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For those of you of serious mind, what, I might ask, is more fundamentally equitable then being on the equator? The length of night and day level out to nearly equal portions of light and dark.

Temperature, however, may fail at equity, at least in terms we might recognize because there’s no night and day difference. Half a day of sun means that much steady, reliable warming. Under the sun it’s hot. When a storm darkens the sky the temperature drops, but not the comfort level.

It goes from roast under the sun to swelter in the humid heat. Under the sway of equatorial equity there is not much comfort in the steamy night. Hot inside as out.

I nightly step barefoot onto my balcony. This time of year in the north is not the season for wandering out unshod. I could, not saying I do, stand on my midnight deck wearing the innocent suit of a birthday past. This kind of equity is not ours unless we move further south than the U.S. border. A lot further. Pass Mexico and all of Middle America and Panama and push a fair space down into Brazil. For us would be like going somewhat north of Greenland’s middle. As I’ve said, it’s a long way.

Geography is more than maps and stats. Where you are in the world determines quite a lot. But I’m afraid equity isn’t geographical. Not at all. You won’t find pleasantly warm nights in most of the temperate region. If you do they’ll be rare. Best to keep the wooly underwear and felt-lined boots handy. Wood stoves for heating aren’t a practical necessity at most places on the equator.

On t’ other hand air conditioning isn’t crucial for us as the case in an equatorial store or office where interiors can feel like ovens set to bake.

As a hopefully pertinent aside, the coast along which the asylum is now cruising was once well known as an African slavery hub. It seems Arab traders were early at the game of selling central Africans north in Africa and the Mediterranean. This was later, fostered by much improved ships, expanded and improved on by Dutch, French, Portuguese, Spanish and English traders.

Portugal and Spain accounting for roughly three of four African slaves going to the New World, it’s no surprise those languages predominate in much of South America.

Puttering along with a boat load of phone-addicted geezers, I’m looking forward to a day ashore in Dakar. Not that my fellow shippersons aren’t a bale of giggles, but in truth they don’t react well to what I think funny.

Ashore I can blandly insist on having day-old cheese, the most recent fossils or ask with charming sincerity “Is it always so wet when it rains?”

OR say with apparent annoyance,  “Does the rain have to be so wet?”

But, comes to it, elderly thumb-speakers in phone focus mode are as impenetrable and lost as a phone teen waiting anxiously to be included in the next message.

Unlike prior weeks in Asian waters where the sea was busy with freight and fishing vessels plus nighttime shorelines dotted with light, of late I’ve seen not a thing.

Maybe most traffic going to the Suez? Could be, but I imagine that in the slave trade days an absence of witnesses would have been a very appealing feature. What do you suppose?

In the 19th century it was the British navy (near a third of it involved in the task) that chased down slavers. The British navy eventually put a stop to the largest slave port run by the Portuguese. The U.S. did comparatively little.

French revolutionary spirit (plus Bonaparte again) banned slavery before deciding they couldn’t do without. Echoes of the violent results of French slavery are heard and felt in today’s Caribbean, Haiti especially. Tragic. The way forward is too often upset by resentment of things that cannot possibly be changed.

And sometimes things are wonderfully incomprehensible such as Iran (somewhat in the news of late) proclaimed freedom and independence from a monarchy some called absolute for an absolute theocracy.

Good swap? Not for me to say, but I can recall two prominent Iranian spokespersons for democratic reform were swiftly removed. One was executed. The other fled for his life.

Unraveling the tangled past of Angola, Haiti or Iran is more than I can do. I could say, however, our national errors, however bad you see them, are less horrible than events that took or are taking place in other nations.

About nations, we were given security precautions to be followed in some parts of Asian waters. I hesitate to name specific areas, but the concern wasn’t for pirates from the Caribbean. A cruise ship full of slow moving geezers with potentially fat wallets might appear a tempting target.

We, however, were not put to the test. In this area of Africa the warnings are less for pirates at sea than pickpockets and etc. ashore. I have to admit, any group of cruisers, regardless of how hard they try, is going to stand out like a fly in a bowl of milk. Spoken angrily, “What’s that fly doing in my milk?” Answered politely, “Looks like the backstroke to me.”

White hair, high incidence of canes, plus a bewildered look mark us out as fair game, well-aged fresh meat, ripe for the picking, reparation fare and able to afford it. So, despite most sponsored tours being rather weak, they are an alternative safer than going off on your own.

My friends (there are such unfortunates, few, but they do exist) have learned to recognize a certain tone and glint of eye suggesting something abrew. Might be time to play the furniture game in a restaurant. That’s always fun. Don’t know what I enjoy more, the bewildered serving staff of the pained and worried expressions on friends’ faces. But, you decide. What’s so awful or inappropriate about clearly asking on a crowded bus, “Does anyone know if they rent fins and masks at the nude beach?”       

            quential to acquiesce to authoritarianism whether political or religious or financial?

History is both fact and narrative. One should not erase the other.