There was an Internet cafe not far from Alois and Sekai’s house. I checked in my first morning there on my way to the US embassy to see if there was any news. There was an e-mail from Villanova dated July 15, 2003.
I was trembling as I clicked it open.
July 2003
Caitlin
I WOKE UP STARTLED. MY mother was screaming so loud, I thought something terrible must have happened. It was a rare day off, and I had been out with Damon until one AM playing pool. After our big fight that spring, Damon really backed off and gave me space. I appreciated it. But he was really happy when school was over, as I had more time for him. I was happy, too.
I heard another shriek and looked at my clock—it was 9:15 AM. I stumbled downstairs to make sure everything was okay.
That’s when I heard her say, “That’s fantastic news!”
I had to tap her on the shoulder to let her know I was there, waiting to hear what on earth was so exciting on a Thursday morning.
“Caitlin, they did it!” she cried. She then told me the story at breakneck speed:
“Father Dobbin marched my letter down to Candice, placed it on her desk, and said, ‘Martin Ganda.’ Candice said, ‘Yes, Father Dobbin. He’s an extraordinary young man, but we don’t have the money for a full scholarship.’ And then Father Dobbin tapped his finger on her desk, and said, ‘Find the money.’ That was in June, and this is Candice on the phone right now saying they found the money! Martin is going to Villanova!”
The rush of emotions was so intense, I thought it might swallow me whole.
July 2003
Martin
THE FIRST LINE OF THE e-mail was like rocket fuel:
We are pleased to offer you a full scholarship beginning with the 2003–2004 academic year.
It propelled me from my seat. The breath I’d been holding for the past few months came barreling out of my mouth as I shouted, “Yesssssss!”
The cafe was already filled with people. Several turned to look at me like I was crazy. I did not care.
“I am going to America!” I shouted. “AMER-I-CA!!!”
I managed to sit back down to read the rest of the message. It said a package was sent to Rebecca Mano on my behalf with all the paperwork necessary to secure my visa.
I was so excited that I ran out without paying for the computer use. When I saw the shop owner come after me, I grabbed money from my pocket and shoved it into his hand and then started sprinting.
The bus to the embassy took forever that day. There were plenty of seats, but I was too excited to keep still. I paced up and down the aisle, my heart pounding, my mind racing. As soon as I saw the white gleaming building in the distance, I pulled the cord to stop the bus and then ran down the street and through the wrought-iron gates.
“Congratulations, Martin!” Rebecca said as I burst through her door.
She handed me a FedEx package that was as heavy as a textbook. I pulled the cardboard strip and the contents fell onto my lap.
VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY was written in navy blue across a thick cream-colored cardboard folder. I opened it and saw a version of the e-mail I had just received. This was the official acceptance letter. This was real.
I looked up at Rebecca, who was beaming.
“A lot of people believe in you, Martin,” she said. “Including me.”
I thought of every single person who helped me get to this very place, sitting in the American embassy across from a blond-haired and blue-eyed woman who spoke fluent Shona. The list was long, but it started with Caitlin. I had to share the news.
“Shall we call them?” Rebecca asked.
“Can we?” I said.
She picked up the phone and started to dial.
July 2003
Caitlin
THE NEWS WAS STILL SINKING in two hours later when the phone rang. I picked it up and said hello, but there was a funny echo, like the person on the other end was calling from the moon.
“Caitlin?” I heard a few seconds later. “It’s Martin.”
I started to shake.
“You got the scholarship!” I shouted.
My mother came running, so I put him on speakerphone and kept shouting, not because I thought he couldn’t hear me, but because I was too excited to speak otherwise.
“You need to be here by August twenty-fourth!” My mom was now shouting, too. “I just spoke to Candice. We know everything.”
“Mom?” Martin said. “Is that you?”
“Yes, it is me,” my mom said. “We are finally going to meet you!”
“My brother from another mother!” I chimed in. That’s what we had started calling Martin in my household.
“I look forward to that day,” Martin said.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Here in your embassy, with Rebecca,” he said.
“Well, tell her that I will arrange for the airline tickets immediately,” Mom said. “In fact, may I speak with her?”
My mom got out her notepad and started making a list of things we needed to do as Martin’s sponsors once he was here in the United States.
“You did it, Mom!” I said after we hung up.
“Honey, none of this would have happened without you,” she said. “Don’t ever forget that.”
We called my dad and Richie to tell them the good news. Wallace was in Colorado working for a friend his parents had met in Victoria Falls. I called Damon last.
“That is amazing news, Caitlin,” he said. “I’m so proud of you.”
“You’re finally going to meet him,” I said.
“It will be like meeting a celebrity at this point,” Damon said. “I can’t wait.”
“I can’t, either,” I said.
The very same day my mom booked a one-way ticket for Martin. He would leave Zimbabwe on August 15 and arrive in Philadelphia the next day. After waiting nearly six years for this moment, a month felt like forever.
August 2003
Martin
I DIDN’T HAVE MUCH TIME to get ready, so I returned to Victoria Falls to tell Tecla and Phanuel the great news and get all my vaccinations.
From there I went to Mutare to say good-bye to my family. I wanted to tell them about the scholarship in person. I also had to say good-bye. I had a feeling it would be a long time before I saw them again.
I waited until my father and Nation came home that evening. We were all sitting around the fire, eating together. George was now seven, no longer a baby but a grown boy. Lois was twelve, the same age Caitlin was when she started writing me. She had maintained the number one position in her class since grade one without once slipping. Anne still sent my mother money to keep everyone in school, which meant Lois, too, would go to college if she wanted to.
I was thinking of her when I stood up to make the announcement.
“Mai, Baba, I have news,” I started. “I will be leaving in a few weeks to study in America.”
I saw a smile grow across my mother’s face—but it quickly turned to a frown when my father leaped from his seat and started to run around shouting, “Martin is going to the United States! He did it!”
My mother started hissing, “Keep quiet! This is no time to brag.”
Some things would never change.
My father was so happy for me, and this news, but my mother was superstitious. “You don’t brag about things ever,” she scolded my father when he finally calmed down again. “We cannot jinx this.”
Then she turned to me and said quietly and composed, “We’re very happy for you, Martin. You have made your poor parents so proud.”
Her eyes shone in the firelight, happy tears.
I was scheduled to take the train back the very next day. Before I left, I took my mother aside. Anne had sent one hundred US dollars to the Victoria Falls Western Union with a note that said for travel expenses. I priced the least-expensive round trip train ticket to Mutare and kept a small amount of money for food during the two-day journey, and gave the rest to my mother.
“This is for you, Mother, from my American mother,” I said, placing ninety-six US dollars in her hands.
“You keep this, son,” she said.
“No, Mai,” I said, wrapping her hand around the cash. “Once I get to America, I will send more. But until I get there, I need to know you’re going to be okay.”
My mother looked me in the eyes and said, “Martin, we are fine—because of you. Now go!”
I hugged her, and then my father placed both of his hands on my shoulders and said, “I am so proud of you, son. So, so proud.”
I said good-bye to Nation and Simba, both grown men by then. It was hardest to say good-bye to Lois this time.
“I will miss you, brother,” Lois said as she hugged me good-bye.
“Keep your grades up and you will soon come after me,” I said.
I returned to Vic Falls the first week in August, to wait for the plane tickets to arrive. Each day felt an eternity. By August 11, the tickets had still not arrived.
I knew Caitlin and her mom had sent them, but that didn’t help. The waiting kept me awake at night, and fed the wildest dreams whenever I did drift off. In one, I was lying on a dirt floor in a hut similar to the one I shared with Frank in Chigodora. It was pouring rain—the water sounded like pounding hooves on the thatched roof, which I was convinced would collapse at any moment. Suddenly, water started seeping in from the sides and rising up from the floor. When it reached my face, I startled awake, drenched with sweat.
I looked around and was relieved that I was not in Chigodora, or even Chisamba Singles, but still in the guest room at Wallace’s house. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the lost ticket was a sign that this was not meant to be.
That morning, at breakfast, Tecla informed me a prophet was coming to see me.
In Zimbabwe, prophets are like witch doctors. They can foretell the future. My mother made my father see one many years ago, before I was born, when he was misbehaving. That meeting, she claimed, cured him of his womanizing. I didn’t entirely believe in their powers, but they are hugely popular in my country. People turned to witch doctors more often than regular doctors, and many friends and family members claimed that it worked. I was so desperate at this point, I was willing to put aside my skepticism and try anything.
The prophet arrived dressed in a robe. His silver hair was clumped into dreadlocks, steel wool snakes slithering down his back.
We sat in the living room, and I told him my troubles. He grabbed my hands and started to chant with his eyes closed. When he started speaking gibberish, I was so terrified that I closed my eyes as well.
His entire body started shaking violently as he kept chanting. I cracked open my eyes and saw that his were open, too, but rolling in the back of his head. He started moaning, and sounded like an animal in heat. The shaking grew more intense until finally he let go of my hands with such ferocity that I fell backward. When I regained my composure, the prophet was sitting quietly, with his hands folded in his lap.
“Your aunt doesn’t want you to go,” he said. “She has a bone to chew with your mother, so she’s placed a hex on you.”
I had never met my aunt, but I know she stayed behind in the rural area and was worse off than my mother was. I thought of the topless women I saw in Chigodora, and of Enough, the young girl who walked seven kilometers to get to school. I thought of all the people in Zimbabwe who were struggling, who deserved the chance I was being given.
“What can I do?” I asked.
“Let us pray,” the prophet said.
I grabbed his hands and closed my eyes and I made a litany of silent promises. If those tickets came, if I was allowed on that plane, if I actually made it to the United States to study, I’d never forget those who couldn’t go with me. I would always remember Enough. And my mother. When I opened my eyes, I saw the prophet staring at me.
“That’s all you can do,” he said.
Afterward, I was so exhausted that I went upstairs and fell asleep. It was the middle of the day, but I was so tired that I slept straight through dinner and until the following morning. It was a sound, restful sleep, the first in a very long time.
August 12, 2003
Caitlin
FEDEX CLAIMED THAT ITS forty-eight-hour guarantee did not apply to Africa. My mother was livid. When I left for the pizza parlor at noon on August 12, she was on the phone screaming at them. And when I got back later at night, she was pleading with the consolidator whom she’d bought the ticket from.
“We already paid for it,” she said. “Can’t they reissue one at the airport?”
I couldn’t hear the response, but I knew it wasn’t good when my mother shouted, “Thank you for nothing!” and slammed down the phone.
My father arrived moments later.
“How is it going?” he asked.
“Horribly!” she said. Her voice was scratchy. “I’m at my wits’ end. I already called Villanova to say he might not get here in time.”
“What did they say?” I asked, alarmed that it had come to this.
“That they would hold his spot until January,” my mother said. “But Martin can’t wait that long. He needs to come now.”
“Let me make a few calls,” my dad said.
We ate dinner first, and then my father took over the phone, starting with the consolidator and then working the airlines and FedEx.
At one AM, he was still on the phone. It was seven AM in Vic Falls. My mom thought we should call Martin to tell him the news.
“What news?” I said, exasperated. “There is no news!”
“Tell him to go to the airport,” my father said. “He’s getting on that plane.”
August 14, 2003
Martin
MY FLIGHT WAS SCHEDULED TO leave in three hours when the phone rang. Tecla jumped to get it. She then handed the receiver to me. It was Anne.
“Mom,” I said, relieved. “Am I coming?”
“We’re still working on it,” she said.
I could tell she had been crying, and that started my own tears.
I was so stupid to believe that these voodoo rituals might work—and angry that I allowed myself to think they would.
The tears were now stinging the backs of my eyes. I handed the phone to Tecla and ran up to my room. I couldn’t cry in front of Wallace’s parents. It was too undignified. As soon as I was able to shut the bedroom door, I fell onto my bed and buried my head beneath my pillow. The sounds that came from my belly were as primal and terrifying as the prophet’s. They hurt my throat as they clawed their way up and out.
Ten minutes later, there was a knock at the door. I wiped my face dry before opening it.
Phanuel and Tecla were there.
“Get your things, we’re taking you to the airport,” they said.
“How come?” I asked, confused.
“We’re not sure how, but you’re getting on that plane,” Phanuel said.
I grabbed the few things I was taking: my money belt with all my paperwork, a toothbrush, and one of the very first photos of Caitlin, in which she is wearing her mother’s sun hat. I placed that picture with my passport in the money belt and followed Tecla and Phanuel downstairs and into the car. They had already packed a suitcase of African art for me to bring to Anne, who would send it to another friend in the US to sell to raise funds for Wallace.
Wallace’s father drove so fast, I thought we might actually crash. We now had less than an hour before my flight left. We pulled into the airport and went to the British Airways desk to explain the situation. The attendant pointed us toward the manager’s office, down the corridor.
The manager was on the phone when we arrived. Phanuel knocked on her window—we knew this was rude, but the flight was boarding. There wasn’t time for manners.
She looked up from her desk and waved us in.
“Martin Ganda?” she said.
“Yes,” I answered, stunned.
“I’m talking to a man who claims he’s your Ame
rican father,” she said.
The hex had been lifted.
Five minutes later I walked outside onto the tarmac with a ticket in my hand.
I was the last person to board the small jet to Johannesburg. I took my seat, by the window, and waved at Tecla and Phanuel, who waited to make sure I got on the plane.
“Welcome to British Airways Flight 429,” the stewardess announced as the propellers outside started to whir. “Please prepare for takeoff.”
I had never been on a plane before and had no idea what that meant, so I looked around at the other passengers. There were only thirty or so people on board, most of them white men in business suits. A few were likely tourists, I guessed, based on their khaki pants and matching shirts. There was one other black guy a few years older than me.
Copying the others, I snapped my seat belt on and tugged it extra tight. As the plane began to move, I held on to the arm rest with both hands, my knuckles straining through my skin. When the nose of the plane tilted upward, I thought I might throw up the meal I had eaten at Tecla and Phanuel’s house earlier that morning. I closed my eyes and prayed.
I opened them when the stewardess announced that it was fine to walk around. All these people snapped off their seat belts and got up to get books or stretch or use the restroom. I looked out the window and saw clouds and blue skies forever.
I closed my eyes again and did not open them until we had landed safely in Johannesburg.
The airport was the busiest place I’d ever seen. All these people, many talking with funny accents, or in languages I had never heard before. There were signs with lists of flight numbers followed by the names of exotic places they were heading to. Tecla had given me ten US dollars to get snacks. I saw a McDonald’s and got very excited. Some of the wealthier kids from Marist Brothers had bragged about it. So I walked up to the counter and bought my very first hamburger. It cost eight dollars, but I did not care. It was delicious.
I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives Page 24