August 15, 2003

Martin

HEARING CAITLIN SAY “YOU MADE IT!” when we first embraced made me realize this was real. For so many years, I thought I had conjured her. But here she was, as beautiful as I imagined, but much taller. She towered over me. No longer the twelve-year-old girl with jewelry on her teeth that I first met six years ago. I wouldn’t wake up in Chigodora, or Chisamba Singles, or Victoria Falls in a sweat. I had made it.

As I was telling her about all my adventures, I saw that the girl who became my best friend in her letters was the woman sitting right next to me in the car. I still couldn’t believe it. But I felt immediately at ease with her. Anne and Rich were asking questions from the front seat, smiling, so loving as well. She got this demeanor from both parents, I thought.

They drove me by Villanova’s campus and it took my breath away. It was difficult to imagine I would be walking across that campus as an American student in less than two weeks. I could barely believe I was sitting there, in the back of a four-by-four Jeep, next to Caitlin.

We pulled into their driveway, which I immediately recognized from the photos Caitlin had sent me. Richie came out to embrace me.

“My African brother!” Richie said. “Very cool to meet you.”

Caitlin took me inside and showed me around. They had set up a room for me in the basement, where my dear friend Wallace had spent many nights. We called him after I showered. He was still in Colorado finishing his summer there. I would see him in a week or so. Then Caitlin said, “Let’s go.”

She wanted to take me shopping at the legendary mall to get some things for my new American life.

Walking into the glimmering palace with its magic sliding glass doors and gusts of cool air was everything I had imagined and more. The smells of sweet cinnamon and fried food overwhelmed me as we walked through what Caitlin called “the food court.” We shared something called a Cinnabon, and to this day, I have never eaten anything that delicious. Then she took me shopping. That I found overwhelming.

To start, her father gave her his credit card. This was a new concept, that a small piece of plastic could purchase so many things. Caitlin bought me pants and shorts, T-shirts and long-sleeved shirts, flip-flops, sunglasses, and more. I kept saying it was unnecessary, but soon just gave up. When she picked out not one but three belts, I had to say something.

“I only have one waist,” I said.

I had never witnessed such excess, not even at Marist Brothers. Eventually I just went along with it, like I was in a dream. Or an American movie, like the ones I’d watch sitting on my brother’s shoulders and peering through a window all those years before in Chisamba Singles.

Back home, Caitlin insisted I put on a new outfit for dinner, my first with my American family. When I came downstairs in my chinos and button-down shirt, everyone erupted in applause. The feeling reminded me of my first day slipping into my uniform at Marist Brothers: But this was even bigger. I was dressed now as an American student. My dream had been realized.

I sat down at the table, which my American mother had covered in food: a meat dish she called pot roast with potatoes and carrots that made my mouth water with its rich smell. The bowl of salad was so large I could wrap both my arms around it, and there was a small spinning device next to it with an assortment of bottles that Caitlin called dressing. I had never heard of that word, nor was I the slightest bit hungry. I was still full from the Cinnabon—and too ecstatic to eat. But I helped myself to a bit of everything. I wanted to taste it all; each bite was further proof that this was real. I was in Hatfield with my American family wearing my new clothes and about to go to university.

The next day, Anne and Rich hosted a party for me and invited all of Caitlin’s relatives and neighbors. I met aunts and uncles and cousins who greeted me as if I were a long-lost relative who had finally come home.

After we ate, Anne stood up to make a speech. She introduced me to the family formally, and as she did, her voice grew wobbly, shaking with emotion. This stirred something in me. It brought me back from the high-in-the-sky feeling I had had ever since I boarded the plane in Paris. It reconnected me to the ground, and to the fact that I was standing next to my best friend in her backyard, in Hatfield, Pennsylvania. Anne paused mid-sentence to collect herself and I began to speak. It was not rehearsed, or even intended. These words came from deep inside me, waiting to emerge.

“I just want to thank you. You really don’t understand what part you have played in my life, and in the lives of people who are dependent on me. This is going to bring a great change to my family. It has always been my dream to go to college. It will give me a platform to exploit my potential and get some help to my family and friends in Zimbabwe. I just want to hope that God will give you maximum blessings.”

I felt Caitlin squeeze my hand, and I squeezed back. After six years of imagining what it would be like to see her, to hug her, to hear her laugh, to hold her hand, here she was, my best friend from afar, now standing right next to me.