Word: quist
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During Orientation Week four years ago, someone asked Quist how he had come over from Africa...
...Without thinking, I told the fellow, 'I swam," Quist says. "After that, of course, I had to keep it up. I told him that Texaco had funded the whole thing. That first they flew me to the Liberian coast, where I waded out into the ocean and started swimming west. A boat followed me and picked me up at night so I could sleep, butanchored so I could start in the same place thenext day. I said the whole trip took about two anda half weeks...
Eventually, a sense of duty overcame his loveof a joke, and he became more serious aboutanswering such questions. "Anyone who asked, Iwould sit them down and talk until they said,'Please Anton, let me go," Quist says. "Peoplethink that everyone in Africa is either fightingas rebel soldier or starving. 'That's all that yousee in the media. I realized that the myths aboutAfrica were a result of a lack of information...
...Quist wrote letter to the Admissions Office andlobbied for the recruitment and admission of moreAfricans. "Harvard likes to call itself aninternational university", says Quist. "But I amthe only member of our class who went to highschool in Africa. The other African students wentto high school abroad, in England or the States.Harvard seems to want Africa students to have someinternational experience before they come here,but I think we can manage. I mean, I've done allright...
...Quist did not expect tograduate from Harvard nine years later; he did notplan on going to college at all. "I was a naughtyboy," he says. "I was almost shot one time."Walking home with a friend after curfew on thestreets of Accra (the capital of Ghana), he waspassing the police headquarters and decided totake a closer look at a bronze plaque he had neverstudied before...