last night in New Haven

This is it. The night before the trek to Tanzania. It's always a little nerve-wracking to make such a big leap (or three leaps, as we have three flights) all the way to the other side of the world. The worst feeling is being on the plane after take-off, thinking, "There's no turning back. Three months." It's a little panicky, a little exciting. To paraphrase Owen Wilson's character on Armageddon, "I'm like 98% exicted a 2% scared. Or is it 2% excited and 98% scared?" I had the same feeling when I was pregnant with Juma. "That's it. This growth will be inside me for nine months. There's no backing out. I'm a parent forever." At least there's a return flight from Tanzania.

You'd think I'd be fine, considering I've made this trip three times before. And it certainly helps that it's not a leap into the unknown. But we are going to a new island, a new city. So we have to learn a whole new town, meet new friends, try not to offend new people, deal with new immigration officials.

Our flights take us from New York to Amsterdam, then Nairobi, Kenya, then Zanzibar (Unguja Island), Tanzania. Unguja is the island we lived on in 1999, 2001, (2002 for Justin), and 2004, though it's commonly referred to as Zanzibar. Zanzibar technically refers to a group of islands. We'll spend a few days there, then head up by plane or boat to Unguja's sister island, Pemba.

What brings us there this time? First of all, our love for Zanzibar. Secondly, I need to conduct an internship for my public health degree, and wanted to do so in Zanzibar. Justin wants to write his dissertation for his history degree on Zanzibar. And as several dissertations and books have been written about Unguja's history, but very little has been done on Pemba's history, he has wanted to go there. I found an internship on Pemba with some researchers from Cornell, so it worked out for both of us. I'll explain more about my internship later.

Juma just gets to come along for the ride. So far, he's most excited about the two jet planes and the prop plane we'll be flying on over the next three days. He's lucky; he can sleep most of the time.