The little things humans need

To be satisfied, a human being needs a few things. There are needs like sleep or food, but also other things humans need for life. For example, music. In order to fulfill these requirements on our ship, we have our four projects.

I believe these projects work together like the four seasons of the year. First, there is the music project. It consists of nine people and Fabi, its musical leader. You find amazing singers and half an ensemble: a guitar, a saxophone, a trumpet, a piano, a French horn, a quartet of ukuleles and very special – a dulcimer. Every Saturday the music project presents a few songs. That’s such a beautiful moment and I think it’s very important for our mood. Oftentimes someone plays an instrument, and the mood is sooo much better. Most important thing – the mood: check.

Then there is a project called “Auftakeln” (which would be ‘Rigging up’ in English, but the German verb ‘sich auftakeln’ also means ‘to dress up’). In “Auftakeln” you should better be good with your hands, because you have some special responsibilities on board of our ship. You build some practical and helpful things for our everyday life, for example a bag for the blackboard outside or you crochet new cloths for cleaning. On Halloween this group turned the Thor into a real ghost ship with a lot of effort. Everywhere there were little ghosts or pumpkins hanging from the ceiling. On Christmas they will decorate everything too. This group is important for our everyday life, the next important thing: check.

If you want to be successful (the whole project – Classroom under Sail), you need someone who represents you. However, to represent something, for example on the website or on Instagram, you need stuff you can represent. And as not everyone is able to imagine the life on a traditional sailing ship, photos are a must-have. That’s the reason why we have the photo-team. They document everything and there are some people who can always be spotted with their cameras. It makes sense that these people know what they do, but you also learn a lot. The best thing is that everybody has a different camera and a different view, so there are so many different pictures. Later these guys sort all the taken photos and pick some for the website. That’s a lot of work. Documentation (also for us): check.

And now back to the best group (it’s my project 😉 ): Public relations. We are the project which represents Classroom under Sail. Yes, it’s obvious that we all are a part of Classroom under Sail and therefore represent it, but we are responsible for a few things, e.g., when we arrive in a new country and get guests on board. In Tenerife, for example, some students and their parents from the German school of Santa Cruz visited us in our new home. In order for these guests to understand who and what we are, a few of us held a speech. I also gave a speech with someone else from my group the day we left Kiel and started this adventure, for example. We also manage the Instagram account from Classroom under Sail. We upload some pictures and short texts for every stage. What I really like is that we can choose what we want to do, except from Instagram and the speeches. Like a lot of other years before us, we have planned to make a book about our journey. For this book we collect pictures, insiders, recipes and a lot of other stuff. Another activity – my favorite – is that we sometimes interview somebody and maybe even record it. On Tenerife we had the chance to interview Jacqueline Beer (the widow of Thor Heyerdahl), which was a super special moment for me. I am really excited about what is coming and what we can learn from it for the future. Representation: Check.

Every Friday afternoon we meet in our groups for two hours and work on our projects. Since it’s warm outside, almost everyone is on deck. The music group is playing on the bow of the ship and the wind is blowing the music to us. The project “Auftakeln” is sitting on the deckhouse and crocheting new cloths. The photography group is sorting their pictures and from time to time someone is coming around with their camera. My group – public relations – is working on our own projects, for example writing texts for Instagram. Often at the same time the sun is going down and the water is glowing in special colours.  It’s a wonderful moment.

To sum up, some of our four projects are good for day-to-day life on board and the little things every human needs in life to be fulfilled. The other ones are important for the project, Classroom under Sail, and its representation and with that also for us.