Community

 We were invited to the home of friends of the boat for Thanksgiving, but I know that The Queen, the head of the organization, would be there. After my first interactions with her, just being in her presence makes me tense up.

It was early on, in Boston, when she boarded the boat together with Captain Might. At that point, Captain Wright went to be with his wife, after having spent the good part of two months and the first months of his marriage in 'yard' repairing the boat.

When Captain Might and The Queen boarded they barely acknowledged me. I don't think Captain Might shook my hand or even asked my name (because he called me Nichole for a week until I corrected him).

 The morning after they held a meeting to review the educational program. They talked about how the program on the island is designed to teach the kids about community. After all, it's basically the third world and the schooling is awful. We went around the room and everyone said their name and why they were there - everyone but me said it was because they wanted to work with kids.

So. Community. How do you build community? Can a crew of white sailors from middle class backgrounds teach the poor black people on the island about community? We shall soon see. On Monday the regular class schedule starts...

But that very night, after the community talk, they definitely missed the boat if they wanted to build community among their own crew.

I entered the galley at 9:30 to find Cat looking hang-doggish. "What's up?" I asked. She had an hour and a half left on her watch and had nothing to do. "Let's play a game," I suggested. I had assumed there was a whole game chest onboard, but they hardly had any. We decided on backgammon and took it into one corner of the salon. Captain Might and The Queen sat near the Navagation station, discussing something. We began to play. "I'm going to be heading to bed soon, just so you know," said Catain Might. His quarters are on the other side of the salon. I thought, okay, so we have twenty minutes... But. Then the Queen interjected, "you know, when we're onboard this is kinda our area. You guys have he whole rest of he ship. I almost looked where she was gesturing - what whole rest? We were in Boston - we couldn't play backgammon outside. It was so cold in my bunk that I couldn't be down there without a hot water bottle in my sleeping bag. There really was no place else to go! Except the galley, where we took the board and stood playing at the side of the counter.

This incident was never mentioned again, but it made me dislike The Queen quite a bit; the incident made me think they were both pretty hypocritical and simply not very nice. It made me wonder how we were going to teach people to live in community when the one they were setting up felt more like an oligarchy.

So I did not go along to the dinner but instead stayed back on Neverlandand and called home. I felt much rejuvenated after some time alone and feel now like I will hang in here a while. We're all only human after all...

I did, however, bake the pies and send them off to the meal. The crew looked pretty cute, as dressed up as they get, walking off, bearing pies.