Omar's Wedding

 These pictures showed up the other day. They are culled out of a larger stash of pictures taken during the wedding of our good Zanzibari friend Omar and his lovely bride at their recent wedding. My excellent friend and colleague Steve and I were invited to the wedding, but, sadly but obviously, couldn't attend, so we volunteered to pay for part of the wedding. Omar has been our friend for years now, and he's played such a key part in both our student trips but also in the efforts of TechDren to bring laptops to elementary school students there. The last couple visits Omar has lamented the fact that he didn't think he would ever be able to get married; he was waiting until he was more financially stable, which I think meant owned his own home, before finding a wife. Apparently it's all working out now, and this gives me some true happiness in the midst of a generally horrible year. The funny thing about all of this is that the wedding - and five total trips - and three student led trips - and TechDren - are all byproducts of my ex-fiancee Laura and I deciding to take a jolly there when we lived in Abu Dhabi. Life is so wonderfully odd.