I did an exercise at the beginning of last year where I imagined how I would like my life to change during the coming (now past) year.  As part of the exercise, I then wrote a letter from the point of view of my 2012 self (who had presumably accomplished all those changes I was visualizing) talking about everything that future me had accomplished during the year.  The point being to visualize the things I wanted to happen, and then keep them in my mind all year, thereby making it more likely that I would achieve them.  The natural conclusion of that exercise is to revisit that letter now that 2012 is here, and take stock of what I was able to accomplish, and what I didn’t.  You can read more about the exercise here, if you are interested.

As it turns out, I didn’t accomplish any of the things I wrote about.  Although 2011 started out quite well, it turned out to be a very challenging year, and my plans and intentions crumbled under the pressure of just getting through each day.  I am now going to talk briefly about the various challenges, so that I can let go of them and move on.  This next part is likely to sound like whining, so I understand if you prefer to skip it altogether.  I’ll even make it easy for you:

**************** Begin talking about problems ********************

Some of the challenges of 2011 were health-related.  I caught some kind of bug that brought a lingering cough and shortness of breath.  When I finally figured out it wasn’t going away, and went to a doctor to get checked out, I learned that I had an infection in my lungs that had almost become pneumonia.  Lovely.  Shortly after that cleared up, I developed a case of plantar fasciitis that made it hard to even walk, much less run or work out.  That lasted awhile too, and severely disrupted my workout routine.  Dylan was also frequently sick in 2011.  Nothing major, but a variety of pesky ailments that required extra care, made him feel bad, and caused problems with his sleep.  Actually, both kiddos had sleep problems on and off through the year.  Occasionally their sleep issues would happen simultaneously, allowing me to only get 2-3 hours of sleep a night.  On an interpersonal note, Dave and I had kind of a rough year, and I spent the year estranged from my sister.

***************** Stop talking about problems ***************

Lots of challenges.  The only consistently good things during my year were work (thankfully), my parents, and a few close friends.  I can’t say all of the challenges are now resolved, but I am at least feeling pretty healthy at the moment, which makes a huge difference.  So once again, I am thinking about what I would like to accomplish this year.  Not surprisingly, all the undone things from last year are still on my list.  2012, therefore, is going to be a year of “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”  To a large extent, my letter from my 2013 self is going to be cut-and-pasted from my letter from my 2012 self.  What I’m trying to decide is whether to repeat the same goals from last year – which were ambitious but not unrealistic – or choose more modest goals.  I feel like my inability to accomplish any of last year’s goals means that I would be doomed to failure again this year if I chose the same goals again.  But not even TRYING for those goals just feels like a different kind of failure.  The “a coward dies a thousand deaths” kind, I think.

What to do, what to do?

I will have to think this over for a little while longer.  Another few days won’t make much difference in the scheme of a whole year.

For now, good night, and a belated Happy New Year!

I love Christmas lights.  I suppose I love all things Christmas, except for the crowded stores.  I certainly love the lights, decorations, music, cards, good cheer, and all that jazz.  My mom loves Christmas lights as much as I do, so I love driving around looking at them with her.  My favorite Christmas lights in Houston are at the River Oaks Country Club.  You can see them starting around minute 2:50 of this video.  (Note: this is not my video, it is just something I randomly found on the inter webs.)  The video doesn’t even do justice to the lights, but it will give you an idea, if you’ve never been there yourself.  I’m sure there are better Christmas lights elsewhere, but I’m pretty sure there aren’t any better in Houston, and these are the best that I have ever personally seen.

So we came to a point where there were particularly good lights on both sides of the street.  Mia became very excited, announcing that “I don’t even know which direction to look!”  Meanwhile, Dylan was beside himself with excitement.  Every time he saw a decorated house, he would point at it and make a loud gasping noise.  It was hilarious hearing him.

Mia’s excitement was fun while it lasted.  Unfortunately, she had a five-year-old moment about two minutes later.  We came to a very lavishly decorated house and she wanted to get out of the car to get a closer look at the lights.  I didn’t let her, partly because it was sprinkling with rain, and partly because I just didn’t want to hassle with parking and then unbuckling and rebuckling her in her car seat.  This caused a full-blown pouting session.  She decided that she was no longer going to look at any lights except ones that were on her side of the car.  Then she started griping about how I allegedly never let her have what she wanted.  My reply about how nobody ever gets everything they want did not seem to be what she wanted to hear.  Then she announced that the lights were too bright, so she wasn’t going to look at any anymore.  Basically, she was tired.

Anyway, the rest of us had a delightful time.  I’m sure we’ll be out there again next weekend, enjoying the season!

Anyway, I managed to pick up Mia and get us to the show without further ado.  Like most Cirque shows, it started off with a kind of clownish ringmaster who acted out various goofy scenarios to entertain the audience.  This is never my favorite part of the show, and even more so when I go with Mia.  The ringmaster doesn’t hold her attention, so she spends the entire time asking me when the acrobats are going to come out.  But eventually, of course, the acrobats came out.

The first act was a female contortionist who performed her act balanced on one hand on top of a pole in the middle of the stage.  I found her performance to be inspiring – for lack of a better word – because it reminded me that we humans can accomplish incredible feats through hard work, perseverance, practice, commitment, and focus.  Somewhere inside me there still lives a little girl who believes the hype about “you can do anything you want if you just try hard enough.”  Once upon a time when I would see something like this show, I would think to myself that I, too, could do that if only I was willing to sacrifice enough and work hard enough.  Now, at 42 years old, I have finally come to terms with the fact that I will never be a contortionist in a Cirque show.  Or an Olympic gold medalist.  Or America’s Next Top Model.  Instead, I found myself thinking tonight about that performer’s mother, and how proud she must be of her daughter’s accomplishments.  So now I have apparently transferred all my unfulfilled hopes for myself, onto Mia.  I’ll be sure to never let her know; nobody deserves that kind of pressure.  And hey, maybe that contortionist’s mom REALLY wished her daughter would’ve gone to law school and made a career for herself as an attorney.  It’s funny how the grass is always greener…

Anyhoo, Cirque shows always make me feel that way – in awe of the potential within each of us to achieve something really special.  So my reaction to the contortionist was nothing new.  I also always love Cirque because the shows are so incredibly creative and beautiful, they truly seem magical and make me feel a childish sense of wonder that I really enjoy.  But seeing the show with Mia makes me suspect that the “childish” sense of wonder is anything but childish.  Because Mia didn’t seem to feel much wonder.  Instead, she was concerned with the nitty-gritty of the show.  There were two things in particular that she was most interested in.  First, she kept asking whether the various performers were boys or girls.  Gender is apparently very important to Mia right now.  And considering the elaborate costumes, it often would be hard for Mia to tell whether the performers were male or female.  So she was always asking me about that.  The other thing she wondered about was why some of the performers “had boyfriends or girlfriends” when others didn’t.  For example, the lone contortionist had nobody, while the man and woman doing an aerial act together were, in Mia’s mind, boyfriend and girlfriend.  After thinking about it a little while, she declared that if two people came out together, they must be boyfriend and girlfriend.  I told her that maybe they just work together, instead of being boyfriend and girlfriend.  What can I say, as someone who works with a bunch of men, I guess I just had to set the record straight for my little Mimi.

The next act was a juggler.  I know a little bit about juggling, and not just in the figurative work-life-balance, mother-career-wife kind of way.  I can literally juggle.  Three items.  With my hands.  If I’m standing very still and concentrating very hard.  This guy started out juggling three items.  But he used not only his hands, but also his feet, neck, knees, and elbows.  While doing somersaults and other assorted tumbling moves.  And of course he didn’t stay at three items for long.  Three became four, then six, then seven.  By then, the somersaulting had stopped, and he was mostly just using his hands.  Slacker.  But seriously, he was awesome.

Then there was an act using the large vertical wall with trampolines at the bottom.  Several performers would climb up and down the wall using the trampolines, or would jump from one trampoline to another, often crossing each other’s paths in the air, while doing complicated flips and twists.  It was similar to an act Mia and I saw in Ovo this Spring, and still very impressive and fun to watch.  (I kind of think that maybe – just maybe – I still have time to learn to be a world class trampolinist if only I work really hard!!  (Maybe I won’t ever grow up…))

That brought us to the intermission.  As the intermission ended, the whole middle of the stage was taken up by a very tall cylindrical curtain.  There were performers inside, with backlights showing their silhouettes on the curtain.  Some of the performers were on the stage, and others were aerialists suspended by wires, flipping and spinning around.  The curtain was lifted, and an act began with a team of acrobats who balanced on each other in various ways.  But the aerialists remained suspended above them the whole time.  There were four aerialists, each wearing a different color costume, and all I could think was that they looked like a human chandelier. It was interesting enough that it really distracted me from the acrobats, but that’s OK, because how often do I get to see a human chandelier??

There were a few other acts, but the final act was something I’ve absolutely never seen before, and never could have imagined in a million years.  I said one of the things I love about Cirque is how creative the shows are.  Well, the final act was a cross between double dutch jump rope and  …  break dancing.  No, you didn’t read that wrong.  Double dutch jump rope meets break dancing.  It was quite a spectacle.  At one point, the performers created a human pyramid three levels high, which then somehow managed to jump the rope.  I’m sure my description doesn’t do it justice, but it was a completely unexpected, amazing, and delightful way to end the show.  A great time was had by all.  I can’t wait for the next show to come to town!

I tried to do something about it back in May, right after Dylan’s birthday.  I bought some great picture-taking clothes, including a tiny little tux for Dylan.  I made an appointment.  It was going to be a whole family picture, so I got us all ready, dressed in (approximately) color coordinating clothes, and out the door pretty much on time.  Only to have Dylan have a puke for the ages on the way there.  It was all over him, pooled in his car seat, completely nasty.  There was no way to get him out of his seat without getting it all over me, so we turned the car around and went home.

Dylan is about to outgrow the tiny little tux, so we needed to try again soon.  We have a lot going on during the next six weekends or so, so kind of on the spur of the moment yesterday I made an appointment for today.  It was more successful than last time.  We managed to get out the door on time, and nobody threw up on the way there.  But it was far from a perfect session.  Unfortunately, Mia crashed head-first into a friend of hers at school two days ago.  The result is a big purple bruise right on the middle of her forehead.  Hm, maybe I should have thought about that.  Also, she got some temporary tattoos for her birthday, and she is wearing some.  They are conspicuous on her arms.  I probably should have thought about that, too, especially after her school picture last year, where she was very tattooed.

Note to self: remove Mia’s tattoos before her next school picture, which happens to be next week.

Once we got our bruised, tattooed selves there, it turned out that Dylan was not very happy about the whole thing.  He never really warmed up to the experience.  He was happy enough if I was holding him, most of the time.  But his smiles were few and far between.  Fortunately, the photographer and his helpers did a great job of maximizing the smiles, and capturing them on film.  At the end of the day, we got a bunch of good ones, including:

My Mia, super cute even with her overgrown bangs that can cover her eyes yet somehow can’t cover her bruised forehead

My two sweeties, both looking their best:

Dylan’s very best smile, which he was only willing to deploy when he was away from the background screen.  Hence, all the clutter behind him.

Mia looking so grown up.

Dylan looking very, very serious on his chair:  (I think this is my favorite picture of all)

Dylan looking less serious, STANDING on his chair.  This is not surprising, considering how much he loves to climb on things:

And finally, Dylan wearing a perfect little hat that they had at the studio:

Thanks folks, and good night!

What is it a picture of, you ask?  Could it be the family of elephants we saw?  Nope.

Maybe the cheetah stalking the wildebeest?  Unh-uh.

One of the hot air ballooning pictures?  Nosirree.

Sunset over the water at Zanzibar?   Close, but no cigar.

It’s a picture of the menu board outside the restaurant at our hotel in Zanzibar.  I know it sounds lame, but bear with me just a second.  The hotel was owned by a very personable Rastafarian named Sully.  The hotel had been his father’s, and now it was his.  He was also the chef, and I’m pretty sure he wrote the sign.  It was so brilliant that I took a picture of it.

In case you can’t read it, here’s what it says:

Langi Langi Rastarent

Goody gumdrops my geezer

We do lovely jubbly food and oki doky, sweetheart

Chop chop menu inside

Please do not ask us about weather we are no BBC, CNN or Al Jazeera, I’m not bothered

We don’t do burgers we are not McFatDonald, greasy KFC

No prozzies only prezzies, skuzzy ming or skunky (??)

Free food, do I look like dalai lama or Mother Terresa??

If you want breakfast in bed, please sleep in the kitchen

We do not serve surstomming only good fish

Love u, Rasta Chef

On the right-hand column, it said:

Warning

The only place we allow our lovely client to bring your own booze

We do serve wine and beer.  But please do not steal my glasses.

Don’t drink and drive but keep on drinking.

Junky funky food no here darling.

Home food cook from heart not book.

We love you.

So considering how excited we both were, this birthday was bound to be a big deal.  And it was.  She had a party Saturday.  This year we had it at the place she takes her gymnastics lessons.  A lot of her friends from school were there, and it seemed like a good time was had by all.  Dave’s parents were also able to come, and she loves spending time with Grans and Pop-Pop.  And of course she ended up with tons of presents.

Today being her actual birthday, Dave went out this morning and brought home donuts before she woke up.  We had told her that we would take her to dinner wherever she wanted.  She has been asking lately about our wedding.  We have shown her pictures, and told her how we got married at a restaurant on top of a building.  The idea of a restaurant on top of a building has intrigued her, so she said that was where she wanted to go.  Unfortunately, it turns out that they aren’t open for dinner.  So we offered her a choice: we would take her to her favorite restaurant for dinner (they have a playground!), or we would pick her up from day care and take her to lunch at the restaurant where we got married.  She’s always wanted us to come have lunch with her, so it took her about zero seconds to make up her mind.  Lunch it was!

It was a great lunch, too.  Her teachers had made her a cardboard crown for her birthday, which said Happy Birthday in glitter glue.  She wore it to lunch, so pretty much everyone who saw her told her happy birthday.  Instead of the Sprite that she ordered, the waiter brought her a fancy pink drink with Sprite, grenadine, and a bunch of cherries stuck with little plastic swords.  After the meal, the waiter brought the dessert tray, something she has never seen before.  She ordered a giant piece of chocolate cake, and of course they put a candle on it and drew pretty flowers all over the plate with some kind of edible paint.  We enjoyed the view, saw some airplanes go by, pointed out all the neighboring buildings with swimming pools on their roofs, and even lucked out and saw the window washer crew come up the side of the building.  Once she was totally full, happy, and sugared up, it was time for her to go back to school.

But the birthday festivities weren’t over yet.  At her day care, it is customary to have cupcakes when it’s someone’s birthday.  So after lunch, she and Dave stopped at the grocery store to buy a bunch of cupcakes to drop off at her class.  4:00 is cupcake hour.  I left work early so I could be there and enjoy the show.  Her teachers pointed out that this is a really important day, because now she is “a whole hand old.”  Everyone sang happy birthday to her, and then gobbled their cupcakes.  I rarely get to spend any time in her classroom, but it is always a hoot.  She and her friends are so funny.  Today was no exception.  They are all so friendly, and it is apparently a really big deal to have anyone’s parents in the room, because they always throng around you.  I was bombarded with “Hey, Mia’s mom, watch me!” from every direction.  Everyone wanted to talk about their favorite birthday presents, favorite movies, what shirts they were wearing, all kinds of stuff.  I always feel like a celebrity, and a giant, when I visit them.  It is a blast.

After the cupcakes were gone, the kids got to run around outside on the playground for awhile.  We had a touchy few minutes where Mia said that one of her friends had pushed her down a slide, causing her to land on her head at the bottom.  She and the friend both came running over to where I was sitting.  There were tears and accusations.  But nobody was hurt of course, and it was all just an accident, so after a minute everyone was ready to go play some more.  After about 20 minutes, everyone was hot and sweaty (stupid hot weather is never going to end), so the teachers took the kids inside and I took Mia home.

Supper was Mia’s favorite dinner – Dave’s chicken and dumplings.  It rounded off a very nice day.  She proclaimed it her best birthday ever, and I agree.

I think it’s going to be a good year.

Today we saw two of Zanzibar’s major attractions: a spice farm, and Stone Town.  The people of Zanzibar have been growing and trading spices for hundreds of years.  They grow cinnamon, pepper, cardamom, vanilla, turmeric, ginger, nutmeg, and lemongrass, among others.  The spice farm was very interesting.  Our guide there was named James.  Or as he called himself, James Bond 007.  James spoke English with us, of course, but he also speaks German, Italian, French, and Spanish, in addition to his native Swahili.  He told us that he had to go to a special language school to learn all those languages, but that it was worth it because people who could speak many languages made a lot more money.  He was very funny, and he knew a lot about all the spices.  His helper, Ramse, would bring us leaves from all the different spices for us to smell and guess what they were.  In his spare time, Ramse would create amazing things out of banana leaves.  He would cut the leaves into long, thin strips, which he would weave together to make a flat piece which he would then fold like origami.  He made me a frog this way, which I am bringing home for Mia.  I think she will really get a kick out of it.  I’ve never seen anything like it.

James told us interesting facts about all the spices.  For example, I learned that black peppercorns, yellow peppercorns, white peppercorns and green peppercorns all come from the same plant.  Their color just depends on how ripe the peppercorn is when it is picked, and whether or not it is removed from its husk.  And I learned that the root of the cinnamon plant smells like menthol.  Local people boil it in water and use it as a decongestant, just like we use Vick’s Vap-O-Rub.

In addition to the spices, James showed us some interesting local plants.  He showed us touch-me-not mimosa trees.  We have a similar tree back home.  Their leaves close up when they are touched.  According to James, local men use these trees as a way of making sure their wives stay faithful.  They will plant a hedge of these trees all around their wife’s house.  If anyone comes or goes from the house while the husband is gone, the leaves of the trees will close up.  So if he comes home and sees the leaves closed, he knows something has been going on.  This is especially a concern here because it is common for men to have more than one wife, so it’s hard to keep an eye on them all, I suppose.  James also showed us a plant he called “local lipstick.”  The plant has seed pods that are kind of like marble-sized pomegranates in that they are full of juicy seeds.  If you open the seed pod and crush the seeds, they release a pasty, bright orange juice.  Local women put it on their lips as lipstick, and also use it for body decoration.

During the tour, we got to see “Mister Butterfly.”  Mister Butterfly’s specialty is climbing the coconut palms.  He used a rope between his feet to get a better grip, and just climbed right up.  Once he was up the tree, he did a dance that was unpleasantly reminiscent of a stripper pole-dancing.  When his (literal) song-and-dance was over, he served us a coconut.  I have never eaten a raw coconut before.  I see them in the grocery store sometimes, and am always tempted to buy one.  I’m intimidated, though, because I don’t really know how to open them, so I know it will be yet another piece of fruit that sits in my kitchen and rots.  Fresh off the tree, and expertly served by Mister Butterfly (who was armed with an extremely sharp knife), the coconut was delicious.  There was a surprising amount of water inside, and the flesh had a very sweet, mild taste.

Our next stop in the spice farm was the fruit stand.  The fruit guy served us a sample of all the different fruits grown on the farm.  We tried guava, Seville oranges, grapefruit, jackfruit, apples, and star fruit.  The apples especially were very interesting.  They were different from our apples back home.  The flesh was a lot softer, almost like a banana.  And the seeds were a lot larger, about the size of dimes.  All the fruit tasted great.  We were especially happy to be eating, because we had thought we would probably skip lunch today.  We happen to be here during Ramadan.  Almost all Zanzibarians (???  Zanzibari?  Zanzibarites?  I should probably look into the proper terminology.) anyway, almost everyone who lives here is Muslim.  During Ramadan, Muslim people fast from sunrise to sundown every day.  Most of the restaurants here, including the restaurant in our hotel, are closed for lunch.  So it was especially nice of the people here to serve us all this fruit when they themselves are not allowed to eat with us, although it felt a little rude to be eating right in front of them.

Our last stop at the spice farm was the spice stand.  They had packets of all the various different spices for sale, along with spiced coffees and teas.  We had already purchased some ylang ylang (yes, it is the same as langi langi) and jasmine perfumes from another vendor in the spice farm, along with some cinnamon soap.  At the spice stand, we added a few spices, teas, and coffees to our haul.  Then it was time to say good-bye and hakuna matata to James Bond 007, and continue on to Stone Town.

Stone Town is the oldest settlement on Zanzibar.  It was formerly called Zanzibar Town, but now there is a new Zanzibar Town just down the road, and the old town is called Stone Town.  It is called that because all the buildings are made of stone.  Actually, the oldest buildings are made of coral, but I guess that’s close enough to stone.  Some of the buildings date from the 1600’s, but most were built in the 1800’s.  Stone Town is famous for the ornate doorways many of the buildings have.  The buildings are two or three stories tall, and are very close together.  The roads in between the buildings are not built on any kind of grid system.  They are a web of narrow, curving, interconnected streets.  They might be wide enough for one car to get through, but you can’t drive there.  There are people on bikes and motorcycles, as well as people pushing hand carts of various things.  There are also lots of people just sitting along the streets and in the doorways of all the shops.  It is a very busy town.  Our guidebook has instructions for a self-guided tour, but you’d have to be pretty ambitious to try and navigate that place without a guide.  Our guide took us through the town and showed us the most significant sights.  We started at the market.  We walked through the fish market, and then the fruit market.  The fish market had all kinds of fresh, locally-caught fish for sale, with an auction at one end where the fisherman sold their catch to the fishmongers.  (Any day I can use the word “monger” is a good day!!)  There was red snapper, barracuda, sword fish, sting rays, baby sharks, and a smaller, silver fish that our guide said was like sardines.  The markets were extremely busy, to the point that it was difficult making our way through the crowds.

We also visited the site of the former slave market.  Zanzibar was the hub of the East African slave trade for hundreds of years.  People from East Africa were brought to Zanzibar, where they were sold into slavery in the Middle East.  It is estimated that about 6 million people were sold into slavery in the Zanzibar slave market, and up to another 18 million people died or were killed in the process.  Many of them were babies, since nursing babies were often just murdered so that their mothers would not be slowed down from working.  It is hard to think about those things, and even harder to think about the fact that similar things are still going on today in various parts of the world.

David Livingston came to Zanzibar in the 1800‘s and began working to abolish the slave trade.  After slavery was abolished, he asked the Sultan of Oman (Zanzibar was a protectorate of Oman at the time) for permission to build a Christian church where the slave market used to be.  The Sultan agreed, on the condition that the steeple of the church was lower than the tower of his own palace.  The local Bishop worked with unskilled Zanzibarian people to build the church.  The unskilled laborers sometimes had trouble following the architect’s plans.  There are many columns around the church that are upside down, because the people accidentally made them wrong.  Our guide at the church said that the architect was so upset about the mistakes made during construction that he ultimately threw himself off a building to his death.

Our guide at the church was fantastic.  His name was Christopher.  Unlike most people here, he is Christian.  I kind of wonder whether Christopher was his given name, or if he converted to Christianity as an adult and changed it.  He said that he was married long ago to a Muslim woman, but they got a divorce.  They way he made it sound, you never can really get a divorce in the Islam faith, so he had to convert to Christianity in order to get remarried.  His current wife is also a Christian woman, who used to be married to a Muslim man, so it seems like a complicated situation.  They got married on Valentine’s Day.  Christopher was quite a character.  In addition to knowing a lot about the church and its history, he had a lot of other interesting stories.  For instance, he told us about the king who built the Taj Mahal.  He built it for his wife, but when it was done he decided he wanted his-and-hers.  Hers had taken so long to build, though, that the architect told him he couldn’t build another.  The king wanted to make sure that nobody else ever built any palace that beautiful again, so he cut off the hands of all the workers, and possibly also decapitated the architect.  Pretty gruesome stuff.  Apparently, people believe that it is unlucky for a woman to have her picture taken at the Taj Mahal without her man in the photo.  Princess Diana did that, and look what happened to her.  (According to Christopher, English people really believe that.)  Christopher told us about how he was the guide when the Queen came to visit.  It was televised, so everyone was telling Christopher how they saw the Queen on TV at his church, with Morgan Freeman as her guide!  Yes, he looked quite a bit like Morgan Freeman.  We told him that was a good thing, that Morgan Freeman is a very good-looking man.

Not much was left of the slave market, but we were able to see the underground rooms where the people were kept while waiting to be auctioned off.  Up to 75 people would be kept in each tiny room for up to two days.  They would be kept chained the whole time.  Needless to say, there were no bathroom facilities, so they were forced to just use the floor.  There did not appear to be enough room to sit or lay down.  Water from the sea would come in during high tide and wash everything away.  There was a tree near the auction site that was called the whipping tree.  Before the auction, the people would be brought to the tree and whipped.  If they cried out, their price went down because they were thought to be weaker.  If they kept silent, their price went up.  They were whipped with sting ray tails.  Eventually, the fishermen started cutting off the tails from the sting rays they caught and throwing them back in the sea so that they could not be used for whipping anymore.  When the slave traders came to the fish markets looking for tails, the fishermen would tell them they had already sold them earlier in the day.  The whipping tree was cut down when the church was built.  The altar of the church is right by the site of the whipping tree.  A round piece of marble in the floor of the altar marks the spot where the tree used to be.  It was a very solemn place.

While in Stone Town, we also saw the old fort by the sea, and we saw the old Sultan’s palace.  The local people called it the House of Wonders, because it was the first building in East Africa to have electricity.  I can imagine how magical that must have seemed at the time!  We also bought some souvenirs.  The merchants here are pretty aggressive, but not horribly bad.

After our tour of Stone Town we were ready to go back to the hotel.  It had been a long day, and we were pretty hot and sweaty.  It was about an hour’s drive from Stone Town to our hotel.  I should say something about the countryside.  For most of the drive, the road was lined with buildings.  Most of the houses here are small, square buildings built from concrete blocks.  Some of the houses are built like the Masai houses were: walls made of a framework of sticks that are covered with mud.  The roofs are either thatch or corrugated metal.  It looks like most of the roofs don’t really fit the houses very well – there are usually parts of the houses that are open-air.  Most of the homes do not have electricity, and I don’t think any of them have running water.  Almost all of the buildings along the road were shops.  They were selling almost everything imaginable: lots of fruit, but also small appliances, large appliances, toiletries, clothes, touristy souvenirs, convenience foods, bundles of firewood, bicycle parts, concrete blocks, all kinds of things.  I can’t help wondering who buys all the stuff in all those shops, but Dave pointed out that 1) we were on one of two main roads on the whole island, and 2) the population density is extremely high.

I also should say something about the roads here.  The major road is two-lane and paved.  It is still a hair-raising drive, though, because there are so many bicycles and pedestrians sharing the road.  People here carry everything on their bicycles.  They have sturdy racks over the back wheel, and they use them to carry just about everything.  Big bunches of firewood, bundles of cloth, children, you name it.  I even saw a person or two carrying an infant in one arm while holding onto the handlebars of their bike with the other.  There are also a lot of slow-moving vehicles on the roads, including the local buses, which are called dala-dalas.  These are basically small flatbed trucks with benches and roofs built on the back.  They are cheap to ride, only 2000 shillings (about $1.25).  They don’t run on any set schedule.  The driver just waits until the dala-dala is full, and then off he goes.

There are two police checkpoints between our hotel and Stone Town.  On the way to Stone Town, we were stopped at each checkpoint while the police checked our driver’s paperwork.  We think they were checking to make sure he had the right permits to be able to drive us tourists around.  If your paperwork isn’t right, you have to pay a fine.  Our driver said they are cracking down right now, because there are big celebrations at the end of Ramadan.  Everyone wants spending money for the celebrations, and the way the policemen get it is by imposing more fines.  (They obviously keep some or all of the money that is paid as fines.)  At one of the checkpoints there was a very beat-up van.  Our driver told us that the driver of the van had hit a pedestrian in the village the day before.  That is an extremely dangerous situation, because if the villagers can get their hands on the driver, they will stone him to death on the spot.  The van looked so beat up because it had been stoned.  All the windows were cracked and broken, and the sides had huge dents.  According to our driver, the driver of the van had gotten away.

We made it back to our hotel uneventfully.  We took a short dip in the ocean, and then went to dinner.  I was completely exhausted afterwards, and went right to sleep.  Tomorrow we head home.  As much as I have enjoyed this vacation, I can’t wait to get home to little Mimi and Dilly.

We started the day with a nice breakfast.  I really like the sugar in Africa.  It’s no secret that I have a wicked sweet tooth.  Unfortunately, I am something of a sugar connoisseur.  My favorite really nice restaurant back home used to serve sugar cubes with their after-dinner coffee.  Not only did they have white sugar cubes, they also had unrefined sugar cubes.  It may be that I have occasionally eaten a cube or two all by themselves – I can neither confirm nor deny this.  Sadly, they stopped serving the sugar this way awhile back.  A waiter told us it was somehow against the health code.  Stupid health code!  But I digress.  The sugar here isn’t quite like the brown “sugar in the raw” that we have back home, but it isn’t like our plain white refined sugar, either.  It is a just a bit golden-colored, and the crystals are big like natural sugar.  It is very yummy!

Then we spent most of the day lounging.  We went for a couple of walks on the beach.  Dave and I both think this is the nicest beach we’ve ever seen.  Mexico, Hawaii, and the Bahamas all have beautiful beaches, but this beach is absolutely perfect.  The sand is white and SO powdery.  It’s amazingly soft.  Somehow it doesn’t even stick to your skin.  The water is perfect too.  It is green, clear, and warm.  The surf isn’t rough, the shore doesn’t have a steep drop-off, and you can see the bottom forever.  The entire package is just fabulous.

Our hotel is called the Langi Langi, which is the name of a kind of local flower.  There are a lot of flowering trees here, including flame trees, plumeria, and hibiscus.  The owner of the hotel showed us around today, and I asked him if there were any langi langi trees here.  There are a few in the garden, so he showed them to us.  They have medium-sized yellow flowers that are unremarkable to look at, but which smell absolutely great.  He picked one for us to smell.  We brought it back to our room, where it is still sitting on an end table.  It has perfumed the whole room.  I need to see if there’s any perfume made from langi langi flowers, and if so, I need to get some.  I also wonder if langi langi is the same as ylang ylang.  The names seem too similar to be a coincidence.

Zanzibar is an island off the east coast of Tanzania.  We are staying on the west side of the island, the side facing the mainland.  That probably has something to do with why the surf is so calm, and why the water is so warm.  Being on the west side on the island also means we get to watch the sun set.  I love watching the sun set over water.  Tonight we took a sunset cruise.  The boat was late.  We almost bailed and decided to go swimming instead, because it was kind of hot and the water was very tempting.  In the end, though, we were glad we waited.  The boat was basically a dhow, with a sail and a big upstairs platform.  We climbed up to get the best possible view.  There was one other couple on the cruise with us.  They were a young couple from Nairobi on their honeymoon.  They had taken a 14-hour bus ride to get from Nairobi to Zanzibar.  They were very nice.  The wife had a sister living in Kansas and a cousin going to school in Austin.  I guess the world really is getting smaller.

Tomorrow we are touring Stonetown and Spicetown.  Stonetown is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so it should be quite interesting.  Good night, all.

We got an early start, because we were taking a hot air balloon ride over the park before our 10:15 flight back to Nairobi.  We arrived at the hot air balloon site around 5:30 in the morning, about an hour before sunrise.  We watched the crews inflating the balloons.  It was quite interesting.  They spread the balloons out on the ground and used giant fans to inflate them enough to use the burners.  I had never thought about it before, but the balloons have to be pretty well inflated before using the burners.  If the flames touch the nylon of the balloon, it will melt a big hole in the balloon.  So the fans blow enough air into the balloons to open them up, and then they start using the burners.

While we were watching this process, we met our balloon pilot, Andrew.  He was a 50-something guy originally from Zimbabwe.  He has been flying hot air balloons in the park for about 18 years now.  He was amusingly crazy.  For example, when Dave asked him how a person becomes a hot air balloon pilot, his answer was, “Do lots of drugs.”  His “serious” answer wasn’t much better.  He said that he started out as a “balloon groupie,” just hanging around balloonists and helping out their crews.  He eventually admitted that he had gone to some kind of balloon training or school in England.  I guess that answer was too boring for him!

Once the balloon was inflated, we all climbed into the gondola.  It could hold 16 people, but there were only 15 in ours.  It was partitioned into four passenger compartments that could each hold four people, plus a compartment in the middle for the pilot and the fuel.  There were holes in the sides to put your feet in and climb in.  Our balloon held Dave and me, plus thirteen other passengers.  They were mostly from Taiwan, but there were a couple of Japanese tourists too.  Once we were in, we took off.  The balloon safari was very successful.  We saw tons of wildebeest, zebras, topi, elands, a few giraffe, a few elephants, some lions, a few hyenas, a couple of ostriches, and some warthogs.  The view was fantastic.  Plus, we got to see the sun rise while watching all the other balloons.  The hot air balloon safari is apparently a booming business.  There were about ten balloons in the air this morning, all carrying around 16 people.  Andrew told us that they fly every day, year round.  So that’s quite an industry they’ve got there!

We flew for about an hour and a half, then made a perfect landing.  The balloon crew picked us up and drove us a little ways to the river where we could see some hippos.  Our pilot had wanted to fly there, but the wind didn’t cooperate.  After the hippos, we drove to a nearby field where the crew had set up a champagne breakfast for us.  How else would you finish off a hot air balloon ride over the savannah?  It was really awesome.  There was champagne, mango juice (super yummy!!), various rolls, cereal, yogurt, sausage, baked beans (??), and even an omelet station.  Plus coffee and tea of course.  We enjoyed our breakfast, bought a CD of pictures from our flight, and chatted with the pilots a little more.  The balloon company we used had two balloons, and both groups were breakfasting together.  Turns out that there is bad blood between the different balloon companies.  The scandal of the morning was that our crew had set up our breakfast area too close to the other balloon company’s breakfast area.  Our pilot was quite irritated about it.  It didn’t seem like a problem to me, but I clearly have a lot to learn about the ins and outs of the balloon safari industry.

The Taiwanese group really enjoyed their breakfast.  After breakfast, they took pictures of each other.  Lots and lots of pictures of each other.  Apparently the thing for the kids to do today is to take pictures of each other jumping in the air.  Ideally, the person will be mid-jump for the picture.  Even more ideally, there will be a whole bunch of people jumping all at the same time, so they will all be mid-air in the picture.  Our fellow ballooners spent about twenty minutes taking jumping pictures.  They were having a really good time, and we had fun watching them.  One guy even did some “planking” on the ground, which I thought was either very bold, or very stupid, considering how much animal poop was everywhere.  But whatever floats his boat.

The other balloon pilot was Reese.  He was younger, and was a third-generation Kenyan who was of Indian descent.  His great-grandfather had come to Kenya when he was nine years old, to work as a bicycle mechanic.  He didn’t have as many interesting stories as Andrew, but he was younger.  Maybe in a few years…

After the balloon ride, we went to the air strip for our flight back to Nairobi.  It went smoothly.  We had a nice lunch at a hotel in Nairobi, then went to the big airport in Nairobi for our flight to Zanzibar.  That went well too.  Then it was on to our hotel.  It turns out that our hotel is about as far as we could get from the airport.  This was not our plan, but it’s how it worked out.  It was about a hour and a half drive to the hotel.  The drive was kind of disconcerting.  It was past sunset, so it was dark.  Many parts of Zanzibar either don’t have electricity, or the power was out tonight, because the buildings were all dark.  Our driver seemed to be going very fast, hurtling down a narrow road in the dark, passing bicycles, pedestrians, cows, and scooters, most of whom had no lights and were very hard to see.  When there was oncoming traffic, it was even more harrowing.  I guess it was normal to our driver, but it was pretty unnerving to me.

The hotel is nice, although not quite as nice as I was hoping for.  I was hoping for a big cushy bed with lots of pillows.  But at least there is electricity and running water, two major upgrades from the safari camp.  And I know there’s a nice soft bed waiting for me at home, so that’s all good.  I’m looking forward to seeing this place tomorrow, in the daylight.

Good night for now!

Anyway, rhinos are hard to find because they like to hide in the brush. It is surprising how well they can hide, considering their size. We came to a big clump of trees and bushes this morning with a few cars parked nearby. Our guide told us that there was a rhino in the brush. We waited, and eventually we were able to see him moving around in there. We waited some more, and he came out! He walked down to a nearby stream, and then headed cross-country. We followed him and got some great photos of him all out in the open. We felt kind of sorry for him after awhile, because he really can’t go anywhere without a bunch of people following him and taking his picture. Considering WE were following him and taking his picture, it definitely felt like we were part of the problem. But I guess that’s better than being part of the previous problem, whereby everyone followed rhinos around in order to kill them.

We also saw a few more hippos. Although hippos spend all day in the water, they only eat grass. So they leave the water in the evening to graze during the night and morning. They can walk several kilometers to feed. We saw several out of the water today, including one who had some bloody gashes on its side. Our guide said that was the reason that hippo wasn’t in the water – because it was injured. A bird was pecking at the wound, which could not have felt good. It didn’t seem life-threatening, so hopefully that guy will be OK.

After a nice picnic breakfast under a tree, we continued driving around the park. And we got to see a crossing! A group of probably 100 wildebeests crossed the river. It seemed to go well; we didn’t notice any getting hurt or left behind. A nearby crocodile entered the water about halfway through the crossing. I kept watching to see if any wildebeest heads disappeared underwater, but it looked like everyone made it OK. Maybe the crocodile just wanted to get away from all that rumpus.

Then we came back to camp for lunch and another siesta. Just a two-hour nap for me today, nothing major. After that, our guide picked us up again to go see a large group of elephants that was very close to the camp. There must have been 15 of them, including three very small babies. They were stomping through the acacia bushes, eating, and taking a mud bath. We watched them for awhile and then went to see a local school.

The school has received several very generous donations from Canadian donors, making it possible for them to have several new (but still quite primitive) buildings. Donors have also provided three 5000 liter cisterns so that the local people can have clean water to drink. They have to walk to the school and then carry the water home with them, but I guess that’s better than not having any clean water at all. The school has about 450 students, ranging from 3-year-olds in the “baby class” to 14- or 15-year-olds. It seems very well organized, and well funded compared to more rural schools. We talked to the senior teacher, who showed us around, and we made a donation. I think they will put it to good use.

Then it was back to camp for a shower and dinner. I have really enjoyed my time here, but I am ready to leave in the morning. It will be nice to be back at a place with running water, and as much electricity as we want. This camp is very pleasant, and has all the amenities you could reasonably expect in a tent, but I guess I’m too used to my creature comforts. I am looking forward to being able to take a shower whenever I want, instead of waiting until the time of day when someone brings water for us to use. And I am looking forward to being able to dry my hair, and have good light at night. The sun goes down around 6:30 here, and after that it is dark. We have small LED lights in our tent, but things are still very dim.

Safari has been amazing. This is really a place of extremes. In the park, we have seen the largest land animal in the world (elephants), the tallest land animal (giraffes), the fastest land animal (cheetah), the most striped land animal (zebras), the largest bird (ostrich), and I believe the second-largest land predator (lions – I think tigers are bigger, and they don’t have those here). Plus hippos and rhinos, which are both very unique, not to mention all the various antelope and smaller predators. Our guide told us today why the Big Five are called that. Those animals – rhino, buffalo, lions, elephants, and leopards – are the ones who can defend themselves against humans. So they are the most challenging to kill.

Speaking of killing animals, a traditional rite of passage for the Masai warriors was to go out in a group and kill a lion. There is a special dance they would do beforehand. Special honors would go to the first and second men to spear the lion. The first man would take the lion’s mane as a trophy, and the second man would keep the lion’s tail. The Masai are no longer allowed to practice this tradition, because killing lions is now against the law. Our guide said that the Masai have accepted this, because they get so much income from tourists, and they realize that the tourists are only coming to see the animals. So no animals = no tourists = no money. He said that the Masai are much better off nowadays, with the tourist money coming in.

We have to get up very early tomorrow to take our hot air balloon ride to view the animals, so I will sign off for now. Good night!