dagny on a shelf

this is a photo i found on a shelf of my aunt's apartment. there must be so much of filling in the gaps, they know so little about all of us. they knew me when i was 15, the funny thing is i don't think we all really change that much. certain essence of who we are stays the same. when i am back i realize how not changed i am. i hope my daughter will have a desire to find her roots one day.

kindergarten friends

these are some of the girls i grew up with. they are so sweet and nice to me, it is hard to imagine i had ever left them.

a view so familiar

this is a view that is so familiar to me. it is taken from our apartment's balcony. the caucasus mountains surround the whole city. war or no war, they stand high. we live on the 5th floor. "mtkvari" river flows in front of the apartment building. the sound of traffic from outside makes me think of every single night falling asleep. these are the same sounds my grandma must have heard in the last few years, while i have been away.

On the way to Tbilisi!

Chicago airport - at first the hummus snacks and random conversationalists such as a strange icelandic man, two french guys in way too nice of clothes and nice minneapolis lady who would not shut up, was all endearing, but now i have been here too long.

contrast

rough and tumble of urban streets, overflowing daladalas, speeding fruit vendor bicyclists, sidewalk hawkers, paddle stoned arabic towns, masai selling jewelry and natural remedies, young suit wearing obama supporters, muslim children with kuran books under their arms and modern high rises. The culture and society here has so many layers, so much more complex than we often give it a credit for, by calling it a general term like "3rd world country"...

transportation

everything, EVERYTHING seems to evolve around transportation here.


watching fishermen return home on boobooboo beach, as the moon rose bright orange

getting from the mainland to zanzibar, during which most of those people threw up


be it walking to the water to do laundry, carrying goods to sell at the market, daladala ride (minivens, crowded to the point where you feel and breath every human being in that minivan which usually consists of many of those human beings), fishing on a tiny boat or taking a jet plain from Dar to Kiganza for which you just show up in the morning, because at times they cancel it and at other times they leave in the morning rather than afternoon and they are surprised how "uptight" we are in America. ... transportation is the pulse of Tanzania. the boats took my breath away.