I was standing on the bridge over River Aswan, a tributary of the Nile, returning from school. The orange, andalsuian sun was beating down at the barren, lifeless Sudanese terrain, and I had stopped there to stare at the clash of nature and civilization stretching from beneath the bridge, to as far as the eye could see. This land had a myriad of tales, of famine, and of sparse cultivation, of old people living of whatever the land could provide them, and of children wailing their very existence in this country struck with misfortune.
A tall boy with dark, curly brown hair, dressed only in stained, pale brown shorts, torn towards the knees, approached me. He had a sac laden on his back, heaving down at him, and he was carrying it, walking with lethargy. He dropped his sac beside me, picked up an amulet from among the multitude of brightly colored, intricately made handicraft items, and spoke in an animated manner:
“Me…Marishet, Marishet Dires,” and he pointed at himself. “You?”
“I am John Hale,” I replied confidently.
“You not from here. Where you come from?” and he made funny hand gestures to complement his poor English.
“Yes, I am not a Sudanian. My father works here for the United Nations Organization. He makes homes and schools for children like you.”
“Oh!” He smiled. “Here is souvenir for you, no money, only heart,” and he deftly tied the amulet around my wrist.
I looked at the delicate, well decorated amulet colored red, yellow, and green-Rastafarian colors. However what surprised me, was, that he had not asked for money. On the contrary, he asked for something else:
“Now give me pen!” I looked at him quizzically, trying to figure out what a poor, young Sudanian boy would want to do with a pen.
“You see, I go to school, and the pen I use finish up. My family too poor to buy me pen. Please give me pen!” he requested, his eyes shining in anticipation. I took out a pen from my school bag and handed it over to him.
“Thank you!” he said in an appreciative tone. “Now you give me your address, I write to you!” and then he talked of how he wanted to become a doctor or a lawyer, but the school in which he studied was not good.
“I will talk to my father about you, Marishet! I will ask him to make good schools for students like you,” I said, as I handed a note bearing my postal and email address, over to him.
That night, I told my father about Marishet and his ambitions. Father told me that UNICEF had already been working on schools in Sudan, and he appreciated Marishet’s dreams a lot.
Since that afternoon, I never heard from Marishet again, until years later, when I received an email titled ‘Greetings from an African boy’. Soon, I realized, that it was from Marishet, and while I figured out how might that tall and young, but poor Sudanian boy have been exposed to computers and the internet, I read that Marishet had continued going to school, and later, UNICEF had arranged for him to go to London, for higher education. Now, he had ended up at the University of London, studying Medicine. He was grateful for what my father and UNICEF had done for the children of Sudan, and signing off, he had written:
“Thank you for the pen!”
This had indeed been an unforgettable experience in my school life.
MUHAMMAD AHMED TAJAMMUL
Lahore
