snappy

Juma caught a baby snapping turtle at a nearby river-park. We let it go again after a few hours. Juma was so upset to see his new friend go that he cried and cried, "I want to give him a goodbye hug!"

first day of school

Juma had his first day of school at his new preschool. He was nervous leaving the house, but by the time he got to his new classroom and checked out all the great stuff he could do (color, read, dress up, build an airport out of blocks!) he was fine. When it was time to say goodbye, we were more upset than he was.

It's been nice to spend all summer with Juma, but he's happy to be back into the structured play of school. And he even made a new friend, Simon. His teacher tells me they "rebuilt" a whole wooden shed in the playground. "I hammered, I sawed, I measured," Juma reported.

in the water

I was shocked and saddened to find that headlines yesterday about everyone's favorite Aussie, Steve Irwin, aka the Crocodile Hunter. I certainly expected him to somehow survive much longer.
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Remember back in July I posted about the drownings of three young men in Pemba? I found out later that one of the three had saved eight others before he died--he went back in one last time to find the other two (one of them his cousin), but was overcome himself while looking for them. He died a hero.

more pictures from our trip

As promised, I've posted some more pictures from our trip. Enjoy.




Mount Kilimanjaro from the window of our plane en route to Nairobi, Kenya.




A view from the north. To the left is Uhuru Peak, and the one on the right is the "real" peak, the 19,000+ footer, the tallest in Africa. Justin scaled it in 2001.




My henna tattoos the day I got them. (Don't worry--they are only temporary!) Every bride is tattooed like this the day before her wedding; it's considered the height of feminine beauty.




Neighbor children Yumla, Nassra, and Rahma (sisters) with Juma. He played with them and their brother Ibra almost every day. Ibra was at Quran school at the time of the picture.

the long trip home, or the unhappy birthday

After leaving Pemba, we stayed for four nights in Unguja so we could have a little vacation time, have actual choices about what to eat for our meals, and see friends. It was marvelous to walk around without a buibui, and to stop at different restaurants--Italian, Chinese, Indian.

We even ate Swahili food a couple times (the kind that actual Zanzibaris eat and pay 50 cents for, not the kind that tourist restaurants make for tourists to have a "true Swahili experience" at 8 dollars a plate), and still enjoyed it immensely simply because it was not made by our cook. Don't get me wrong, our cook had been an excellent chef. But she only made about five different dishes, and after two months, we were just too darn sick of it.

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When we left Pemba, we thought we'd be smart and leave some of our things in storage to have for next time so we wouldn't have to pack stuff home only to cart it back again, or give stuff away only to have to buy it again. We debated about putting our giant super-duper world traveler's first aid kit in storage or bringing it to Unguja, to have it for the last week.

"What are the chances that something happens in the last week?"

What are the chances, indeed. On the very last day in Zanzibar, Juma hurt his foot while playing, scraping up the skin on the side and getting a contusion (we even had it X-rayed, but it was not broken). Luckily, bandaids and other needs were available in local pharmacies. While he should have been capable of walking, he isn't used to pain and wanted to be carried everywhere all that day and the next. He's walking on it fine now, but we had to carry him all through the airports.

To top off our four-year-old-turned-baby, I got sick, sick, sick on the airplane ride from Unguja to Kenya, and stayed sick until we were in Amsterdam.

Ever been sick on a 8-hour plane ride? On your birthday? I highly recommend it.

We had hoped to go into downtown Amsterdam, find a little hotel, celebrate my birthday, and look around the next morning while waiting for our afternoon flight. But with Juma in need of a wheelchair and me an invalid, we skipped the city and slept in the airport hotel. (Despite my illness, I did a little victory dance in the hotel to celebrate the absence of mosquito nets!)

Juma refuses to acknowledge that I am now 27 simply because I haven't blown out the candles on my birthday cake yet. That, apparently, is the critical milestone of aging.

Thanks for all the happy birthday wishes. And very happy late birthdays to everyone who had summer birthdays that I missed acknowledging: Kelly, Xander, Rus, new baby Max, Cameron, Aidan, Andria, Ashli, Ethan, Vaun. And happy September birthdays to Rylee, Ammon, Isaac, Rick, and Lance.

I'm still not quite over my little virus, and Justin has it now too, but Juma has been spared. We arrived home safely to find our apartment in order, and Juma has already found some of his old friends to play with. Jet lag, of course, is getting to us. Juma woke up at 3am and hasn't been to sleep since.

I think it's time I take a nap.

We're home!

Well, we made it safely back to Connecticut after a somewhat epic journey. More details later--now it's time to sleep.

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.