A Reason to Believe_ Lessons From an Improbable Life - Deval Patrick [22]
Before we left, the admissions director at Milton told us that a young student from Edinburgh would be coming to spend a year at the school, sight unseen, and asked us to stop by his family’s home and answer any questions they might have. When we arrived in Edinburgh, we contacted Ian and Esme Walker, whose son, Angus, would be the lucky new Miltonian. Though Angus was away, his parents promptly invited us to lunch at their grand, eighteenth-century manor house in the “old” section of town, and that led to a lifelong friendship. We had six weeks like that: befriending strangers, seeing the sights, figuring out how to drive on the wrong side of the road, and managing the currency.
But at summer’s end, Will flew home, and Sudan was staring me in the face. As I saw him off from Heathrow, I suddenly realized that I was on my own, and I was momentarily overwhelmed.
“One foot in front of the other,” I whispered to myself. “One foot in front of the other.”
Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, sits at the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, and it was hard to get to in those days. The flight from London made numerous stops and was expensive. A gradual introduction to life on the African continent seemed to make more sense. My correspondent at the UNDP was expecting me anytime in September, so why not take the long way, via Cairo? The cheapest route to Cairo went through Athens. So I flew there and spent several days walking around that extraordinary city, seeing the sights and waiting for the weekly flight to Egypt’s capital. It was the first time I had been alone in a place where nothing was familiar—not the language, the signs, the food, or the surroundings. I was scared and excited at the same time. I don’t think I slept at all.
The flight from Athens was delayed, so we landed in Cairo late at night. The airport was apparently closed. Ill-tempered immigration officials flanked by gruff soldiers with black metal machine guns checked passports and visas. On the other side of the checkpoint was pure chaos. Crowds of waiting men were screaming at the baggage handlers. The baggage handlers were screaming at the passengers. The passengers were screaming at the taxi drivers. The guards were screaming at the crowds and trying to hold them back. It was madness in at least two languages. What had I gotten myself into?
I had memorized a handful of Arabic greetings and numbers from a phrase book during the flight. When I stepped up to present my passport, I screwed up my courage and said, “Salaam alaikum,” the most traditional Arabic greeting. The sullen official, sitting there in his black beret and dull green uniform, complete with epaulets, looked again at my American passport and back at me with surprise and smiled broadly, revealing brown-stained teeth under his black mustache. He replied heartily, “Alaikum salaam.” Chattering away in Arabic, he left his post, despite the long line of passengers behind me, to help me claim my backpack and push through the crowd to the curb. He then hailed one of the decrepit taxis and spoke to the driver. He seemed to be admonishing the driver not to take advantage of me. I felt reassured. I didn’t know where I was going and had no idea what the man actually said, but gestures of kindness need no translation.
I didn’t have a plan. I couldn’t afford to check into a big Western-style hotel, and it wasn’t in the spirit of the fellowship anyway. So, using my phrase book and a guidebook called Africa on the Cheap, or something like that, I asked the driver to take me to a cheap hotel downtown. At least I think that’s what I asked him. We