Kintinku, Tanzania
The scrap of paper wasn’t much bigger than a business card.

Yohanne Kidolezi’s mother thanked the young boy who had run the note over to her house from the train station and then read the words that were scribbled on the paper: Yohanne Kidolezi….Dar Es Salaam…United World College…Interview on Tuesday. Only the words didn’t look exactly like that—the spelling was atrocious—but it didn’t matter; they might as well have been in Greek for all the sense they made to Yohanne’s mother. So she sat down and waited for her son to return from the rice fields. He’d know what this strange message meant.

It was after eight p.m. when Yohanne entered the house, and he was exhausted from a 12-hour day working the fields—rice and corn in the morning, bean and peanut in the afternoon, then back to rice in the evening. All he wanted to do was relax, maybe hang out with some friends, before turning in for the night.

His mother greeted him at the door. “This came from the railroad station for you,” she said and handed him that small scrap of paper.

Yohanne read what was written—who wrote this, he thought, the spelling is all off —then returned his mother’s puzzled look.

“I have no idea what this means,” he said. “United World College? What’s that? Interview? For what?”

“Maybe it’s important,” his mother replied.

Yohanne said nothing.

“You must go.”

To Yohanne, this notion was laughable. Set aside the fact that it was Saturday night and Dar Es Salaam was a two-day journey by train and bus; to get there by Tuesday, he’d have to leave the next morning. Set aside the fact that he’d miss five days of work, work that meant putting food on his family’s table. Set aside the fact that he didn’t know where he was supposed to go in his country’s capital city—a teeming metropolis he had never visited—much less why he was supposed to go in the first place. No, Yohanne thought, settling on the most practical reason. I can’t possibly go. We can’t afford it.

A round-trip train and bus ticket to Dar Es Salaam would cost at least five U.S. dollars, far more money than Yohanne or his mother had, so he left it at that. “I’ll be back shortly,” he told his mother, and went out into the night to find a friend so he could share this bizarre tale of a cryptic message that spoke of a far away city, a world college, and an interview.

When he came home an hour or so later, Yohanne was ready to put it all behind him, but again his mother met him at the door.

“Here,” she said, holding out her hand. Only this time she held not a scrap of paper, but the equivalent of five U.S. dollars. While Yohanne was out, she’d gone from door to door in their rural farming community of 1,000 people and borrowed the money her son would need to travel to Dar Es Salaam.

“Maybe it’s important.”

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