Une étonnante histoire pour souligner le 11 septembre. Le type d'histoire qu'apprécient généralement nous voisins du sud. Elle se retrouve dans un bouquin intitulé 14 cows for America. À lire au complet en utilisant le lien plus bas...
"It all starts with Kimeli Naiyomah. Kimeli, a member of a Masai tribe, grew up in a small rural town called Enoosaen near the Masai Mara National Reserve. The town had no water, no electricity, no phones and no roads. After accompanying his ailing mother to the hospital as a young boy, Kimeli says he knew he wanted to grow up to heal others like her. He didn’t know such people were called doctors - he just knew he wanted to be one.
Dreaming of being a doctor is ambitious even in America. But in Kimeli’s part of Africa, one could have easily dismissed that dream as impossible. This was especially true in Kimeli’s particular situation. He says he had no father. His grandmother had been murdered. And his mother – his only remaining caretaker – was battling alcoholism.
According to Kimeli, his family (or lack thereof) was so destitute that his Masai tribe didn’t even consider them people – they were sub-human. Moreover, nobody that Kimeli knew from his tribe had gone to high school, let alone college or medical school.
He knew he had to change his situation, so he ran away – to another village where he had heard that there was a school that was taught under a tree. It was a church school and it became his grade school and his home.
When he grew beyond this school-under-a-tree, Kimeli found the nearest high school, which was 9 hours away. So he walked there and told the principal that he had no money, no uniform, no books, no shoes and no family, but he wanted to attend school. And, as Kimeli tells the story, the principal was so amazed by Kimeli’s gumption that he welcomed him to the school.
Kimeli soon realized he probably couldn’t achieve his dream of becoming a doctor if he remained in Kenya. So he started applying for universities in America. He says, “My elders got together to try to raise money to help me achieve my goals.”
The same elders who had once considered Kimeli to be sub-human had done a complete reversal. Kimeli says his people were now were so impressed by what he had achieved that he was not only considered human again, they were invested in helping him achieve his goals. They raised $5,000 for him.
A Washington Post reporter then caught wind of the story and came to Enoosaen to write a story about Kimeli’s doctoral dreams. That story ended up on the front page of the paper. The article inspired an outpouring of support, including a scholarship offer from the University of Oregon, a plane ticket from a businessman in Florida and clothes and other materials he needed to survive in America paid for by another total stranger.
“You can imagine how I felt”, Kimeli says, “when I received a letter offering me a scholarship in America. It’s like getting a letter from God when you know you’re not qualified for heaven.”
Kimeli enrolled at the University of Oregon in 1996. A few years later, Kimeli heard about Stanford University (after Chelsea Clinton enrolled there) and decided after seeing the school that that was where he belonged. He says, “It looked like a village to me”. And once again, Kimeli made his own luck, getting accepted at Stanford after getting his grades up in Oregon.
Kimeli had become a celebrity of sorts back home. In September of 2001, the President of Kenya was scheduled to be in New York and Kimeli says he was invited to meet with him. And that’s how Kimeli – now officially a full Masai warrior back home – found himself in New York City on September 11, 2001.
As a warrior, Kimeli is trained to rush to the scene of crisis. “You run to the battleground,” he says, “I don’t run away from tragedy, I run to tragedy. But I was realistic enough to know I couldn’t help [at Ground Zero].”
Kimeli says he is also a very emotional warrior. 9/11 touched him deeply. The country that had given him so much had been brutally attacked. He had to figure out a way to help. He had to do something."
Lien pour le site de 14 cows:
http://14cowsforamerica.com/
Lien pour le reste de l'article:
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/10/remembering-911-an-unexpected-gift-to-america/?hpt=hp_t1
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