silly

more weekend

On the way back from Wicked, we stopped to eat, then just missed a train once again. Once again, just by minutes. Oh, my timing. But we did get the next train, after sitting in Grand Central for a few minutes relaxing after our 7 block trek from the theater (crowded, broken New York sidewalks and subways are not especially wheelchair friendly).

The train rides were uneventful and long. It was nice to have time to just sit and chat, catching up on the past year. None of the grandparents had seen Juma for almost a full year, so they had lots of fun playing with him, asking him questions, and playing tickle monster, hugging monster, and kissing monster. What more could a six-year-old ask for than four grandparents drowning him with attention, while riding on a train?




Sunday everyone met us at our house once again, and Juma and I walked them to church a few blocks away. As I haven't attended LDS church services is a few years, I didn't know that the time had changed; I got them there a half an hour late. Woops. Afterward, we had planned on a walk over to the art museum, but got a little tired and lazy and ended up hanging out at our apartment talking and playing a rousing game of Apples to Apples (Vicki wailed on all of us).

In the afternoon, we took another campus tour, this time with everyone, and saw extra things this time: Skull & Bones (the secret society several US presidents belonged to) as well as other secret societies, the law school, the gymnasium that looks like Notre Dame, and got thoroughly wiped out. We had bought items for a lovely picnic, but just as we got home from the tour the rained started, so we had a lovely picnic at the dining table inside.

Monday was graduation. Here are videos of me walking at two different ceremonies, one for my master of arts and one for my master of public health.




And of course we can't forget that Hillary Rodham Clinton got an honorary degree.

field trip

I went along with Juma's class on a field trip to the local newspaper offices. His teacher wanted to make sure the kids got a chance to see how newspapers are made (since the new media seem to pushing good old fashioned newspapers out of the market).



I took the movie for Justin's sake, really, but if you're up for it, take a look. Don't worry, it's only some highlights, not the whole tour.

weekend visit

I posted the pictures, but I thought I'd tell about the weekend, too.

Rick and Vicki (Justin's parents) flew in Thursday night, so we had all day Friday to hang out. We had grand plans of going to museums and aquariums, but those fizzled out and we did some simple hanging out, running to pharmacies (they lost Rick's medical kit in the Chicago airport), and a quick tour of campus. We saw the Hall of Graduate Studies, where Justin's department is,



and the gorgeous main library.



Bibliophiles that Vicki and I are, we couldn't resist a trip to the college bookstore, where we picked up a volume of Shel Silverstein for Juma (he recently discovered his poems in school), and Juma read an entire Pokemon book to himself.

Saturday, we welcomed my parents as well, and I gave everyone a tour of the historic church Justin works for, as well as the crypt underneath it.

Unfortunately, the crypt was a little too interesting, and we just missed a train to NYC by minutes. But we caught the next one, and saw Wicked on Broadway.



That was an amazing production. The sets, the music, the voices--all of it was great. Juma loved it ("except for the boring singing parts") and kept asking me, "When does she become a witch?!?!" At the spectacular end to the first act, when the witch flies up into the air during her dramatic song, Juma turned to me and said, "Now she's the witch!"





Stay tuned for the next post. Gotta run to a field trip with Juma's class...

growing

This morning, Juma called out to me from his bedroom, "Mom! I've grown!"

"Oh yeah?" I said, a little skeptical.

"Yeah. Do you know how I can tell?"

"How?"

"I can turn on the light in my room without having to use the stool!" The light in there is rather high up, and the switch has to be turned rather than pushed.

So we measured him on the chart we've been using for the past 18 months, and he's grown a good inch in the past month! People kept telling me he seemed to have just spurted up, but I didn't believe them. Silly me.

graduation day

our house

I finally figured out how to get the pictures from Justin's phone...so here, at long last, are some pictures of our "new" house from the outside.

pomp and circumstance

Mine's on the left: white for Master of Arts and salmon color for Master of Public Health

Justin's is on the right: blue for Master of Philosophy

Justin's apartment

Here's a look at Justin's house. It's an apartment attached to the back of a larger building. He has an excellent view of the verdant valley below. It's a studio apartment; he has a room and a bathroom (cold water only). He also has a bed, and a ceiling fan--when the electricity is working, which isn't often.




Justin took this shot on his computer the one time we managed to video chat. Isn't he a hottie?

I made it!

After a three-day trip I'm finally here in Pemba. I was met by all of our old friends here and promptly set up with a nice room close to the house we rented on our previous trips. I was so sleep deprived that I passed out seconds after putting down my bags on a bed with no sheets or pillowcases. Luckily, there were no mosquitos in the room because I didn't really wake up (except for calling Sarah) for about 18 hours. Now I'm "fit" as they say here in Pemba!

Yesterday I ate a fish with the head still on. His sharp little teeth made me laugh. I also went shopping for all the household supplies I need. It rained all day. And when I say "rained," I mean it came down in buckets, rained cats and dogs--I'm not sure how to express how it rains here. One step out the door and you're completely, soaking wet; another step and you're leaning your head forward so the water runs off and you don't drown.

This rain makes Pemba one of the most fertile places on the planet, but it also makes life interesting, to say the least.

My house has no electricity right now and there's no word on how long the outage will last. It could be hours, days or months. Fortunately the internet cafe does have electricity (for now), so I can actually get online. But my nights without a fan here just south of the equator will be a tossing-and-turning, sweaty mess. Why did I choose this place for my research again? Oh yeah, the people are fantastic, the food is divine, and it's as far from life in America as you can possibly get. (Not that I have anything against life in America--but sometimes we can forget what life's really about.)

I'm off for some coffee and chapati.

today's activity

The church Justin works for has a small Sunday school class, and they invited Juma along to their activity today at a local marine preservation/education organization. Juma will be going there for a summer day camp in August, so we were eager to see what it is like.

He had fun painting a shirt with a flounder on it. When he gave the flounder red spots, I asked him what the spots were for.

"Cuts," he said simply.

Oh, boy, why did I ask?

Then he painted a speech bubble saying, "run" and a shark coming down to bite the flounder (again?). Is he a 6-year-old boy or what?




Next, the kids got to see and hold welks, sea snails, mud crabs, and a large horseshoe crab--all species that live in the sound.

Juma's class

I went to Juma's 1st grade class yesterday afternoon to talk about Zanzibar, e.g. "Where Juma's daddy is." The whole class has been involved in Juma dealing with Justin leaving, so I thought it would be good to introduce the class to that far-away place.

After showing them a map--at least they all knew where Africa is--I had them try on some local clothing.

The girls were just delighted to try on kanga:



The boy I chose to try on a kanzu was a good sport in trying on what the class thought looked like a dress. I explained it was NOT a dress, and that all the men and boys wear these to go to the mosque, Quran school, and on special occasions like weddings:




Juma's teacher, on the other hand, was rather embarrassed, and took the kanzu off as soon as he could. (But since he had dressed up as the Cat in the Hat on Dr. Suess's birthday, I figured he could handle a kanzu.)




After the presentation, the class wrote letters to students in Zanzibar. I'll send them to Justin, and he'll bring them to a school. Hopefully we can start a penpal thing.

Sarah's version of Justin's trip & his contact info

Justin arrived in Tanzania safe and sound, though exhausted. He's in the main city, Dar-es-Salaam, until tomorrow, when he'll fly to Pemba (one of the islands that makes up Zanzibar), the island where he'll be living. This is the same island we lived on in 2006 and 2008. While there, he'll be extremely busy conducting research for his dissertation, on the 1960's in Pemba.

When we (those of use who didn't live through them) think of the 1960's, we think Vietnam, hippies, and major changes in American social and political life. The 1960's in Africa also saw very rapid and dramatic changes--this is the decade when most of the African colonies became independent nations. Some had revolutions and coups. Zanzibar gained independence from the British in December 1963, and then the political party that had lost the elections enacted a revolution a month later. This revolution has books and manuscripts about it.

What hasn't been written is what happened on Pemba island. Pembans liked the ruling party that the British had left in power. They were not supportive of the revolution. Pemba has its own unique story, untold and unnoticed, because it's been cut off from tourist and researchers until rather recently. Scholars have assumed it was the same as the other island. But it wasn't.

Justin's seeking to tell that history. Pretty cool, eh?

Oh, and Justin can be reached by email justin dot beckham at gmail dot com but don't expect his internet access to be very reliable or frequent. Also, he has a cell phone:

011 255 715 789 450

011 is to get out of the US, 255 is the country code. If you call, I recommend using an international calling card (10-20 cents a minute) or a service like Skype (28 cents a minute). Calling from my regular old phone service would cost me $2.57 a minute!

If you're up for sending him a letter, you can send something through our friend at

Justin Beckham
c/o Mohamed Saidi
PO Box 193
Chake Chake, Pemba
Zanzibar, Tanzania

Pemba

Well, Juma and I will we taking Justin to the airport today, so he can fly off to his summer adventure in Pemba, Zanzibar.

We are very sad about him leaving, and we will miss him every day. But we are also so proud of him for getting this far in his PhD and doing his research. He's the best dad and husband we could ever ask for, plus some, and we can't wait for him to get back.

While he's gone, I'm going to try hard to post on the blog very frequently so he can keep updated on our lives and see pictures. Bonus to all of you who read this. Now that school is done, I have time to post.

If we're lucky, and the electricity and the internet connections cooperate, Justin will post on occasion too.

quick trip to Syracuse

Recently, Justin and I were invited to speak at the closing of an art exhibit of kanga, the wrap-around cloth that Swahili women wear. The exhibit was in Syracuse, New York, so we made a weekend of it and took Juma along. After much suffering and tribulation of having to sit in the car for five hours, then sit through the panel, then sit through dinner with a bunch of grown-ups, Juma deserved a little break. So the next day we took him to the local children's museum to play.











No, we didn't spend the whole time in the dinosaur-digging exhibit. That's just where we took the pictures that turned out the best. If you ever make it up to Syracuse, check out this museum. Juma had so much fun we even went back the next day for a second dose.

One of the quirkiest-but-cool exhibits was Toothpick City II. There's a man who professionally builds things out of toothpicks. His current project focuses on mosques, temples, churches, monuments, etc. All to scale. All out of toothpicks. Bet you never saw the Salt Lake Temple in toothpicks before. Well, now you can.