Author: Benedikt
Date: 14.03.2019
More than thirty students live on board of the Thor Heyerdahl. That means that more than thirty individuals with their own interests come together. How do you manage to combine those differences so that everyone has the opportunity to follow their interests? One way to do so on board is participating in a workshop. During every leg of the journey, different workshops are offered. The students can choose one of them. The workshops take place on Friday afternoon. I will now try to take you on a walk over the ship to describe to you the different activities and atmospheres on the various parts of the Thor.
We will start our tour in the mess room. On starboard, Kathrin shows a few interested students how to sew pants, T-Shirts or whatever they want. Probably the most skilled of them is Christoph, on board often called „Columbus“. If one has for example jeans that are torn, Columbus will always be able to repair them in exchange for chocolate. However, sewing jeans in his freetime is no challenge for somebody like Columbus. That is why by participating in the right workshop he has the opportunity to use all of his skills.
On the other side of the mess room, Jakob is leading a discussion about racism including the people‘s own experiences and prejudices one has even without noticing it. At the moment they are watching a film about a social experiment about three men of different skin colours trying to steal a bike. By that, they discuss the reaction of the people standing around that scene.
Continuing our walk we come to the library. You can also offer a workshop as a student. Robin and Simon took the chance to talk about an important topic they know a lot about: Vegetarism. You do not have to be vegetarian to participate in this workshop, it is just a chance to learn something about the pros and cons of being vegetarian. As a matter of fact the number of vegetarians on board has almost doubled since we started our journey. We now have just as many people who eat meat as people who do not.
In the cargo hold, the bosun`s space, Laurent, Vera, Lucie, Matthias and some more are working on a wooden chest for special bottles. Having started with the first sketches a few weeks after we had left Germany, they are now in the middle of the building process of the chest‘s top. Listening to music while working, they are all in a good mood even though it is not sure whether they manage to finish their work till the end of the journey.
Wishing them luck we leave the cargo hold, going upstairs and outside on the deck house where many people of our choir are sitting in a circle, working on a new song which they will present on „Besanschotan“ tomorrow. The loudest voice you can hear besides our choir‘s leader Jojo is the deep powerful voice of Leo, one of our big music talents on board.
The last station of our tour is the poop deck. The workshops would not be possible if we had not a few crew members taking over our watch so that every student has the possibility to participate in a workshop.
As you may have guessed, the workshop time is very well appreciated on board. It is always a time of joy for everyone, whether you discuss important topics, learn how to work with wood or relax while singing different songs with the fresh, salty air of the Atlantic ocean flooding one‘s lungs.