storm, so we raced to the bow to see the lightning on the water and feel the rain on our faces. It came to me in the form of a chess game. I actually went into the trip thinking I wasn’t going to make friends. I thought travelling the world was going to be enough, that it was all I needed to complete me. But it would have meant nothing if I hadn’t had those girls right by side getting lost with me and splitting meal tickets and telling stories. They were the ones that made each destination worth something.

So, what now? How do I put this all into words? I don’t know where to go from here. My consistent journaling and picture-taking during the trip was my effort to immortalize all of my experiences. There are names to the faces of the people in my pictures and the locations of cities that I visited scribbled down, all in an effort to not forget. The fading of memory has always been one of the biggest things in life that I fight and that I fear. I am reentering the world a newly shaped human, and it is the most frustrating thing for me to not be able to capture it within words. The last thing I want to do is not give this trip justice within my writing. But I also have to understand that it is simply not possible to capture it all. If I had it my way, I would write down every single experience I had and every person I met and just what exactly I took away. It would go on forever and I would have to tell and retell until the whole trip lost its sparkle indefinitely. It would become a flat story with lost characters and made-up places. There are some things that cannot be put into words, and that’s okay.

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People who had done Semester at Sea before I did, tried to relay what they had experienced, and they warned me: nobody is going to understand because they weren’t there. And I’m finding it to be true. It was such a unique and intimate experience that not many people get the privilege to do, and I truly believe I am a product of my endeavor. The only way I can show people how this privilege has molded me into the person I am now is by embracing my new sense of being. I must wear my newfound humanity and understanding of others to communicate to people that there is nothing more important than connecting with others who are different than you. I will remain silent and answer the questions they throw at me. My new behavior includes practicing radical empathy and accepting new cultures with an openness that equates us all. My new lens sees the potential of a better, kinder world that already has people in it who have that capacity to achieve that goal.  

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I cannot compress my entire journey into a couple paragraphs, but I can give you a broad understanding, especially if you’re as confused as I am. I travelled around the world on a ship for four months. I took twelve credit hours of classes and visited 11 countries starting at our first port in Hawaii, and then to Japan, China, Vietnam, a side trip to Cambodia, Myanmar, India, Mauritius, South Africa, Ghana, Morocco, and, unexpectedly, Portugal. We had everything my millennial generation survives on taken away. That meant no Wi-Fi and no cell service. Having social media stripped away turned out to be one of the healthiest things that has ever happened to me, and also one of the most authentic friendship-building environments I have ever been apart of.  You have to actually spend time with one another playing on makeshift game boards and recreating movies that were not readily available. You get to know your fellow shipmates very fast.

There are seminars every night and the talent show and the Sea Olympics and Neptune Day. And there are also classes. Except there are no classrooms. Dining halls and stages are transformed into teaching areas. Before every country, the whole ship gathers for Pre-port, a logistical overview of the do’s and don’ts of the newest country of arrival. We may have been away from our parents, but Semester at Sea took just about as good of care of us as our parents would have.

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Then, there were the Semester at Sea Field Programs that took you to places in country you probably could not have otherwise gone to. I played soccer with Ghanaians and tried couscous in Morocco. I rode camels on the beach walked through the Taj Mahal.  It was nice to not have to be completely responsible for myself and to take a break from independent travel. You were fed and bussed and sheltered, and I’m glad I did a lot of them. They also gave me the opportunity to meet more people on the ship. I made more friends and acquaintances because of the programs, and I am incredibly thankful I did them.  

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The art of interpedently travelling is an entirely new experience to a lot people, and when you do it with new friends for the first time, it creates a connection unlike you have with anyone else, and that’s a special thing. You have to traverse language barriers and differences in customs and cultures. You have to figure out trains and planes and buses and tuk-tuks and bikes and rickshaws and so on. You have to trust one another. Being with people who cared about my wellbeing was one of the most important aspects of my time.

The life lessons this trip provided me, I will carry with me always. Like I said, I can’t write them all. But there are things I learned that I will always carry with me. On more than one occasion I was scammed. One being by a fake Buddhist monk in Myanmar. Other times it was just taxi drivers trying to take advantage of our lostness. I learned fast how to negotiate a price before ever entering a vehicle. Reading a map is now something I’m quite decent at. The amount of times I had elephant pants shoved in front of me by vendors in Cambodia, Myanmar, and India, was more than I can count. I bought five. Aside from all the adventures and travel tips I learned, I also found the value of a smile and just how much it can communicate.

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After seeing some of the world, I can say my belief that there is much more good in it than there is bad, was constantly reaffirmed. Governments in places may be corrupt, but there are people who showed me adamantly that kindness and hospitality is what their country is really all about. We have to appreciate one another for what makes us different and to also see what likens us. There is beauty everywhere all over the world, and sometimes it resides in Pagodas and giant Buddhas or rolling green hills, but the most beautiful thing of all is people.

At the end of the voyage I travelled in Europe for ten days with some of my best friends, taking everything that Semester at Sea taught me along the way. We were completely responsible for ourselves, and I would not have been able to do it with such confidence without all that the ship had taught me. I know how to get around now, and more than anything I know that everything will always work out the way it is meant to happen. Too much has happened to me to not believe that things happen for a reason. Connecting with others, alike and different, is the most important thing anyone can ever do in life. I encourage everyone to get out and to constantly meet new people and to try new things.

I’m home again. I will carry the love of my new friends with me for the rest of my life. I will hold onto what I have seen and experienced: all of the times I was pushed out of my comfort zone or tried new food or did something that scared me. I will hold close to me the times that I danced my heart out with some of the biggest supporters I have ever had. I will remember the children who could not communicate with me but spoke to me anyways. I now know how important it is to be globally aware, to be compassionate and humble, and to recognize my own privilege. It is an honor what I have experienced, and if I truly want to pay it justice and carry it with me always, I will embrace my own humanity and the humanity of others always. I am newly formed, and I hope I have helped you understand just a little bit about how I have changed. I don’t know what’s next, but I know whatever I do it will be with acceptance, humanity, and kindness. I have so much gratitude for this program that has changed my life forever.