Cast your bread upon the water…

The other night I did a typical thing for a boarding school teacher. I had heard that a new boy had learned of the death of a beloved uncle far away in his home village and I went over to check on him and see how he was doing. That’s a typical thing for a boarding school teacher to do. However, that night I got to know better a young man who is anything but typical.

I had gotten to know this new young man, Wali, a little bit since he had come to the read-through and to learn about the fall play which I am directing. I encountered a friendly, smiling young man in my room excited to be at KA. The other night, when I went over to serve and check on Wali, the more I learned of his story, the more in awe I became at this young man.

I visited with Wali almost two hours in his room the other night. When I arrived, another teacher was there, a dear friend named Ruba, and she and I both had come to check on Wali. When we left nearly two hours later we could hardly explain and articulate to each other how special and powerful it had been to be in Wali’s presence that evening. Our small act of service to Wali had been rewarded with an astonishingly powerful evening learning about Wali’s life.

In our time talking with Wali, Ruba and I frequently had tears in our eyes—but these were not tears because of the deprivation, struggles, reversals of fortune, and sad life Wali has experienced. That Wali has had a different life from almost everyone I have ever known is not really the point of how powerful the evening was. My teary eyes were not really out sadness for the educational and medical misfortunes Wali and his family have known. This was an evening of, well, spiritual renewal—sitting in Wali’s room, listening to his story of his family, how he came to be at our school, how he has taught himself English, how he has overcome the kinds of adversity that doom most people—I am almost at a loss for words as to convey how meaningful it was to sit and get to know this young man more deeply.

Wali is from Afghanistan. I am not going to recite many of the facts of his life, for I fear that in being so reductive I would drain his story of much of its meaning and simply tell a maudlin tale. But in the briefest of overviews, Wali’s family suffered under the Taliban, fled to Pakistan, lived a refugee life, returned home to a devastated village, suffered under the continuous wars that plague Afghanistan, endured horrendous medical treatment from a vastly understaffed field of doctors, attended a ghastly school with woefully under-trained teachers, and now has ended up at our school. And as I said, friendly and smiling.

Wali explained that there are a number of very good foreigners who make their way through the war-ravaged Afghanistan villages (Wali is about a 90 minute rough ride from Kabul in an isolated village where electricity is a luxury) eager to help people. He described several of these mentors, a Jewish rabbi and a New England teacher, who helped Wali figure out how to springboard to something else. For most of a decade of his 17 year-old life Wali has wanted to be a doctor. That aspiration is nothing new for students at KA to enunciate. In fact, that is the most common career path desired by our students. In Jordan, saying you want to be a doctor is an announcement of status, of your intelligence, of the bragging rights your family will have forever. Many of the students may not want to actually be a doctor—but if you are considered at all smart, well, that is what you must aspire to be. That isn’t all bad, of course, but that decision isn’t always grounded in a burning need to heal people. Wali wants to be a doctor because he wants to reverse the dreadful medical treatment his family has experienced. Wali matter-of-factly explained some of the near-disasters his family has endured with the weak medical system in Afghanistan. He wants to be a doctor to right these wrongs for his family and for others.

As I listened to Wali, I couldn’t imagine how strange it must be for him to come to this boarding school where there are some wealthy students who have never wanted for anything, least of all electricity or books. We have students of modest backgrounds, but Wali’s situation reminded me of when I met Unita Blackwell in the Mississippi delta back in the summer of 2000 and she explained what life has been like in her lifetime. I have seen images of war-ravaged Afghanistan going back to the Soviet invasion in 1979, and we know of the Taliban and United States ravages throughout that land from news stories, but frankly, we become pretty inured to those abstractions.

Wali taught himself English. I sat there a little embarrassed at my lack of progress in my Arabic, but I loved listening to him explain how he taught himself English, and then how he searched for books, books on mathematics, science, and English and American literature. He proudly noted that he has read 143 books in English. He read us some poetry he has written about his hopes and dreams. I shared with him the poem by Seamus Heaney that I love about how “History and Hope” often do not “rhyme,” although once in a great while there is a “double-take of feeling” where they do converge.

Wali does not seek pity for how hard life has been for him. Indeed, as I listened to him and walked back to my apartment at the end of the evening, Wali reminded me a great deal of Abraham Lincoln. Wali and Lincoln never sought pity or exceptions for the realities of their upbringing. Wali and Lincoln did anything they could to find books and to learn more. Wali and Lincoln had an understanding of human nature that strove for, and celebrated, in Abe’s words, “the better angels of our nature.”

This fall, as I trot out the warhorse play, Our Town, I am committed to high school students understanding an iota of Emily’s revelation of life at the end of the play. It is always my hope that we might appreciate life, and seek out those eternal things in life a little better. Wali doesn’t need the play Our Town—his approach to life, his upbeat, optimistic, hopeful spin on how life is is an inspiring lesson in itself.

My great-grandmother loved the phrase, “Cast your bread upon the water.” The old Hebrew idiom has to do with giving to others and then you will be rewarded. Talking with Wali and hearing how his life has taken hairpin turns and now doors have opened to him reminds me of this old axiom. I can only imagine what good will happen from this confident young man’s life. Being in his presence is uplifting!

Fifty-some years ago John Kennedy wrote a famous book, Profiles in Courage. Wali is indeed a profile in courage. Here he is—enrolled in AP Biology and AP World History, studying with an intensity he couldn’t have imagined just weeks ago. I have just seen the tip of the iceberg though of what I imagine he will teach us.

Once in awhile when I speak to my wise, wise friend Doris Jackson, I ask her how long she thinks I am “supposed” to stay in Jordan. Doris always says, “I don’t think your assignment is finished there yet. I still think you have a few more things to learn.” Doris is always right, and this year, for sure, I know I needed to stay in Jordan so I could meet and learn from Wali.