I survived 2nd term

Do I get a medal or something?

DC, Gettysburg, and Philly

Justin's sister, Andria, and her husband, Matt, and their baby, Amelia (aka Millie, Miller, Mills) came out to Baltimore to visit us for Thanksgiving. We took the opportunity to go see some amazing sights in Baltimore, Washington, DC, Gettysburg, and Philadelphia. (Well, I went to work the day they went to Philly.)

The long walk along the Reflecting Pool in the freezing cold wind up to the Lincoln Memorial:







The man himself:




The White House! There were a bunch of presidential-looking black SUVs out front, so we guessed Obama was inside. Did you know you have to request tickets from your representative at least 30 days in advance to see the inside of the White House? We didn't either. So we didn't see inside.




Lincoln at Gettysburg:




One of the many cannons and memorials throughout the 25 square mile battleground:



We got politely chewed out for letting the kids climb on this cannon, by the way.


Juma climbing on part of Philadelphia's Washington Monument

all dressed up

Justin and I got a babysitter last weekend and went to my school's fall formal with a bunch of my classmates. We forgot to take our own pictures, but my friends snapped a few.

Juma's new hobbies

I'm amazed at how Juma is now a big kid. No more toddler, no more little boy. He's big now. He reads music and plays the recorder; he can bounce a tennis ball off a wall and catch it; he can balance on a skateboard. I can remember being able to do all that stuff when I was in 3rd grade, too, but it just seems unbelievable that Juma has reached that age.

All his friends at school introduced Juma to skateboarding. So we had to get him a (used) skateboard, and a couple skater shirts to go with it, of course. Skating is a complete package, after all. Still holding out on the Vans shoes, though.




He conducted a science experiment all by himself at the Maryland Science Center. Out of four mystery powders, he figured out which one was sugar by using iodine and vinegar.



And he experienced what it takes to survive an Antarctic winter.



Justin's also been taking him rock climbing. Juma's steadily and quickly progressed from climbing using any old holds to following specific tracks, marked with their difficulty levels. He's up to 5.5 now!

halloween

boy, have I been busy

Well, I have been super busy. I was taking 5 classes and TAing another. I helped my mom and siblings plan a surprise birthday party for my dad's 60th birthday, and I flew out to Utah to surprise him in early October. Then my first term of classes ended with a bang of finals the next week; I spent an entire weekend on campus studying. The minute I finished my last final I started writing a grant proposal, which I worked on feverishly for five days (including an entire Saturday on campus) until I turned it in about 30 minutes ago. Second term started the day after first term ended, but won't hit hard until next week when I have three assignments due Monday and Tuesday, and another grant proposal due Wednesday.

So now I have time to blog a bit while my professor lectures to a class I'm a teaching assistant for.

In Utah, I got to see my parents, almost all my siblings and nieces and nephews--on both sides of the family, since all of Justin's siblings now live there.

I got Liam to like me



by letting him play with the camera on my iPhone. He was very proud of his choo choo train shoes.



Mariah liked to pose for him.




At the birthday party, the kids had a great time playing on the stage and running around the gym and out into the hallways making their parents wonder where on earth they had gone and what they were up to. If they are anything like I was when I was a kid in a church on a non-Sunday (and I'm pretty sure they are), they were getting drinks from the drinking fountain, running in the halls when no adults were watching, and looking for unlocked rooms only to be disappointed when all they found was folding chairs.



While I traveled, Justin and Juma entertained themselves by going to museums and eating Ben & Jerry's ice cream



and going rock climbing. Juma loves climbing. Juma's the one in the green shirt and orange harness.

fun in the city

On our very first day back to the States, we got a family membership to the aquarium--of course. Juma still wants to be a marine biologist. The downtown area that is full of museums, shops, and the sites of the Inner Harbor is within walking distance of where we are staying. (Walking distance for us, anyway; it's a good 15 blocks. Juma gets to ride his scooter for such big walks.)



At the aquarium, we saw awesome jellyfish, these among them:



Lots of sharks and rays:



And also a dolphin show. But mostly we just enjoyed being together. Also, Juma has gotten to the stage where he can't take a normal picture.

cute old picture of Juma with his best friend when they were 2

contact info

We now have a new address and new cell phone numbers. I've emailed them to some of you, but if you would like them and don't have them, do contact me at sarah dot beckham at gmail dot com

home!

in Baltimore. New address and eventually new phone numbers. Stay tuned.

next leg of the journey home

We are in the Dar es Salaam airport, killing time before our delayed flight, surfing the net to use up our modem credits, and spending our last Tanzanian shillings on candy. Fun stuff.

on our way home!

Can you believe it? The eight months are over!

We took a boat from Unguja to Dar es Salaam yesterday.

Here's Juma saying, "Goodbye Zanzibar, Hello Dar es Salaam!" Juma was pretty excited because he's never actually been in Dar anywhere other than the airport.



Our next leg of the journey takes us to London on Sunday. We'll spend the night at a friend's house, then our final flight on Monday brings us to Washington, DC.

Once we get to our car and storage unit in Baltimore, I think our first priority will be to find our air mattresses and some linens so we can just sleep, sleep, sleep in our temporary apartment. Then we have one day to unpack before I have to go to school!

Death, of rats

Unguja

Juma and I are back in Unguja (aka Zanzibar island). We made a rather hasty exit from Pemba when it was clear that Juma and I had some...well...intestinal issues. We're being treated, but we have better luck with health matters in Unguja than in Pemba, so we decided to spend our last days here. Justin will follow us in a couple days.

It was rather weird to leave Pemba, for the second time, without saying goodbye to my friends, especially since we really won't be back for a long time. At least until next summer.

We have less than one week here, then we'll all head to Dar es Salaam for a couple days, then a night in London, then it's home to Baltimore! Crazy. These eight months have flown by. At least in retrospect.

last days in Pemba

We are coming down to our final days in Pemba. Juma and I (Sarah) plan to leave Saturday, so I can get some final work done on the other island, Unguja, before we head home to Baltimore. Justin will stay in Pemba until the last couple days so he can get in as much work here as possible.

So how are we spending our days here in Pemba?

Juma has homeschool. Each morning, I write his "schedule" on the chalkboard (which Justin painted onto the wall of the dining room which we use as an office/school room). Today, his assignments are reading, writing, punctuation, math, science, art, geography, and PE. He can do pretty much anything he wants (within reason and safety, of course) except things involving electronics (Wii, movies, iPhone games) until he gets his school work done. Once his work is done, he can watch a movie, play Wii, etc. I also make him take breaks between electronic entertainment so he's not glued to a screen all afternoon. By noon or so, he's generally finished school. In the late afternoon, Justin takes him to "tennis," the basketball court. There, he plays with the neighborhood boys--soccer, soldiers, spies, whatever they come up with without having to communicate using actual language. You see, Juma knows only a few words of Swahili, even after almost 7 months here. He's really resisted learning it. His little form of rebellion, I guess.



I, Sarah, have work which I can do mostly at home on a computer. Today, I'm in the process of translating a group discussion about reproductive health that my research team conducted back in March. I am also supervising two Zanzibari and two ex-pat research assistants back in Unguja while they continue work on our project. They are why I need to return to Unguja before we head back to the States. I've got to wrap up all the completed work, make sure electronic copies of all data exist and take them with me, close up our office, and transfer the last remaining supervisory role to one of the ex-pats. Our project will continue interviewing some women through December. (Writing this just reminded me I'd better check up with the research assistants. Just sent them all text messages.) Some days, I go out to hospitals and gather statistics and interview doctors and nurses. Those days, I drag Juma along with me, which he hates, but, hey, we don't have a babysitter, and Justin is almost always gone.



Why is Justin almost always gone? He takes his motorcycle (when it's running; he takes a local daladala bus when it's not) out to various villages all over the island of Pemba to interview people who were around in the 1960's and early 1970's. That is when the archipelago got independence from Britain, then the losing party overthrew the ruling party on Unguja and proceeded to punish Pembans for being members of the overthrown party. That revolution has shaped Zanzibari political, economic, and social life ever since, but no one has ever written about those changes in Pemba. Justin is the first. Pretty cool, eh? Justin gets back in the late afternoon, goes and plays basketball, then hangs out with us at home. Busy, busy, busy.

clove harvesting season in Pemba

The scent of cloves was strong as we drove from Mkoani, on the southern coast of Pemba, up to Chake Chake, where we live.

People harvest and then dry their cloves in the sun, on the side of the road, and even right in the middle of the road on the medians. It made a usually awful one-hour ride a little more pleasant.

Juma is 8 years old!

Juma turned eight! It was the last day of school, too; what better birthday present is that? Well, even better than that is that Justin came down from Pemba, suffering two awful ferry rides on a choppy sea, just to be here for two nights to celebrate with us.

On the first night, Juma's actual birthday, we ate out at an Italian restaurant (pizza! gnocchi! three types of bread!) then had a birthday cake (unfrosted, at Juma's request).





The next day we took a boat ride with some of our friends out to Changuu Island, about 30 minutes away, for a relaxing picnic and swim at a little beach.

Abdul, who lives downstairs, and Najesh, who lives across the street, came along. Juma's known these kids since we lived in this same house in 2004, when they were all just toddlers. They had a blast playing in the ocean and then in the sand.






And of course Juma's namesake Juma came along, and helped him stay warm in the wind after his swim.



Our newest friend, Chase, also came, for her very first trip to one of the outlying islands in the archipelago. (That's me, Sarah, in the picture, by the way, the one with the shaved head and sunglasses.)

sailing the seas

One of Juma's classmates had a birthday party yesterday. We met at a beach called Mbweni, where the tide was so low, we had to walk to the end of the pier and then be ferried to the boat on kayaks.



We sailed to a sandbank--actually using the triangular-shaped sail Zanzibari boats are known for; ate, swam, and snorkeled;







and motored back with the sunset in the background. Gorgeous.

friends weekend

Two of my classmates who are working in Dar es Salaam came out to Zanzibar for the weekend, and we had some fun showing them around town and going to a northern beach.

This thing-a-ma-job Juma is holding is to help you take bucket-showers, but Juma used it on the beach.




These pictures are in Forodhani, a area right on the seashore that was fixed up last year to look nice like this. It's very popular with both tourists and Zanzibaris in the evenings.





These are from around Stone Town.







These are the crazy, scary steps up to our apartment.




And these are from Nungwi, a village on the northern tip of the island.