Miscellaneous #3

1. More on Achmad and Yudith. I happened to see Yudith in the hall and decided to satisfy my curiosity.

"You and Achmad are both from Indonesia, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"And Indonesia is a Muslim country."
"Yes."
"Well, I thought Muslims didn't let men and women work together."
She smiled as one does when a child asks why the sky is blue.
"We are a democracy," she said proudly. "We have democratic laws."
"Not sharia?" I asked.
"No. I do not wear the... " and she pantomimed a headscarf. "That's the Arabs, not us."

And with another, brilliant smile, she moved on to do her work.

2. Along the same lines, most of the wait staff in the main dining room are Indonesian, but all the wine stewards are Filipino because they can handle liquor without transgressing religious standards.

3. Ocean color, it turns out, has to do with several factors. Water molecules tend to absorb everything but blue. Various kinds of plankton can modify what gets reflected so that there is more green. Best current guess about that striking mid-Pacific blue is that it happens over water that is two or three miles deep and relatively sterile, so that there is little affecting what we see but what the water gives back to the sky.

4. We had a hell of a Mardi Gras celebration with elaborate decorations, open bar, Louisiana food, and genuine New Orleans musicians flown into Samoa so that they could play for the party. One of them gave a talk yesterday on the origins of jazz. He had us standing up to learn to do the hambone, the percussive dance slaves used to maintain their African roots when they were forbidden to have drums. I don't think we showed much aptitude, but he was kind and praised us anyway.

5. I'm not in the brig. Australia will let me in. And day after tomorrow, I will be sure to rise early to watch our entry into Sydney Harbour.