A shot from this morning’s Super Bowl viewing party in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Wake up call was 2:15AM … and the boys haven’t yet gone to sleep ….

We watched the game in a State Department home, thanks to American Forces Network … which meant no commercials, which was kind of nice.

In our travels so far, there’s little evidence that American football will ever replace football as a global game. We watched that theory play out recently in Zanzibar:

It was thrilling to find this twilight scene in Zanzibar.

Scores of young men were lined up along Stonetown’s water front … waiting for their turn to launch themselves in to the Indian Ocean.

Some did flips. Others soared. A few belly flopped. One young man barely cleared the stone sea barrier … then crashed in to the sea, fully clothed.

It wasn’t staged. They surely loved the crowds of tourists who gathered, but it wasn’t organized … just a glimpse of unadorned life in a faraway culture in a faraway land.

Earlier in the day, I’d found bits of classwork from a child’s notebook in the gut of a dirt road outside Stonetown. It’s difficult to make out the exact lesson, but it looks like someone was working on conversational English … with hand-written phrases like “What are the disadvantages of being teacher?” and “What are the advantages of being a doctor?” A teacher has corrected mistakes in red pen.

This, too, was a joy of a find. It wasn’t staged … just a glimpse of unadorned life in a faraway culture in a faraway land.

(NOTE: That’s not an inappropriate finger thing going on. It’s the FOURTH finger, the ring finger, celebrating Eugene and Elaine’s engagement. They’re the fourth and fifth folks from the right.)

Earlier this week, I was listening to a long-term missionary who’s now in Tanzania describe what she periodically longs for in the US. “I miss the mountains,” she told me.

Then – on a bus in Zanzibar – a fellow tourist talked of a different longing. Something triggered the recollection of a beautiful memory, of a time years before when her kids were young enough to travel with her and her husband: “I remember my son once had to ….”

I think it’s a good thing to LONG FOR the experience of a fond memory in this way, or LONG FOR the mountains of yesterday. These are the powerful forces that helped shape us, right?

I’ve noticed that we’ve started REMEMBERING, even longing for, portions of our journey. We sift through these memorable experiences together … of a time when, or that guy we met, or that meal we had, and so on.

We are now past the halfway mark of our journey … and perhaps what’s happening is this:

I seem to be trying to balance the emotions of remembering – with the hope of what’s to come – with an awareness of, a THANKFULNESS for, RIGHT NOW.

As I write, some close friends are working with a team somewhere in America — in the dark — to bring light and help to people who need it.

Also as I write, our small Zanzibar guest house is without power – in the dark.

Minutes ago, I was expressing my disappointment to the front desk clerk about the lack of a generator and so on. Then I fired off an angry email to the offsite owner.

Really? Am I that oppressed by this darkness?

(For the record, the rest of my family is sleeping inside our unventilated room. They went to bed hot and sticky, but there were NO complaints. Awesome.)

We visited a cave today in Zanzibar once used by Arab slave traders. Years ago, as British troops and ships started to enforce the end of legal slavery in east Africa, traders tried to conceal their slaves in secret places until high tides and darkness made their export business easier.

So, today, just after a tour guide explained how the slaves had been chained together inside the lightless space … a young Kenyan man in our group named Eugene got down on one knee.

“Distinguished friends,” he began. “I have here a special lady.” He gestured to his girlfriend, Elaine, who was with him.

He continued: “History happened here, and I want to make history today. Will you marry me?”

Elaine said “Yes.”