Suomi kutsuu

(Photo: somewhere between Arusha, TANZ, and Nairobi, KEN.)

Time's up, Suomi kutsuu (Finland's calling). On Monday I fly back to Finland. Unfortunately I won't make pit-stops in Ethiopia and Sudan as promised by my original itinerary, because the flight operator just cancelled that route. So instead I'm flying via Switzerland and Germany. It actually works better for me, since the layovers are shorter and I'll have one long uninterrupted night flight.

There will be no more posts till Finland since my to-do list prior to my departure is crammed. In fact tomorrow morning I'm flying to the island of Zanzibar, thus far one of my favourite places in East Africa, for the weekend. It will be the last field trip before returning to Finland. I'm going with my brother and a Finnish-Canadian Fida-worker from Uganda, who is holding an HIV-Aids workshop in Dar es Salaam this week. We plan to visit some Zanzibarian spice factories and locate Freddy Mercury's childhood home.

In case anyone is wondering, VALMET is a Finnish company (VALtion=State's METalli=Iron). My late grandfather owned a Valmet tractor. When you start seeing Valmet signs in some bush in the middle of Africa, you know it's time to go home. (Although I doubt the reference is intentional, probably the shop owner just saw it somewhere.) That, and a phone call from Finland saying the beautiful Finnish summer has begun, settles it. See you soon.