goodbye Pemba

On the first leg of our journey home Juma and I came to Unguja by a 12-passenger plane. We both got a bit nauseated, but we arrived quickly and safely. Justin is coming by boat, since we have too many bags for the tiny plane. He'll arrive in another hour or so, and Juma and I are hanging out in Stone Town, our old 'hood.

Last night Juma was pretty was sad to leave Pemba. At bedtime, he started crying because he would miss Pemba and all his friends here. "I'll never see coconut trees again!" he bawled.

We spent out last days packing, visiting friends to say goodbye and receiving visitors who wanted to say goodbye. I also got henna applied to my hands and feet, which took the good part of two days. It looks a little crazy to my American eyes, but Zanzibaris see it as the height of feminine beauty. I'll see about posting a picture later.

It's hard to believe our trip is almost to an end. On Thursday, we fly out. Back to another crazy year of school.

scuba

Well, all those hours in the pool paid off, we've officially went scuba diving in a real ocean that wasn't so polluted by New York City that we could see 75 feet.

We saw thousands, absolutely thousands of fish and numerous types of coral. I dove around a coral mountain, down to about 60 feet, and Justin dove even deeper. It's so amazing to see all of that life under there.

We'll have to go again.

pictures!

I finally got a bunch of pictures up. As always, you can click on the pictures to see larger versions.

I've also posted text several times in the past few days, so if you haven't visited really recently, be sure to see previous posts under the Archives section (right sidebar). Enjoy.

pics, part 4: basketball tournament

In July, we played in the Pemba basketball tournament. We, as whities, were the secret weapons of our teams. Just seeing our pale-pink flesh caused the opposing team members to tremble and quake in fear.

We sat around in the shade trying to avoid the hot sun while we waited for the Zanzibar president's wife to show up to kick off the basketball season.

These are part of Justin's team, Miami, and my team Chake Star.

pics, part 3: Juma

Justin teaches Juma to read in one of their daily lessons. Juma is currently on lesson 96 (of 100) and has started to read just for fun. Justin is trying hard, but has only made it through lesson 26 so far. Just can't seem to get the word "the" figured out. Tay-hheeee. Tah-heee?

Juma delights in the rain falling into the courtyard. This is a big change for him; usually he is quite scared of the sound the rain makes on the tin roofs.

Juma feeds a chicken we received as a gift, and which we ate the next day.

pics, part 2: scenes from our house

This is the view from our backdoor. It was raining, as it does nearly every day in this, the dry season. We live on the side of a hill, so we have a view of the small valley below.


our baraza (cement bench for lounging)


and our courtyard (enclosed but open to the sky)

pics, part 1: the beach

Juma hangs out with a friend, Chiboga, and unself-consciously plays soccer with the big boys on the beach. We got to that beach after a 30 minute bike ride.

trying to post pictures

Okay, I've been trying for the past 55 mintues to post some pictures, but I haven't been succesful, as you can tell. I'll keep trying, and if it doesn't work, know that I tried.

I'll definitely post some after we get back home.

Bouncing baby boy

Congratulations to my youngest sister, Melissa, and to her husband, Cameron, on the arrival of their new baby boy, Max!

It’s tough be so very far away when a sibling has a baby—I have two nieces and one nephew I’ve never seen.

No one told me I had a new nephew! I’d been waiting anxiously since late July to hear the news, and I found out from Laura and Cody’s blog five days after the event. Can I get some details here? Pictures?

on dressing like a Pemban woman

By “dress like a Pemban” I mean I wear a long dress to the ankles or nearly so, with sleeves usually hitting my elbows. The dress is large. One dress I bought here I’m sure could fit three of me inside. My friend assured me it fit me perfectly. “And it’ll still fit you when you get fat; you’re way too skinny.” (For the record, I’m in a good place on height-for-weight scales.) These dresses are so large and so strangely patterned that Justin commented, “They are almost ugly enough to be cool. Almost.” When I told him I’ll be giving away my ugliest dresses, he looked at me blankly, trying to figure out exactly which ones are the ugliest. They certainly are not flattering by American standards. But in Pemba, they are all the rage in house-clothes fashion.

Whenever I leave the immediate neighborhood, I also don a buibui and mtandio. The buibui is an ankle-length, long-sleeved, loose-fitting, black gown that every adult Muslim Pemban women wears. (Anyone not Muslim is from the mainland, and therefore not considered Pemban.) The styles have changed over the years I’ve been coming to Zanzibar. From snaps down the front, to a more risqué, sheer type with only one snap, exposing the dress underneath, to a pull-over-the-head type. In 2004 the pull-over and the open one combined into one style, with a decently modest layer underneath, but a free-flowing sheer layer on the front. This is the kind I wear. But, alas, that style is old, and now the style is a one-layered pull-over, but with decorations—colorful embroidery, beads, reflective plastic “jewels”—near the bottom and the wrists. I just can’t keep up.

The mtandio is a large bolt of cloth that is wrapped around the head a couple times and secured with a needle (if you’re from the city and can afford it) or by tucking one end in around the cheek or chin. They generally cover the whole head, as well as the neck and shoulders, leaving the face exposed. But the styles change for these too. They’ve gone from all black, to sleek and colorful, to flowing and multi-colored. The ones in style now cover not just down to the shoulders, but the whole upper body. I have a couple of these, ones that are cut from the same fabric as the dresses I bought here. I have other head coverings from the Middle East which, when I wear those rather than mtandio people comment that I dress like an Arab.

Why I wear these clothes, given that I'm not a Muslim and I could easily dress like the other wazungu do in Western clothes, is a little harder to explain. I'm still trying to figure it out myself, and weigh the pros and cons. One thing is for sure: most of the people here love that I dress like they do. And another thing: in the hot months of January and February, these layers are going to be hot.