don't i look happy in this picture? such was our life when we were in joplin missouri ;... pictures in newspapers, happy strangers wanting to give us welcoming gifts and the overall sense that we were the next best thing to getting new pandas at the zoo.

i don't remember much about our time there, just enough to know it was strange and i didn't understand anything anyone was saying. most of the time i scowled and tried really hard to hide behind my mom although as you can see, in pictures, i was always out in front. my mom and my sister were gracious, so was my dad... me? not so much.

but we were lucky to have been there and lucky to have left communism. i didn't know at the time that where i had come from people were no longer free and that if you disagreed you were either thrown in jail or put up against a wall and shot. i didn't realize the fear and the strength it took my parents to leave all they had known to start a new life. they hid all that pretty well, me?...not so much.