Chapter Two

Leaving and Arriving
December 31, 1965

It is the eve of departure. We are excited, eager to arrive in Africa and yet somewhat reluctant to leave. We have spent the day packing and there is more to do in the morning. We felt weary, hopeful, afraid, enthusiastic and determined to do the job. We feel a deep obligation to ourselves, and to the many people who have helped and shown interest in us and to our dear parents to do well. (Fione Marie Picard-FMP).

When we got off the plane in August we went for training for 3 months from August through mid December in New York City. Then we spent the last 2 weeks in December in Saginaw. Then back to New York. Then on the day after New Year’s we flew to Nairobi.

We started the diary recorded here on the day before we left for Uganda. The diary was a Christmas present from my mother. Fione wrote many of the entries in Uganda and by far the most intelligent. Fione was very motivated and excited about going to Africa. She had a very strong moral value system. She was going to go and do good. Her interests were the individual, the psychological dimensions of people and her other interests were on the scientific side. She was very interested in Astronomy and Physics. She had worked in a planetarium at Delta College for several years. She was interested in the logic of science; how science is based on evidence. So from a human perspective she was interested in why people did the things they did and how behavior based on social behavior and psychology. She liked to read Jung and Freud. So she had science and psychology and yes I had history and political science.

We might have been a good pair but Fione had to deal with her father. That is just a speculation. Her father’s name was George and he worked as a salesman at Sears, downtown Saginaw. They were originally from Champagne-Urbana Illinois. I remember that he had a gap between his front teeth, which Fione inherited and that he was always friendly to me. I never really understood him. Fione and her father could never communicate. I think she was running away. [I found out much later that she had run away to Mexico in high school and was forced to come back].