Computer Science 101

While in Tanzania, I had a plan of volunteering. I thought I might be able to do some promotional photography for the college and volunteer at a local school. So last week I got started on finding where I could volunteer.

Starting to volunteer is not as easy a project as I had imagined. I quickly discovered there is a slow multistep process needed to volunteer. I first had to talk to someone at the college who could hook me up with a job. But or course this person is nearly impossible to find. Four out of the five times I went looking for him, he was not around. Once I finally contacted him, he told me I needed to talk to two other people. So off I went to scout them down. Finding them was not so hard and I was able to sit down with them and explain what I wanted to do. But it doesn’t end there. They told me that I needed to write a letter to the school asking if they needed a volunteer. So off I went to my computer to type up a letter. Having done and delivered that, someone needed to talk to the headmaster at the school for me. Mind you, this is all done at the leisurely pace of Tanzania.

Eventually I was able to talk to the headmaster himself. Now talking to some Tanzanians can be difficult. Eye contact is considered impolite in Tanzania for one thing, and many men just don’t know how to talk to women, especially a white one. On top of that, it is always hard to understand exactly what the Tanzanian is saying because of their accent.

I imagined that I could tutor perhaps math or English naturally. Evidently not. I was told straight away that I couldn’t tutor English because I had an American accent - they wouldn’t understand me. Never mind that English is my first language and I’ve spoken it all my life. Okay, that’s fine, I can tutor math then. Nope. We want you to teach computer science. You want me to what?

Yes they want me to teach of all things. I’m still not sure where they got such an outlandish idea. For starters I’ve just finished high school, second I don’t know the least about teaching in the States much less in Tanzania, and third I’ve never taken a computer class in my life. I think those are some good qualifications for teaching, don’t you? (Now if I can’t tutor English because of my accent, how do they expect me to teach computer science? There are a lot of things here that don’t make much sense.) The headmaster gave me the course syllabus and told me to come back the next week.

On Tuesday I found myself facing forty-odd students in the Nsoo Secondary School. The students are in Form I, which is the equivalent of 9th grade. The classroom is about half the size of a typical American classroom and is stuffed with twice the occupants on little wooden benches. There is just enough room at the front for the teacher to stand at the chalkboard.

When I first entered, the students all stood and in chorus said, “Welcome teacher. How are you today teacher?” Tanzanian school children are much better behaved than American students. They are taught to respect teachers from the start and don’t have the discipline issues that we do. Well, that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about.

As I began teaching, I found it hard to assess their knowledge of computers. They knew their facts but have a hard time drawing conclusions and ‘thinking critically’. I found it even harder to know if they understood my English. When I asked if they understood, they responded in a programmed, “Yes teacher” but I have my doubts as to whether they really understood or not. At one point I was talking about data and asked the class if anyone could define data. No one answered. I turned to write it on the chalkboard and instantly they said, “Oh, you mean daata!” Evidently I hadn’t pronounced the word ‘data’ in the proper British manner with the long aah sound.

Assigning homework was a similarly difficult task. Since the students don’t have a textbook, I can’t assign any reading. And because they don’t know how to use computers yet (hence the class) and there is limited internet they can’t do much in the way of research. So I had to be creative and figure something out they could do with the resources they have.

There are only three more weeks left in the term so I have a lot to fit in. Tanzanian schools operate in a semester program with long breaks in between (school will resume in Mid-January).

And so begins my career in teaching.

Rain and Rugby

This past weekend we went to a Rugby game in Moshi.  Football (soccer) is the true game of Tanzania – and the world – but Rugby is gaining popularity.  Introduced in Kenya during the colonial period it has since spread south and is becoming common in Tanzania. 

So down the hill we went to Moshi.  The international school in Moshi hosted the ‘Kili 7s’ tournament with teams from both Tanzania and Kenya.  Two leagues competed to be Junior (school aged teams) and Senior (college aged teams) Champions.  Imagine a field, or a ‘pitch’ if you will, much like an American football field.  Now replace the grand stand and press box with acacia, jacaranda and other tropical trees. 

The event lasted all day and was really rather interesting.  Some of the ex-pats we met at the party were at the tournament and they taught us all about rugby.  We added new words to our vocabulary like scrum, try, and knock-on.  The game is played with seven players for two seven minute halves (hence the Kili 7s). 

  In short, rugby is like football.  Football actually evolved out of rugby.  In more detail, rugby is played with a ball much like a football if not a little more square-ish.  The goal is the same at football – to get a touchdown.  The difference is that you actually have to touch the ball to the ground to score a point and it’s not called a touchdown, it’s called a ‘try’.  Yes, you’ve got it right, when you try in rugby you score a point.  If that doesn’t make sense think about football – it’s called football but you hardly even use your feet. 

For those of you who think American football is a tough game, you’ve apparently never seen a game of rugby.  What makes rugby such a tough sport is the tackling, like football, but they do it with only mouth guards.  No helmets, no shoulder pads, nothing.  Although unlike football, rugby is more about getting the ball than it is about tackling the other team.  In rugby, you are only allowed to tackle the person with the ball and you cannot grab, push, shove or otherwise hamper the other player’s movement.  An additional hardship is that the game is nonstop.  Although seven minutes might not sound like much, imagine running around a pitch, tackling and getting tackled without pause for seven whole minutes.  American football seems to stop at least once every two minutes and has multiple player replacements (rugby only allows for three substitutions at most). 

Other than that, the two games are quite similar.  After a try for five points, the scorer has the opportunity for a goal kick as in football for an additional two points.  Something I found really interesting is what happens after the ball goes out of bounds.  When the ball is thrown back in, two teammates lift a third teammate up into the air so that he/she can grab the ball without interference from the other team.  I say he/she because of all the teams there was one female player.  Anne goes to the international school in Moshi and, if you remember, is the same person we gave a lift to after the party. 

The teams at the tournament came from a wide range of backgrounds.  Some were university teams, one was from the international school and some were from orphanages or centers for street children.  For those of you who think that your school equipment is bad, consider this: teams had matching jerseys, but different shorts.  And most of the jerseys looked like they had seen more games than Atlantis has fish.  Even more surprising, some of the teams played barefoot.  And the few pairs of shoes there were, got shared depending on who was playing.  We used to complain in track that our uniforms were terrible and that we never had the right pole vaulting equipment (which I still maintain we don’t) but I can hardly complain anymore after seeing rugby players without shoes.

So we hung out all day in our borrowed lawn chairs watching rugby and chatting with other spectators.  The morning promised to be warm and sunny but by early afternoon, the clouds started to roll in.  All of the rugby players were hoping for rain because real rugby can only be played in the rain on a muddy pitch.  All of the spectators, though, were fervently hoping not to be caught in a downpour.  Luckily for us, the rain held off just long enough.  As the trophies were handed out ( if you were wondering, the international school won the junior competition) it started to rain lightly and we hopped back in our blue land rover to drive back to Mweka before it could rain harder.  And so the rainy season has begun.

Slow Computer Movement

Today I have a special guest speaker, or columnist rather, for you.  Here is the one and only Professor Cindy. . .

Everyone who has used a computer is familiar with the little bars that run across the screen in a rectangular box to indicate that your computer is processing a command to send an email or find a website. Or maybe you have a little string of dots that circle continuously until the connection is made. Without looking can you tell what color those bars are that move across the screen? Or which way do the dots circle, clockwise or counterclockwise? If you don’t know you are one of the privileged folks who has such a fast connection to the World Wide Web that you don’t even ponder this. Faster and faster connectivity and information at our fingertips is something many of us have become dependent on and generally take for granted.

Remember back in the day when we were excited to have such a thing called Internet. We could send electronic messages by simply pushing a button. Slow wasn’t an issue, just the very fact that we could do such a thing was a marvel. Human ingenuity…. faster is always better … or is it?

A Fulbright Scholar, I now reside in Mweka, Tanzania. I have all the modern conveniences; running water, electricity and computer connectivity. With the click of a mouse I can send an email to colleagues in the US or surf the net. Well, that is if the server is working and the electricity hasn’t missed a beat. These days I find myself clicking the mouse and waiting. Yeah waiting. No, I don’t mean the annoying finger tapping impatient waiting when connections are slow or the server bogged down. I mean wait. Sit back and contemplate life wait. No use being in a rush wait. This kind of wait looms with possibilities.

‘Connection timed out’ means click the refresh button and wait. Wait for the little bars to connect. Smarter than the average computer, I open up multiple windows and get them all waiting. I watch lots of bars prance across my computer…waiting. Surfing here is attempting to dance the jitterbug to a waltz; possible it just requires a different frame of reference.

What do you think of while waiting for a computer to respond to the command you have cast on the internet waters? The bars briefly march across the page and viola you have connected to your bank, the latest news or countless websites. Perhaps you were thinking about passwords or something else, but it likely wasn’t a consciously thoughtful wait. Imagine now the possibilities if you had a longer wait. Oh, the things you could think and do between marching bars! Time to read scholarly articles, time to compose emails off-line, time to make a phone call and perhaps time to write articles like this.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the Slow Food Movement. Eating your food slowly allows you to savor all aspects of foods’ social and nutritional sustenance. Likewise the newly convened Slow Computer Movement (this is the inaugural introductory invitation to join) allows you to capture the time lost computing and put it to good use. Think of all the nanoseconds you have wasted waiting for the computer to respond, watching little bars prance across the screen.

The next time you find yourself watching the bars or circle take a moment to reflect on what a marvel it is to send messages and surf the net. The Slow Computer Movement (SCM) is about appreciating and savoring computers and connectivity. The core values of the SCM are patience, gratitude and good humor (tolerance). I f you find yourself wolfing down websites, impatient with even the slightest of delays and little or no gratitude for the technology wizards that keep us connected than you must join the SCM.

Benefits of SCM include:

· Increased productivity (less useless surfing)

· Increased quality of relationships (more time face to face; fewer hastily cast emails)

· Greater appreciation for technology and the role it plays in our lives.

· Time to enjoy slow foods

· Improved mental health, attitude and outlook on life

Remember the core values of SCM. When you have fully attained these values you are a member in good standing of the Slow Computer Movement. So sit back, pick up a book (remember those?) and wait. Maybe you can even enjoy some slow foods while enjoying your slow computer. Hamna shida (no worries in Kswahili) will become your mantra.

Lest you think this is a critique of the slow computing system of Tanzania, you are dead wrong. It is instead an appreciation for all that we have in the US for computing, most of which we take for granted. So instead of impatience when the bars march too slowly, consider the wonder of being able to email across the world in nanoseconds and perhaps relax enough to allow space in your being for patience, gratitude and good humor.

Written slowly and sent in nanoseconds via the internet… amazing.

The sky is falling!

Ka-boom! come the noises in the evening. Another bowling ball lands on our roof. The loud noises echo through our open house and are only enhanced by the sloping metal roof.

The first few times, you jump and say, “What was that?”. After a while you get more curious and really wonder, “What could that be?”. But the sun has already set and as hard as you peer into the darkness, you’re not going to be able to identify the noisemaker. Nonetheless, you hop over to the window, nose pressed against the glass, looking for anything conspicuous.

You’ve noticed, it only really happens after dark and coincides with the blowing of the wind. It must be something falling. The sky must be falling! No, that couldn’t be. Must be something falling out of the trees. You’ve surmised that much, but haven’t really figured out the details.

After a while the sounds, though still as loud, become less interesting. You original curiosity is replaced by a milder, “Oh, I wonder what is making that sound.”

A few days later someone clues you in on the truth. The culprits are either bush babies (gelagos), monkeys or bats munching on an evening snack in the mahogany tree next to your house. Inevitably some pods fall on your roof which makes quite a ruckus. Some of the louder noises are made by falling avocadoes sent down by a clumsy diner. Occasionally though, it is just the evening breeze that sends a fruit crashing down on the roof.

One of the culprits at work . . .

Home, Sweet Home

We have now been living in our quaint little home for two weeks.  Sparse though it is, it is quite nice.   As you can see here in this lovely picture, we are near Mt. Kilimanjaro. 

Here is a more accurate representation of out house… (no we don’t have giraffes in our backyard)

                

 

This is the college campus.  The building you can see in the foreground is the main lecture hall and administration offices.  The other classrooms, offices, dorms and library mostly lie father back. We live just a football field (that’s a soccer field to you Yankees) away from the campus.  Mt. Kilimanjaro makes for quite a view when it it visible. In fact, I can see it out my window when the sky is clear.

(This a picture out my window of Kili. No, I don’t live in jail.  All of the windows in the house come with lovely, sight-blocking metal bars.)

(Notice our beautiful new Land Rover)

Our house consists of two bedrooms, a spacious living room, a tiny bathroom, a kitchen and a dinning room. 

        

          

As you can see, our walls are in need of some decoration.  The entire house is a rather unbecoming shade of yellow, though I shouldn’t complain because it could have been off white or puke green.  Although we have bare light bulbs protruding from the walls and our furniture could easily pass a patio chairs in the States, our home is comfortable enough.

You may have noticed the bug nets over the beds (if you hadn’t, look again).  These are both a hindrance and a comfort.  They make it difficult to make your bed and move about, but once you’re all tucked in, its nice to know that you won’t have to be swatting potentially disease ridden mosquitoes all night.

Other multi-legged visitors to our home often include geckos.  These cute little milk-white critters always have a way of finding their way into my room.  They seem to like to hang out high up on the corner of the wall near the ceiling.  Because if their speed, and wiggling movements, and high hiding places they are most difficult to catch and so we have decided to leave them and eat whatever bugs they wish.

My favorite part about the house is the locks.  Not because I’m afraid of our safety or anything like that but because of the kind of locks we have.  I’m proud to say that you need a good old fashioned skeleton key to get into our house.  Actually, many of the buildings around here require skeleton keys, something I find rather endearing.  As far as safety is concerned, there really is no concern here.  The college is gated and the premises are completely safe. 

As for our yard, in the front we have a small corn field planted by the house’s previous occupant and in the back a few banana trees and an avocado tree from which many have fallen.  Hopefully we’ll have some fresh bananas soon.

And that concludes the tour of our home.  If you would like a more detailed look at our house, you’ll just have to come visit!

Over the bridge and through the banana fields to Arusha we shall go…

On our drives to and from Arusha we have gotten to see a lot of the landscape of this area.  Though it only takes about 90 minutes to there is a high diversity in the environment. 

Mweka is on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro at an elevation of 1400 metres.  The landscape is lush up here, fed by the spring and rivers of melting snow of the mountain.  Many people in the village grow bananas but there are also fields of corn and beans.  And added benefit of the elevation is the cool temperatures that you won’t find anywhere else in Tanzania. 

As you head down to Moshi, early on there are several coffee plantations with, as I have been told, the best coffee beans in Tanzania. 

Moshi, at 1000 meters, is already quite different than Mweka.  Banana farms and tall fig trees give way to corn fields and short, spare acacia trees.  It is harvesting time here as it is in Minnesota, though here it is done with machetes instead of machines.  The corn stalks are saved and used for cattle feed.  The stalks can be seen carted along the road, piled higher than a car on tiny carts pulled by donkeys.

Past Moshi, the landscape becomes even drier.  We are nearing the end of the dry season, but this year has been abnormally dry and everyone is hoping for an El Niño to bring extra rains.  The short rains will come within a month or so and stay until late December.  Then there will be another dry season until the long rains come in March for about three months. 

Along the road to Arusha, there is an expanse of flat, parched land that extends to either horizon where you can see low hills though the haze of the heat.  Low scrub and short acacia trees dot the landscape.  One room mud or cinderblock huts with corrugated metal roofs are interspersed among the trees.   Many of them are only the size of some American’s living rooms. 

The dirt of Tanzania is unlike the rich dark brown soil of southern Minnesota.  Here the dirt is a heavy reddish brown that is prone to packing down. Because it is so dry here, the dust is everywhere, covering everything in a fine red-brown film. 

The farther from Moshi you get, the drier the land gets.  Corn fields give way to open pasture land if you could call it that.  Young boys watch over herds of goats and cattle that graze on what dry scrub is left.   As the herds are driven along, big cloud of dust rise behind them. 

Nearer to Arusha, dust devils frequent the landscape.  Swirling vortexes of dust rise high up into the air.  Some of them are skinny and tall, others  fatter, and some are gigantic.  The ones that get really big can even be deadly if you are not careful.  Dust devils are one of the signs that the rains are coming. 

Just outside of Arusha, the landscape subtly becomes lush again.  Because it is in the rain shadow of Mt. Meru, Arusha has an environment more like Moshi.  More trees start to show up and small creeks run through deep valleys.  Once I sat two vervet monkeys in a tree along the road.  The jacaranda trees are in bloom now, another sign that the rains are coming.  The jacaranda trees deserve special attention because of their beauty.  When in bloom, the trees loose all of their leaves and are covered in millions of small purple blossoms.  There are so many flowers that it looks like the trees have purple leaves.  An additional sign of the coming rains are leaves on baobab trees.  Despite Mt. Meru, Arusha is still drier than Mweka. 

The last notable thing about landscapes is less about the environment and more about people.  Everywhere people walk along the road with baskets on their heads (quite a remarkable feat of balance if you ask me) or cattle at their side.  In the States, no one walks anymore, but here most people don’t have cars or bicycles.  As a result, everyone walks and the roads get especially full with pedestrians in the evenings as people get done with work. 

Party!

On Sunday we headed back to Arusha to get our new car and to go to a birthday party.

Our friends, the Petersons, live just outside of Arusha where they run their Dorobo Safari company.  My mom has led January Term trips for college students with them before and is how we know them.  The company is run by the three brothers and their families.  It was one of the brother’s son’s birthdays and so a birthday party was held for him and his girlfriend who also had a recent birthday.

To preface this introduction, I should tell you that Arusha is the big ‘tourist’ town as most visitors come here to go on various safaris and expeditions.  Because of that market there happen to be a lot of expatriates living in the area.  The Petersons were really the first to live in the area and since they moved in and increasing number of people have come to live around them. 

With that in mind you can begin to imagine the party we went to.  Though set to a background of acacia trees and African birds it was similar to a party you might find in the States.  It was a very non-African party.  American music blared through the speakers and multicolored balloons hung from trees.  Food was potluck, served buffet style the only difference being the whole goat roasted outside on a spit.  There was even a pool complete with splashing children.  One difference from American parties was that this party held a complete range of ages who all talked and mingled despite this difference.  Another difference is that there is no real drinking age in Tanzania and many of the older children were drinking, though admittedly there are underage drinkers in the States. 

Early on during the party I played a game of volleyball with some fierce competitors of all ages.  The game was identical to the one I had played for gym class except for one thing.  Acacia trees, as you may or may not know, are the staple tree of Africa and come with inch long thorns along the branches.  So to play volleyball in Tanzania you need a special kind of ball that will not deflate every time (which is a lot of times) it gets punctured with an acacia thorn.  To get around this issue, volleyballs are ingeniously filled with an inner layer of gel to protect them.  This makes the balls much heavier but works quite effectively. 

At the birthday party we met a lot of different people.  They all either guide safaris, teach at an international school or manage a business (such as exporting flowers) or are married or children of someone in one of those categories.  This was really the first time since we’ve arrived in Tanzania that we have seen and talked to other white people.  When you have been surrounded by people with thick accents, listening becomes a tiring chore and to be around people who’s first language is English was a nice change.  It was also nice to be around people who have gone through what we are going though now.  Right now we are struggling with learning Swahili (which isn’t as easy a language to learn as everyone says it is) and getting adjusted to the cultural differences.  All of the people at he party had gone through that at one time or another and it was reassuring to know that others have done it.  Also, usually being the only white people around for miles, we tend to get stared at and it was nice to be out of that kind of situation.  

The beginning is, as always, a difficult time.  We haven’t totally settled in yet and our Swahili skills are near non-existent.   I don’t really know what I will be doing yet so there isn’t a lot to do.  We are also very dependant on other people right now which is not entirely bad.  For example, even doing things like getting groceries is hard to do alone.  So far we’ve had someone go with us to the market so they could haggle and get a good price.  It is hard right now but hopefully within a month we will be on our feet and more independent. 

The real reason for our trip to Arusha was to pick up our new car – a 1994 Land Rover complete with rosary beads and fringes off the dashboard.  Though it’s old its quite nice and will do well this year. 

After staying overnight we gave Anne, on of the Peterson brother’s daughter, a lift to the international boarding school in Moshi where she goes to school.  She helped us navigate Arusha and gave us many tips for driving.  But there is so much to be said about driving here that I’ll have to leave that topic for another time. 

This little piggy went to the market

One of the first orders of business after arriving in Mweka was to go shopping.  Although we were provided with furniture, plates and cups, we had no towels, silverware and other such household items.  So off we went to Arusha.

In Tanzania you won’t find any department stores or shopping malls.  Shopping is done, for the most part, in large open air marketplaces.  Stalls packed with merchandise fill the streets and people come from all around to sell their wares.  At the market you can find everything from fruit and vegetables to pillows and Tupperware. 

In comparison with the States, some things are very expensive and some things are very cheap.  For instance, at the market you can buy ten oranges for only 1000/: (one thousand shillings is about 77 cents).  And they are very good, fresh oranges too!  On the other hand, electronics like computers are much more expensive than they are in the States.

Unlike in the States, shopping in Tanzania requires bargaining.  Vendors  quote a high price (especially to foreigners) initially and bartering is required.  Haggling is found even in stores like the ones found in the States.  For example when we went to a store to buy a cooker (a sort of mini oven with burners) the price was negotiated down from the initial price tag.  In Tanzania there are few fixed prices.  Luckily for us mzungu (white person, tourist) we had someone from the college with us to help.  Since we don’t know general prices or Swahili yet, Betsy was very helpful in assisting us. 

The one exception to the bargaining rule is grocery stores.  There, prices are fixed like they are in the States.  But a Tanzanian Shop Rite is still different than a St. Peterian Econo Foods.  There is not near the selection in Tanzania as there is in the States and the shelves are not packed and fully in stock.   Another noticeable difference is milk.  Here it comes in small rectangular containers and is not refrigerated.  Also, some items (like bread) are not as fresh as they would be in the States. 

Although I do like the Tanzanian markets it will take some time to get used to the bartering. 

We’re not in Kansas anymore…

After many hours of airtime, several security checkpoints and tasteless airline food we find ourselves far from the rolling hills of corn and soybeans in Southern Minnesota.  But I should start at the beginning.

On Friday we left in the afternoon with six large duffle bags and two carry-ons from the Minneapolis airport.  From there we flew to Amsterdam via Northwest.  The fight was long but manageable.  In flight movies and a window seat make time fly.  We arrived in Amsterdam early in the morning and had a three hour layover until our next flight to Kilimanjaro airport in Tanzania.  For the second leg of the journey we flew KLM, which you should fly if you ever have the option (They have good food and comfy seats).  Now although airline food - like school food - has a bad reputation, it really isn’t all that bad.  When you’ve been on an enormous hunk of metal flying 30,000 feet up for 5 hours, chicken and pasta eaten with plastic forks and knives can taste really good. 

And so we arrived in Tanzania at 8.00 pm the next day.  The Kilimanjaro airport is an experience in and of itself.  There are no boardwalks to the terminals, merely staircases lined up against the aircraft from which you have to walk across the tarmac to the airport.  The first thing you notice when you step of the plane is the smell.  Africa, or at least Tanzania, has a unique scent.  It is musky and smoky yet light and sweet.  It is a scent unlike any other that I will always remember. 

Inside the terminal, you are crammed back together with all the 100+ people you just spent the last eight hours with to get visas and go through customs.  (For now we have visitors’ visas but we will be going to Dar es Salaam soon to apply for residential visas.)

After we had claimed all six fifty pound bags we headed out to meet whoever was there to greet us.  Three people (a lecturer, a secretary and a driver) from the college were there to help us with our baggage and drive us to Mweka.  It takes about an hour to get to the Mweka Wildlife College where we will be staying for the next nine months.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t see much of the landscape because it was dark, but the drive was good nonetheless and everyone was very nice.  By the time we arrived at the college it was late and were tired.  The next day we would meet everyone and get oriented. 

And so, Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore.  The next nine months will be an interesting adventure indeed.

Since we have arrived I have learned that the internet (or intranet as some here say) is iffy.  I will be writing regularly, but only publishing as I have connectivity.  I encourage both of you who are reading this to become followers if you wish so that you can receive notices when I publish something new.  I also want this to go both ways.  Don’t be afraid to comment, ask questions or just tell me what is happening in the States – I’d love to hear and I’ll respond if I can.

T – 24hrs

There are officially 24 hours left until our departure.  Tomorrow we leave from the Minneapolis airport bound first for Amsterdam and then for Kilimanjaro airport in Tanzania.  The flight is a long one – we will land some 24 hours after we depart from the Twin Cities. 

Once in Tanzania we will have our own house and car (see picture) and, with any luck, someone will be at the airport to pick us up. 

For now, we have our tickets (I have a window seat!), passports and the rest  is being assembled.  We have been running around the past few days finding camera batteries and matching socks.  We should have everything we need.  the trick is being able to locate all of those things.  Hopefully everything will be packed by tomorrow morning. . . .