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Saturday, April 17, 2010

Continued


To the Family

Sorry for the whole family and the nation for the matter happened for our beloved teacher, Joseph Chow. We say sorry for the whole family and lets pray for his soul Sorry again and thanks.
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He was a good teacher, good friend and also good consellor. He was with us in fema club and in basketball court. We used to play together, I am sorry for what happen cause its God willing We love him but God love him most
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Joseph L. Chow,
My great teacher, so loving so kind, so hard working. He would sacrifice what he had for us A man of the people I LOVE HIM SO MUCH I MISS HIM SO MUCH.
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To Chow
I as a former student and attendant of maths class taugth by Chow, I ahare my sadly moment with the your family. I will never the Joseph since he was like prophet sent to rescue the Tanzanians.
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I have what he taught me. I love you Mr Joe. He was very happy to see me performing well my physics subject, I know he is still watching me. I will do it for him in my exams, I'll not fail him...

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Letters of Condolence from his students and teachers


The following were collected in a binder for our family after the memorial in Dar es Saalam in September 2009:
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The following are pictures and letters sharing condolences, stories, and memories of Joe that were collected at the memorial held at the Peace Corps office in Dar es Saalam on September 27, 2009. Since you were not able to be with us, we wanted to share with you how we as a Peace Corps family came together to remember your son, your brother, your family member, and our family member.
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To Chow,
He was good teacher, good friend, He didn't teach me maths or physics he was with me in basketball and fema club. I will miss his so much. Rest in Peace Sir Joseph Chow

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Mr Joseph Chow was my physics and mathematics teacher at ndanda school. We shared many good things together, he told us about his family in New York and about his girl friend in London. The last thing eh told us me was "Shalom, I'll go to Sonpoa and after two weeks I will be back" This is what he said in his physics laboratory. I'll miss him, I'll miss him very much. May God rest his soul in Peace.
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Dear Sirs/Madams
On Wednesday morning 23rd September 2009 Ndanda Secondary School Community received a shocking news of the death of our beloved member of the teaching staff through radio (TBC) broadcasting. I t was hard for us to believe that Joseph is no longer with us until the time when we received the officially from Peace Corps Headquarters in Dare es Sallam

The late Joseph was posted to our school in January 20008 as a Chemistry teacher. However, due to the shortage of teachers that our school was and is still facing, especially in science subjects, Mr Joseph voluntarily decided to help our students who are taking those subjects namely, Physics, basic mathematics and pure mathematics in addition to his main teaching subject chemistry. All the time he was with students chatting with them, advising and teaching them in a very friendly manner.

Ndanda secondary school community, therefore understands and appreciates the efforts that the late Joseph has demonstrated during the whole period of his stay with us ma and indeed proved to all of us that he was really an industrious teacher. His death therefore is a loss not only to Ndanda secondary school community but also to all education stake holders in Tanzania. We understand and believe that as human beings we have no control over life and death, still the memory of Joseph can never be erased from our minds. I, on behalf of the Headmaster Ndanda secondary school community and on my own behalf, may you please on behalf of the family of the late Joseph and all US of America Peace Corps accept our heart felt condolences

We pray that God the Almighty grant peace to the departed soul and give his family and the Peace Corps strength to bear this loss. The almighty God brought the late Joseph to us and the Almighty God has taken him from us; the name of our lord be praised. May Almighty God rest his soul in eternal peace. Amen
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I Oscar M one of the student of form six PGM at ndanda secondary school one of of Joseph Chow's class students and also a team mate; for sure am deeply sorry for what has just happened to your beloved son Am so sorry once again.all what I have to say to your sis for yo to come down cause this that path that everybody should have to pass.
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It is very sad moment when you lose a lovely person in life But still we have to go on because we are all of the same way So we should not give up or give much blame to go God love us more than we do ourselves and our friends May Joseph rest in peace.

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I am a student of Mr Joseph Chow I am the one who attached with this issue. I would want to sorry the whole family of Mr Joseph
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Sorry for the whole family and parents of Joseph Chow fro this bad accident occur in our country Tanzania. Our fellow teacher Mr Joseph Chow kicked the bucket but we cannot say more and God rest him in peace
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A form five student at ndanda high school which is located in Mtwara Tanzania I'm very sad to listen the death of my beloved teacher Mr Joseph Chow I had been with him in studies since I attended in our school What I need is to give sorry to the family of Mr Joseph Chow that let him stay in peace May god bless him Amen

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It is unhappy time for me also to the family of my teacher Joseph Chow Back to me it is a big gap I big loss to lose my subject teacher. S what can I say I would proceed to pray to the god for keeping my teacher in a holy heaven Also god may bless the family of Joseph Chow to leave all thought about teacher and should feel happy and assume a normal condition My teacher dead from fall accident on 22 Sept 2009
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We are very sorry of what happen to our beloved teacher Mr Joseph chow He was a good teacher to us but God love him very much than us We are together in this period.
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Sunday, April 11, 2010

Naipenda Tours and Modi

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=1810703

This is a review on line of the tour guide we used. Modi was excellent

Tanzania - Naipenda Safari Review

Overview
I had never been to Africa and wanted to get my first and maybe only opportunity right. I settled on a Naipenda Safari tour in Tanzania. We did not want the luxury tour of fancy lodges, but rather the Hemingway experience … tents, campfires, wildlife, roughin’ it. And we did that, except that we also had a guide, cook, waiter and one guy for I don’t know what – but he was funny. Not sure if Hemingway had that entourage? We ate like kings and wanted for nothing. Our safari was the first ten days of August 2009.

Safari Company - Naipenda
Naipenda Safari caters mostly to Americans and maintain offices in Hunt, Texas (Jo Bertone) and Arusha, Tanzania (Israel Mwanga), where they have a fulltime staff of six who manage logistics. This company is very well organized and seemingly anticipates every contingency. Nice people, eager to please, grateful for the business. They can handle about 15 safaris at any one time, though like all safari companies they are down about 50% in this recession. Now is a fantastic time to go.

Guide - Modi Magesa
The tour guide can make or break your trip. Just might be the most important consideration in a long litany, and frankly you don’t know who you’ll get. We got lucky and drew Modi Magesa, an early thirties safari guide who spent several years in preparation. Most of the guides go to touring college and become highly educated on wildlife and the environment. It’s a prestigious job. With Modi, every question received an informed and often times entertaining answer. He took us inside the heads of the animals. He got excited along with us when the spectacular happened. He was snapping photos too, and ingeniously used his binoculars as a telephoto lens to take close ups. Modi pauses a few seconds before speaking, and then treats every question respectfully. He is very intelligent, patient, loves to laugh and a born leader. Modi confidently takes control and sometimes directs rival safari guides, who seem to defer to him. He out-smarts everybody. We often had the best view, or sometimes the only view of a kill. He spots lions, cheetahs and leopards almost effortlessly. We saw 84 of those in the Serengeti alone. He can identify every bird.

Halfway through our safari we discovered that two years prior that Modi had also been Oprah Winfrey’s guide. Since he is Tanzanian, we’re not sure if Modi fully understood the PR value of that? The following year, Oprah sent more of her family to Tanzania to safari with Modi and Naipenda. You and I both know Oprah is not messing around - she will get the best. I searched the web and there is no record of Oprah’s safari guide. So I just changed that – because great Tanzanians like Modi Magesa deserve some good old fashioned American PR.

Ten Days in Tanzania
First we spent a few days in Amsterdam to let our bodies adjust to the time change. Then flew via KLM to Kilimanjaro, Tanzania where we met our guide Modi and Naipenda’s “Good Luck” (Africans often have fun names). The first day was in Arusha National Park with monkeys and a canoe boat encounter with two hippos. Then a few days camping at Tarangire National Park which had most everything, including lions, elephants, giraffes, etc.. We witnessed three young male lions botch a buffalo kill because they lacked tactics and nerve. We spun through Lake Manyara for three hours – which was two hours too much. Then a couple days at Ngorongoro Crater, Africa’s Garden of Eden, which has 30,000 animals in a perfect balance of predator and prey. It hasn’t changed in thousands of years and is really beautiful. We watched two lionesses there fumble a zebra kill, because the alpha wasn’t calling the shots.

The animals are used to the safari vehicles and consider them neither friend nor foe. They stroll right by, occasionally snearing, or staring, but usually oblivious. It's always a thrill. The final four days we camped and safaried in Serengeti National Park, where according to my daughter we saw 64 lions, 15 cheetah and 5 leopards. We witnessed several kills, and nearly as many foiled attempts, which are almost as entertaining.

The Great Migration was all but over, the wildebeest had already moved north to Kenya by the hundreds of thousands, but the rest of the Serengeti wild-life remained to put on a show. Cheetah at full speed chasing gazelle, lions stalking and killing warthogs, a leopard stuck in a tree watching below his gazelle kill devoured by a hyena that he would not challenge. My teenage sons chased from our camp baboons (Modi said it was okay), heard lions snorting nearby and was warned that both buffalo and elephants had marked our campsite as their territory. And if you looked up at night – there’s the Southern Cross. It was fantastic.

Tanzanian People – Maasai too
The people are warm and friendly, including the Maasai Warriors. Everyone dresses so colorfully in bright blue, red, yellow, green, you name it. They take pride in their appearance. We saw beautiful women colorfully dressed who in America could open doors with just a smile, but walking instead with a basket on their heads down a Tanzanian dirt road. They don’t seem to mind – it is what it is. Tanzanians have few bicycles and still fewer cars. Seems like everybody is doing something, heading somewhere, usually on foot and looking great doing it. The country is very poor but they all seem to make do. The crime rate is low because the justice system is oppressive. A mere accusation from anyone means guilty until proven innocent. The school children wear colorful uniforms and are very cute. Tanzanians speak Swahili, an easy language to learn, and appreciate your attempts. Most will bail you out with English and a smile. They love to laugh, hold hands and chat. They are charming. Everything is negotiable. Bring $1’s and $5’s – they gladly take American dollars, euros too. Even the Maasai Warrior Village we visited in the Serengeti was a capitalist enterprise in the making. Those guys with the spears jumping up and down have a wife waiting to sell you a necklace. In the midst of a mud hut village and swirling dustbowl - it’s buy three and get one free.

Things We Needed, Things We Didn’t
REI sells long sleeve safari shirts that are perfect. Avoid blue and black because tsetse flies are attracted to those colors. Dress in layers. Long pants, cargo is handy. Hiking shoes are all you need. Forget sandals. We brought a slew of insect repellent and never used it. Maybe we got lucky, but bugs were not a problem. We took Malaria pills and none of us got sick in any way. We drank only bottled water. Don’t even think of doing otherwise anywhere. Our group preferred Serengeti (Tanzania) and Tusker (Kenya) beer. The others, Kilimanjaro, Safari, Castle, all tasted the same – bland. We all wore Survivor style buffs, including our guide Modi. Binoculars are a must. We had one digital camera with a large telephoto lens and one without – both proved necessary. Typical day was rise at 5:45 am, coffee, tea & biscuits and safari 6:00 am to 10:00 am, return to camp, brunch and downtime until 4:00 pm, safari to 6:30 pm, hot bucket shower, campfire and drinks until 8:00 pm, dinner until 9:00 pm and then zip up the two man tents and don’t come out until dawn – rinse and repeat. You get used to the rhythm of it and like it. The food was good and well prepared. They know what Americans like.












































Tipping
Everywhere you go somebody wants to do something for you – because they want a buck. Let ‘em do it. The country is poor. Your $1 for the simplest thing goes a long way, and there’s more dignity in paying for a service than charity. If you can afford a safari, then you can bring lots of $1’s and $5’s to spread around. They really appreciate it.

As for the safari crew, the unofficial tipping scale is $3-$5 per crew member, per group number, per day. On the low side, a group of six for ten days would be $180 per crew member, or $300 on the high side. We had three crew members, so triple that.

The safari tour guide is on a higher scale, which is as it should be. The guide scale is $10-$15 per group number, per day. On the low side, a group of six for ten days would be $600, or $900 on the high side. We tipped Modi still higher – because he was worth it.

June 5, 2009



Finally, we are on the itinerary for the "tourist" part of the trip. And the first thing Ray noticed that it was going to take us 7 hours to go from Dar to Lake Manyara, and it was only about 300 miles. But we headed off for the Dar airport (in Dar the cabs have enough gas to get you to your destination). It was a 9 am flight so we left at 7 am from the hotel. The flight was Coastal Air. We got on the flight and the plane held about 20 people, you sat where you sat and stored your luggage at the back of the plane. We had been warned to travel light, each person could carry a maximum of 30 lbs on these internal flights, so a carry on was all we took for our 16 day trip.

The reason the flight took so long was that before heading west, we flew first to Zanzibar, then to Arusha and then to Lake Manyara. It was a little nerve racking, all the up and down, but these are true bush airlines, and for some reason this fills the flights! Not only that, we discovered on these flights that the preferred seat is the co-pilot seat. On one of the flights as soon as we got up to cruising height the pilot started texting on his phone, and did not look up again until it was time to land. On the way home we saw the pilot bargaining with a manager about the price of fuel. The bargaining took so long that the flight was delayed, and finally the pilot payed for the fuel in US dollars. This culture makes it easy to understand why running out of fuel on these short hops is a real danger, and indeed the boys heard of a flight near Kilimanjaro that had run out of fuel two years ago, all passengers had died.

When we stepped off the flight in Lake Manyara we were met by two soldiers with rifles slung over their shoulders and our guide, Modi. Modi was quite reserved and very professional. He took us first to a road house to eat our box lunches, and then to Lake Manyara National Park for our first game drive. It was amazing.