Around the same time that I got the MRI results, I received a particularly thick envelope from Martin. It had been a few months since his last letter, so I was thrilled to see he had sent not one, but three letters. Then I started to read. As I digested what he was saying, I had a flashback to receiving his note on the ice-cream wrapper and started to feel panicky. I was only fourteen, but I understood that if his dad had lost his job and Martin was back working at the market, that meant the money I’d been sending was supporting his entire family—not just school fees, but everything. How could my babysitting money support everyone? Clearly it could not. Meanwhile, my parents still had no idea that I was sending money in the mail to Africa. They knew about the T-shirts and small gifts, but not the money.
In addition to the letter Martin sent me, he enclosed another one addressed to my parents: Caitlin please, please give this to your parents, he wrote. You may read it if you want but please give it to them and tell them it’s from me, Martin.
I immediately opened it.
Hallo Mr. and Mrs. Stoicsitz.
I know this letter comes as a surprise to you. I am Martin Ganda, the friend of Caitlin, your daughter. Caitlin is my best friend and she has helped me socially and economically and also educationally. I think Caitlin might have told you that I come from a poor family and this has worsened because my dad, who used to support the family, is no longer working. This has affected me badly. It meant that I was no longer able to get someone to pay for my fees at school. I have tried all means to get money for school fees by doing the following every day after school:
I cleaned cars of people and got a few coins which I saved.
I carried people’s luggage to bus stations and got a few coins.
By now I have almost, only Z$48.
I have talked to the principal at our school and he has accepted me to learn for the first week of school only and then I can carry on when I have my fees paid. Please, if possible, I am begging for your help. If it is not possible, do not worry yourselves. But as the parents of my best friend I hope that you might help me. I have written my grades for the past term to Caitlin if you may want to see them.
The school fees is Z$800 per term and this is about US$20. I hope you may help.
Waiting for a favorable reply.
Yours faithfully,
Martin
African friend of Caitlin
Reading that letter brought tears to my eyes. He was so proud. He had never asked me for help. Asking my parents for help was probably one of the hardest things for him to have to do. He did not want to burden me. He knew that I would get sick worrying about him in such need. But there it was, written on paper, a huge SOS. My parents knew I had a pen pal in Zimbabwe, but they did not know how close we had become. That evening, I decided to tell them everything. It was the only way I could truly help Martin.
It was dinnertime when I came downstairs, steeling myself for the conversation. My dad was already sitting in his spot as my mom placed meat loaf, mashed potatoes, peas, and salad on the table. She asked me to put the dressing out.
I grabbed a Lite Ranch, my dad’s favorite, and Thousand Island, mine, and placed both on the lazy Susan at the center of the table. As my mom took her seat, I was still trying to figure out the best way to start this conversation.
“How much money is in my college savings?” I finally blurted out.
My dad had already started scooping mashed potatoes onto his plate.
“Enough for you not to have to worry,” he said. And then added, “Can you pass the meat loaf?”
I could not think about meat loaf or ranch versus Thousand Island dressing. The amount of food on our table made me queasy.
“I need to know how much,” I continued.
“Why?” my mom asked.
“Because I want to send it to Martin,” I said. “All of it.”
“Your pen pal?” my dad said with a laugh.
“That’s exactly who I mean,” I replied, furious that he was not taking me seriously.
My mom saw I meant business, and said, “Caitlin, honey, you can’t just send all your money to Zimbabwe.”
“That money is for you to go to college, sweetheart,” my dad added, shifting his tone. “We’re saving that for your future.”
My anger was building, but I kept it at bay to make my case.
“I can go to any college I want,” I said. “If I start working really hard, I could even get a scholarship. Martin doesn’t have those options.” I told them that his dad had lost his job, and that I had been sending my babysitting money, but that it was not enough.
“You’ve been sending him money?” my mom asked.
“I try to send him ten or twenty dollars in every letter,” I said. “I put forty dollars in the last one.”
My mother shot an alarmed look at my father, who kept his eyes on me.
“And this is why you have been babysitting instead of going out with your friends on weekend nights?” Mom interjected.
“Mom, Dad, you don’t seem to get it,” I responded, exasperated. “Martin is my best friend and he is in serious trouble. I need your help. I cannot do it by myself anymore.”
Tears were streaming down my face now—this was not going as I had expected.
“I don’t know what else to do,” I said.
My dad shook his head back and forth. My mom looked down at her plate of untouched food. Everyone stayed quiet.
“Can we see the letters?” my mom finally asked.
“Actually, he sent one to you,” I said, and ran to get it.
I placed his plea on the table in front of my dad. My mom was already up from her seat, reading intently over his shoulder.
“He has never done this sort of thing before,” I explained. “I know it must be serious.”
I watched as my parents read. Everything was dead quiet, except the faint whirring sound of Romey snoring on the couch in the den.
“Sweetheart,” my dad said tentatively. “What if it is a scam?”
“Martin would never, ever do anything like that.” My voice was faster and louder than usual.
“Honey, your father is just trying to protect you,” my mom said.
“I don’t need protection!” I shouted. “My friend needs help.”
My parents were startled. In my fourteen years, I had never been this adamant about anything.
“Okay! Okay,” my dad said. “Let your mom and me discuss what we can do to help.”
My mom nodded her head. “We know how important he is to you, Caitlin,” she said. “And we’re proud of you for being such a good friend.”
I threw my arms around both of them. “Thank you! Thank you! You won’t regret this.”
The next morning, at breakfast, I asked what they had decided. My mom said she was going to do some research, and promised we’d discuss it at dinner.
I left for school feeling a huge sense of relief. My mom and dad knew how to get things done. They would figure it out.
That night, as soon as I heard my dad pull into the driveway I ran outside to greet him.
“Any news?” I asked, following him into the house.
“Do you still really want to do this, Caitlin?” he asked.
“Um, yeah, Dad,” I said. “And we need to do something now! We can’t wait! He only has one week before he is kicked out again.”
My dad nodded at my mom, who was listening intently.
“I’ve already made a few calls,” she said. “We’re trying to find out the best way to support him.”
“Trying?” I said.
“Caitlin, we’ll do our best to help him,” she replied.
That night, I wrote Martin a letter that said, I gave my parents your letter. And they promised to help.
I slipped another twenty dollars into the envelope and wrote that I hoped it would cover costs until my parents could figure things out.
And then every day for the next week, I came home from school and asked, “Any news?”
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My mom would share her progress with me: She started by calling the Zimbabwean embassy in Washington, who suggested calling the American embassy in Harare. The receptionist there gave her the name of a woman who might be able to help. My mom left a message for her, but had still not heard back. Impatient, a trait we both share, my mom then called Solange, her friend who lived in Quebec and worked for the Canadian government, to see if she had any ideas. Solange promised to talk to a few friends she had who worked at various embassies.
In the meantime, Mom had also spent hours online, looking up various organizations that might help her understand how much Martin’s school fees were—Martin said twenty dollars would cover it, but she wanted to make sure that was actually enough. Even trickier, she wanted to figure the best way to transfer funds.
“Why can’t we just send him cash like I was doing?” I asked at an after-school brainstorming session.
“Solange was amazed that your money got to him,” my mom said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Mail in impoverished countries is often opened by postal workers,” my mom explained. “Are you sure he is getting all of it?”
I didn’t know—he sometimes thanked me specifically for money. But other times, he would not mention it, if he wrote back at all. I wondered, for the first time, if he was receiving all my letters. The thought that people would steal things intended for Martin made me a little more cynical about the world. But it also gave me an idea.
“What if I disguise the money?” I asked.
“What, like wearing a mustache and fake glasses?” my mom said, laughing.
“Wait right here,” I said. Upstairs in my room, I found a piece of orange cardboard I bought for a school history project and cut a four-by-six-inch rectangle. Then I grabbed a three-by-five-inch photograph of me and Romey that my mom had taken earlier that summer. I took twenty dollars from my babysitting stash, grabbed my glue stick, and ran back downstairs.
“If I hide the money behind the photo, and then affix it to the cardboard, no one will ever know it’s there!” I explained proudly.
“Including Martin?” my mom asked, always the devil’s advocate.
“I’ll write clues in my letter, so he knows to look,” I explained.
“Brilliant!” my mother said.
“But wait,” she said, grabbing twenty dollars from her wallet. “Save your money. This one is on me.”
I folded both bills into the origami hearts we taught the kids how to do at summer camp.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said, placing one on top of the other in the center of the orange mat. “But Martin needs as much as we can send him.”
I dotted the back corners of the photo with glue before affixing it on top of the cardboard.
“You’re a genius,” my mom said.
“It runs in the family,” I responded.
My mom continued to research safer ways to send money. Her bank could do it, but the Zimbabwean banks charged a 50 percent commission. Mom kept all her notes from every bank teller and embassy representative and African expert she talked to on a yellow legal pad. By the second week, she was on page three.
Around this same time, I was over at Heather’s house a lot. Since she lived two houses away, I often popped over after school. She was my only friend who was interested in Martin’s well-being. I was telling her and her mom about the great lengths my mom was going to in order to help Martin stay in school when Heather’s mom said, “Honey, how do you know he is not lying?”
She wasn’t the first to ask this—my mom had heard it from her friends, and I heard it from the family I babysat for, as well as most any adult who learned what we were trying to do. Heather’s mom was like my mom. She saw goodness in people first. I hated that anyone would think Martin was a grifter—especially people with big hearts. Martin was the most honest and honorable person I’d ever known. Whenever I said that in his defense, people shook their heads, as if to say “Poor naïve Caitlin.” I couldn’t stomach that. Instead, I said the same thing to Heather’s mom that I overheard my mom say to friends and neighbor: “Well, if he is, shame on him. And if he’s not, shame on us for thinking that way.”
I understood everyone’s concern—Nigerian phishing scams were making newspaper headlines. Criminals pretending to be young Nigerian men or women in trouble would send fake e-mails that said I’ve been robbed and need money to get to safety. Well-meaning people sent money to a mysterious bank account and suddenly their own accounts were drained. My parents were well aware of this—and I think that is why my mom was going to such great lengths to help Martin in the right way. People might also argue that I was an easy mark: I wasn’t always the most serious person. But I would just dismiss the naysayers. My attitude was, You don’t understand and I don’t need to explain myself. That’s always how I felt. Thankfully, my parents stood by me 100 percent.
Still, figuring out how to help Martin was taking much longer than I expected. I had promised him we’d sort everything out. What if that was impossible?
November was difficult. We still had no concrete answers from experts and even worse, we had not heard from Martin since his last letter in September. What if he had not received the money I had sent him? What if he was kicked out of school and was back to pouring tea? I could not bear these thoughts. I needed to do something else to help.
Martin had mentioned once that the shirts I sent him had “greatly increased” his wardrobe. I now understood what he was actually saying. Those shirts quadrupled his T-shirt collection, which went from one to four. Meanwhile, I had an entire T-shirt drawer and more clothes than could fit in my closet. That gave me an idea.
“Mom, want to go shopping?” I said once I found her downstairs.
“What do you need, hon?” she asked.
“Actually, not for me,” I explained. “For Martin—actually, for his entire family.”
She looked at me quizzically.
“It’s almost Christmas, and I thought, we’ve sent him small gifts. Wouldn’t it be nice to send his parents and siblings clothing as well?”
“Terrific idea!” she said. “Let’s go!”
This moment made me realize how lucky I was. My father worked to pay all the household bills, but my mom worked so she could do things like this. She was as excited as I was.
We drove to Ross, where I had bought Martin the Reebok shirt. We didn’t discuss a budget—only that we’d get something for everyone.
Walking through the fluorescent-lit aisles lined with rack after rack of T-shirts, shorts, dresses, and more, I realized I had no idea what size anyone was. I knew Martin was the second eldest of five, but he rarely wrote about his siblings. The most recent photo he sent me was taken from the shoulders up, so I had no idea how big or small he might be. Just then, a slender salesman, shorter than me, approached and asked if we needed help.
“What size are you?” I asked.
He looked at me in a funny way.
“I want to buy clothes for a Zimbabwean friend,” I explained. “And my guess is, he is your size.”
“Excuse me?” he replied.
“Actually, we’re shopping for an entire family in Africa,” my mother interjected. “And yes, we’d love your help.”
If Martin and Nation were the eldest boys, the other three siblings were younger than me. We went to the kids’ section first and selected three pairs of shorts in different sizes. Then we found a skirt with an elastic waist for Martin’s mom, since we had no idea if she was big or small. That gave us leeway. All the cargo shorts had drawstring waists for the same reason—we had no idea what size anyone was. We got T-shirts in small, medium, and large for the men in the family. A small mountain was growing in our cart, and we hadn’t even hit the shoe section. Since I had to guesstimate, we selected two pairs of sneakers: one for Martin, and the other for whoever in his family might also need a new pair of shoes.
“Let’s get socks as well,” my mom suggested. “This way he can wear two pairs if t
he shoes are too big and grow into them later.”
We hit the toiletry section next, which was having a super sale: I picked out several bottles of shampoos, an aftershave, and cologne. Tommy Hilfiger and Polo Ralph Lauren were especially popular among the boys at school. I thought Martin might like them, too.
The total was $208, a lot of money, but my mom and I were amazed at how much it bought. We left the store with a shopping bag in each hand, four total. From there, we drove to Staples to get school supplies. I wanted to buy Martin pens and pencils, as well as notebooks and a school bag. There, I spotted Crayola Stampers, the markers I used to decorate Martin’s letters. He had recently asked me about them, so I grabbed a pack.
Our last stop was the nearby Shop ’n Save grocery store to get a box big enough to pack everything in. There, I had an idea.
“What if we buy candy to use instead of packing peanuts?” I said.
I loved candy then—and still do. My favorites were Airheads, which tasted like taffy, and Runts, these small hard candies that come in different fruit flavors. I thought it would be cool to send Martin all kinds of American candy that might be difficult to get in Zimbabwe. I still could not believe that my German cousin had never heard of Skittles or Starburst and wanted Martin to try all my favorites.
We filled seven plastic bags meant for produce with Hershey’s Kisses, Starbursts, jawbreakers, Bazooka bubble gum, Tootsie Rolls, butterscotch, and the hard candies with the soft centers that look and taste like strawberries.
Back home, we were packing everything into the big box when I had yet another idea: I had three Walkmans. Martin loved music and had recently written about his favorite Zimbabwean musician, Thomas Mapfumo. I went to get one of my Walkmans to include in the package, and then grabbed a Ricky Martin cassette as well, so he would have something to listen to.
I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives Page 10