DEPARTED FROM
Nairobi, Kenya

ARRIVED IN
Hackensack , New Jersey

YEAR
1972

AGE
21

NOW LIVES IN
Saint Louis , Missouri

I was born in a Hindu Family in Nairobi. After completing my high school education in Nairobi, I lived for three years in Baroda, Gujarat, India for higher education. After completing my college education with degree in business (B.Com) I married and return to Kenya. For a year I worked as Junior auditor in a well known CPA firm in Nairobi. In 1972, my husband was offered an internship at Hackensack Hospital in Hackensack, NJ. We arrived in Summer of 1972 to USA on J Visas. The day we arrived at the airport, a man with long hair and sleeveless T-shirt picked us up from Newark Airport. I was scared to sit in the car with this man who hardly spoke to us and appeared to me suspicious. Of course this was my own fear. I was expecting some well dressed representative from the hospital to pick us up and orient us to our new surroundings. Instead he dropped us in a small one bedroom apartment which had nothing more than the basic furniture. Without a word he handed us the keys to the apartment and left. It was pin-drop silence. I almost cried standing in the middle of a one bedroom small apartment with only our suitcases. No idea what to do where to go and where to find food. Fortunately, it was summer so daylight until seven o'clock. We walked out and found some yogurt and cookies to eat. By the way we survived on cookies and yogurt for few days till we figured out where the grocery store was. I was scared, felt completely alone and missed my family. To go from everything familiar and comfortable to complete unfamiliarity, feeling of isolation and loneliness. This feelings remained with me for first one year.