Editor Donald H. Harrison has recently returned from a roundtrip cruise between San Diego and the Hawaiian Islands. Following is his first in a series of stories.
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO — The late Ted Geisel of La Jolla, a.k.a Dr. Seuss, enthusiastically wrote in one of his children’s books about “the places you’ll go” and the people you’ll meet, and Nancy and I found this particularly true as it pertained to our recent 14-day roundtrip journey between San Diego and Hawaii aboard the Holland-America Line cruise ship M.S. Zaandam
There were, of course, officers from the Netherlands, such as the young captain with the intriguing name of Wouter van Hoogdalem, whose wife and young children were ooheed and ooged over by all the grandparents aboard, including us.
And there were British members of the cruise staff, including Kieron Buffery, of Dover, England, the cruise director who did his best to keep our adrenalin levels high.
There were also Hawaiians like Kainoa dela Cruz, who taught us about Hawaiian culture, geography and history; Henry Allen who demonstrated ukulele music, and Kermet Apio, who shared some Hawaiian humor. (Imagine if Hawaiian words were used on television’s Wheel of Fortune. “I’d like to buy an ‘A.'” As Vana White walks along the phrase board, it would go ding, ding, ding, ding, ding…)
Day in and day out over the two-week cruise, many of our interactions were with the Indonesian and Filipino stewards and wait staff whose smiling personalities were most endearing, and whose “crew night” performances were well appreciated and wildly applauded.
They taught us some basic greetings in Bahasa and Tagalog, respectively the languages spoken most often in Indonesia and the Philippines. “Selamat malam” is the way to say “good evening” to an Indonesian while “magandang gabi” expresses the same sentiment to a Filipino. And to say “thank you” to an Indonesian, one says “terima kasih,” whereas to a Filipino it is “salamat.”
Filipino crew night and Indonesian crew night were two of the more enjoyable evening performances with crew members singing love songs in their languages and performing spirited folk dances. In one Filipino dance, two performers kneeled on either end of a pair of long boards and moved them together and apart on the floor as two dancers rhythmically jumped in and outside them. In an Indonesian “Thousand Hands” dance, performers kneeling on the floor bent forward to permit those beside them to move their arms, then reversed the process as their neighbors bent to allow them to move theirs. The undulating effect was hypnotizing.
Among the professional entertainers was solo violinist Michal Bącula, from Lodz, Poland, whose repertoire included such Jewish melodies as “Hava Nagila” and a suite from “Fiddler on the Roof” to the Irish “Danny Boy” to the sacred “Ave Maria.” Bącula had been honored by being chosen to perform at two major celebratory concerts, one for a visit of the late Pope John Paul II to his native Poland and the other upon the occasion of Poland becoming part of the European Union.
Best of all, the dinner partners to whose dining room table Nancy and I were assigned also acquainted us night after night with their respective parts of the world.
Greg and Debbie Clarke were from Saskatchewan, Canada, he a retired firefighter and current Grandview Beach town council member, and she a technician in the cardiology department of a local hospital.
The other couple, Ian Harkness and Barbara Hoskins, have homes in Wales and in England. He is a former brewery worker who now serves as an engineer at a nuclear power plant, whereas she works in municipal administration in Berkshire.
Cruise Director Buffery one night expressed the pleasant effect of such internationalism at sea: “Although we all speak different languages, have different religious beliefs, different upbringings and different cultures, we get along fine,” he said.
“You know, if just for one time, I think it would be great if we could invite some of the world leaders to come and sail with us aboard the Zaandam and see how we live in peace and harmony, maybe the world could be a brighter, safer place.”
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com