Joseph's namesake - Grandpa Joe

In April I went to California for work and went up to San Francisco to spend the weekend with Ray's family. Ray had flown out in the middle of the week to spend time with his mom.

Saturday we all took the ferry out to Angel Island. Angel Island is where the undesirable asian immigrants were sent during the early part of the 20th century. Kind of like Ellis Island but much more servere. Joe Chow, Ray's dad and Joe's mom. arrived at Angel Island around 1930, when Joe was around 6 (maybe 4?). Hid dad had come to the US earlier, and then sent for his wife and son. The US did not really want a six y.o. and a young woman; but eventually they let them in. Unfortunatley, Joe's mom had diabetes, and died when he was still a kid. Joe had some colorful stories about helping his dad in the restaurant business - he owned a Chinese take out joint right across the entrance from a major auto plant in Detroit.

Joe went on to be in the top of his public high school class, went to Michigan State, and University of Michigan. His profession was a nuclear metallurgist, and his career was at Brookhaven National Labs; to make money he imported sails from China. Not a dumb guy.

The US in 1946 tried to deport Joe because he was Chinese. This is what is wrong with our immigration policy. The US wanted to deport a great, personable, intelligent, talented, wonderful guy who only wanted to raise his kids and contribute to society. Because he had asian features the US wanted to send him to Communist China - where he was basically illiterate- because he was an educated American. Today we do that with other classes of immigrants.

Joe's metallurgical research was on nuclear containment - I have searched his patents.Aside from being extermely intelligent, and very charming, he was a great dad and family man. When I met Joe, I knew that Ray was the man that I wanted to marry.

June 12, 2009

Our last day in the Serengeti. Modi had determined that we probably would see no more animals so he suggested that we to go to Lake Victoria. We drove out of the park onto a highway that is a major truck route on the western edge of Tanzania. There is an airport that recieves foreign travelers who are going to do a west to east trip thru the Serengeti. One enterprising village has set up a tourist attraction. For a small fee they have a villager (a young man who has had his high school fees paid for by the village) who gives a lecture (in English) about Lake Victoria and the history of the village. The village leaders have used the money to build a brick elementary school and a clinic. The government has promised them a doctor if they build the clinic. The village guide – he was also the teacher- explained that the clinic is to primarily treat pregnant woman. Tanzania is having a population explosion but many of the mothers are dying in childbirth. The villagers understand that they need their woman and that the female is an important part of their lives.

After the lecture, and also included in the price of the tour, we went on a canoe fishing trip on Lake Victoria with the villagers paddling. This is not their commercial procedure, but it was great to be out on Lake Victoria I felt like I was in a National Geographic special!

When the guide had asked where we were from we said NY, but Joseph told him Ndanda. And then he started speaking with him in Swahili. The guide was so impressed that he gave us a a private tour of the village, and introduced Joseph to various villagers. We saw first hand just how big a population boom there is. As soon as we were into the village streets we were overwhelmed by a pack of children, all of whom wanted to claim each of us as their own! They would grab our hands, and if another child tried to displace them there would be a fist fight. No balls to play with, no toys and not enough adults to teach or spend time with them.

Joseph saw a group of women hanging out under a tree in the shade, and went over to them. He squatted down to exchange greetings, and they were flirting and laughing with them. Joe told us that he was telling them his story, and exchanging vocabulary in their dialect with them. What does this mean, what does that mean, that sort of thing. It was such a memorable interaction, everyone was enoying the visit.

In advance of the migration, The National Park service was selectively burning the plain, and especially around our tent camp. The fields on either side of the dirt road were burnt. A bull elephant was coming down the road towards us and Modi had a stand off with him. We were all nervous, but knew deep down that Joseph was safe and happy and as the Peace Corp said in his obituary, “thriving.” We could hardly wait until November for him to come home.

June 11, 2009

We had driven to the entire western edge of the Serengeti, but had outdriven the animals. The main herds were still a couple of days behind us, and we had spent the two days before driving around looking at a few stray herds. Our accomadations were amazing - another tent village- the view of the plains were spectacular. Very reminiscent of Jurassic Park which was the boys favorite movie when they were kids. They would spend hours and hours in the playroom reenacting every scene from the movie. Joseph was a dinosaur boy, he would talk and read and discuss the dinosaurs all the time. His fashion sense from the age of 1 to 5 was based on dinosaurs.

We spent the evenings hanging out at the restaurant talking and joking. The Masai warriors escorted us back and forth to our tents. On the way back one night Joseph saw a stream of “army” ants. He squatted down in excitement to show us what would happen when you disturbed the column of ants; they would spread out in disarray around the disturbance but soon would regroup into a column. We played with them for a while. The next night they got us back. In the dark we walked right into a column of the ants. They climbed up my pant legs and I had to run back to the tent to get changed as soon as possible. I tried to wash my clothes and drown the ants. The next morning when the clothes were dry the dead ants were still lockjawed onto the material and I had to pick them off one by one.