Saying goodbye is very important in Swahili culture (there is even a separate verb for the formal process of saying goodbye -- kuaga). I hate goodbyes. But, I spent the weekend making the rounds and saying kwaheri to the people I've met.
The research team. This was actually another graduate student's goodbye but I don't have any more recent pictures of the whole team together.
The public health girls on an outing to the sand bank, a 20 minute boat ride from town - a great spot for swimming and picnicing!
I wore a buibui to say goodbye to my swahili teacher!
Sheban, one of my fruit dealers. He is reaching for a mug of fruit on the lower shelves of the fridge. He was so excited to get a copy of the picture from me that he hung it up on the wall of his store. Apparently the only other picture he's ever received was from Bill Clinton, who visited his shop during a tour of Stone Town many years ago.
The neighborhood! It's nickname is Jaw's Corner and it is always full of people sitting on the stoops and chatting and drinking coffee or ginger tea (each little cup is 50 shillings, or about 3 cents). Sometimes at night someone brings a TV and puts it on the shelf on the right side of the picture and the square fills up with people watching football or music videos.
The neighborhood kids. Nassir, on the far left, finished the school year 3rd in his class so last Friday I took them out to the nightly open air food market at Forodhani Gardens to celebrate.
Last African sunset! On the plane back to America...
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