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Boom times in Manta reminiscent of San Diego last century
Seaside development being graded on coastline of Manta, Ecuador
Last in a series
By Donald H. Harrison
Donald H. Harrison
MANTA, Ecuador—There’s a San Diego feel about this city near the equator. The same tuna companies – Van Camp, Bumblebee—that once made San Diego their homes now have canneries here. Although it recently closed, a U.S. Air Force base here that monitored possible drug traffickers in nearby Colombia brought single servicemen to this city – and many of them took Ecuadorian wives. And there is a shoreline that is reminiscent of San Diego County in the early 20th century, with miles and miles of bare promontories overlooking secluded beaches.
Residential area in Manta overlooking the Pacific
Still another reason why Manta may generate nostalgia among long-time San Diegans is that there is a building boom currently taking place, with an estimated 500 to 1,000 apartment, condo and single family homes being built each year to take advantage of an influx of retirees from the United States, Canada and the former Soviet Union, according to Maria Fernanda Carrasco Cordero, one of the busiest real estate agents in Manta. Old time San Diegans can remember similar days of opportunity in their county.
Nancy and I met Carrasco and her husband, furniture manufacturer Juan Pablo Arteaga Calderon, through the Alexander and Helen Poddubnyi of Podd & Associates of Vista, California, who operate air cargo charter offices in San Diego County. Poddubnyi purchased a condo in Manta and subsequently became a business associate of Carrasco’s.
Although we aren’t ready to retire yet to the Latin American shoreline—although the prospect is tempting indeed— Nancy and I were interested in learning what life is like for the growing American colony in this port city that was on MS Rotterdam’s itinerary during our cruise from Lima, Peru, back home to San Diego.
Maria Fernanda Carrasco Cordero
Carrasco met us in her car near the gated entrance of the Port of Manta and took us on a whirlwind tour of hillsides currently being graded for condominiums overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Some of these still unbuilt units already have been sold, and, judging by the number of phone calls Carrasco received during our time with her—more are being sold every day. In fact, Isofali Kundawala, a retired physician from Richardson, Texas, shared the tour with us—and he told us he had decided to buy in Manta after checking out other potential retirement spots along the Mexican, central American and South American coasts.
Why Manta? We asked him. He described it as a small town with some large town amenities, including at least seven flights daily to the Ecuadorian capital of Quito, from which international airline connections can be made back to the States or to other parts of the world. He also said he found the prices appealing—not only to purchase real estate, but also for domestic services, taxes, gasoline, and the like.
Residential developments here invoke the names of various seaside paradises around the world including Santorini, Greece; Portofino in Italy, Fortaleza, Brazil, and La Jolla in California. The latter is where Poddubnyi purchased her condo, with Carrasco having served as her agent.
Carrasco told us that most people who purchase condos in Manta initially visit the city on multi-city real estate tours, decide that Manta is where they’d like to locate, and then come back to find the specific property they’d like to purchase.
“Every day there is someone moving here, “ Carrasco said. “I think it is because people who are on fixed income are able to have a better standard of living here. You don’t have to have medical insurance because doctors here are inexpensive compared to the States. We have good weather and a good location. If someone is renting here, they can get a nice two bedroom place for approximately $600 a month plus $200 utilities. For $1,500 to $2,000 a month you can live quite luxuriously here.”
Small homes for purchase cost approximately $150,000 for two and three bedrooms in the Manta Beach colony, whereas a large, luxurious home will cost approximately $500,000. Forty hour a week domestic helpers who can cook and clean are paid $240 per month, with another $60 paid to the government for their nationally mandated health insurance and social security, she said.
Plumbers, gardeners charge between $10 and $20 per visit, and doctors charge between $30 and $50 per office visit. Overnight stays at the hospital cost approximately $100 per night, but transportation to Guayaquil may be required for more complex hospital services. “But it is still cheap compared to the United States,” Carrasco said.
In December 2011, Manta will host the South American Beach Sports competition, an event which Carrasco believes will increase the city’s visibility among real estate investors.
Carrasco and her husband had lived in Madison, Wisconsin, so they are familiar with the ways of Americans and both speak very good English.
While Carrasco met with some business clients, a driver took Nancy and me to the bamboo furniture factory of her husband, Juan Pablo Arteaga Calderon.
Juan Pablo Arteaga Calderon
Walking us through the complex, he told us that originally he had a dairy farm on the location, which benefitted from the proximity of companies that extracted oils from fish and from various plants in the area. But when Ecuador decided to make the U.S. dollar its currency in 2000, prices of the feed went up, and Arteaga was faced with the necessity of purchasing pasture land to feed the cows and hiring more people to watch over them as they grazed.
Bamboom dining room set
Figuring costs closely, Arteaga decided to instead sell the cows to other ranchers. He converted his farm into a bamboo factory where, after purchasing bamboo from rain forests on the Pacific side of the Andes Mountains, he initially manufactured handcrafts and other small items predominantly for the tourist trade.
As his workers’ skill level increased, they began crafting handmade bamboo furniture—chairs, tables, desks, cabinets, and beds. With his family background in furniture retailing, Arreaga opened a store called “Bamboom” a few blocks from the entrance to the Port. His wife also maintains her offices there.
Arreaga said the name “Bamboom” is taken from the sound that bamboo wood makes when used for firework displays. Bam! Boom! More importantly, the name suggests the excitement that making such furniture generates – especially now that business in booming, er bam-booming.
Arteaga has been busy making special orders of doors and room furniture for hotel lobbies and for owners of new condos who’d rather purchase a full suite of new bamboo furniture than ship their old furniture.
Bamboom has 19 employees in the factory and six in the showroom.
Manta Yacht Club
Nancy and I met the couple’s two children who were taking sailing lessons at the Manta Yacht Club. We enjoyed a fine lunch at the club, enjoying the ever-changing tableau of a former fishing village that is becoming a bustling retirement and tourist community.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World
Compiling a digital menagerie on Holland America cruise
By Donald H. Harrison
Donald H. Harrison
ABOARD MS ROTTERDAM – Not really conscious that I was doing so, I turned this Holland America cruise ship into a digital Noah’s Ark while voyaging from Lima, Peru, to San Diego, USA.
In port after port, I photographed whatever seemed interesting that crossed in front of my lens. This included shops, architecture, signs, people in national costume, flags—the usual eye-appealing parade of color that catches the eyes of tourists. To my surprise, it turned out that in every port—even in one at which I was feeling too ill to get off the ship—I photographed animals.
Some of the animals were alive, some were representations in art, but the growing unplanned collection seemed a testament to the fact that no matter where in the world where we go, humans find animals irresistible to watch and to admire.
Our cruise started in Callao, which is the port for Lima, Peru. In the Plaza des Armas, near the presidential palace, various artists had decorated life-sized sculptures of cows. I was told that this was a public art project that eventually through auction will raise money for charitable causes.
Iguana Park in heart of Guayaquil, Ecuador
The next stop was Guayaquil, Ecuador, and from the pier, courtesy shuttle buses took us to a park in the center of town famous for the iguanas that roam there along with the pigeons. Admired, photographed, oohed and ahhed over, the iguanas are quite used to the Ecuadorians and tourists who come to see them on a regular basis. They even seem to tolerate the pigeons, which like to share in the iguanas’ bounty.
Tuna fountain in Manta, Ecuador
Manta, Ecuador, is home to tuna canneries –and tuna are celebrated with public art showing them jumping out of a fountain and flying across a main street.
In Puerta Caldera, Costa Rica, I felt too ill to get off the ship—a short bout with a gastro-intestinal malady had done me in – but a black bird of a species I couldn’t identify apparently took pity on me, flying right to the Promenade Deck outside the sliding door of my cabin.
It was if the bird knew, even before I did, that I had this animal photo streak going, and didn’t want a little thing like a stomach upset to spoil it.
Next it was to Puerto Chiapas, Mexico, where woodcarvers at work inside a giant tourist pyramid made various animals before our eyes, including a frog.
Huatulco shopping district
In Huatulco, the Gabriel the Owl store invited tourists to buy gold at 40 percent off with the promise on an outdoor sign that “we won’t cheat you too bad.” How reassuring!
In Acapulco, at Fort San Diego, exhibits showing trade goods carried in the times of the Manila galleons included a sculpture of a horse carrying a Spanish soldier.
In Cabo San Lucas, our last port before San Diego, we were fascinated by the large, friendly pelicans that loafed along the waterfront.
The ship also contributed to my photographic zoo. Two large sea lions dominated the swimming pool on the Lido Deck, carved watermelons in the buffet line looked like seahorses, and on many nights in our cabins, towel animals created by our stewards tickled our whimsy.
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Next: Boom times in Manta, Ecuador
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World
Cruising through Latin American history
Francisco Pizarro statue in Lima
Sixth in a Series
By Donald H. Harrison
Donald H. Harrison
For us, a recent voyage aboard MS Rotterdam began in Callao, the port serving nearby Lima, Peru. Inside the Cathedral on Lima’s Plaza des Armas, one can find the tomb of the conquistador Francisco Pizarro, who nearly 470 years after his assassination is still a controversial figure in Peru.
Renato Monteverde
As guide Renato Monteverde of taxilimaperu.com narrated the story, Pizarro is hated in Peru for having slain so many Incas during the time of conquest. A well-known statue of him astride a horse once was located in front of the Cathedral, according to Monteverde, but the church didn’t consider a horseman with a sword consistent with its image as the helper of the people. So, said Monteverde, the statue was moved by city authorities in front of the presidential palace. But the president—being a politician who wants to court the support of the people—didn’t want so controversial a figure in front of his building either. Spain was asked to take the statue back, but according to Monteverde’s version, the former colonial power would do so only if Peru paid for the shipping. Eventually, the statue was moved to the catacombs by the river, in the hope, according to Monteverde, that it would be someday washed away.
While one might quibble with the historical veracity of Monteverde’s tale, it certainly portrayed in most vivid fashion how some people feel about the Spaniards who brought their weapons and their diseases to the Incan Empire. At least for some parts of the population, Pizarro is an absolute anathema.
Fernando Lopez Sanchez
Fernando Lopez Sanchez, an historian trained by Lima’s Catholic University who today serves as chief archivist at the Cathedral, offers a more forgiving assessment of the conquistador. “History tells us the facts that took place; it is up to us to interpret and understand the time in which he lived,” Lopez said. “He was doing what all the soldiers of the time were doing, which was conquest.”
However, he added, “The intentions of Pizarro and the conquistadors was not just to come in and kill everything in sight; the intention was to try to spread faith to a population. At first they tried to negotiate with the indigenous people, but once the negotiations failed, it turned into violence.”
It is true that many Incas died, “but what you have to take into account was that most of the deaths were not caused by Spanish arms but by the diseases” they unknowingly brought to South America with them.
Pizarro founded Lima in 1535, and he is buried in the cathedral “because the city would not have been established were it not for Pizarro and it was his dying wish to be buried in the cathedral.”
The conquistador of Mexico, Hernan Cortes, was a second cousin of Pizarro’s. Cortes’ conquest of the Aztecs in 1520 and Pizarro’s conquest of the Incans in 1532 are often equated. However, said Lopez, “although there are similarities in the Mexican and the Peruvian pasts, the Mexicans today are ultra nationalists, whereas Peruvians are more open to people from different cultures. Mexicans view their history with more hatred. They hate Cortes, they say ‘he killed us all.’ What is happening here in Peru is that we try to understand the Spanish instead of just hating them.”
Spanish rule lasted in Peru for nearly 300 years, until 1821, when the Argentine general Jose de San Martin liberated Lima and became known as the Protector of Peru.
The next port of call for MS Rotterdam was Guayaquil, Ecuador, where San Martin in 1822 reportedly had his only meeting ever with the liberator of northern South America, Simon Bolivar. Nobody knows for certain what the two men said, although it is believed that San Martin acceded to the idea of modern-day Ecuador and Peru becoming part of Gran Colombia, the confederation of South American states that also included modern day Colombia and Venezuela.
La Rotunda in Guayaquil celebrates meeting of Bolivar and San Martin
The content of the meeting between the two great liberators today is still a source of speculation among historians. The fact that it was held in Guayaquil is a matter of great pride to the port city, which in its commemoration built La Rotunda, a heroic sized monument on the Malecon, a wide walkway along the Guayas River. Those interested in Spanish colonial history can easily combine a visit to La Rotunda with a short walk to the Museo Nahim Isaias, in which a banker of Lebanese descent compiled a storehouse of Spanish colonial art, most of it on Christian religious subjects.
After stopping in Manta, Ecuador; Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica, and Puerto Chiapas, Mexico; MS Rotterdam pulled into Huatulco, Mexico, which in association with Veracruz on Mexico’s Atlantic Coast and Acapulco on Mexico’s Pacific Coast was an important port in keeping Spain’s colonial empire in Latin America together. Acapulco was the next port after Huatulco on MS Rotterdam’s itinerary.
Small boat dock in Huatulco
Spain sent European goods and crops across the Atlantic Ocean to Veracruz, where they were sold at market for the silver mined and coined in Mexico. Afterwards, the European goods were sent to Huatulco and Acapulco. Those that went to Huatulco were put onto ships for Peru, where the goods were exchanged for Peruvian precious metals, furniture and crops. European goods that went to Acapulco were put on galleons bound for Manila in the Philippines, where the goods and Mexican silver were exchanged for the silks, spices, and ceramics of the Far East.
Fort San Diego in Acapulco
Fort San Diego in Acapulco is located across the street from the cruise pier, making it a popular destination for tourists. Shaped like an irregular five-pointed star, Fort San Diego had a commanding view of ocean and land approaches to Acapulco. Its cannons were able to protect the treasures of the galleons from pirates and other enemies of the Spanish crown.
In 1813, however, the Mexican revolutionary Jose Maria Morelos was able to capture the fort in Acapulco, effectively bringing to an end the era when the Pacific Ocean was considered a Spanish lake ruled by the Manila galleons.
From Acapulco, MS Rotterdam proceeded to Cabo San Lucas, which most people know for the famous stone arches that mark the point where the Sea of Cortes and the Pacific Ocean divide. In Spanish colonial history, this picturesque port spelled danger because it was a favorite hiding place for British pirates ready to plunder the galleons.
Tendering to Cabo San Lucas
Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese sailor in the employ of Spain, passed Cabo San Lucas en route to Alta California. He claimed modern-day San Diego Bay for Spain in 1542, naming the area San Miguel. However, Cabrillo’s discovery was all but forgotten for six decades. After the pirate Thomas Cavendish made short work of the galleon Santa Ana in 1587, Spain realized it had to do more to protect the Manila-Acapulco route, perhaps by establishing forts in areas where the pirates were likely to strike.
In 1602, Spain authorized Sebastian Vizcaino to explore the coast of Alta California. Not recognizing the area that Cabrillo had named San Miguel, Vizcaino gave the bay and the city that would spring up in its vicinity its modern name of San Diego. Homeport to the MS Rotterdam, San Diego was our final port in a brief, but fascinating, excursion into Spanish colonial history.
Next: Animals in Cruise Ports
Humor at sea
Rotterdam Cruise Director Joseph Pokorski
Fifth in a series
Donald H. Harrison
ABOARD MS ROTTERDAM—The first cruise ship joke I ever heard was about the captain of the famous large ocean liner who had the unusual custom of retreating to his cabin at exactly 12 noon every day, opening his desk drawer, looking at something therein, mumbling to himself, closing and locking the desk drawer, and then returning to the bridge.
No one, not even his trusted cabin steward, knew what was within the drawer. Speculation ran from the profane to the sacred. Among the guesses: Inside the drawer was a picture of his girlfriend! No, his wife! No, his family members! No, it was a prayer he said on behalf of the passengers and crew! No, it was…. The guesses kept multiplying.
Finally, it was time for the famous ocean liner to be taken out of service. On the ship’s very last voyage, the trusted cabin steward could contain himself no longer. One afternoon, after the captain had returned to the bridge, the steward picked the lock of the drawer, opened it, and saw that there was an important message written on a piece of paper taped to the bottom: “Port-left, starboard-right.”
Towel elephant placed in cabin by steward
On a cruise aboard the MS Rotterdam, comedian Lee Bayless found humor in the exemplary service cabin stewards provide to passengers. Whether it is making towel animals for the passengers’ enjoyment, putting candies on the bed at nighttime, or carefully triangulating the beginning of the toilet paper roll, the steward continually resupplies the cabins and their bathrooms with orderliness and whimsy.
Bayless told passengers he also had been folding the toilet paper back into triangles, making his cabin steward become very concerned for his health. “Oh, this poor passenger never goes to the toilet!” he assumed the steward must have thought. He wouldn’t have been surprised if suddenly along with his nighttime chocolates, a discreet glass of prune juice also were put out for him.
On one cruise line, Nancy and I were amused when we found my pajamas and her nightgown laid out on the bed in such a way that they seemed to be holding hands. A night or so later, an arm of the pajamas was around the waist of the nightgown. We ran into the cabin the following evening to see how this romance might progress—and sure enough the pajamas and nightgown were in somewhat scandalous positions. And on the following night? The pajamas and nightgown were again demurely holding hands.
The apocryphal captain of that famous liner was not the only one who sometimes got disoriented at sea. By their questions, cruise ship passengers frequently betray their landlubber status, according to the Rotterdam’s cruise director Joseph Pokorski.
For example, there was one passenger whom he quoted as saying to him: “That is a big mountain range over there. What is our current elevation?” He said he responded: “That would be sea level and we like to keep it that way.”
While always answering passengers politely, Pokorski said there are times when he imagines responding with more saucy answers:
Q: “Does the ship generate its own power?”
A. “No, we have the longest extension cord in the world running back to San Diego.”
Q: “Is this the same moon I see from my home?”
A: “No this is a special Mexican at-sea moon created for your pleasure.”
Q: “Does the crew sleep on board?”
A. “No we get a helicopter every morning.”
Q: “ I’m upset my microwave doesn’t work.”
A. “That could be because it is a room safe.”
Q: “Will the ship be docking in the center of town?
A. “Yes, they are widening the main street of Cabo as we speak.”
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Next: Spanish colonial history comes alive in our cruise ports
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World
Versatile Adam Shapiro plays many roles during cruise ship gig
Adam Shapiro, with help of show girls, hosts a Sing That Tune show
Fourth in a series
By Donald H. Harrison
Donald H. Harrison
ABOARD MS ROTTERDAM—In the National Yiddish Theatre in New York, he starred in the title role in the musical based on Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Gimpel Tam (Gimpel the Fool). In a touring national children’s theatre production, he played Mudge, a big, joyful, sloppy dog based on the Cynthia Rylant’s
Passengers found Shapiro singing and dancing in Broadway revues and other featured productions in the Showroom at Sea (for which he and troupe members rehearsed for two months in Los Angeles before joining the ship). However, passengers were also likely to see Shapiro in less formal events including a solo Cabaret show (at right) in which he sang humorous, self-deprecatory songs (including one about being in love with the man in the mirror); a water volleyball game pitting crew members against passengers; and a cook-off contest (at left) in which his salsa was judged the absolute worst, but his culinary style the funniest.
Shapiro also emceed a passenger talent contest in which contestants had to shake a tambourine or strike a cowbell first to be called upon to supply the lyrics of popular songs, and he even could be found, ever cheerful, wearing plastic gloves helping to serve passengers at the Lido buffet when extra manpower was needed.
Shapiro officiates at Friday night Shabbat services
When no guest rabbi or cantor is aboard, Shapiro serves as leader of the Friday night Erev Shabbat services, also dispensing the wine and challah at the oneg Shabbat. Because the ship was taking precautions against gastro-intestinal sicknesses (GIS), Shapiro wore plastic gloves while serving the wine and bread, and, he noted sadly, “we normally serve gefilte fish, but right now that’s out of the question.”
Of course, the 60 or so passengers who crowded the Shabbat services played a little “Jewish geography” and it was learned that Shapiro grew up in Indianapolis, where his pre-bar mitzvah rabbi at the Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation was Jonathan Stein, who prior to Shapiro’s simcha moved to San Diego to become the senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel. Eventually, Stein relocated again, to Shaaray Tefila in Manhattan, and when Shapiro, the son and grandson of doctors, set out to New York City to pursue his acting career, Stein represented the familiarity and reassurance of home.
Shapiro tells a story during an interview
One day at sea, I chatted with Shapiro who told me that he caught the acting bug in kindergarten in Indianapolis when he performed in a class production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. After that he was typically the first to sign up for plays at his temple and at school, and his parents obliged his interest by sending him for two summers to the Interlochen Arts Academy in Northern Michigan, where he focused on acting and dance.
Once in youth theatre he played Motel the Tailor in Fiddler on the Roof, but after Interlochen, wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, he was selected for the lead role of Tevye. “There’s a reason why every character actor worth his salt wants to play Tevye,” he said. “It is because it is one of the best written roles for a man ever.” Tevye is “so wonderfully multifaceted, and he is the type of character who can change on a dime. In one scene you are joking and you are happy—deidle, deedel, deidle, dum – and then all of a sudden you’re told that your daughter is going to marry out of the faith, and she’s dead to you…”
He studied acting and dance at Ball State University, at one point writing a term paper on choreographer Jerome Robbins, whose many credits included Fiddler. “The starting point in his career was the National Yiddish Theatre and in some of the books are photos of National Yiddish Theatre productions and you can just see in them where his inspiration came for staging Fiddler on the Roof — especially the dream sequence. Although Shapiro had anticipated acting in numerous college plays, his big break came when he auditioned for a community theatre production in Muncie directed by one of the faculty members, Michael O’Hara. The professor cast him as the general in the Noel Coward farce, Look After Lulu, and became a mentor.
“In show business, for you to be a success, you have to know yourself inside and out,” Shapiro says. “You have to be brutally honest with yourself and you have to figure out what you can offer that would be considered unique,”
So what is his verdict about himself?
He responded that another professor at Ball State called him in, and referring to his heavy-set physique, told him: “If you want to do more traditional theatre roles, chorus roles, or what have you, you can either start working out and lose a lot of weight and really, really increase your dance classes, and become a chorus boy, or you can embrace your body type and gear your performance to the type of roles you are right to play.”
At first, Shapiro took umbrage at the advice the faculty member was giving him. “That’s so unfair,” he remembered thinking. “I want to do everything.” However, he reflected, the professor “was absolutely right. What I decided to do was essentially one up him—I was going to concentrate on the roles I was right to play, but also keep up on my dance training. So I became the character actor who could do funny bits and the funny songs, but who could also do a tap dance on stage and not miss a step.”
Those two talents proved helpful in New York where he found that other “big men” who tried out for parts could act, and do shtick, but often couldn’t dance.”
Asked who his “big man” role models are, Shapiro responded that “Jackie Gleason was the grandpappy of all big character actors on television, but I look to Zero Mostel, who was incredible both for his musical theatre work and for his film work. He was the original Max Bialystok (in The Producers).” Shapiro added that as a child one of his favorite television shows was I Love Lucy and “I loved William Frawley who played Fred Mertz. There are those guys who are bigger and clearly unashamed of it, who just walk in and are comfortable in their bodies and let er’ rip.”
Those whom Shapiro refers to as “larger actors” face different problems than other actors trying to break into Broadway. While other actors worry about becoming too old for parts they’d like to play, heavy people often here “you’re great, we love you, but you are too young.’” Roles for heavier people, tend to be written for middle age persons or older, he explained. So while other actors fear getting old, heavy set actors fret that they look too young.
Enterprising and willing to go anywhere to act, Shapiro took a job in Pinocchio playing Geppetto for a touring national children’s theatre company, and when he came back to New York in 2005 saw an ad for a paid workshop in Jewsical, the Chosen Musical, a collection of shtick and satire written by Joel Paley and Marvin Laird. He got the part of Mendy Bloom, the president of Temple Ben Shtiller, and “it was the first time I ever was involved with a new project. It was crazy originating a role with nothing to model myself after, just having to create a character.”
The Mendy character was “sort of a macher, he knew everything about everybody,” Shapiro recalled. “I started thinking of men I knew in my life that reminded me of that sort – very confident, assertive, slightly-know-it-all. I actually modeled Mendy after my grandfather; I kept asking myself ‘what would my grandfather do?’ He was the kind of person who always stood very straight, and kept his face very controlled and his speech very controlled. When people asked him a question, there’d be a head nod, and a silence as if he were thinking whether he agreed with the person or not. And he had perfect posture—something I don’t have, except when a show is on.”
The staged reading went well in New York City, and Shapiro traveled with a production of Jewsical to South Florida, where it was well received, and then to Denver, where it was not. “I can’t say that the appeal was universal,” Shapiro reflected. “You didn’t need to be Jewish but you needed to understand Jewish humor. … People in New York, Florida, the Catskills, Chicago, LA got it, but it was a how that needed its demographic. Denver did not have that….”
Then came auditions for the Henry and Mudge touring production “about a boy and his lovable, slobbering dog, Mudge… I told them I could play a big lovable slobbering dog, and they apparently agreed and gave me a six month contract playing Mudge.” The job also came with a coveted Actor’s Equity card, “so I jumped, no, I sat up and begged and wagged my tail, and spent six months touring the northeast and Midwest doing
There have been disappointments along the way. Shapiro was called back six times during the audition process for one current Broadway show, but the part went to someone else. “You try not to get your hopes up, but at the same time when you get six callbacks, your hopes are high, your hopes are up, and when it didn’t happen it was hard, very hard. My manager was trying to be such a parent—and I needed emotional support to get through that one. But that’s the business. It is going to happen. I am almost glad that it happened to me so early in my career, because now I know how it feels.”
Bouncing back, Shapiro decided to audition for the National Yiddish Theatre – an act some might consider chutzpah because he doesn’t speak Yiddish. But, even so, the people there liked him enough to arrange for a language coach to teach him the general meaning of his lines, and to help him understand on which words to put the emphasis. “The assistant director and I would hole up in a room for two hours at a time and he would work with me and make recordings for me.” Gimpel Tam received favorable reviews in the New York press, and Shapiro still kvells over having his picture in the New York Times along with some kind words from a critic.
Shapiro’s manager told him of the opening on the Rotterdam. “It was a new Showroom at Sea concept,” Shapiro recalled. “Instead of the typical four-singer, ten-dancer cast, they wanted a cast of six singers and two dancers, with all the singers having their own specialty styles. One of those was a ‘musical comedy male’ who must be comfortable doing comedic material – ‘think Nathan Lane, Zero Mostel or Martin Short’ and I said, ‘oh wow, that does kind of sound like me.’”
Although he auditioned enthusiastically, he harbored some doubts. Would it be good for his career to be so far from New York for so long. “So I talked to my agent and he said ‘listen, we are still fighting the battle of your age; people are still saying you are too young, so I think right now this would be an incredible opportunity. You will be singing for a solid year, so your voice will be in incredible shape when you come back and you will travel places you never thought of going’ which has been so true…”
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Next: Cruise ship humor
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World
Fighting a stubborn virus at sea
Returning passengers receive hand sanitizer as they wait to board
Third in a series
By Donald H. Harrison
Donald H. Harrison
ABOARD M.S. ROTTERDAM—Two men on being introduced to each other automatically shook hands. “Ooops, sorry about that” said the first one. “Yes, “ said the second, “force of habit, it seems.” They walked to a nearby hand sanitizer on board the cruise ship MS Rotterdam and squirted the liquid on their palms.
In official reception lines, the captain, cruise director and other senior officers keep their hands stiffly at their sides to avoid shaking hand after hand. In buffet lines, attendants wearing plastic gloves serve food to the passengers—rather than allowing the passengers to take it for themselves.
Hotel manager Robert Versteeg with plaques received by Rotterdam at various ports
“Because of Code Red there were some things we couldn’t do this cruise,” commented the Rotterdam’s Hotel Manager Robert Versteeg. “For example, at the black and white ball, ship’s officers normally dance with guests, but this time it wasn’t hosted by officers,” who feared holding unknown partners’ hands during a dance could make them vulnerable to the virus. “ If this were a normal cruise, there would have been more activities and parties,” Versteeg said.
Not only is direct contact between human strangers avoided, so too is the use of objects that many people may touch consecutively. That’s why salt and pepper shakers have been taken off dining room tables. Gloved waiters instead distribute individual paper packets of the popular spices. Meanwhile, tables, chairs, banisters, door knobs, public-area telephones, deck chairs and railings are constantly sprayed down with chemicals. So are the chips in the casino, while decks of cards are continuously replaced, and gamblers are offered plastic gloves if they want them. Sanitation crews spray the inside of tour buses before passengers are permitted to board them.
Such is the routine when “Code Red” is in force aboard the cruise liner M.S. Rotterdam to protect crew and passengers from viruses that penetrate your skin, get into your blood system, and cause gastro-intestinal sicknesses.
The extra washing, serving and sanitizing has extended the hours of crew members and contract employees aboard the cruise ship well beyond normal, but the alternative is to permit gastro-intestinal viruses to spread among passengers and crew members, potentially sidelining hundreds if not thousands of people aboard the ship with vomiting and diarrhea.
According to Captain Rik Krombeen, the chemicals encase the viruses in a goopy substance, making it difficult for the viruses to be absorbed into the human body through the skin.
In a formal note to passengers, Krombeen advised: “It is important to understand that the type of GI illness we are seeing on the ship is not life-threatening and does not carry any long-term consequences. This illness is common worldwide. In the United States, only the common cold is reported more frequently as a cause of illness.”
When a passenger does come down with these flu-like symptoms, a ship’s doctor visits him or her in the cabin, and quarantines the passenger if he or she has experienced two or more episodes of vomiting or diarrhea. Quarantine is something like a gilded prison because the passenger can order room service, look out the window or sliding door to monitor the ship’s course through the open seas, or watch television in addition to the typical response to the sickness, which is sleeping. Usually the symptoms disappear within 24 to 48 hours.
According to Hotel Manager Versteeg, the quarantine enables shipboard personnel to guard against the effects of a passenger or crew member having a sudden onset of diarrhea or vomiting and being unable to make it to the bathroom. The germs contained in bodily projectiles can become airborne, making the spread of the disease even easier.
Once quarantined, passengers are asked to fill out a questionnaire listing the foods that they may have been consumed on land. This information is collated and other passengers are cautioned against consuming similar foods or drinks ashore. In particular, Cruise Director Joseph Pokorski, on the ship’s public address system, inveighs against people accepting free drinks from on-shore tour operators, lest those drinks include ice cubes infected with the virus. Announcements also point out the inadvisability of eating salads or other foods that may have been washed in water. The announcements caution against drinking water that has not been properly distilled and bottled.
While the gastro-intestinal disease has become associated with cruise ships over the last dozen years, Captain Krombeen and Versteeg both are adamant that the cruise lines are the victims of land-based and airline-based communicable diseases, rather than vice versa.
On a recent cruise in Australian waters, said Versteeg, an epidemiologist traced an outbreak aboard the cruise ship to 20 passengers who had flown on Qantas Airlines. They had sat within the vicinity of an airline passenger who had vomited on board. The disease at that point had become airborne, infecting everyone of the 20 passengers without their knowledge before they boarded the cruise ship.
On a February 21-March 8 cruise between Callao, Peru, and San Diego, USA, on which my wife Nancy and I sailed aboard the Rotterdam, Versteeg said that fewer than 3 percent of the 1,330 passengers were reported down with GIS disease – in contrast to other cruise ships that had touched in South America and had recorded hundreds of cases. The captain, hotel manager and cruise director attribute this statistic to the extra vigilance the Rotterdam crew employed, “almost to the point of being annoying” to head the disease off.
Most passengers disembarked the ship when it returned to San Diego on March 8, but those who chose to continue on the ship on a South Pacific itinerary were provided tours to the San Diego Zoo or other local attractions. This procedure assured that there would be minimum interference with a special cleansing crew that came aboard Rotterdam to thoroughly sanitize the ship before the next group of passengers, bound for Tahiti , arrived.
Before departing San Diego, Krombeen said that “Code Red” would remain in effect aboard the Rotterdam until such time as the ship could go two days without any new GIS case arising.
Asked why he believed the Rotterdam had fewer cases than some other cruise ships visiting South America, the Holland America captain responded that he knew two weeks before arriving in South America that ships on similar itineraries were reporting numerous GIS incidents. “We had time to prepare,” he said
Next: Jewish performer makes a cruise ship splash
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World
‘Man Overboard!’– Drama aboard MS Rotterdam not to be forgotten
Lifeboat maneuvers to floating object in Pacific during
recovery operation. Photos: Donald H. Harrison
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By Donald H. Harrison
-Second in a series–
ABOARD MS ROTTERDAM –Recovering the body of a man who threw himself overboard and avoiding a possible tsunami in the wake of a large Chilean earthquake were unscheduled and unforgettable events during a recent cruise aboard the Holland America cruise ship Rotterdam.
Passenger Walter A____ apparently climbed to a railing near the fantail on the Lower Promenade Deck of the Rotterdam and, according to a witness, cast himself into the sea off the coast of Colombia close to noontime Friday, Feb. 26, as other passengers, including his wife Judy, were having their lunch.
The witness was another passenger who came horrified upon the suicide as it was occurring. She immediately reported the event to a deck officer, who in turn relayed the information to the bridge crew, and they in turn notified the master of the vessel, Captain Rik Krombeen. Within six minutes of the occurrence, Kronbeen ordered the ship to turn around and to begin a search for the victim, he later told this reporter. My wife Nancy and I were also among the 1,330 passengers aboard the 780 foot- long, 59,885-gross ton ship.
So that passengers would not become alarmed by the ship’s sudden change in direction on its sea day crossing the Equator between its ports of call at Manta, Ecuador, and Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica, the captain (shown at left) announced that a man was believed to have gone overboard. He asked the passengers to watch the waters for any sign of him. At various times as the ship ran a search pattern, he also asked for complete silence on deck in the event that the victim was yelling for help.
The wife, thinking her 72-year-old husband was trying to nap, brought lunch down to their first-deck cabin, but found that he was not there. She called the Front Office and informed the personnel there that her husband was unexpectedly missing. Cruise Director Joseph Pokorski made two announcements on the public address system asking Mr. A ____ to please call the Front Office. When Mr. A___ did not respond, it became understood throughout the ship that he was the man in question. Captain Korbeen and Holland America authorities asked that the man’s surname be withheld in this report.
After backtracking to the approximate location where Mr. A___ had gone into the water, the ship’s crew began dropping small buoys in order to determine which way the currents would take them and how quickly. Meanwhile, a search and rescue airplane, which Captain Korbeen said had been dispatched from Colombia at the request of the U.S. Coast Guard, flew over the area.
Given that the Pacific Ocean waters were calm and warm, it was estimated that a victim desiring to stay alive could do so for up to 36 hours in those seas. However, if as suspected, Mr. A___ had the intention of taking his life, the Coast Guard might choose to end the search far earlier. Whereas a victim who wants to stay alive will wave his arms and yell for help, an intended suicide typically will do nothing to assist his potential rescuers. Wearing gray and white clothes on an overcast day, Mr. A___ could not be seen from a distance greater than 70 yards away.
Guided by the mathematics of time and currents, the cruise ship and rescue plane (shown at right) proceeded in ever narrowing circles. Approximately four hours after the incident occurred the airplane messaged that it needed to return to land to refuel. Accordingly, it had but one pass left, and Captain Kornbeen requested that it fly along a line paralleling the ship’s calculations of the man’s drift.
The airplane spotted something in the water and reported the Global Positioning System location to the ship. Captain Korbeen announced to the passengers that he would be going quite quickly to that position and might need to make a sudden turn. He urged passengers to be prepared to balance themselves.
A lifeboat had been lowered to the Lower Promenade Deck to permit crewmembers easy access when it was time to retrieve the body. As the crew members clambered into the life boat, security officers directed passengers to move several cabin widths away. Once in the ocean, the lifeboat maneuvered in such a way as to screen from the passengers a view of Mr. A___’s body being lifted into the lifeboat. Passengers then were asked “out of respect” to clear the deck so that Mr. A___’s body could be brought aboard and moved to the small morgue aboard the Rotterdam. Five hours had elapsed since the original incident.While all this was occurring, on-board care teams stayed with Mrs. A____ and with the woman who had witnessed the suicide, offering both women comfort and counseling. Meanwhile, Holland America’s office in Seattle, Washington, got in touch with Jason, the son of Mr. and Mrs. A____, recounted to him what happened, and arranged for him and his wife to fly to Costa Rica to meet his mother and to help with the formalities for claiming and transporting Mr. A___’s remains back to the United States.
Mr. and Mrs. A____ had been active cruisers who had liked to post critics’ comments about various experiences at sea on line. A group of these cruisers were aboard the vessel, and a memorial service the following morning for Mr. A___ led by an onboard minister was arranged.
Holland America’s main office gave permission to Captain Korbeen to try to make up as much time as possible en route to Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica, meaning that instead of proceeding at 19 knots in the evening and overnight, the ship at times reached nearly 25 knots—burning fuel at the rate of more than $70 a minute. Originally scheduled to come in at 8 a.m., this procedure would have brought Rotterdam to its Costa Rican port at 9 a.m. However, news came of the great 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Concepcion, Chile, presenting Captain Korbeen with two new challenges – one nautical and one intensely personal.
There was a possibility that the Chilean earthquake would generate dangerous tides in the bay of Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica. The water might come into the bay and then just as quickly go out, leaving a ship entering the bay without sufficient water to proceed or pushing it in the wrong direction. In consultation with local authorities, Kornbeen decided to wait in ocean waters outside the port until it could be determined what the tidal effects were. As it turned out, the tidal effect was insignificant, and Rotterdam reached its berth at 9:32 a.m.
More pressing was a problem on board the ship. A young woman who worked in the gift shops was from Concepcion, Chile, and she was unable to reach anyone by telephone. For three days, she frantically tried to telephone home, but was unsuccessful. She later learned that her own apartment had been destroyed, and so had that of her brother. Luckily, her brother was staying with their parents during the earthquake—and the home of their parents had survived the earthquake. Although both the employee and the brother had lost their homes, the important matter was that all her family members were safe.
The young woman debated whether she should try to fly home immediately, but her family urged her to remain on board. Concepcion was in chaos, and there was little she could do at home. On the other hand, the money she was earning aboard Rotterdam would be of benefit to the family. When fellow crewmembers learned of what had befallen their shipmate, they took up a collection to help the family.
Sometime after Mr. A___’s body was taken off the ship, his son Jason posted a note on the Intenet site of the cruise critics expressing his gratitude and that of his family to Holland America for its compassion during a most difficult time. “My dad, Walter was the individual that went overboard on the 26th off the Rotterdam,” he wrote. “Dad was a very strong individual that lived life to its fullest. He had become progressively more ill and knew that there was little he could do to change it.” Of his mother, Judy, he wrote that the ships personnel “became her guardian angels. She would like to personally thank each and every crew member that assisted her in her time of need. Holland America went above and beyond the call of duty in taking care of both her and my wife and I.”
Jason said after flying to Costa Rica, he met with his mother and Care Team members who were “invaluable guides for us in Costa Rica as we underwent the long, arduous process of working our way through the government bureaucracy that stood between us and getting dad home. It took us five days and they were our ever present friends and guides. They were our moral and physical support. They helped us figure out how to get dad from the mortuary to the funeral home, how to get his body cremated, how to prepare the required embassy paperwork, arranged transportation, meals and lodging for the entire ordeal. They cried with us and laughed with us. They are our heroes.”
It was not only the family that was grateful to the cruise line. At a “Life at Sea” presentation in which passengers had the opportunity to question the captain, cruise director, hotel manager and chief engineer on a wide range of subjects including precautions against gastro-intestinal infections, elevators that weren’t working, on-board movie selection, and even the status of the karaoke machine, one man rose to say, “during the tragic event we had, I must compliment you captain and your crew the way you picked up that body.”
There was spontaneous sustained applause from the audience that filled the main floor and balcony of the show room.
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Next in the series: Warding off the GIS virus
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World
Contrasting an airline that doesn’t care about its passengers with a cruise line that does
Nancy waiting in Fort Lauderdale, not suspecting the time crunch to come
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First in a series
By Donald H. Harrison
LIMA, Peru—Were it not for cruise ships like the one we embarked upon here in the wee hours of Monday, Feb. 22, I believe I’d be ready to consign my leisure travel to the lazy boy chair in front of the television in my home. I’d much rather go nowhere than to have to subject myself constantly to airlines.
I’ll tell of the Delta Airlines experience by which we arrived in this South American capital and port city—an experience that I believe typifies what happens on airlines today. The story I will tell is not about some fabulous exception; rather it concerns the low standard of service that is becoming common place. Airlines may try to excuse themselves by saying they have to adopt certain customer-adverse policies and measures because of the difficult economic times, but I believe the problem goes much deeper.
It seems apparent that airlines no longer value their customers, except as numbers on a chart. An attitude of contemptuousness has taken hold of the airline industry, an attitude that began in the board room where such policies were approved as all-but-eliminating sufficient leg room in economy class, charging passengers extra for luggage, and nickeling and diming passengers for snacks and beverages, movies and other amenities. This lack of appreciation for customers eventually was transmitted through middle managers all the way to the service personnel.
I’ll start my story in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where Nancy and I had attended a wedding. We arrived at the airport there, which seemed comparable in size to San Diego’s Lindbergh Field, about two hours prior to our flight. Because our ultimate destination was an international one rather than a domestic one, we were not able to check our bags curbside but instead were required to do so inside the terminal. However, the terminal was so crowded that we were not permitted to simply check our bags. Instead we and other passengers were herded into an area across a corridor from the counters and told to wait there until the time our flight was called. Then and only then could we proceed to check our baggage.
No one explained why this procedure had been adopted, but by asking questions we were able to ascertain that the baggage belt was working only intermittently, requiring many bags to be ferried by hand. We waited well over an hour with other passengers, who either were standing with their baggage or sitting with it on the floor, until finally we were permitted to proceed to the ticket counter, where there was little or no order. By the time we actually got to a ticket agent, another twenty minutes had elapsed. To add insult to injury, once we arrived at the ticket counter, an agent curtly told us we should have been at the counter a half hour earlier. We replied that had been our intention, but her own colleagues had prevented us from doing do.
The counter agent processed our luggage and handed us our boarding passes and quickly moved on to another customer. We worked our way through lines to a screening area where an employee checked our ticket against our passports. They didn’t match; the ticket agent somehow had given us the wrong boarding passes, made out in someone else’s name.
Nancy told me to wait with all the carry-on luggage—and she charged back to the ticket desk—explaining what had happened. “Find the agent who helped you,” she was told. “She’s not here,” Nancy answered in a panic. “And our flight is about to leave.”
Grudgingly another ticket agent got onto the computer, and issued proper boarding passes. Nancy dashed back to where I was waiting, and with the new documents we were allowed to proceed—to security, where we had to go through all the regular procedures of removing everything from our pockets, taking off our shoes, putting my laptop computer in a separate tray, and so forth. As I gathered up everything, Nancy ran ahead to the gate. As she turned the corner, she heard an agent say “last call for Donald and Nancy Harrison.”
“We’re here, wait!” Nancy shouted at a dead run.
Nancy found that they had reassigned the airplane seats we had reserved—and that the gate agents were completely unaware what was happening in the ticket area. “Do you want to go without your husband?” they asked Nancy, “because we’re closing the doors.”
“He’s coming,” Nancy replied. “He’s at security, just putting his shoes on.” “Well I don’t see him coming,” the agent said. “Do you want to board anyway?” At that point I made my appearance. They whisked us down the gangway and put us into the seats by the boarding door.
Next, we went to Atlanta where we caught the flight to Peru, thinking that embarkation was blessedly uneventful. But we were incorrect in our assessment. Although we had no problem boarding the plane, it later developed that one of our two large bags did not.
On the six-and-a-half hour flight to Peru, some of the flight attendants evidently were in a bad mood. Instead of placing snacks on trays, one flight attendant practically threw them onto the passengers’ trays in economy class, as if she were dealing cards at a poker table. When Nancy asked another attendant near the end of the flight, “if you have time, could I please have some water?” he responded in a surly tone, “I don’t have time!”—making several passengers wonder what had prompted him to exhibit such hostility. He might simply and courteously have responded. “I’m sorry, I won’t be able to get back to you before we land.” Evidently he was having a bad day, and decided to take out his pique on passengers.
After arriving in Lima, we sought to retrieve our bags. It’s a sickening feeling when the bags on the carousel keep repeating themselves—but your bag is not among them. Eventually, after every other bag was taken off the carousel by passengers, we had to admit the obvious. Although Nancy’s bag had made it to Lima, somehow mine didn’t. We reported the problem to a courteous gentleman at the baggage desk, who was able to establish that my bag was still in Atlanta. Normally, this is not a problem, he said, as the bag could be sent on the next flight and delivered to the person’s home or hotel. The problem was that our cruise ship—the MS Rotterdam—would be leaving Lima Monday afternoon and the next flight from Atlanta wouldn’t arrive until late Monday evening. “Perhaps,” I suggested, “the bags could be delivered at the next port,” which would be Guayaquil, Ecuador, on Wednesday, February 24.
The baggage agent said that he never had to deal with the problem of reuniting luggage with a passenger on a cruise ship before, and was uncertain what the procedures were. He asked a colleague to photocopy our passports as well as an information sheet with Holland America’s contact numbers. He said he would leave a message explaining the situation for Delta’s morning supervisor of luggage in Lima, and gave us that person’s contact number.
I went with another Delta employee who wanted to photocopy our passports at the Delta office – which was up a floor and down a corridor—only to find that the office had been closed and that she had no key. So she radioed for assistance, and eventually someone opened the door, and she copied the documents. Meanwhile, Nancy dashed ahead to find the driver whom we previously had engaged by long distance phone calls and emails to take us from the airport to the cruise ship terminal. She was concerned that the driver, Renato Monteverde of taxilimaperu.com, would have become discouraged after waiting for us for such a long time, but there he was with our name printed on a placard and with a smile on his face.
Monteverde helped to rehabilitate our image of the travel industry. He got us quickly, efficiently and politely to the Port of Callao, where MS Rotterdam was docked. Security guards checked the ship’s manifest against our passports and ran our luggage through an X-Ray machine. Once aboard, we were escorted to the front desk to report our missing luggage. Although the problem had been Delta’s, not Holland-America’s, the ship’s personnel did everything they could to help. Immediately and with a cheerful smile, they presented me with a courtesy kit of toiletries, so that I’d be able to shave and to brush my teeth. The next day, a loan of a sports shirt was made to me so that I would have something different to wear at the captain’s informal reception for new passengers. Meanwhile, personnel aboard the ship made contact with Delta Airlines to arrange a rendezvous for the luggage. They had hoped it would be in Guayaquil, but in fact it did not catch up with us until the following day, Feb. 25, in Manta, Ecuador.
While not having my suitcase was an inconvenience, thanks to Holland America – and to Nancy who volunteered to shop in the Miraflores area for a few more necessities—it was not the serious problem it could have been.
Holland America proved to be a company adept at solving passenger problems rather than causing them. This made me feel glad that I would be taking this ship all the way to San Diego, rather than having to fly home by an airline. It was good to be treated like a mensch instead of as a serf. I was certain that the rest of my vacation would go well, now that I had put myself in the hands of the right segment of the travel industry – the segment that believes that next to safety, service to customers is the highest value. As I shall describe in part two of this series, Holland-America was soon to find itself facing some tough tests of that philosophy—tests not of the cruise line’s making.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World
sdjewishworld 