Headed Home via London

On our way home from Tanzania, Brandon and I made a stopover in London to visit a few friends. It was bit jarring to transition right into cosmopolitan Europe, but the city had so many fun things to offer that we certainly got over our reverse culture shock quickly. Above, a typical London city scene and a shot of Westminster Palace/Big Ben.

We got a chance to visit the Tower of London, built in 1078 as a fortress and prison. Above, you can see the Tower standing in stark contrast to the modern buildings across the river. The Tower had many famous prisoners, including Queen Elizabeth I (who I am slightly obsessed with). It also houses the Crown Jewels, including a sceptre with a 530 carat diamond on it (literally tennis ball-sized!). Below, I snuck a picture of the Imperial Crown of India...of course the picture hardly does it justice, it was so sparkly and beautiful!

Below, the Beefeaters (just like the gin...they said they don't know where they got their name from) are entrusted to guard the Tower and actually live on the premises with their families. They also give tours in their hilarious outfits:
After some sightseeing, we had time to hang out with our friends. Below, Holly (my college friend) and me at Les Miserables, and Brandon with his friend Nikeah from Australia:

As our weekend came to a close, we got pretty excited to finally get to the States. Below, a picture taken as we left London proper (indicated by the dragon facing away from us, which lets you know that you're leaving the city), and one of the two of us, all smiles and ready to go home!

The last two weeks

Since returning from Egypt, we've had a fun last two weeks wrapping up our time in Tanzania.
We've said quite a few goodbyes! The first was of course at Gracious School, where we stopped in for a few last songs and pictures with the kids. The lovely teachers (Magdalena and Tumaini, below) cooked us a farewell meal with tasty Tanzanian food and traditional gifts (including the red Masai wrap that Maiken is holding):

Above, my high school friend Megan arrived last week for a visit...she got to spend some time with the kids too!

We also said goodbye to the kids from the Whisperers Orphanage. We got some ice cream in the afternoon, and then they cooked us a great goodbye dinner in the evening.

Maiken and Megan helping with dinner prep: Me and some of the kids after some tasty mango cake!

Later in the week, Megan and I went on a very successful safari (look at how close we got to the lions!):

Above, a beautiful bird in Tarangire.

Below, a baobab tree that the elephants burrowed all the way through with their tusks!

Above, a very pensive baboon (who looks just like Rafiki from The Lion King!) and below, a charming giraffe who was chewing his lunch and batting his fantastic eyelashes:

We pulled up next to these two lions, just lounging around:

Big roars, from the male lion and the hungry, hungry hippo:

Above, a group shot at Ngorongoro Crater: Megan, me, Jackie and Jason (a couple from Pennsylvania), Pesa (our awesome guide/driver), and Ann and Grant (friends from med school who flew in from Uganda).

Later in the week, Megan and I did a 20 km day hike on Mt. Kilimanjaro. It was beautiful, and much more jungle-like than we expected:

Above, an example of the crazy loads that the Kili porters carry all the way up the mountain.

This past weekend, Brandon, Megan, Maiken, and our med school friend Ann ran the Kilimanjaro Half Marathon in Moshi...the first half of the course was up the mountain, and the second half was back down (intense!). Perhaps not surprisingly, several of the Tanzanians and Kenyans who won the race were running in moccasins, aqua socks, soccer cleats, or were even barefoot...basically anything but the fancy running shoes that Westerners use to perform well!

Above, Megan and Brandon at 6am before the race began.

Below, the whole crew waving from the crowded starting line:
As Megan was running kilometer 12 of 21, she ran by some kids on the sidelines who she waved to...who then proceeded to JOIN her for the remainder of the race! They were both under 10 years old and clad in flip-flops, but they kept up with her for the 9 kilometers until the finish line!

Above, Megan and her buddies just about to cross the finish line.

Below, immediately after the race (with the little girl sporting her Kili visor on her face): Above, Brandon finishing strong.

Below, Ann and Maiken at the finish line just as the clouds were parting over Mt. Kilimanjaro (you can see the snow at the peak in the middle of the picture).
The runners after the race, victorious:

One of the last goodbyes was a farewell party thrown for "Professor Brandon" as he wrapped up his semester at Mt. Meru University. In classic African tradition, they killed and roasted a goat for the occasion:

Below, Brandon got to make the ceremonial first cut (into the neck no less!) while his fellow psych professor, Janvier, coached him through it. People gave gifts and made speeches, and overall gave Brandon a very heartfelt Tanzanian farewell!

So...we leave tomorrow, and the one thing I will definitely miss the most about Tanzania are the adorable children who greet us everywhere we go. Below, one of the many kids we've encountered on his way to school, who decided to mimic Brandon squatting to take the picture and couldn't have looked cuter doing so:

I hope to make it back here for a visit soon!

The Village Raises the Child

I have to share a story from a bus trip that Maiken and I took last weekend:
We were sitting on a bus heading from Arusha to Moshi, and seated next to us was a middle-aged man traveling by himself. Maiken and I were sort of spacing out, looking out the window and nodding off to sleep. As we pulled away from one of the bus stops, all of a sudden the bus ticket collector handed the man next to us a little boy that had been acquired at the last stop. The boy was maybe one and half years old, and definitely was not accompanied by any adult who knew him. He was such a cute little guy! As people got on and off the bus, the child just got handed to different adults to sit on their laps; if he got fussy, some woman nearby would take him and comfort him, and when he needed to nap, someone would offer their shoulder for him to lay on.

At some point, we must have approached the town that the bus driver knew he needed to be dropped off at...several of the adults onboard started discussing in Swahili who would be getting off at that stop with the child, and how would they pay for his ride? The woman who was holding him at that moment reached into the pocket of his little jeans and pulled out a bus fare that someone had stuffed in there...perfect! She paid the bus driver, and at the next stop she got off with him and, I hope, found whoever was there to pick him up.

These are the kinds of things that 1. could never happen in the US and 2. I will really miss about Africa!

It was really an unbelievable thing to watch happen. The little boy was so comfortable being passed around from person to person, and the adults seemed to take him on as their own child for the brief duration of the bus journey. Maiken and I talked about how in the US or any Western country, you could never put your baby on a bus with some bus fare in his pocket and just hope he got pushed out at the right stop! But that's how things seem to work here in Africa, with the whole village taking care of its children.

Family trip to Egypt!

After a few weeks of traveling around Tanzania, my family and Brandon and I went up to Egypt for a much different kind of African adventure. We spent most of our time around Cairo, which is a much bigger and more modern city than I thought! Eighteen million people live in Cairo, and the city is a unique blend of traditional (almost all women cover their hair, there are countless mosques and men have marks on their foreheads from praying so much, fewer people speak English than might be expected) and modern (sushi restaurants and night clubs, an efficient metro system, tall buildings and new construction everywhere). The ancient historical landmarks are mixed in amongst the apartment buildings and shops throughout the city:

Above, views from a minaret that we climbed.

Below, Mom and I visiting one of the famous mosques in town.

We spent some time in a huge marketplace called Khan al-Khalili, which was a colorful and crowded adventure of navigating narrow streets and haggling our hearts out:

We of course stopped to smoke some sheesha and drink some Turkish coffee:

Sheesha is ubiquitous in Cairo; for example, this dude below was just hanging out by his bread stand, smoking on the street:

Below, a view of the Nile in downtown Cairo.

After a few days in downtown Cairo, we crossed the Nile to the neighboring town of Giza, where the famous pyramids and sphinx are located.

The size of the pyramids is an optical illusion: from far away, the pyramids seem pretty close together, but once you stand at the base of one, you realize that even each individual stone is overwhelming in size and, I'm sure, weight:

The pyramids and sphinx are surprisingly close to downtown Cairo...it's like a little plot of desert preserved in the middle of the huge city! We took advantage of this fact, stopping for a bite to eat at the Pizza Hut across the street. Below, Mom and I on Pizza Hut's patio, which had such a good view it was just silly:

During one of our evenings in Cairo, we took a dinner cruise down the Nile, which was complete with a belly dancing show!

Kev and the belly dancer.

The crew at dinner:

After my brother and parents left for the US, Brandon and I made a quick trip up to Alexandria, the beautiful former capital of Egypt founded by Alexander the Great. Alexandria sits right on the Mediterranean Sea, and has a phenomenal sea front:

The Bibliotheca in Alexandria was one of the highlights of the whole trip:

It was built in the 1990s right on top of the site of the original library, which was constructed in the third century BC during the reign of Ptolemy. In its prime, the ancient library was famous for housing "all the world's knowledge" and, later, when Julius Caesar supposedly burned it down accidentally!

Above, modern residents of Alexandria (including women in burqas) enjoying their library.

The library also houses some cool art:

The entire modern city of Alexandria is built right on top of the ruins of the old city, which are still being excavated via underwater archaeologists just six meters under the water. They have found things like Cleopatra's Palace (sweet!) and other ancient buildings.

The city was more relaxed and artsy than Cairo, and we enjoyed it quite a bit. Also, since I call alcoholic drinks "drinkies," I was pretty happy when I saw this place:

Above, a parting shot of our last night in Egypt, spent at a beautiful open-air restaurant on the beachfront in Alexandria. Overall, a terrific trip!