Much of I Will Always Write Back deals with Martin’s struggle to pay for his education and Caitlin’s efforts to help him, whether it’s the tuition for Martin’s local school in Zimbabwe, for the exclusive boarding school he transfers to, or for the American university that he ultimately ends up attending. Despite the enormous costs of education for Martin—who lives in Zimbabwe in the 1990s and early 2000s, when inflation is extreme and the Zimbabwe dollar plummets relative to the U.S. dollar—the benefits are potentially even greater. Many people in Martin’s life, from Martin’s father to his headmasters in school to Caitlin, believe that education will give Martin the opportunity to escape poverty and live a more prosperous life than his parents ever could.
While the benefits of education are clear for Martin, other characters have a more ambivalent experience: Caitlin’s brother drops out of college after partying too much, and Martin’s Zimbabwean friend Wallace finds himself alienated from the drinking culture at his American university. Even Martin experiences the shortcomings of education: many American universities that claim to be places for global learning nevertheless make it difficult for all but the wealthiest international students to attend, and these universities continue to use admissions metrics like the SATs that poorly capture the potential of students like Martin. Still, I Will Always Write Back is ultimately a book about the transformative power of education—after all, the entire story begins with a school assignment. Caitlin, Martin, and co-author Liz Welch take a pragmatic view of education in their book, arguing that while a good education is costly (sometimes prohibitively expensive), the social and economic benefits can be worth it, particularly for bright students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Education ThemeTracker
Education Quotes in I Will Always Write Back
Toward the end of 1998, things really began to disintegrate for my family. I was just about to finish Form Two, the equivalent of eighth grade in America. Nation and I began working after school as well as weekends in order to help feed our family. My father’s paycheck was never enough. It was rough. Worse, I could see how it affected my father. He was no longer singing when he came home, if he came home at all. Some nights he’d creep in late, well after we had all gone to sleep. I’d wake up, not from any noise but from the sweet, rancid smell of Chibuku.
A lesser man may have been threatened by Caitlin’s generosity. Here was a fourteen-year-old girl sending us more money than my father made in several months. My father only had love and respect for Caitlin. Her letters had always been precious to me. Now they were also crucial to my whole family. We were on a ship that was sinking, huddled at the tip before it went under. Caitlin’s gift was a lifeboat.
My mother was afraid to keep this much money in our house. It made us a target in these difficult times.
Alois was even more put together than my uncle. He wore a suit and tie, like the managers at my father’s work, but he was only in his mid-twenties. He greeted me with a firm handshake and a broad smile, then introduced me to several of his colleagues before taking me to the tea station.
Reading that letter brought tears to my eyes. He was so proud. He had never asked me for help. Asking my parents for help was probably one of the hardest things for him to have to do. He did not want to burden me. He knew that I would get sick worrying about him in such need. But there it was, written on paper, a huge SOS. My parents knew I had a pen pal in Zimbabwe, but they did not know how close we had become. That evening, I decided to tell them everything. It was the only way I could truly help Martin.
Thanks to Caitlin, we ate chicken for Christmas that year, a miracle considering what our friends and neighbors were experiencing. In Zimbabwe, if you have food, you share it, so our neighbors ate chicken with us.
Thank you for your effort, love, and time. Thank you for the shoes you gave us. My mom, I repeat, is now counted as a human in society.
Damon was different from the guys I dated in middle school. He was more mature, and sensitive. I understood why when I met his dad. He had MS and was in a wheelchair as a result. That meant he needed full-time care to do anything from eat to go to the bathroom. Damon’s mom took care of his dad, and basically let her kids fend for themselves.
The day after my birthday, my mom took me out of school to go get my learner’s permit. Damon met me at the DMV—he had skipped school, but lied to my mom when she asked him why he had the day off.
Hours later, a nurse confirmed it was malaria—thankfully not cerebral. She needed IV fluids immediately. She was so dehydrated that she was at risk of dying without them. But the hospital couldn’t afford to supply any medicine. Instead, the nurse told us what we needed, and then we had to secure it.
“There is a man outside wearing a blue shirt,” she said. “He sells IVs.”
I started connecting all the pieces: My dad worked for the government; he was at a military base; the Pentagon had been hit. I jumped to the impossible notion: My dad may be dead. I shook my head. That was preposterous. But then I remembered the fire I saw in the sky on the TV earlier that morning. That seemed impossible too.
I was surprised to receive a letter from Caitlin’s mom. In it she offered to help me navigate the complicated American college admission process. I was so happy to hear this. It was further proof that Caitlin was not the only angel in this family.
Anne asked me if I had ever heard of the SATs. I had, in fact, because my good friend Wallace had taken them earlier that year. He, too, was planning to go to school in the States that September.
Today was different.
“We’d better start thinking about how to break it to him,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
I felt Caitlin squeeze my hand, and I squeezed back. After six years of imagining what it would be like to see her, to hug her, to hear her laugh, to hold her hand, here she was, my best friend from afar, now standing right next to me.
Watching him exchange vows with Caitlin earlier that day, I got a bit choked up. Caitlin and I had already shared so many milestones—and still have many ahead. I did not know then that I would go on to do my MBA at Duke, or that Caitlin would finish her nursing degree, as she had planned since she was sixteen or give birth to a beautiful baby girl. All I knew was that we both had witnessed so many of each other’s dreams come true.
I have no idea what any of these young people will do with the emotions our story stirred in each of them—but I am excited by the possibilities. It’s why I wanted to write this book.
Kindness is contagious. It changes lives. It changed mine. What will it do for you?
