Rafiki

First off, I should admit that I completely swiped this shot from some great pictures that Kurt Militi posted on our Zanzibar blog (Poa Kichizi Kama Ndizi), which will be released to the public soon.  A few of our students are really talented photographers, and Kurt is certainly one of them.  This is picture of my friend and very close friend Steve Wehmeyer, the other founder of the feast for the Zanzibar trip.  We're up on deck of the ferry that took us from Pemba to Zanzibar.  I first approached Steve with this idea for a trip to Zanzibar that we would embed in his Sacred & Secular class over a year ago, and his initial response was that it sounded amazing but that I was clearly quite crazy. I proposed, as is my wont, that once you conceive it then it is already reality, which led to him responding with the appropriate Lawrence of Arabia reference.  Once I convinced him of the brilliance of my latest scheme he really became the leading force in making it happen and he worked like a dog to put together an extraordinary trip, and it's one that the students will never forget.  We're already planning our return trip, which is allegedly two years from now but I suspect will be sooner.

The planning of this trip required about ten thousand conversations between the two of us, some short and to the point (many through email or text) and some long and rambling (often over beers at the St. John's Club or RJs), so I guess I'll just choose this one as a metaphor for the entire process.  I don't remember this particular discussion, but it clearly looks like we're up to no good (which is also why I like it).