Joseph and his hair

Joseph was never very cognizant of the way he looked. He was an incredibly good looking, slight man (this is his mom's view), but his hair! His hair was fine if it was kept short, and under control. But the longer he went without taking care of it the hair would get thicker and bushier, and thicker and bushier, and never any longer. When he was a baby, I blamed his Chinese genes for his hair. But it was too wavy for Chinese hair. Finally, a couple of years ago my sister fessed up and admitted that his hair was just like hers, but much darker! My sister does not get her hair cut, she gets it thinned.

We kept Joe's hair under control in the US by frequent haircuts, not buzz cuts but very preppy short cuts. And when he was tapering for big meets, he would shave his head, an act of camaraderie with his teammates. When Joe first got to Kenya he went to a local barber who cut his hair buzz cut short - which looked alot like his tapered swimming pics - not so nice. The African barbers had no idea what to do with thick, curly, coarse western hair! Anyway, when met Joe at the airport, the first thing I commented on was how bushy his hair was. He scowled and told me that he swore he would not go to a local barber for one last buzz cut; he would rather wait until he was home for his next hair cut! He asked if I would cut his hair. I had tried saving money when the kids were small by doing home hair cuts, and I was terrible at it - and in Africa Joseph did not have a good pair of scissors! So I told him we would try to find a barber in Dar es Saalam. That was one of the reasons we went to the Indian area of Dar, we were looking for a barber. We did not find one.

After the boys climbed Kilamanjaro they went to Dar, and they found a barber. I have this picture of him eating with his new haircut - still not so great!

Trip to Dar from Mtwara

As briefly mentioned in the last post, we thought that we were leaving for Dar on Wed. So we had gotten into the cab early in the morning and were all set to go, when the cab turned the corner, and ran out of gas! Apparently in southern Tanzania, cabs do not fill up with gas - they pick up the passenger with only enough gas to get around the corner, the car runs out of gas, a fellow worker bicycles over the gas, and then you can get to your destination.

So, we had all gotten into the two cabs that Joe had called for, and the car ran out of gas(!), we got the gas - we got to the airport, we got through security and Joseph was informed that our tickets were for the next day. That was why we had the A+ day. Thank God.

So on Thursday Ray, Joe and I got up early and went for a swim in the Indian ocean past the Southern Cross. It would have been beautiful, but the large amounts of jellyfish ruined the beauty. Joe and I made a bee-line for the shore, Ray kept insisting that it was fine. I HATE Jellyfish -and so did Joe.

That morning, we got the cab, the cab ran out of gas, the bicycle came with the plastic jug of gas, we got to the airport and we flew to Dar. Joseph had spoken to his promising student the day before and we brought about 10 lbs of review books for this kid to take the SAT. He was the only student from Ndanda that Joe thought had a chance at a US university, but he did not know how to get him into the process. When we landed at Dar we went straight to the Southern Sun Hotel. Then we went to a Main Street near the Post Office to find his students' sister (the student was out of town so the sister came into town from the slow bus from nowhere - it took forever!) We had alot of time to observe the street scene in Dar. After the books were given to the sister, Joseph had us clamor into a cab and drive to the Indian section of Dar where he knew there was a great bakery (see Easter above - the boy loved his sweets). Joe had us buy all sorts of pastries and sweets for him. After that we went to an outdoor market where we wanted to buy some Obama ktangas. The vendors descended on us, and at the end we bought 6 Obama ktangas for the price of five because of the overzealous competitiveness of the vendors. We were literally fending off the vendors, luckily Joseph spoke fluent Swahili!

June 2, 2009

After our talk with the carvers we got into the jeep and headed back over the bad road to Mtwara, the guest house and the Indian Ocean. Ray had all these plans to go to "the most beautiful beach in the world" - at least that s what the guide book said. We would pay the driver and go straight there from Ndanda - but he could not account for the pace of traffic in Africa. No one rushes anywhere, and everything takes much more time than you could actually imagine! We did not get back to Mtwara until 3:15, and everyone in the car but Ray was happy. Again we went to the fish market and got fish (conch), and some rice and some tomato and onions. That was pretty much home cooking in Tanzania and also some coke and beer from the local German lady's little hut of a store. That night we went to bed early because we thought we were leaving for Dar the next day to start our safari.

The next morning Ray, Joe and I got up early to go walk on the beach. Joe tried to buy some bread for breakfast at the German store, but the shopkeeper reprimanded him for not returning the bottles from our last visit, and insisted that he come and get me before she would sell us anything else. When I got to the store, she reprimanded me for not returning the coke bottles, and said that I should be embarrassed that we had left it for the household help to return the bottles - hmm, things are much different in Africa. Than she let us buy her goods, but only with the promise that we would return the bottles before we left. It was such a great day, the boys went for a long swim and we hung out in the hut and read and read, and laughed. I can't even remember what we did for dinner, it was so relaxing. Even Ray got into the doing nothing mode. Than we went to The Southern Cross for dinner, horrible food, but what a view. We walked back in the winter dark and Ray and Joe went to bed. Kyle, Daniel and I walked around in the Indian Ocean under the full moon at low tide looking into pools and examining the local fish. Altogether an A+ day.

Easter

Joseph always loved Easter - what is there not to like, the holiday involved chocolate -his favorite food! When the kids were little we would just take chocolate and throw it all over the backyard and the cousins would run around crazily picking up as much candy as they could. That and we put pennies into the plastic egg - Daniel would trade chocolate for pennies.

In 2007 Ray and I went to Spain over Easter break, Kyle was in Greece on a Fordham trip, Daniel at school. But Joe always came home for Easter, so he drove home to have Easter dinner with the family at Cadie's. Joseph loved family holidays. I guess the last Easter we got to spend together was in 2006.

In Africa the Easter mass was extensive, 3 to 4 hours of the service. Joseph said everyone went for the entertainment. After the mass, from what I could tell, Joe would wander around town visiting the students, neighbors and the VSO volunteers. Last year I sent him a package of Easter chocolate, he was thrilled. He told us he had to ration it, or he would get sick.