Remembrance

In November of 2001, I received a strange envelope in the mail at my campus apartment. Instead of my campus address, it had been sent to the university's address, with my name at the top and the school's switchboard phone number and website at the bottom. Odd. The return address was the Banjul Inter-Airport, The Gambia. Since I didn't know anyone in Gambia and we'd been hearing about anthrax by mail for two months, my roommates and I put it in a Ziploc bag and stuck it on the fridge without opening it. I called the post office to see if it could be dangerous, even though I figured the chances were pretty slim, and the woman I talked to assured me that if it had reached me, it had been thoroughly screened and was perfectly safe.

I never got around to opening the envelope, and so it stayed on the side of the fridge until we moved out at the end of the spring semester. I thought about throwing it away, but I was really curious and J-Dog finally convinced me to open it. Inside was a photo and a handwritten letter.


Dear Velocibadgergirl,

I the above measured name is here by sending you my sincere greetings to you and the rest of your falow students in the university and your family too whom I realy build interest to extend my greeting to them. How are you all feeling? How is your family feeling? and Are you married? Velocibadgergirl for you to know me as I want, my name is Sadibou S. I am boy of 23 years old and a Gambian by nationality belonging to a single parent family where I am there with my mother, my two younger sisters and two younger brothers. I am a graduated student who graduated this year and no employment yet but I prefer to apply for further education in college / university. But recently I am doing one year course of computer but is also hard to me because the fee is also expensive and what I normally do with my mother is, we sell firewood for my fees and the feeding of the family.

I respectively found your address in a book pertaining to the university you are, where I feel like of having your address. So for being in case, I and my family feel very proud to have an address like yours. The basic reason of writing you letter is for you to cope with me and we build up a strong friendship between us, I would be happier to hear from and your family with pictures for my rememberance. Thank you very much may God guide you from bad events bye.

Yours faithfully,
Sadibou S.


I never wrote back. Part of me was worried that it was a scam. Part of me was pretty sure it was the height of American arrogance to actually believe that just getting a letter from a US college student would make the writer happy or proud. I'd started dating MB in August of 2000 and was actually moving from campus to his apartment, so part of me felt that writing back to say "yes, let's be platonic pen pals" to someone who asked "are you married?" would be a little bit cruel. I told myself it had been six months since the letter had arrived, and surely he'd forgotten all about it. I still have the letter. I still wonder about the person who wrote it. I wonder what he's doing now. I wonder if he still wonders why I never wrote back.