It was another sunny day in Mombasa and as usual, outside the port, it’s bustling with peddlers selling their wares and taxi drivers shouting out deals to take you around the city or to the beach. I look at the entire scene with anticipation, hoping to embark on another adventure but alas, warned by my colleagues, it’s too dangerous to go out alone.

The last time when I went out with my musician friends, they found a young local girl who could speak Italian fluently. Dressed in bright garish red spaghetti strapped top, she could easily be mistaken as a prostitute but she wasn’t. She offered to take the 4 of us in one car to the closest beach and my Italian friends weren’t to say no to add layers of tan to their already dark olive skins. However, instead of the public beach, she took us to a private beach resort and told us that we can enjoy the beach in front of it. The beach was a disappointment as it was filled with algae and shallow waters. After swimming in the pristine beaches of Seychelles, every other beach fails in comparison. We spent that afternoon by drinking lots of beer and eating sandwiches at the beach resort’s pool.

Today, my friends chose to use the ship’s pool instead of going out. They said it’s not worth it. As for me, I still long to explore the fringes of Mombasa but there’s no one to share a cab or to take a walk with. The African sun blazed above as I sip my freshly squeezed orange juice by the pool, in my uniform and watch my colleagues prance around in their bathing costumes. Just the silliness of it all confounds me. The fact that we’re in Mombasa, Kenya has no relevance to them. All they want is to be a tourist, drink margaritas, and suntan. No, they’re not all that bad but still, nothing can convince them to take the road less taken. What about learning about the way Kenyans live, their daily routines, what makes them tick? Instead, they’re afraid, they can’t be bothered, and they’re dispassionate.

Yet another uninteresting day. Pffftttt.

As I sit in my cabin, reflecting, pondering and typing up this post, pangs of bittersweet nostalgia overwhelms me. I know not if it stems from looking at the past month in retrospect or is it the fact that today’s Christmas and I am without my loved ones so neither merry making or celebrating another year that has come to past will take place. Or perhaps it is just a natural, instinctive romantic impulse that bubbles forth when I’m sitting, thinking and writing as I listen to the waves slosh by, feel the continuous buoying movements of the ship, feel the rays of sunlight shine into my room through the little porthole and rejoice at the fact that it’s sunny outside and at the ocean’s vast deep blue depths…

So! It’s been almost a month and a half now since I got stuck on board. Much has happened: both good and bad. Life has taken a dramatic turn and day by day, I feel myself slipping away. Restlessness and boredom has nudged me into paranoia, obsession and painful self-destructive tendencies. As my work demands only 20% of my time, I tend to use 80% of what’s left to amuse myself through alcohol, idle chatter and pursuing meaningless relationships. I grasped and attached myself to people, things, events—even when there isn’t anything to hold on to. Like a lost boat, I yearn to look for an anchor. Delusion has cloaked my perspective and space with such utter ignorance that I clamor and claw my way through blindly. Obviously, I meditate and read, to keep my sanity intact but barely.

One of the worst highlights was that I had some drinks with a friend that I trusted-we worked together previously on another ship-but after getting substantially tipsy, he tried to make a move at me. Now, this happened on the other ship as well and I had vehemently rejected his intentions. Having said that, my feelings towards him have remained unchanged since the last time and there’s nothing I expect from him other than a platonic relationship. If I’d the slightest interest or potential, perhaps I’d have encouraged it by flirting but I had no such ideas and was very sure that I did nothing to provoke his desires. But he did try to kiss me and I pushed him away. He didn’t stop and I started to get angry. Alcohol and emotional outbursts don’t go well together and hence leads to overreaction. I pushed him aside and decided to get back to my cabin but fell clumsily from the stairs. Seeing that, he came over to help me and accompanied me to my cabin. Gratefully I accepted but he wouldn’t leave from my cabin. I had to literally wrestle with him for him to go away. What happened after that was hazy but I remembered crying, asking him to leave me alone and wanting to see Ivan, someone that I’ve became really good friends with. I made my way to Ivan’s cabin, crying and ended up puking in his toilet and sleeping there (I’m used to sleeping over so I know I’m safe). Ivan said nothing; he merely let me do my own thing. The next morning, I awaken with bruises and gashes on my hands and arms- a painful reminder of the night before. I looked for Ivan and told him what happened—perhaps hoping to fish some reassuring words and comfort from him-but I got nothing. Instead, Ivan was apathetic and mentioned that I should have seen it coming. So it was out of my naïveté that the situation got worst? Was it my usual openness and trust in people has led me to my own downfall? At that point in time, as Ivan has suggested, it seemed so. I don’t know but I started to see the ugly truth of life onboard more starkly. Reality has reared its dark head- perhaps I just didn’t see it all these while. So my heart sunk deeper into despair and hopelessness. I felt like I fell in a hole and could not get out of it.

Having said that, there are times when it is not all that bad. There are little moments where golden rays filter through the cracks. My favourite times are dinner times. It has become a ritual for me to have my meal at 6.45pm, because that’s the time where Roberto, the pianist, and I will share a bottle of cheap white wine and chat. I will speak in Italian and he’ll speak in English-both encouraging each other to improve our languages. We’ll scribble on napkins to spell a specific word or to explain something in illustration. After that, Moreno and Francesca (my students as well), another musician couple, will join us, and more peals of laughter can be heard from our table. Very quickly, I learned my Italian phrases by heart. From Neapolitan swear words to Roman idioms, I was able to recite it by heart and use it whenever the occasion permits-thus commanding a new level of respect from the Italians. There are times when I was the source of amusement. It is funny while it lasts. Everyone now take for granted that I speak Italian because I keep hanging out with them!

And then, there’s also Ivan. He’s Italian, a true Neapolitan at heart. He struck me as special ever since he told me that he’s named Ivan by his dad simply because his dad was a communist. Intelligent, quick-witted, creative, worldly and he can speak all the 5 European languages and convince you that he should be the one who wrote Gomorra.In fact, he actually do look like the author himself! Unlike most Italians, he has lived in places like London, Malaga and Venezuela but he holds fiercely to his Neapolitan traditions. At the age of 29, he probably was more Neapolitan than most of his elders. Even the Hotel Director, who have lived in Naples for 20 years, would call him up for fun and put Neapolitan songs through the phone and say, “The nostalgia is too much…” Ivan has a usual calm composure and even if he were swearing at you, you wouldn’t know it. There was this time when I was helping him out in his office (he’s the Desktop Publisher-produces and translates the Today magazine and menus onboard) and when shit hits the ceiling, there was a sudden electric tension in the office. One of the hostesses provoked him and he retaliated by saying some nasty things back. And then she threatened to call the Assistant Cruise Director. Instead, he picked up the phone and called the Hotel Director, and said, “She’s a bitch! The hostesses are bitches!!!” She lunged at him but he leaned to the far right and I was in between the two of them. You may say that in times like this, it may sound mighty exciting but I can assure you it’s not. Ivan is also a fantastic musician. He sings Neapolitan folk songs and plays the guitar and the tambourine. As you listen to his soulful voice, it makes you think of images of a sailor, sitting at a rickety bench by the deck, calling out to the ocean, wanting to go home. He used to have a band where they’d tour all over Italy singing Tarantella and fusion Neapolitan classics. He also taught me some songs and made me sing the chorus with him. Yes-Ying singing in Neapolitan!!!! I wish I could show you the videos I took of him when he’s singing but that’ll come in due time. Having Ivan around is great but as he works close to 15 hours a day, we always end up hanging out in his office. However, it also feels that I’m addicted to his company because other than him (he speaks great English) there’s no one else as interesting or one that I could actually connect with. But I think this attachment is also very unhealthy because along with it comes a lot of unnecessary pain, anxiety and loss of perspective.

I miss speaking English incredibly. I realised that not being able to express myself naturally has limited my social network a lot. I told Moreno and Francesca about how bored am I and they told me, “Ying, everyone on the ship is bored.” And I agree but most people either work 10 hours a day or they speak Italian. If you speak Italian, no matter how bored you are, you can’t get more bored than me.
Oh well, enough about me. Surely life onboard is more than me, myself and I. Sometimes I wonder if I’m too self-indulgent. Every time as I pass through the garbage disposal section, a narrow corridor that I’ve to take to get to my cabin, I always meet this Crew Steward. He’s a young man from Indonesia, probably in his early twenties. He’s always mopping that floor and it makes me feel bad that I’ve to step on the spaces that he just mopped. I wonder how he feels about doing the same damn thing everyday. I wonder if it’s better to be told of your function onboard and all you do is keep fulfill that function and nothing more. If you’re meant to mop the entire corridor, from dusk to dawn, 7 days a week, 8 months in a year, how does that feel? Surely it keeps your thoughts to the minimum and if you could make peace with that, you’ll be a happier person?

Anyway, thank you for everyone’s well wishes. To those of you who’ve been sending me emails, just to let you know that your missives are taped on my wall. It’s to remind me that there’s a still world out of this ship, and in that world, things still work the same way as I know of it.

Or maybe I’m not seeing the lesson that I’ve to learn on board. The quicker I find out the reason why I’m put into this situation, the quicker I’ll be able to make peace with my situation.
I guess I can pontificate forever if I don’t stop myself. This long post will have to suffice for now.

The next time, I shall write about the places that we’ve been to.

Much love,

Ying of the seas…