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.