On Monday I received a letter from Zambia, a letter I've been waiting for for over a month. Before we left Zambia and went on our separate ways again, our team leader told us that one of the best feelings in the world is opening your mailbox and seeing the blue Africa envelope sitting in there waiting for you. And it was. Seeing the letter brought me back to the days I spent there, and reading his letter made me smile like an idiot while walking down the street to class.
But it also made me realize a few things and consequently made me very frustrated over the past couple of days.
In the letter he expressed an interest in coming to school in Canada. He contacted a school down in Texas earlier in the year but never heard from them, so he's going to try Canada. At first I was really excited and immediately went about digging up information for him. I went to Student Services after my last class of the day, only to catch them closing down the place. I quickly asked if there are any programs that bring students from developing countries to the school but was told that there is none.
The next day I went to International Student Recruitment Centre before class and was basically told the same thing: no special scholarships and the only major one that will be useful is the International Leaders of Tomorrow Award, which is only available to students currently enrolled in secondary school or college. Problem is he graduated last summer (or the summer before, I'm not sure), which means that he is not eligible for that scholarship. Work-study programs are only for Canadian residents, and even if he finds a job on campus while he's here, it will barely cover anything given that he will be paying international student fee.
I flipped through the information booklet I was given and actually read through the application process. Step 2: check your eligibility. Zambia used to be a British colony before gaining independence, so its education system is likely to be British-based, so that means he meets the general requirement. check. I'm not sure what his grades are, but he's a smart guy and he's more thoughtful than most guys of the same age I know. Grade prerequisites? Most likely met. English requirement: at least four consecutive years of education in an institute with English as the principle language of instruction. Zambia's official language IS English and that fact is recognized by UBC. Check. Step 3: fill out application form and pay application fee. I never really thought about how much the application fee was, because it was just $100 CND for international applicants. But when I looked at it again it wasn't JUST $100.
CDN$100 is what another friend there is lacking so he's out of school after Grade 9.
USD$100 is the total income of more than a hundred days' worth of work for 64% of Zambians.
His mom is unemployed, he is unemployed, so even though they have a house in the Habitat community, I don't know how many $100 they will be able to afford. This is a community where children were concerned about the cost of mailing us letters when we said we wanted to keep in touch, where children are out of school because their family cannot afford to pay their tuition.
For a long time I've always wished that money didn't matter that as much as it does, and now more than ever I wish that were the case. But at the same time, suddenly I realised that being able to even think that is a privilege itself, because for some people, the reality is money can be a matter of life and death. It matters.
This guy is smart, and I think he deserves a chance for a higher education. He deserves a future that he dreams of. But he may not be able to live any of it because he cannot afford it. And what makes him different from us? He has dreams, he has goals, he has his beliefs and a vision of his own future. He's probably a lot more motivated than most of us too. And what's stopping him? In the state of the world today, maybe it's just nothing other than bad luck that brought him to the wrong continent at the wrong time.
p.s. I'm still trying and looking. UBC's the first place I looked just because it's the closest to home, but it's turning into a gigantic corporate monster so it may not be the best place for him. I have no idea where to start outside of UBC, so if anyone has any idea, please leave a comment or email me. Any help will be much appreciated.