Bella (Episode 4)

[Click here for Episode 3]

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At 0500 hours GMT, the American Airlines Boeing 787 Max began a descend onto John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York after a fifteen-hour direct flight from the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. The air at ten thousand feet was thin and chilly, and the dawn sky was dark but punctuated by the lights dotting the runways below. A female voice came over the system with a heavy American accent, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are beginning our descent onto JFK Airport. Please fasten your seatbelts. We are expecting turbulence. Relax and get ready. Welcome to America!’

Bella stood at the airport waiting bay and took a deep breath of fresh American air. America! A place she had only read of in books. She had never imagined that it was real let alone one day setting foot there. Yet here she was. In New York on a chilly Sunday morning. The airport alone was testimony of the famed magnificence of the country. Everything was as it should be: grand and beautiful and amazing.

She had never seen so many White people in all her life. Youngish attendants paced across the airport often stopping to ask her if she needed any help. She had been told that her chauffeur would arrive at 8 o’clock, therefore she didn’t bother them. My chauffeur? She had hardly ever referred to anything as hers in her entire life. Yet she now stood here with a briefcase full of new clothes and shoes and waiting to be driven off in a Volkswagen. Whoever said that America is the land of dreams must have been inspired.

Her car arrived at 7:59. The driver was a young, charming boy who looked fresh out of high school, and he regaled her with tales of the great country. ‘You will love it here,’ he assured her. ‘Only stay off the cops and anyone with a gun. Although everyone here has a gun.’ She looked surprised. ‘Guns are legal in most states’, he added.

That was a scary enough introduction for a first-time visitor.

Yet it didn’t alter her admiration of the city. Cruising through the expansive streets of New York, Bella couldn’t stop herself from marveling at the towering skyscrapers. The city was full of light. Large screens on the high walls announced brands and beckoned buyers to spend another dollar. The streets were endless.

Education in America was like nothing she had ever dreamed of. First of all, the campus. Stanford was like a timepiece from the 18th century but with the flimsy allure of the present day. The buildings were not flashy, but they were grand. She liked to stroll along the hallways and across the paved streets. Other times, her girl's study group would sit on the grass in the middle of the compound for their discussions. These were more of usual girls’ chatter than they were academic. Four of them were from Africa – Nigeria, Botswana, Ethiopia and Uganda. She felt connected to them more, she was always easy when they were around. Sometimes they all shared stories of their experiences and memories in the motherland. It always fascinated her how they all were very similar to hers. Yet the diversity in the place also awed her. Stanford was the distillation of world cultures.

One could be having breakfast with an Asian from Pakistan in the morning, walking to class with an Arab, sitting next to a White person and later on going on a date with a guy from Africa. She wanted to have the best she could out of this, Bella loved people and learning about their backgrounds.

The lectures were as exciting as they were challenging. The professors were among the best in the world. It was not strange to be taught financial theory and monetary systems by a former secretary of the World Bank, or economics by a sitting secretary of the national Treasurer. Bella made the habit to always look up the professor’s credentials before the class and then spend the first few minutes of the lesson marveling at the physical presence of the person.

Her favorite part of the course was global economic systems. She began to understand how the economic machine works and why some nations were poor and others richer. Coming from the dreg of the society back home - a slum – in a country that was ranked as third world, and now in one of the wealthiest nations on earth, she felt that she related best to the course. At some point, she felt like calling her president and ministers to a meeting and telling them these things. The insights were so clear and so compelling. They learnt how poor social systems and incompetence in leadership eventually contribute to poverty. They considered case studies from China, Taiwan and Singapore which had rapidly transformed their economies with a change in mindset. She thought about her own country and promised herself to apply all these insights there someday.

She chose her third year research thesis as ‘Changing the Narrative: How to Rewrite the Economic Narrative of The Third World’. She passed with honors.